"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waken till the sun was down, and a great bank of black clouds was looming up in the west, with mutterings of thunder, and an occasional flash of lightning showing against the dark sky. She might not have wakened then if the car had not given a lurch, with a jar which brought every one to his feet. The train was off the track, and it would be two or three hours before it was on again, the conductor said to the crowd eagerly questioning him. There was nothing to do but wait, and Eloise ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... their whips, the mules caught their spirit, and with bump and lurch and rattle we swung down the narrow crack between adobe walls that ended before the old Exchange Hotel at the corner of ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... profound political capacity, a woman without heart and without head, floundering in evil. Madame de Rochefide loves Madame de Rochefide only. She would have parted you from Madame du Guenic without the possibility of return, and then she would have left you in the lurch without remorse. In short, that woman is as incomplete for vice as she ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... vanquishing him, especially with the aid of Arabio's horse, but he became suspicious of the latter and treacherously murdered him, after which he accomplished for the time being nothing further. For the cavalry, enraged at Arabio's death, left the Romans in the lurch and most of them took the side of Fango. [-23-] After these skirmishes they concluded friendship, agreeing that the cause for war between them had been removed. Later Fango watched until Sextius, trusting in the truce, was free from fear, and invaded Africa. Then ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... crazy nor mistaken. Drawn suddenly out of its blurred obscurity by the powerful lenses, there sprang up before Buck's eyes, sharp and clear in every detail, a big gray motor-car that moved slowly but steadily, with many a bump and sidewise lurch, diagonally across the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... story of the house, with a roar that shook the whole remaining fabric of the building, crashed to earth in an avalanche of stone and brick and flying slates, whilst the stairway upon which he had been standing gave a sickening lurch, rocked, and fell out sideways into the hall in a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... quenching the flames which burned in Don John's honest soul for the supposed welfare of the nation intrusted to him. He was reaping hatred, scorn, and humiliation wherever he had hoped to win love and gratitude in the Netherlands. His royal brother left him in the lurch where he was entitled to depend upon his assistance. But when Philip let the mask fall and showed openly how deeply he distrusted the glorious son of his dead father, and to what a degree his ill will had risen—when ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... creak and lurch, the sleigh left the grade, and took the white snow edging the shoal water that led out to the deep green of the middle ice. The watcher drew ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... they would willingly have left the little girl lying there ill, to say nothing of leaving us in the lurch without a word," said I. "Ralph, there's something pretty devilish under this, or I'll ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had given a sudden lurch. The next instant it rolled quite over, piling the two women and the corpse in a heap and sending the door shut with a bang. The Russian had fallen outside. The craft rolled over, once, twice, three times and then hung there, with the ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... been misled by the reports in the papers, and I am glad it is all a mistake. Now one thing more before I go. Did it ever occur to you that while you and your family are all out in your yacht together some day, a sudden squall, a quick lurch of the lee scuppers, a tremulous movement of the main brace, a shudder of the spring boom might occur ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... could only drink what was left, became more and more riotous, and a general sack of all purple property was imminent. Mr. Allen was at the "Cross Keys," but George was at home, and as he watched the scene he saw the mob take a kind of lurch and sway along the street which led to Mr. Broad's. He thought he heard Mr. Broad's name, and in an instant he had buttoned-up his coat, taken the heaviest stick he could find, and was off. He had the greatest difficulty in forcing his way, and ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... you now to peace incline, And languish in the main design, And leave us in the lurch? I would not monarchy destroy, But as the only way t'enjoy ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... quarter of what we get. And this second sum you can put up with Etienne Garcin. You can pay him now the two hundred for the men and the boat, out of that, and give me the rest of the odd change later. We'll never lose sight of each other after we start. For the Hirondelle will not leave me in the lurch. I've sworn never to wear the widow's jewelry again." Jack Blunt's eyes were devilish in ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... asserted that Mr. Chamberlain left his comrades in the lurch, failed to support a friend in a tight place, or accepted help from others and then was careless about helping them in return or making them acknowledgment for what they had done. Remember that it is very rare in the case of a public man to find so total an absence of the complaint ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... finished Garnet's retort was bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling——" He was cut short by the lurch of the carriage into a hole. It flounced him into the seat from which he had half started and faced him to the horses. With a smothered imprecation he rose and laid on the whip. They plunged, the carriage sprang from the hole and ploughed the mire, and Garnet sat down and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... to the suitability of Burgess Hill, and Lady Ogram was little inclined to follow where Robb had led. She hoped to find a yet better site, and, by undertaking at once both purchase of land and construction of the building, with a liberal endowment added, to leave in the lurch all philanthropic rivals. For years she had possessed plans and pictures of "The Lady Ogram Hospital." She cared for no enterprise, however laudable, in which she could only be a sharer; the initiative must be hers, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... had a terrible night of it. Many were deathly sick. Two or three broke their watches, besides getting badly bruised, by pitching from their bunks. Frank would not have dared to go to sleep, even if he could. Once, when the ship gave a lurch, and stopped suddenly, striking the shoulder of a wave, he ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... was forced to leave in the lurch; for I could not propose the bed-room passage to my present company, and she was undressed and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... him lurch backward. At an angle in almost equal distance from him and Shon, upon a small peninsula of rock, a strange thing was happening. Old Pourcette was kneeling, engaged with his moccasin. Behind him was the sun, against which he was abruptly defined, looking larger than usual. Clear space and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... large, black eyes. The door clanged shut behind them; they heard the faint hiss of inrushing air, and the inner door opened; but their enveloping suits remained stretched almost as tightly as ever. They felt the floor lurch beneath their feet, and a little weight was granted them as the space-ship got under way. Stevens waved his arms vigorously at the stranger, pointing backward toward where he supposed their own craft to be. The latter ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... said that the agreement that we had made with France and Russia was an obvious one; when three countries were at war on the same side, one of them could not honourably make special terms for itself and leave the others in the lurch. As to mediation, I was favourable to it in principle, but the real question was: On what terms could the war be ended? If the United States could devise anything that would bring this war to an ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... was all over in a second. The horse bolted straight ahead. Barney swerved the roadster to the turn. It caught the animal full in the side. There was a sickening lurch as the hind wheels slid over the embankment, and then the man shoved the girl from the running board to the road, and horse, man and roadster went over into ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... resumed with some discomfiture to the occupants of the coach which now labored like a portly Spanish galleon, struck by a squall. They had advanced in this manner for some distance through furrow and groove, when the vehicle gave a sharper lurch down a deeper rut; a crash was followed by cries of affright and the chariot abruptly settled on one side. Barnes held the plunging horses in control, while the gentlemen scrambled to the ground and assisted ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Frank demanded, as the cab started with a lurch. "What sort of a wild-goose chase ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... mingling with the ebbing tide. A sudden fear seized her. She turned the boat's head towards the shore, but it was swept quickly round again; she redoubled her exertions, tugging frantically at her helpless oars. She only succeeded in getting the boat into the trough of the sea, where, after a lurch that threatened to capsize it, it providentially swung around on its short keel and began to drift stern on. She was almost abreast of the battery now; she could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that seemed blown and scattered above her head; she ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Yes, he had done that! Was he satisfied with the result? He had become a minor power in politics. Men spoke of him as a weakling—as one who had shrunk from the burden of great responsibility, and left the friends who had trusted him in the lurch. And then—there was the other thing. He had paid a great price for this woman's salvation. Had he succeeded? She had given up all her old ways. She dressed, she lived, she carried herself through life even with a furtive, almost a pathetic, ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I was turning to go home, a groom rode past in mufti, leading a loose horse with a lady's saddle on it. The animal gave a clumsy lurch; and the man, jerking it violently by the head, bumped it into my ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... speak, not really conscious of one another's presence. The rain beat down upon them, the waves washed over them, the unsinkable boat sluggishly rose and fell with the heaving of the water, and occasionally they were nearly flung overboard by a sudden lurch—and yet they clung with desperate tenacity to the thwarts, as if life were still dear, as if they thought that they might yet survive, though the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Island, who was brought up for a treat, was thrown completely across the cabin by one lurch, when she seemed almost settling down. It was dark. The water in the cabin, which had come through the dead-light, showed a little phosphoric glimmer. "Brother," he said to Bice, "are we dying?" "I don't know; it seems like it. We are in God's ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comin' and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin' for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. It gives a lurch, like a cow playin' leap-frog, and over she ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that if you put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to despair, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... from superabundant energy of my foot-paddling, or the alarming fact that we were upon the descent of a precipitous slope, I was soon horrified at finding that my instructor was stripped out, and I abandoned to the lurch of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... it leaves its mother's embrace, but swims close beside, following with automatic precision every twist and lurch of her body, its own helplessness and its implicit faith in the wisdom and protective influence of its parent ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... great deal of rain, all through the spring and into the summer. Strawberries, that generally do well in wet weather, did not bless us with their usual abundance. Currants and gooseberries also left us in the lurch—but the Snyder blackberries were loaded with luscious fruit, while raspberries—why the berries of the Golden Queen bent the stalks down with their weight. Prof. Hansen's Sunbeams were covered with berries, as were all of the seedling raspberries sent from the ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... up,' Bob complained, 'or else I've missed 'er. This is the reg'lar place—where I alwis used to meet 'er. But she'll come tomorrer. She used to leave me in the lurch sometimes, bein' nach'rally larky. But very good-'arted, mindjer; ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... moved from the middle of the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his body, crunching his flesh and bones. He had the sensation ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... shouted Hal, when the old negro had taken his departure. "Didn't I tell you old Uncle Billy wouldn't leave us in the lurch?" ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... be going again; but Justinia has made me promise,—promise, mind you, most solemnly, that I would have you back to dinner to-night,—by force if necessary. It was the only way I could make my peace with her; so you must not leave me in the lurch." Of course, Fanny said that she would go and dine at ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... for it. He catches at it, thinks he'll make sure of the contents of the pockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends right over the stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the cross-swell of two steamers, or in not being quite prepared, or through all or most or some, gets a lurch, overbalances and goes head-foremost overboard. Now see! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he strikes out. But in such striking-out he tangles his arms, pulls strong on the slip-knot, and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... a sleeper. My berth was in the front end of the last car on the train. I retired about half past ten and soon dropped off into a sound sleep. I had been asleep for perhaps two hours, when I was awakened by the car giving a violent lurch, and then suddenly stopping. I was stunned and dazed for a moment, but I soon heard the cracking and breaking of timbers, and the hissing of steam painfully near to my section. I tried to move and rise up, but found that the confines of my narrow quarters would ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... place was seen, but not knowing the streets it is not to be described." When the girl carried out the dishes, to bring in more wine, Dentatsu raised heavy reproachful eyes—"Then Jimbei would run away, leave the priest in the lurch." He cast a look at the hateful ryo[u]gake, stuffed with recent spoil. Jimbei froze him into silence—"From the town there is no escape. Leave the matter to Jimbei. Drink: even if the liquor chokes."—"A means of escape will be found?"—"Truly ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the sea ran diagonally to the course, breaking on the starboard quarter. They had reached the dessert, and two at least of the party were congratulating themselves on the happy termination of the meal, when, just as the Duke was speaking, there was a heavy lurch, and a tremendous sea broke over their heads. Then came a fearful whirring sound that shook through every plate and timber and bulkhead, like the sudden running down of mammoth clock-work, lasting some twenty seconds; then everything was quiet again ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... at first that David, who had been so eager to watch, should make such a lapse; but just in his most indignant moments, when he felt disposed to give a sudden lurch sidewise to knock the gardener over like a skittle, and paused, hesitating, he had an admonition, which showed him how weak human nature is at such times, in the shape of a sudden seizure. One moment he was wakeful and thinking, the next he was fast asleep, ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... was Morgan's hope in the first few rods of this frightful journey that a brakeman might appear on top of the train, whose attention he might attract before the speed became so great he could no longer maintain it, or a lurch or a stumble in the ditch at the trackside might ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... for the future? However hard it may be, we cannot fight against impossibilities. We must only consider what is best for our people and take care that we give no one the opportunity to say: "You could have saved us, but you have left us in the lurch." Just because our cause is dark and difficult, we must use our minds and keep only the welfare of our people in view. I can only agree to accept the ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus broke into "Ah, my porch, my new porch!" Grushenka flung back her head, half opened her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with a violent lurch, stood still in the middle ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... change unites with the changing non-aesthetic aims imposed on art, together producing innovation. And the more superficial the aesthetic attention given by the beholders, the quicker will style succeed style, and shapes and shape-schemes be done to death by exaggeration or left in the lurch before their maturity; a state of affairs especially noticeable in our ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... well sit down. There's time for a cigarette. Terry——" Sir Tobias made a short-winded attempt to push a second arm-chair into place beside the fire; Tabs achieved the desired end with one lurch of his body. "Terry brought some one in to tea; he's not gone yet. They never know when to go, these New Army fellows. Good at their job, they tell me, but no polish. I suppose I oughtn't to say that—ungrateful of me! But I'm sick of ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... and introduced it on the lines of several companies. After a time, however, the separate companies amalgamated into one large corporation, the Western Union Telegraph Company of to-day. With the Morse, Hughes, and other apparatus in its power, the editors were again left in the lurch. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... Marcus Livius at Sena Gallica awaiting the enemy. Both consuls at once marched against Hasdrubal, whom they found occupied in crossing the Metaurus. Hasdrubal wished to avoid a battle and to escape from the Romans by a flank movement, but his guides left him in the lurch; he lost his way on the ground strange to him, and was at length attacked on the march by the Roman cavalry and detained until the Roman infantry arrived and a battle became inevitable. Hasdrubal stationed the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles has, on two several occasions, "put his name", if I may use a common expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was left—let me say, in short, in the lurch. The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of the first obligation,' here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers, 'was, I believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half, of the second, according to my entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... man could imitate sleep so well. Several times Yates nearly fell forward, and each time saved himself, with the usual luck of a sleeper or a drunkard. Nevertheless, Stoliker never took his hand from his revolver. Suddenly, with a greater lurch than usual, Yates pitched head first down the bank, carrying the constable with him. The steel band of the handcuff nipped the wrist of Stoliker, who, with an oath and a cry of pain, instinctively grasped the links between with his right hand, to save his ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... King was resolved not to hold the government by right of his wife; 'he would not think of holding any thing by apron strings:' he was jealous of the friends of his wife, and never, forgave them; and, last of all, he threatened to leave them in the lurch, that is, to retire to Holland, with his Dutch army; so restless, says Mulgrave in another place, is ambition, in its highest ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... the cat-heads, gangways, quarters, and halliards, where they are required to "sing out" their stations every half hour, to be sure that they are awake. Many are the instances of boys falling asleep, and being awakened by a lurch of the ship, singing out at the wrong time, and once a sleepy look-out reported "Light, ho!" and to the officer's "Where away?" was obliged to answer, "It's the ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shillings! 'Sblood, a while ago, before he had me in the lurch, who but my cousin Prodigo? You are welcome, my cousin Prodigo. Take my cousin Prodigo's horse. A cup of wine for my cousin Prodigo. Good faith, you shall sit here, good cousin Prodigo. A clean trencher for my cousin Prodigo. Have a special care of my cousin Prodigo's lodging. Now, Master Prodigo ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... envy their true peace of mind, And most maliciously employed his skill To work them woe—defiant of God's will. Their worldly property he did not touch, For loss of this would not be felt so much As trouble with their brethren in the church, Severed from whom they might be left in lurch. His plan succeeded, as I know too well, For some deemed wise were held as by a spell In hands of strongest preconceived opinion, While Ignorance held them in his dominion. WILLIAM had seen this long, and mourned in soul, With such emotion as scarce brooked control, And, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... gallantry gave her an absolutely new sensation. Her heart seemed to lurch, and then jump; she breathed hard, and said, under her breath, "Oh, my!" She felt that she could never speak to Maurice again; he was truly a grown-up gentleman! Her eyes ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... know too, Mr. Kittelhaus. But it's what William always does. No sooner does a thing come into his head than off he goes and leaves me in the lurch. I've said enough about it, but it does ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... to get out. One of our passengers, a woman with a young child, did not contribute to our enjoyment, or make the ride any more pleasant, for the latter poor unfortunate screamed nearly the whole night through. Occasionally it would settle down into a low whine, when a sudden lurch of the waggon or a severe jolt would set it off again with full force. The night was very dark, and continued so throughout, with dashes of rain. The roads were very bad, and two or three times we had to get out and walk, a thing we did ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... extinction. They have been brought up to carry on against contrary winds and save themselves as best they could. Well, they have done it; and now they are being asked to reverse their processes in the interests of a country which left them in the lurch. Naturally they are not yet persuaded that the country will not leave ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... other appurtenances taken over from the original Academy. He seems to have lent the theatre to Buononcini for some performances of Griselda, and, when the lease came to an end, it was Heidegger who left Handel in the lurch and allowed a rival organisation ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... expect that he should succeed the first time. Let me see; this is the fourteenth. These clocks run fourteen days, and, therefore, you may expect him again about the twenty-eighth. For myself, I think you are giving him an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and that if he left you in the lurch it would only serve you right; but you have the world with you, I'm told. A girl is supposed to tell a man two fibs before she may tell ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... tiller—to help him. The rim of the storm slipped up over the sun—a sudden flaw struck them—the rudder flew sharp round, wrenched out of her slight hold—the top-heavy sail caught the full force of the blow, surged downward with a heavy lurch, and the gale was on them. A great blow, and swift darkness, then fierce currents rushing coldly past him; strange, wild sounds filling his ears; and when his vision cleared itself, he saw Lois, unimpeded by her light drapery, striking out for the sunken ledge, half a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... lifted; objects on deck began to slide aft; the oil in the deck-tubs washed over; then, as there came a wild scrambling of the Chinese crew up the fo'c'stle hatch, she settled again gradually at first, then, with an abrupt lurch that almost threw him from his feet, regained her level. Moran met him in the waist. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... reached the terminal buffers, and saw passing me like a nightmare the ghastly trainload of the dead. Most of the doors were swinging open, and every compartment was jammed full, although, as I afterwards learned, at each curve of the permanent way, or extra lurch of the train, bodies had fallen out all along the line. The smash at Richmond made no difference to the passengers. Besides myself, only two persons were taken alive from the train, and one of these, his clothes torn from his back in the struggle was sent to an asylum, where he was ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... shouted in loud tones, as the men came tumbling from their berths, some sprawling over the floor, where a lurch of the car ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave the perspiring tout his hand. With a heave and a lurch Joses scrambled ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... their wine very pleasantly; and even as they did so, the carriage with a lurch turned into the high-road and began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stealing. If there was any chance of a foray in which they could gather spoil, they were ready to fling themselves into the fray, but as soon as they had gained their end, they would make for the glens and leave their general in the lurch. Whether they would rise or not depended neither on the merits of William or James, but in the last issue upon their chiefs—and the chiefs were not easy to move. Some of them were hostile, and most of them lukewarm; and ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... Towards the close of the century, as we have already said, they sustained a defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians, when, under their chief Arpad, they had formed an alliance with the Emperor Leo, who is said to have made peace with the enemy and left them in the lurch. After this they were driven into the Carpathians, A.D. 894, and, having first overrun the greater part of Transylvania, they commenced those aggressions into Germany, France, and Italy, which for a considerable period rendered them ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... not tall, and he is slightly pigeon-toed — the fleshly toes of Fothergil symbolize the toes of his ever-fleecing soul — but he strides. Female poets undulate. Erotic male poets saunter. Tramp poets lurch and swagger. Fothergil, being a vers libre poet, a Prophet of the Virile, a Little Brother of the Cosmic Urge, is compelled by what his verse is to stride vigorously across rooms as if they were vast desert places, in spite of what his toes are. He strode magnificently, triumphantly, to the window ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... the corner into Knight Street there was Arlo Weeks, Junior, just ahead of her. Arlo Junior, the cause of the morning's trouble! Arlo Junior, the cause of Olga's leaving the Days in the lurch! More, Arlo Junior, who was the spring of Janice Day's deeper trouble, for if it had not been for that mischievous wight, Olga Cedarstrom could not have run off with ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... no choice in the matter, and we came together suddenly and unexpectedly with a lurch of the vessel. He was nearer to me than I imagined, and as he threw up his knife-arm toward the bunk the blade clanged against the boarding, ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... towards the plain of flowers. It was not a feeding place of theirs, for they did not care to graze on flowers. They looked like an embassy arriving, with Greenfinch as their leader. They had evidently come in search of their companions who had left them in the lurch, and who had, contrary to all custom, remained away so long, for the goats could tell the time without mistake. As soon as Greenfinch caught sight of the three missing friends amid the flowers she set up an extra loud bleat, whereupon ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... will not winne: the chance thou throwest must accord with thy play. Examine this; play never so surely, play never so probably, unlesse the chance thou castest, lead thee forward to advantage, all hazards are losses, and thy sure play leaves thee in the lurch. The sum of this is set down in Ecclesiastes chap. 9. v. 11. The race is not to the swift, nor the battell to the strong: neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... she stood on the rear platform, looking, looking. She was very still. All motion, all expression seemed centered in the steady gaze which dwindled away from him, became vague ... featureless ... vanished in a lurch of the car. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to where the Sunderbunds lay hidden under mist; then she put one bare foot upon the lower rail, and swinging herself up, sat sideways, leaning far over; in such a position that the slightest lurch of the ship would have sent ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... and swept on forward in a wave that nothing could have stopped this time—but their charge was too late. The entire rocky projection collapsed with a final sickening lurch, and slid to the pit's floor, carrying Joan and Powell with it in a miniature ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... thing to move along from one part of the deck to the other, as this loose accumulation of material, at each successive lurch, would be tossed first one way and then the other. This was one thing that kept the villains at bay, but it prevented us as well as themselves from ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... my dear," came the response. "One, because he wanted to leave me in the lurch. Another—it will be easier to keep an eye on him until Naughty is returned, or"—her voice had the vindictive ring of a Roman matron's—"this person's culpability is proven. Naughty ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... gave a sudden lurch; once more a mighty green cliff of water came rushing up, bearing its tide of dead and debris; again Frohman started to say the speech that was to be his valedictory. He had hardly repeated the first three words—"Why fear death?"—when the group was engulfed and all sank beneath the surface ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... seat, more than suspected of dangerous levity, had relapsed into silence since the heavy man in the middle seat had taken to regarding the ceiling with ostentatious resignation, and the thin female beside him had averted her respectable bonnet. An occasional lurch of the coach brought down a fringe of raindrops from its eaves that filmed the windows and shut out the sodden prospect already darkening into night. There had been a momentary relief in their hurried dash through Summit Springs, and the spectacle of certain newly arrived County Delegates ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... fastened to the wheel; he gazes at the binnacle as though the magnet of the compass were drawing his eyes. I pride myself on being a good steersman, but as for being the equal of Hunt, I'm not! With him, not for an instant does the needle vary from the sailing-line, however rough a lurch she may give. I am sure that if the binnacle lamp were to go out in the night Hunt would not require to relight it. The fire in his eyes would light up the dial ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... under arms; the mob of sutlers and the captured slaves would be left in camp. Accordingly the mass of the troops set out. Neon alone remained; for it seemed best to leave that general and his men to guard the contents of the camp. But when the officers and soldiers had left them in the lurch, they were so ashamed to stop in camp while the rest marched out, that they too set out, leaving only those above ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... of her words were lost in the great buzzing noise which filled his head. Everything turned black before him—black filled with a thousand shooting colors; then the world gave a vicious lurch which toppled him over. He awoke, flat on the ground, with Marjorie leaning above him, crying and dabbing his forehead ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... never fear that I will see that thou hast it before Saturday with all the pleasure in life." "Ay, ay," rejoined Belcolore, "you all make great promises, but then you never keep them. Think you to serve me as you served Biliuzza, whom you left in the lurch at last? God's faith, you do not so. To think that she turned woman of the world just for that! If you have not the money with you, why, go and get it." "Prithee," returned the priest, "send me not home just now. For, seest thou, 'tis the very nick ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and ascertain what has become of our young adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on the bow—or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case of a sudden lurch of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... ran to the foot of the companion. The water was already pouring down, but he struggled up against it, and managed to reach the deck; but before he could cross to the side the vessel gave a sudden lurch and went down. He was carried under with the suck, but by desperate efforts he gained the surface just as his breath was spent. For a moment or two he was unable to speak, but he was none the less ready to act. Looking round ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... thing, the more reason I shall have for never doing it. Do you think I mean to forget your kicking me when I was a lad, and eating all the best victual away from me and my mother? Do you think I forget your always coming home to sell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us in the lurch? I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail. My mother was a fool to you: she'd no right to give me a father-in-law, and she's been punished for it. She shall have her weekly allowance paid and no more: and that shall be ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... there was an outcry, a sudden lurch of the vessel, a flapping of the sails and ropes, and a vast shadow swept by them, the hull of a huge steamer, so near that they could almost have touched it with an outstretched hand. But as it ploughed its way on and left them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... friendly "good night"; but, somehow, he was out of humour and in no genial mood, and was about passing without any courtesy of the sort, when the stranger, without taking the pipe from his mouth, raised the bottle, and with it beckoned him familiarly, while, with a sort of lurch of the head and shoulders, and at the same time shifting his seat to the end of the bench, he pantomimically invited him to share his seat and his cheer. There was a divine fragrance of whiskey about the spot, and Bob half relented; ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the foremen were union members, and many who were not had gone out with the men. It was in the killing department that the packers had been left most in the lurch, and precisely here that they could least afford it; the smoking and canning and salting of meat might wait, and all the by-products might be wasted—but fresh meats must be had, or the restaurants and hotels and brownstone ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... crossing the Channel, and while, already in the car, they were actually discussing this point, their restraining rope broke, and they were launched unceremoniously into the skies. This occasioned an unexpected lurch to the car, which threw Mr. Glaisher among his instruments, to the immediate destruction of some ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... days later I happened to meet Old Jacob as I was coming away from the post-office in Lewes, and I was both pained and surprised to perceive that the old man was partially intoxicated. When he caught sight of me he came at me with such a lurch that had I not caught him by the arm he certainly would have fallen to the ground. At first he resented this friendly act on my part, but in a moment he forgot his anger and insisted upon shaking hands with me with most energetic warmth. Then he swayed his lips ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... this time. Frau Doktor Dunker is always frightfully excited by his visits, and at the beginning of the lesson she said: "Girls, the Inspector is coming to-day; pull yourselves together; please don't leave me in the lurch." So it must be true what Oswald always says that the inspectors come to inspect the teachers and not the pupils. "At the inspection," Oswald often says, "every pupil has the professor in his hands." Being first, of course I was called upon, and I simply could not think what "trotteur" ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... Republican side, and had led his party into a position which excited sharp conflict, they never could be sure that he would not get wrong at the last moment, or have some private understanding with the Democrats and leave his own side in the lurch. This was attributed to moral timidity. I feel very sure that this is a great mistake. Garfield's hesitation, want of certainty in his convictions, liability to change his position suddenly, were in my opinion the result of intellectual hesitation and of a habit of going down to the roots ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... mechanically, her fingers numb with the accustomed exercise. The little organ creaked a dismal "O Salutaris," and she still knelt on the floor, her white-bonneted head nodding suspiciously. The Mother Superior gave a sharp glance at the tired figure; then, as a sudden lurch forward brought the little sister back to consciousness, Mother's eyes ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... looked then, tried to raise himself, but another lurch of the Bellophron sent him on his back, and myself on my beam-ends. As soon as I recovered my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the rightful ruler in the lurch. He had been promised that he should be restored to his throne on condition of helping the Americans, and he had given the most valuable sort of aid, but the treaty declared that no assistance should ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... the young birds during their idle hours was determination to acquire skill and alertness there can be no doubt. Invariably the game began in a particular way. One of the pair striding round the post—apparently oblivious of its existence—would lurch against it as a man inspired with rum might treat a lamp-post intent on getting in his way. Leering at the post for a second, the bird would march round again to shoulder it roughly a second time. Then a queer look of simulated petulance and indignation would spread over ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... ships was not yet over, and he was again pestered with threats of prosecution. "I have written them word," said he, "that I will have nothing to do with them, and they must act as they think proper. Government, I suppose, will do what is right, and not leave me in the lurch. We have heard enough lately of the consequences of the Navigation Act to this country. They may take my person; but if sixpence would save me from a prosecution, I would not give it." It was his great ambition at this ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... Do you think he would be the man to hang back? Oh, no; he would be the last to leave Jack Pringle in the lurch—no. Depend upon it, Sir Francis, he'll be as sure to do what I say, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Turin on the 15th of July). 'Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me,' and he set forth how, after promising to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly exacting the price of his assistance to which Cavour had induced his good and honest King to consent, he now left them solemnly in the lurch; Lombardy might suffice! And, for nothing to be wanting, the King was to be forced into a confederation with Austria and the Italian princes under the presidency of the Pope. After painting the situation with all the irony and scorn ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... person has contrived to do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you, as between ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light, nothing on earth can save him, and in his fall he will involve others rather then be left unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt shared. How is it that when I left you recently you were in a better frame of mind than you are now? I beg of you not to trifle with the matter. Ah me! what boots that wealth for which men dispute and cut one another's throats? Do they think that it is possible to prosper ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... ground continued to lurch and heave on its axis. Vivid lights crossed and criss-crossed the atomic heavens. The fissures in the ground appeared now as black canals. The lower part of the circle of boulders disappeared. Off to the right came despairing screams. White bodies ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... him, if he but knew it, a way of escape. "My friend, you are not obliged to use it."—"What is the good? My own song, through your fault, is done for. Now be a kind dear fellow, it would be abominable of you to leave me in the lurch."—"It is my opinion that you had better give it up."—"Give it up?... Well, hardly! I can easily beat all the others, if only you will not sing. I am certain that no one will understand the song, but I ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... tree, and sat down on top of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. "Open your sack, Mr. Fox, open your sack," cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast. "Ah, Mr. Fox," cried the cat. "You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been able to climb like me, you would ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... a lurch that nearly precipitated Morris down the stairway, and the next moment he was by ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... At the first lurch my trunk tipped over, and all the bottles on the wash-stand bounded across to the bed, and most of them struck me on the head. It frightened me so that I shrieked, and Jimmie came running down to ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... prices, no matter what the real cause, the people pay the high prices because they think there is going to be a shortage. They may buy bread ahead of their own needs, so as not to be left later in the lurch, or they may buy in the hope of reselling at a profit. When there was talk of a sugar shortage, housewives who had never in their lives bought more than ten pounds of sugar at once tried to get stocks of one hundred ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... by slow development, to greater and greater perfection till old age is reached, if the body does not leave it in the lurch. The critical faculty grows as experience accumulates, but memory, reason's handmaid, disappears at an earlier stage, or at least loses the power of receiving new impressions. Wonderful enough is this faculty which enables us to store up all the valuable lessons ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... he bellowed, "studden sails set an' drawing, tho' obleeged to haul my wind, d'ye see, on account o' this here spar o' mine a-running foul o' the furrers." Having said the which, he advanced again with a heave to port and a lurch to starboard very like a ship in a heavy sea; this peculiarity of gait was explained as he hove into full view, for then Barnabas saw that his left leg was gone from the knee and had been replaced by a ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... nature. If there happens to be rinderpest on the next farm to his, he is never contented until he gets his full share. He does not mind if the visitation plays extreme havoc among his stock so long as he is not left in the lurch. I remember some time ago hearing of a Boer who had decided to build a large dwelling-house on his farm in place of the wretched little building he and his family had hitherto occupied. This Boer had made some money, ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... Barnabas! Job, that's you? Up stumps Solomon—bustling too? Shame, man! greedy beyond your years To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears? Fair play's a jewel! leave friends in the lurch? Stand on a line ere ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... companion Bertrand are made to go through the world; both swindlers, but the one more accomplished than the other. Both robbing all the world, and Robert robbing his friend, and, in the event of danger, leaving him faithfully in the lurch. There is, in the two characters, some grotesque good for the spectator—a kind ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Plutarch, x. 101.] making roads through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are useful to this day;—but could not operate on the Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's Imperial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic mind for seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to side in a terrific manner, proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships, only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." This was the third grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank world, as he strode ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... he was making off first of anybody, leaving his friends in the lurch; but Grumpy-growly saw him, and catching him by the ear, made him confess all the mischief he had been about that morning; and as soon as he had finished, Grumpy-growly gave him one good hug, which killed him as dead as a ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... The next time you find anything about a savings bank that has failed and left the people in the lurch for their money, you show it to me. Savings banks don't ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... drifts which piled from fence to fence. At first Midnight slowed down to a walk, but at length, becoming a little impatient to get home, she broke into a gentle trot. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the sleigh gave a great lurch, and before a hand could be raised Dan found himself shooting over the parson and falling headlong into the soft yielding snow. Recovering himself as quickly as possible, and brushing the snow from his mouth, ears and ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... Admiralty Islands. There, till the civilisation that dogs the steps of the old folk-lore has driven her thence—with constitutions, and microscopes, and a higher Pantheism that leaves the older Pantheism in the lurch, and other advantages of the nineteenth century—she is secure. We trust that she is also happy, and that the shadow of the approaching hour when she will be ultimately reduced by scientific theologians to a symbol of some deeper verity, the conception of men whose understandings ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... of auburn hair was the enormous head above me—tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the pale candlelight failed to render inconspicuous—that the mass, as a whole, resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he made me lurch responsively by now drawing me towards himself, now thrusting me away. Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with the hot, thick odour ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Davies, 'what about him? I didn't get at much that night. It was all so sudden. The only thing I could have sworn to from the first was that he had purposely left me in the lurch that day. I pieced out the rest in the next few days, which I'll just finish with as shortly as I can. Bartels came aboard next morning, and though it was blowing hard still we managed to shift the Dulcibella to a place where she dried safely at the ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... swung myself into her, and called to the men, "With a will, lads! She's reeling!" We were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down, when, by the blue-light which John Mullion still burnt in the bow of the Surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the bottom head-foremost. The child cried, weeping wildly, "O the dear Golden Mary! O look at her! Save her! Save the poor Golden Mary!" And then the light burnt out, and the black dome seemed to ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... said young Madam with a laugh. "What's the poor lady to do while her cavalier flies over and leaves her in the lurch?" ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... loved, as she, with her cunning intuition, guessed him to love and be loved, so long there was little likelihood that Messer Simone would win the girl's hand and his wager, and leave her, Vittoria, very patently in the lurch. She reasoned rightly that such a maid as Beatrice would not yield her love while her lover lived, and she hoped that Messer Folco, for all he liked to play the Roman father, was in his heart over fond of his daughter to seek to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... misdirected enthusiasm interfered with Denton Offutt's success. After about a year in New Salem he "busted up," as the neighbors expressed it, and left his creditors in the lurch. Among them was the clerk he had boasted so much about. For a short time Abe Lincoln needed a home, and found a hearty welcome with Jack Armstrong, the best ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... takes us further up the river, and every foot counts in this game of runaway. Already we're past where the gun stands; and those fellows are working like fun to get her turned around, so as to point after us. While they load we're doing more stunts. Yes, and Frank, we're leaving 'em in the lurch, I do believe." ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... the valve which allowed the reserve supply of compressed air to gradually enter the ship, Damis pulled down the starting lever of the ship. With a terrific lurch the flyer left the surface of Mars and shot up into the trackless realms of space. Abandoning his controls for an instant, Damis looked into one of the observers. The plain below them was empty of Martians, but in the distance he could dimly see two of the silvery ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... some little time on the bounty of his undoers, who intended to make him one of them; but, not having sufficient address for the profession, he was dismissed and "left in the lurch;" and most of his friends discarding him, he embarked with his last guinea for England. Here he has encountered many difficulties, often been in gaol for debt, and passed through various scenes of life, as valet, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... or two he seemed to be walking quite steadily and to be coming towards him. Then suddenly he began to stagger and lurch like ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... rose up under the cruiser's stern; half lifted out of the water, she plunged forward with a mighty lurch, burying her forecastle in the green water, and then she righted and lay helpless upon the sea, deprived of the power of motion and steering, and with the useless steam roaring in great clouds from her pipes. A moment later she began to settle by the stern, showing that her after ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... endurance of the Briggs brand could last no longer, the plebe gave an expected lurch sideways, falling flat, upsetting the bucket and causing much of the water flow along his own neck and beneath ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... to hitch up and drive home, leaving him in the lurch. But while considering the matter, my opportunity came; and I was not slow to ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... strike. I started to swing my gun for the chest shot Joe Kivelson had recommended as soon as it was run out, and then the ship was swung around and tilted up forward by a sudden gust of wind. While I was struggling to get the sights back on the monster, the ship gave another lurch and the cross hairs were right on its neck, about six feet below the head. I grabbed the trigger, and as soon as the shot was off, took my eyes from the sights. I was just a second too late to see the burst, but not too late to see the monster's neck jerk one way ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... drive from the town hall. The pouring rain, the lurch and roll and bounce of the old chaise, the alternate thud and splash of the horse's hoofs, the black darkness—and the errand upon which he was going. Mike told him a little concerning the seizure. Judge Knowles had been, so ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... he keep on looking?" persisted Richard, as the two boys braced themselves for the lurch of the vessel which was tossing on a choppy sea. Mrs. Chadborn steadied herself and continued the story they ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... something in alliance with her own stifled conscience protesting against her wrong courses; and such habituation rarely means acquiescence or soothed complacency. Now she is smitten and stung to the quick. A yell from the mob; uproar; from the tiers above tiers they butt, lurch, lunge, pour forward and down: the tinkers and cobblers, demagogs and demagoged: intent—yes—to kill. But he, having yet something to say, takes refuge at the altar; and there even a maddened mob dare not molest him. But the prize goes to a rising star, young Sophocles; and presently ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... seem to matter, for all grew dull again. Dyke had kept on nodding forward, and was jerked up again, but only for him to begin nodding again. Soon after he made a lurch to the left, and Breezy ceased cantering, and gave himself a hitch. Then followed a lurch to the right, and the cob gave himself another hitch to keep his master upon his back, progressing afterwards at a steady walk, balancing his load: for Dyke was fast asleep, with the reins ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... therefore, that those we sought were within; but the next thing was to find the resting-place of the Lecomte, lest it should disappear and leave us in the lurch, ignorant of its destination. Luckily for us, the worst was over. The trail led to a stable not far away, and as the doors stood wide open we had the joyous relief of seeing the car being cleansed of its rich coat of mud. The ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... privilege of another love chase. Generally the pursuit is successful; the lover doubtless knows the temper of the lovee before becoming her father's apprentice. But coquettes are not unknown in Koriakdom, and the pursuing youths are sometimes left in the lurch—or the polags. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... wheel, the skipper plunged into the forecastle. It was a desperate intention. He was back in a moment, singed and gasping. But in that interval he had made out that the forecastle stove, in some violent lurch of the schooner, had broken loose, and had been bandied about, distributing red coals in every part. He had made out, moreover, that the situation of the schooner was infinitely perilous, if not, indeed, quite beyond hope. The forecastle was all ablaze. In five ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning, These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. They all suppose the earth a created existence. They must suppose ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... gentleman, who took his arm kindly and walked with him several blocks. As they walked he told "Dodd" that he was on his way to attend a revival meeting, and asked him to go along. Just then "Dodd" "took a bicker," and in the lurch, he knocked a book out from under the arm of his companion. It was a ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... at this moment the ship gave a violent lurch, and the two fell, and, locked in each others embrace, rolled over to leeward; the skipper, who was unguarded in his astonishment, followed Langley's former wake over the table, which, yielding to the impulse, fetched away, capsized, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... furiously to shove the boat beyond his reach, suddenly realized that she was to be successful, for with a little lurch the dugout swung quickly into the current, just as the Russian reached out to place ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... after the vessel had given an unusually heavy lee lurch, the jerk of which had nearly knocked the breath ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... for the safety of the boats. Early on the second day of warning they had been hoisted to the topmost notch of the cranes, and secured as thoroughly as experience could suggest; but at every lee lurch we gave it seemed as if we must dip them under water, while the wind threatened to stave the weather ones in by its actual solid weight. It was now blowing a furious cyclone, the force of which has never been accurately gauged (even by the present elaborate instruments of ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... bouncing vehicle, had managed heretofore to prop herself firmly in her corner, but a violent lurch suddenly threw her against Travers. He caught her firmly in one of his lean wiry arms. At the moment she thought nothing of it, although she disliked the contact, but when she endeavored to disengage herself, he merely ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... left in a shabby way To Marcadee, with an abbot to pray And pother with "consolation," Reminding 'twas never too late to search For mercy, and hinting that Mother Church Was never known to leave in the lurch A king with a fat donation. But the abbot was known to Richard well, As one who would smoothen the road to hell, And quite as willing to revel As preach; and he always preached to "soothe," With a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... had been made safe, but the smoke was suffocatingly thick and the roar of the oncoming fire rose above the shouts of the fighters. Up galloped the water wagon; made a sharp lurch and turn, and a front wheel collapsed with the shock. The wagon went down at one corner and the barrels were dumped on ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... was reasserting itself. Harold saw his state in time and arrested his own movement to take him by the throat and dash him to the ground. Even as he looked at him in scornful hate, the cart gave a lurch and Leonard fell forward. Instinctively Harold swept an arm round him and held him up. As he did so the unconsciousness of arrested sleep came; Leonard's chin sank on his breast and ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... boat lurch, and looked round. He saw the head above the gunwale, and the clutching hands on it, and ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... lurch, Swithin's exclamation was jerked back into his throat. The horses, winded by the rise of a hill, now steadied to a trot, and finally stopped of their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Blifil, whom she looked upon to have been the ruin of Jones, yet in this particular instance he had imposed upon her as well as upon the rest; so entirely had the devil stood his friend. And, indeed, I look upon the vulgar observation, "That the devil often deserts his friends, and leaves them in the lurch," to be a great abuse on that gentleman's character. Perhaps he may sometimes desert those who are only his cup acquaintance; or who, at most, are but half his; but he generally stands by those who are thoroughly his servants, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... feet through the hole that showed faintly grey in the stone beast's underside, and as she did so a long, slow lurch threw her sideways on the stone where she sat. The dinosaurus ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... they stood viewing the fine landscape with one eye while the other watched the scene of devastation within. Everything was in great confusion after the accident, so it is not strange that the dolls were not missed when they slowly slid lower and lower till a sudden lurch of the car sent them out of the window to roll into a green field where cows were feeding ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... stop play so abruptly, master," said Segrave, whose eyes shone with an unnatural glitter, and whose cheeks were covered with a hectic flush, "ye cannot leave us all in the lurch." ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy |
