"For dear life" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silence then, in which King felt his heart pumping away for dear life. He had taken the bit between his teeth now, certainly, and offered this girl, of whom he knew less than of any human being in whom he had the slightest interest, all that he had to give. Yet—he was so sure he knew her that, the ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... the next instant he was looking into the embarrassed, anguished face of a person, who, like a drowning man, had come to hang onto it for dear life, too. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... or it was received in chilling silence. Farmer in moments of excitement perspired more than any human being I have ever seen. Going to his house one afternoon, I found him bathed in perspiration, writing away for dear life. He motioned me to remain silent, and went on writing. Presently he jumped up, and exclaimed triumphantly, "I have got it! I have got it at last!" He then showed me the words he was setting ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... miles and miles, with Harry clinging for dear life to his neck and mane. At last they approached a large town, and Lightfoot stopped of his own accord at ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and hooked the trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like night-birds on the branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a surprising shock should dislodge them. Whenever the creature stood off, to gather more fury, they could have counted their heart-beats while they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know what action ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... presented itself to his eyes was anything hut a cheerful one, for every man in the large number assembled there was at work upon a coffin. Coffins in every stage of construction stood everywhere, and the carpenters were toiling away at them as if for dear life. Nothing but coffins was to be seen; and scarcely was one finished, in never so rude a fashion, but it was borne hurriedly away by some waiting messenger, and the master kept coming into the yard to see if his men could not work ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in some land of propaganda, as yet not completely conquered by Roman Catholicism. For instance, in the countries where Protestantism confronted the latter, the priests fought with wondrous passion, as for dear life itself, contending with the schismatical clergy for possession of the people by dint of daring, by unfolding the most audacious democratic theories. In Germany, the classic land of socialism, Mgr. Ketteler was one of the first to speak of adequately taxing the rich; and later ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... burst of speed, and the Cinnamon thundered through the brush like a runaway locomotive on a down grade, with such lurches and rolls and plunges that Budd dropped his torch and hung on, tooth and nail, for dear life. ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... them down to the landing," he said. "They had just shoved off in their dugout and were headed back for their old camp and paddling away for dear life. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and, gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... looked up from his score, and there, to be sure, was the leader, his baton going from left to right—there were the violins busy with their bows; the wind instruments were blowing for dear life; the harpists were tugging at their strings; the drumsticks were going with all their might—and not a sound! The musicians might just as well have been ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... orthographical conflict of the past night. This remark of Mirandy's fell upon his ear like an echo from the distant past. He had lived a lifetime since, and was not sure that he was the same man who was spelling for dear life against Jim Phillips twelve hours before. But he was sorry to hear that Hannah had a cold. It seemed to him, in his depressed state, that he was to blame for it. In fact, it seemed to him that he was to blame for a good many ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... In half a second the heavens were cluttered not only with screaming and tumbling winds but branches of large trees driven along as straws. I dug my toes and fingers into the sand, flattening out for dear life. Close upon the head of this hurricane came the deluge of rain, cloudburst after cloudburst. Then lightning was unchained, veritable shocks of fire, and no thunder out of hell could ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... on a rail," and the suggestion finding an echo in the popular breast, a three-cornered fence rail was thrust between his legs, and lifted on men's shoulders. Astride of this sharp-backed steed, holding on with his hands for dear life, lest he should fall off and break his neck, he was carried, through the main streets of the village, followed by a howling crowd, and pelted with apples by the boys, while the windows of the houses along ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... they come the more John's fears arise, though he would find it hard to give good reasons for them, since they rest only upon the words that have been let fall by the dapper little French agent who sits beside him on the box, and holds on for dear life, uttering numerous exclamations, in his explosive way, as they pitch ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the seawall that one or two would fall, dashed to instant death on the submerged rocks below. Demetrius was everywhere at once, as it were, precisely when he was most needed, always exposing himself, always aggressive. Even while he himself fought for dear life, Agias admired as never before the intelligently ordered puissance ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... where he was going. When he got to the beanstalk the ogre was not more than twenty yards away when suddenly he saw Jack disappear like, and when he got up to the end of the road he saw Jack underneath climbing down for dear life. Well, the ogre didn't like trusting himself to such a ladder, and he stood and waited, so Jack got another start. But just then the harp cried out: "Master! master!" and the ogre swung himself ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... a ball, pegging away for dear life, but losing ground at every jump. In that half-mile stretch he would have lost Thor altogether if the grizzly had not stopped near the bottom of the first slope to take fresh reckonings. When he started up the slope Muskwa ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... delighted and at the same time somewhat fearful squeals from the girls, as the wind whistled past their ears while the sled flew on at a speed that quickly reached a mile a minute. They held on to each other for dear life, but Nan had no eyes or thought for anything except ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... legging it for dear life," returned Whopper. "He looks as if he wouldn't stop this ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... searched high and low. Nowhere was their mistress. The news was broken to their master, who, without comment, rose, bade his man dress him, and presently walked out to the place where he knew he would find her. And there, to be sure, she was, churning, churning for dear life. Her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and her skirt was kilted high; and, as she looked back over her shoulder and saw the Duke, there was the flush of roses in her cheeks, and the light of a thousand thanks in her eyes. 'Oh,' she cried, 'what a curtsey I would drop ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... control the heart become disturbed or diseased so that, instead of the heart's simply beating harder and faster whenever more blood is really needed, it either throbs and beats a great deal harder and faster than is necessary, or goes racing away on its own account, and beats "for dear life," when there is no occasion for it, thus tiring itself out without doing any good, and producing a very unpleasant feeling of nervousness and discomfort. This may be due to overwork, whether with muscles or brain; or to worry or loss of sleep, in which case it means that you must put on the ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... mountain gorges and on the brows of immense precipices, when they glanced up the face of the peak, where the cliffs fall, one below another, in a series of breathless descents, and imagined themselves clinging for dear life to those skyey battlements. ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... served as a sort of balance-wheel, and helped to steady him, but it could not steer him. Neither could he steer himself, and the next thing he knew he was headed down the pond, and skating for dear life toward the dam. ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... not a great distance now to be covered, it was unnecessary to husband their strength, and with still more furious menaces Fuzl Khan got out of the sturdy Marathas all the energy of which they were capable. The escaped prisoners needed no spur; they were working with might and main, for dear life. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... him with my knife, but he saw me in time to slide off on the opposite side of his horse. I could not stop the blow so I struck his horse in the back and brought him to the ground, and the Indian ran for dear life. ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... on to the top of the wall, slid his legs over, and letting himself down to arms' length, dropped to the ground. The wall was nearly fifteen feet high, so that he had dropped about seven. The moment he landed he recovered himself and ran for dear life, not knowing in the least where ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... were at work, some on sewing-machines, a man pressing, and others finishing. They were hollow-cheeked and cadaverous. Trousers and undershirts were their only apparel. In the rear room, 9x14, were six other men, almost identical in appearance with those in the front. All were working as if for dear life. ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... moreover, were justified by the fact that, as soon as we threw ourselves more openly into this undertaking, a whole herd of competitors appeared, who are grinding away for dear life, and packing off their good in barrels to America. But this need not cause you any anxiety—we shall beat them all. Not one of them knows the secret of the superiority of the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Alackaday! Woe betide us all! It will be next within our very walls. Holy St. Catherine protect us! May all the Saints have mercy upon us! In Guildford! why, that is scarce five short miles away! And all the men and the wenches are flying as for dear life, though if what men say be true there be few enough places left to fly to! Why, Joan, why answerest thou not? I might as well speak to a block as to thee. Dost understand, girl, that the Black Death is at our very doors — that all ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that he had checkmated the ruffian and thrown him off his game. Very likely he had. A man with this evidence against him, and minus the pistol with which he had intended to do his infernal work, would—ten to one—be heading away from justice, and for dear life. Still, where so much was mystery, the doctor decided to take no risks. Whatever the event, his course of action—his only possible course—lay plain before him. Here of a sudden it occurred to Doctor Unonius ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... shooting at the barrel, and every time a cannon ball hit the barrel it would joggle and almost shake me off. Sometimes the barrel stood up on edge and then a cannon ball would knock it back again and it would go dancing every which way with me on it. I had to hang on for dear life. Pretty soon I got mad (gee whiz, you couldn't blame me) and I threw the core of the apple at General Pershing, and he began to laugh. He said, "Never ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... said she would wait there for her return. Half a mile or so from the gate the horse, a high-spirited animal, took fright at something and bolted with its rider. The sister waiting and looking out saw them coming, the horse at a furious pace, the rider clinging for dear life to the pummel of the saddle. It flashed on her mind that unless the horse could be stopped before he came crashing through the gate her sister would be killed, and running out to a distance of thirty yards from the gate she jumped at the horse's head as it came rushing by and succeeded in ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour, and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by everyone. Doctor ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... back against the shingles. I opened the gate and strolled slowly along the path by the edge of the bluff. I had gone perhaps a hundred yards when I heard a shrill voice behind me. Turning, I saw Dorinda standing by the corner of the kitchen, dust cloth in hand. Her husband was raking for dear life. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... better will than he had shown where live Masai were concerned. Indeed, for each body that he handled he found an appropriate sarcasm. Alphonse throwing Masai into the Tana was a very different creature from Alphonse flying for dear life from the spear of a live Masai. He was quite merry and gay, he clapped his hands and warbled snatches of French songs as the grim dead warriors went 'splash' into the running waters to carry a message of death and defiance to their kindred ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... he turned right about, gave the note of alarm, put the trunk of a large tree quickly between himself and the enemy, and went away like the wind. With the speed of thought the warning note was sounded along the whole line and in a moment the woods seemed alive with turkeys, running for dear life. In less time than it takes to tell it, that gallinaceous army had passed out of sight, forever. And the like of it will never again be possible ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... that by which the pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room, and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who had thus ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... work upon the stockade at once, and soon were chopping away for dear life, even Marjorie wielding a light axe, and wielding it well. Many hands, it is said, make light work, and there were enough of us to make the business move pretty quickly. Choosing trees with trunks of a middling thickness, we ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... help the dogs haul it up with much labor on the other; and on the level, through the rough ice hummocks or amongst the rocks, the drivers were kept busy steering to prevent collisions with the obstructions, while the dogs rushed madly ahead, and we, on the komatik, clung on for dear life and watched our legs that they might not get crushed. Once or twice we turned over, but the drivers never lost their hold of the komatik or ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... the doctor said you was to have it, ma'am." In the smaller picture by Carpaccio at Bergamo she is again to have an egg; in the larger she is to have some broth now, but a servant can be seen in the kitchen plucking a fowl for dear life, so probably the larger picture refers to a day or two later ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... got on the rocks, as the tremendous back-swish took you out like a shot every time. It was quite exciting, however, as we would slip in close in a lull, and the chaps in the whaler would yell, 'Look out!' if a big wave passed them, in which case you would pull out for dear life. Our first lines carried away, and then, with others, Rennick and I this time took the pram while Atkinson got as near the edge as safe to throw us the gear. I was pulling, and by watching our chances we rescued the cameras and glasses, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Emily Ann. "Now hurry and get the fire alight, and I'll put the kettle on." And they went inside laughing and singing, while the little dog flew round the house, barking for dear life, and pretending he was very busy ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... hard pressed by four Afridis brandishing long knives and leathern shields, stood with his back against a rock, fighting for dear life. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... and all that sort of thing. You seem to think, too, that the fraternities are democratic. They aren't, or there wouldn't be any fraternities. You don't seem to realize that fraternities are among other things political organizations, fighting each other on the campus for dear life. You've heard fraternities this week knocking each other. Well, about nine tenths of what's been said is either lies or true of every fraternity on the campus. These fraternities aren't working together for the good ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... that was to be done, and continually exhorting the other carpenters to be diligent. And wherever he turned his hard and wrinkled visage, the men seemed to feel that they had a task-master over them, and sawed, and hammered, and planed, as if for dear life. ...
— Little Daffydowndilly - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... answered all the questions a good while before the time was up, I thought we had been allowed too long, and was surprised to see Mabel Smith and one or two more scribbling away for dear life till the last minute. However, the time was up at last, and we ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone which had attended to the knee and the stocking. Of course the others were not such sneaks as to abandon a comrade in misfortune, so they all sat on the grass-plot round the sun-dial, and Jane darned away for dear life. The Lamb was still in the hands of Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... years since Geordie last set eyes on Nolan, but there was no mistaking, even at that distance, the tall, gaunt figure and the practised seat in saddle. Behind him trailed three comrades, two of whom, at least, were tyros in the art of horsemanship. They were hanging on for dear life as their steeds labored on after the leader. The object of all four was obviously to get beyond easy rifle range of the rushing train before drawing rein to reconnoitre, and now, probably noting that the engine was driving on full speed, with no sign of stopping, ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... sitting at a table near the centre of the apartment—on a raised platform, is an asthmatic pianoforte, upon which an individual with threadbare coat, colorless vest and faded nankeen pantaloons, is thrumming away for dear life. Out of tune himself, he tortures the poor instrument in a way that threatens its instant dissolution, rending its heartstrings, and causing it to shriek with agony, wailing out the tune that the old cow died ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... for us even now, but this is a side road far from the main one. They'll never think to look here, nor could they hear us were we of call. And then those men you spoke of. They may be near. There's no time to lose. Get on my back and cling for dear life." ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... the flower-pot. The boys started. "Run!" exclaimed Jonas, following them with shouts of laughter, "run, run, boys, for dear life!" and away they all went towards ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... holdin' ground, but what o' that?—the anchor's an old 'un, or too small; the fluke gives way, and ye're adrift; or the cable's too small, and can't stand the strain, so you let go both anchors, an' ye'd let go a dozen more if ye had 'em for dear life; but it's o' no use. First one an' then the other parts; the stern is crushed in a'most afore ye can think, an' in two minutes more, if not less, it's all up with ye, unless ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... chair by the window, with her knitting, and put on her spectacles—oh! how she did laugh. Then we heard steps, and Miss Barry went into the closet and shut the door all but a crack to peep through, and I turned my head away from the door, and knitted away for dear life. Oh, girls! The door opened, and I heard Mrs. Poddle say, 'This way, gentlemen! This is Miss Barry's room.' Gentlemen! My dears, I thought I should pass away! Then there came great, loud men's steps, and I heard Mr. Monk's voice—'This ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... bit the worse of it, except fore-mentioned state of hands, a slight crick in my neck from the rain running down, and general stiffness from pulling, hauling, and tugging for dear life. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stentorian voice, "Come on, I'll fight all of you; I'll fight old Lincoln from here to the sea." Such a laugh as was set up afterwards, at his expense! The amusing part of it was the parties who fired the shots at the time the stampeding was going on with us, were running for dear life's sake across the fields, worse scared, if possible, than we ourselves. They were three of a scouting party, who had eluded our pickets, and seeing our good, easy, and indifferent condition, took it into ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... playing for dear life "Hail the Conquering Hero" and after the band, two and two a great line of citizens with kerosene torches. After the torches came the transparencies: "Levine Wins!" "The Reservation is Ours." "Back to the land, boys!" "We've dropped ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... road," he said, quietly; "you can let the pony go. I will follow you." He swung in behind the pony, who was now running for dear life and snorting with terror ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... mother—who had gone out to find something for Betty to take into the village—came back, she was pleased and surprised to find her little son working away as if for dear life. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... some, alas! to be dug for; only ours are not parsnips and carrots but a particularly tasteless kind called Greek roots; with a variety denominated algebraic, of which there are quantities. At these roots, or at some branches from the same, Governor and I are tugging as for dear life, so it is no wonder if our very hands smell of them. I am sure I eat them every day with my dinner, and ruminate upon them afterwards. In the midst of all this we are as well as usual. Governor is getting along splendidly; and I am not much amiss; at least so they say. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... of that? and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' cared not ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... first white blossom that has dared to brave the ruthless gales, and casts it, torn and dying, to the earth, so did Boreas grip the slender Pitys and dash her life out on the rocks far down below. From her body sprang the pine tree, slender, erect, clinging for dear life to the sides of precipices, and by the prickly wreath he always wore, Pan showed that he ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... if that first plunge was to be the last for the gallant boat and all in her. The bows under which we crouched, clinging for dear life to a ring on the floor, were completely submerged. The water rushed over us and around us, nearly stunning us with its violence and deafening us with ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... coming toward him, the boy ran for dear life, trying to make the school door before Billy could overtake him. He did, but that was all. Billy had gotten a good whiff of the apples, and that settled it. He would have one of those apples, even if he had to chase the boy all ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... ourselves fighting hand-to-hand against the Irish gentry in trews. This was no market-day brawl, but a stark assault-at-arms. All in the sound of a high wind, broken now and then with a rain blattering even-down, and soaking through tartan and clo-dubh we at it for dear life. Of us Clan Campbell people, gentrice and commoners, and so many of the Lowland mechanics of the place as were left behind, there would be something less than two hundred, for the men who had come up the loch-side to the summon of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... It was fun to hear those teachers tugging at their doors for dear life, and I have it from an eyewitness, when Johnson cut Miss Craigis loose she keeled over in the most undignified manner!" laughed a pert young miss, who was one of the giddiest in the class. "And, oh!" ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... so desperately entangled, and restricted, and betrayed, by common consent, in our society, that I hold her justified in using desperate means, as one who fights for dear life. She may harden ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... hacking at the chevaux de frise with his axe. "That's av ut, bhoys," yelled the Irish sergeant again. "Lave them spoikes an' go for the stockade. Good for you, little man—whirro!" Nat by this time was on a comrade's back, and using his axe for dear life; one of twenty men hacking, ripping, tearing down the wooden stakes. But it was Teddy who wriggled through first with Dave at his heels. The man beneath Nat gave a heave with his shoulders and shot him through his gap, a splinter tearing his cheek open. He fell head foremost ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... trees bend and switch around; and if those in the farmhouse, instead of being in bed, were over there on the beach," the speaker waved his hand toward the shining white sand, distant, but in plain sight, "they might see countless billows working for dear life to dig a trench through the hard sand. The wind sends one tremendous wave after another to help them, and as a great roller breaks and recedes, all the little crested waves scrabble with might and main, pulling at the softened sand, ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... all the tents were gay young couples, dancing away as though for dear life—dancing not alone with their feet, but with their arms, their heads, and their merry, twinkling eyes. They were not all well dressed, or even clean, but they seemed happy and healthy, and merrily snapped their fingers at care. Everywhere there was laughter, and chatter, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff away for dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco-smoke that the small cottage-kitchen became all-vaporous. The one sunbeam struggled mistily through, and could but ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... now ten feet from the pond and Billy gave Nanny the signal call, and with one accord both goats put down their heads and commenced to pull and run for dear life. At first the boys thought it great fun going so fast and neither suspected what the goats were up to, until Billy gave a quick turn and into the water they went before either boy could ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... to suck furiously at the little pink spot on the ball of his thumb—sucking for dear life. Presently he felt a strange aching pain in his arms and shoulders, and his fingers seemed difficult to bend. Then he knew that sucking was ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... seemed to spring from the ground in front of them. He cried something in Spanish, to which Jack replied by driving his horse full at him. The fellow went down, and rolled over and over, as the horse's hoofs struck him. Before he recovered his feet, the Border Boys were upon the road and galloping for dear life. There was no use in caution, now. Everything depended, in fact, on putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the camp before their ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... bellowing and tearing up the sod; among them when they charged; among them when they stampeded; and I was not afraid. But this caldron of boiling yellow water filled with cattle was a hell-pot. In it every steer, gone mad, seemed to be fighting for dear life. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... in an underground chamber, without window or other issue. So I gave myself up for lost and said, 'There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme!' Then I looked to the top of the vault and saw in it a range of glazed lunettes; so I clambered up for dear life, till I reached the lunettes, and I distracted [for fear]. I made shift to break the glass and scrambling out through the frames, found a wall behind them. So I bestrode the wall and saw folk walking in the road; whereupon I cast myself down to the ground and God the Most High preserved ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... comical performance of this clumsy baby was his way of alighting on a fence when he had been flying. He seized the board with his claws, which clung for dear life, while his body went on as it was going, with the result almost of a somersault. He tried to learn, however. He made great efforts to master the vagaries of fences, the irregularities of the ground, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... This would be fatal to all his hopes. While the boy pondered and fretted over the matter, the long roll of a drum came around a cliff-corner, and then a file of ragged soldiers, or what seemed to be such, showed in the moonlight, with a diminutive drummer-boy, pounding for dear life, ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... into the barrack safe and sound but fearfully scared. Only the wild shooting of the sentry had saved him from being riddled. The guard itself, upon turning out, evidently thought that a rebellion had broken out or at least that a prisoner had escaped. Seizing their rifles they blazed away for dear life. They did not aim at anything in particular but shot haphazardly at the stars, haystacks, and trees in the most frantic manner imaginable and as rapidly as their magazine arms would let them. Undoubtedly the Germans were half-mad with fear. It rained bullets around the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... ice-islands we were crossing were tossed to and fro by the waves so violently that it became almost impossible to stand, much less walk, on their slippery surface; at others, while all were paddling for dear life, a towering berg would sail down in perilous proximity, for its touch would have sunk our skin boat like a stone. Once I thought it was all over, when a floe we were on became detached from the main pack, and there ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... crabs started fiddling again, harder than ever, and as it promised to be a long performance, they left the little creatures scraping away at their fiddles as if for dear life and swam along the rocky canyon until, on turning a corner, they came upon a ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... fight are likely to end their mirth with sorrow. David's one stroke was enough. They were as sure as Nathan and Bathsheba had been that the declaration of his wish would carry all Israel with it, and so they saw that the game was up, and there was a rush for dear life. The empty banqueting-hall proclaimed the collapse of a rebellion which had no brains to guide it, and no reason to justify it. Let us learn that, though 'the race is not always to the swift,' promptitude ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that particular minute; a wandering demon may have entered into him. Mules are notoriously accessible to wandering demons. Whatever the explanation, the mule suddenly started forward and galloped at full speed down the hill. The reins dropped from William's hands; he clung for dear life on to his seat, as the caravan, swaying and jolting along the uneven road, seemed to be doing its utmost to fling him off. There came a rattle of crockery from within. Then suddenly there came another sound from within—a loud, agonised scream. ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... heavy but held-back breathing, so close to Zachary and himself in the black hold, frightened Chris almost more, once he was safe in his cabin and hammock, than it had at the time. Zachary had bolted up the ladder like a frightened squirrel, with Chris, as a fly, holding on for dear life. Even so, Zachary moved none too fast to suit Chris, who flew off toward his own cabin in a chattering fright. The lumpy form of Amos, asleep in his hammock, was reassuring, but Chris lay shivering and puzzling for a long time before he ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... a brave gave the warning, and we scattered in an instant over the little plain between the den and our village. Everybody seemed to be running for dear life, and I soon found myself some yards behind the rest. I had gone in boldly, partly because of conversations with certain boys who proposed to participate, and whom I usually outdistanced in foot races. But it seemed that they had not carried out their intentions and I was left alone. I looked ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... yell—'smallpox!'—and lit out for home. Folks was tur'ble afraid of it then an' he had seven children of his own an' nobody for 'em to look to if he died, so you couldn't blame him none. They was all like that then, every fam'ly just barely holdin' on, an' scratchin' for dear life. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... van, seemed to lie flat on their bellies as they strained forward, digging their sharp little hoofs into the hillside. The van gave an inch—two! A foot! Then urged by their master's voice, and for very pride of home and race and breed, the gallant blacks pulled for dear life, and in a quarter of an hour the van was at our door, and they were switching their tails and stamping their hoofs and shaking their intelligent heads in ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... to purchase, every thing one can desire to escape from, comes walking abroad upon its even, uniform pavement, where men and carriages are circulating together. Glass, and tea-trays, and crokery-ware, and haberdashery, all meet you in the street. You are running for dear life from some devil of a driver, who thinks that if he does but shout loud enough, he is at perfect liberty to break your bones, and you are stopt in your flight by an industrious chapman, who spreads his stock of pocket-handkerchiefs before your eyes. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... relinquish my surveillance for a brief half hour he was entirely missing upon my return. And, bless me, sir, where do you imagine I discovered him? A half mile out in the ocean, sir, in one of the lifeboats, rowing away for dear life. I do not know how he attained even that magnificent distance from shore, for he had but a single oar, with which he was blissfully rowing about ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Indian war-whoop, leaped off the sledge, flourished and cracked his big "black snake" whip in air to encourage the animal to run faster, and I, sitting with the driver on the front seat, gripped for dear life the board upon which I sat. No Jehu, I feel sure, ever drove as did our driver tonight, assisted by the whooping footman with his black snake. Through drifts and over the pond, which was frozen, down steep banks to the ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... that I bent my ear nearer, with some of his own sorrow. "I reckoned one on 'em was Notely's voice, talkin' and larfin' as hilar'ous as ef 'twas sun-up. So I went deown there, and there was Note and one o' them fellers with him, each on 'em with a stiff tod o' whiskey aboard, a-pullin' there for dear life, an' the dory anchored fast as fast could ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... people drummed and yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but kept away from the station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to open communications, but were received with a shower of arrows, and had to fly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the country up and down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heard for days. The steamer was late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily, then anxiously, then gloomily. ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... he's brought a pianner with him, and they say he bangs away on it like all possessed, and then stops short and scolds. I went past there, one day, when the windows was open, and I heard him thumpin' and tiddlin' away for dear life. It didn't seem to me there was much tune to it, nor time neither; you couldn't so much as tell where one line left off and the ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... said Polly, dancing away for dear life. "Oh Alexia, when Miss Salisbury gives the signal to explore, ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... photograph. The vegetation was so thick thereabouts that the temple, for I suppose it was that, appeared before us suddenly. One moment we were crawling like insects between the trunks of great jungle trees that shot upwards seventy feet or more without a branch, as if they were racing for dear life skyward, and then everything fell away and there was the old building. It startled the both of us. We got the sensation that you get when you see a really good play. You forget your bodily presence and you are only a bundle of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the lesser danger. Once away from the enemy, the four fugitives pulled for dear life {94} across the tumbling waves—ten miles the way they went, one account says—to the main shore of Oonalaska. It was pitch dark. When they reached the shore, they could neither hear nor see a sign of life; ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... topple at every rail joint. But Sollers was not the runner to lose nerve under difficulties and did not lessen the pressure on the pistons. If Stanley, determined and silent, his lips set and hanging on for dear life as the cab jumped and swung under him, felt any qualms at the dangerous pace he had asked for, he betrayed none. With Bucks, open-eyed with surprise, hanging on in front of him, Stanley gave no heed to the bouncing, and the freight-engine pounded through the mountains like a steam-roller with a ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... been that while I on the one hand exorcised the baleful association, I succeeded in rousing on nobody's part a sense of any other association whatever, or of my having cast myself into any conceivable or calculable form. My private inspiration had been in the Gyp plan (artfully dissimulated, for dear life, and applied with the very subtlest consistency, but none the less kept in secret view); yet I was to fail to make out in the event that the book succeeded in producing the impression of ANY plan on any person. No hint of that sort of success, or of any ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... in his place and was studying away for dear life. He was naturally a studious boy, and he was anxious to prepare himself to enter a certain school ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His companions saw the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows out of the dark, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of madly thrashing sail. The pictures were, however, necessarily somewhat blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... visitors of yesterday, and many more, came alongside, but only persons of distinction were admitted on board. Nevertheless, they suffice to crowd the deck. A war-canoe, with a king in it, paddled round the ship twice, all the men working for dear life, by way, I suppose, of contrasting their naval force with our own. All our guests, of whatever rank, come to trade or to beg; and it is curious to see how essentially their estimation of money differs from our own. Coin is almost unknown in the traffic of the coast, and it is only those who have ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... away, on a southern sea, where each great wave threatened to engulf the tiny boat which seemed like a child's toy thrown upon the waters, three men were struggling for dear life—for the life that Dino Vasari had been so ready to lay down—toiling, with broken oars, and roughly-fashioned sails, and ragged streamers as signals of distress, to win their way back to solid land, and live once more with their fellows ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... up, the dog had fastened his teeth in the calf of her husband's leg and was holding on for dear life. Seizing a stone in the road, the Irishman's wife was about to hurl it, when the husband, with wonderful presence of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... hear no more. He knew that to attack one of Samaniego's outfits there must be at least a hundred Indians in the neighborhood. Unhitching his horse, he jumped on its back and rode for dear life in the direction of Eureka Springs. Indians sighted him as he swept into the open and followed, firing as they rode. By luck, however, and the fact that his horse was fresher than those of his pursuers, ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... in one of the local journals which was greeted with huge merriment in the family circle, because it represented Tom as "Ye Press of Newcastle"—a mere boy in a short jacket perched on a stool, scribbling for dear life at the foot of a platform on which some local orator was denouncing the tyranny of the existing Government. He must then have been about seventeen, certainly not more, and he was even at that time ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... swiftness, to where his father is chopping in the calm afternoon glory, little dreaming of what is happening not a mile away. How sweetly pitiful is the calm wondering sky, watching overhead, as one may fancy, the struggle for dear life going on in those wild gurgling waters. Ah! the two streams in one have them in their embrace; they will not let them go. Mab lies a senseless weight in Jack's arms as they are borne on towards the whirlpool; once there, ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... girls. The ghostly three evidently considering discretion the better part of valor, left the drive and took to their heels across the lawn. But Grace, who was well in the lead, caught the last fleeing ghost by its robe and held on for dear life. There was a sound of rending cloth as the apparition bounded forward, then it caught its spectre toe on a tuft of long grass and fell forward with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... lasted, until the half frozen man, hanging on for dear life to the upper branches of the sapling, ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... of our merriment, which sometimes resolved itself into the writing of burlesque poems. We sat around a table, and whenever the whim seized us, we each wrote down themes on little pieces of paper, and putting them into a hat or box we drew out one at random, and then scribbled away for dear life. We put no restriction upon ourselves: we could be grave or gay, or idiotic even; but we must be rapid, for half the fun was in noting who first sang ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... it was a thumper!" gasped Phil. "It seemed to walk on board and grab at everything within its reach. It's got my hat, and would have got me, if I had not clung for dear life to ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... ended; or perhaps it is that against railways, and drainage, and modern scoffings, he and his like cannot stand. He is gone; but even yet, about the scene where once as a man the old minstrel fled for dear life, there hangs at the dead time of night a sense of mystery and awe. As the chilly wind comes wailing across the everlasting hills, blending its voice with the melancholy dirge of the river, one may almost believe that through the gloom there ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... then, the situation? he continued, looking at me piercingly above Williams' cropped head. I had run away for dear life from Cuba (taking with me what was best in it, to be sure, he interjected, with a faint smile towards Seraphina). I had no money, no friends (except my friends in this cabin, he was good enough to say); warrants out against me in Jamaica; no means to get to England; no safety in the ship. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... bloke in a Norfolk jacket and flannel trousers, digging like a fiend, and crying like a baby—blowing, and gasping and sobbing, tears and sweat rolling down into his beard like rivers. He'd plunge his pick in, scratch, and shovel, and hack at the roots as if for dear life—he was making the hole too close to the hedge, of course—and all the time carrying on like that. I thought he must be digging his own grave at least. Suddenly he put his pick down, and there just under the hedge I saw a dead brown ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... a wide straw hat, too, that crowned his head and canted with the wind and flopped about his neck, and would have sailed away down many a mountain brook but for a faithful leather strap that lay buried in the half-moon whiskers and held on for dear life. And from under the rim of this thatch, and half hidden in the matted masses of badly adjusted hair, was a thin, peaked nose, bridged by a pair of big spectacles, and somewhere below these, again, a pitfall of a mouth covered with ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... impromptu experiences in the public square, which had undoubtedly knocked from his mind all memory of his engagement at the seamstress's; and of the sudden recollection of it, which, there could be no question, was what had sent him and his new friend bursting out of the house and tearing for dear life ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... joints and dulled his eyes, and he prepares to go down into the dust of death. But the wise man has a salutary dislike of break-neck situations; he cannot let his sweet or melancholy fancies free while he is hanging on for dear life to some inhospitable crag, so he prefers a little moderate exercise of the muscles, and a good deal of placid gazing on scenes that ennoble his thoughts and make his imagination more lofty. One of the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... withered grass, and it blazed up like wild; he got out of it, for he was travelling against the wind, while we were in full waft of it. I thought the wind and the fire would beat us, and was like to throw up the work in despair, when I saw a man on horseback galloping for dear life. I thought it was the master at first, but it was Mr. Brandon, and he was nigh hand as good, for he fell to, and worked with all his might, and with his help we saved the house, and all the precious ones in it. In time the men dropped in, and they ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... sliding steps down the decline, the action of the whole scene being almost instantaneous, when he felt, rather than saw, some one else glide swiftly past him still more expeditiously; and then, there was another heavy plunge in the water below, where Bob and Rover were struggling for dear life. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... common decency would have to go out in the wet to padlock the chickens. Seems, Mrs. Lathrop, as they're really havin' no end o' trouble over the new paper an' Elijah's real put out. He says Hiram had a idea as the more the speed the better the paper an' was just wringin' for dear life, an' the first thing he knew the first issue begin to slide a little cornerways an' slid off into a crank as Elijah never knowed was there, an' him an' Mr. Kimball spent the whole of yesterday runnin' around like mad an' no way to fix it. As a consequence Elijah's ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... charity organizations now maintain at the Immigrant Station had not yet been established. Gitelson, who like myself had no friends in New York, never left my side. He was even more timid than I. It seemed as though he were holding on to me for dear life. This had the effect of putting me ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Ethan replied, "I guess the woods folks are waking up. You can hear crickets a fiddling away for dear life, and other sorts of insects besides. Then there's a pair of screech owls calling to each other; a whip-poor-will whooping things up; and most of all the frogs have started in to get busy with their chorus. And say, I'm going to promise you a feast ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... him; and I have often put his wig into the fire in the face of the company, when he would laugh at the joke as well as any man there. It was a delight to put him on a high-mettled horse, and send him after the hounds,—pale, sweating, calling on us, for Heaven's sake, to stop, and holding on for dear life by the mane and the crupper. How it happened that the fellow was never killed I know not; but I suppose hanging is the way in which HIS neck will be broke. He never met with any accident, to speak of, in our hunting-matches: but you were pretty sure to find him at dinner in his place ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fishermen sat before the hut confining the prisoners, on guard. An elephant squealed in the distance. Out of the shadow a sleek leopard, then another. The guards jumped to their feet and scrambled away for dear life to the nearest hut, crying the alarm. Bruce opened the door, which had no lock, and peered forth. It was natural that the leopards should give their immediate attention to the two men in flight. Bruce, realizing what had happened, called softly to Ramabai and Pundita; and the three ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... had been shifted to the other tube in such a way as to dissolve the "Morning" into a hideous picture of the conventional horned and hoofed devil. The picture was originally meant to be comic, but it now set Jim to running for dear life. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... twelve months old, and were pale, thin, and famished-looking. Some were sleeping, and seemingly, ah! so aged and care-worn in their sleep; some were clasping nursery-bottles in their skeleton hands, and sucking away for dear life; one little miserable was wailing in restless pain, and sending its anguished eyes around in appealing looks ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... concord, by the peaceful close of the bloody and hideous struggle of centuries? Think of it all, I say, and then go also in imagination to the door of the House of Commons, and see a Scotch Liberal fighting for dear life to bring into the Tory lobby the necessary number of misguided and ignorant neophytes to ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as England had become, she preferred ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... drown a man and chase his body round for hours within a few inches of the surface; and all at a speed of fifteen to eighteen miles an hour, with never an instant's pause between sight and stroke. The Indian in the stern took his cue from Dominique; now paddling for dear life, now flinging his body back as with a turn of the wrist he checked ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... boy's jacket as he climbed out through the shutter opening into the little gallery, where he reached over to get to the far edge of the shutter, to draw it to him, but the next moment he had crouched down and held on for dear life. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... we all became uneasy for fear hard work was telling on him physically. He used to sit cross-legged on the ground, sewing for dear life and singing Hood's "Song of the Shirt" in a ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
