"Narrow escape" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... killed, doubtless, by a fall of snow from the cliffs. All along the edge of the ice-shelf were snow cornices, some weighing hundreds of tons; and these often broke away, collapsing with a thunderous sound. On July 31, Harrisson and Watson had a narrow escape. After finishing their day's work, they climbed down to the floe by a huge cornice and sloping ramp. A few seconds later, the cornice fell and an immense mass of hard snow crashed down, cracking the sea-ice for more ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... was a narrow escape!" gasped Matt, to himself, as he caught up the lines and gave Billy another tap. "I suppose I ought to be thankful that I was not robbed of everything in my keeping. Those fellows looked wicked enough ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... Now walk this way only a short distance. I heard the yells, you see, above the racket of the storm, and that told me the one who shouted must be near by. There's the fallen tree. Think what a narrow escape Andy had ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... a narrow escape!" exclaimed the tall Cointet, when he was once more in the Place du Murier. "An hour later the glitter of the silver would have thrown a new light on the deed of partnership. Our man would have fought shy of it. We have ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... head listening; he could scarcely hear the words. Was it a sense of new security that moved her; the reaction of their narrow escape; the knowledge they were leaving the chateau and all ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... money more because she feared ridicule than from any real desire to oblige Underwood. She had long since become disgusted with him. The man's real character was now plainly revealed to her. He was an adventurer, little better than a common crook. She congratulated herself on her narrow escape. Suppose she had married him—the horror of it! Yet the next instant she was filled with consternation. She had allowed him to become so intimate that it was difficult to break off with him all at once. She realized that with a man of that character ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... that he and his school companion, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, had once taken refuge during a violent storm. The tree they stood under was shattered by a thunderbolt. They were both stunned for a few minutes, and knew they had had a narrow escape from death. Neither ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... have reason to be. That hideous sensation you gave me is subsiding; but you have had a very narrow escape. Do not attempt to kill me again; for at the first sign in your voice or face I shall ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... said the American, "my teeth had a narrow escape. What adventures they have had since we left Tiflis? Decidedly this journey has been less ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... opened his eyes to find his head in the colonel's lap, Marjorie bathing his forehead with a wet handkerchief, and Gray near by, still a little pale from remorse for his carelessness and Marjorie's narrow escape, and Mavis the most unconcerned of all—and he was much ashamed. Rudely he brushed Marjorie's consoling hand away and wriggled away from the colonel ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... lonely to-day, in the midst of this endless solitude. Sat before the hut-door thinking of Zimmerman and his Reflections. Also thought of Brasenose, Oxford, and my narrow escape from Euclid and Greek plays. Davus sum, non Oedipus. Set to work, and cooked a kangaroo stew for ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... "Hilda had a narrow escape of her life," said Lady Malvern, looking full at her nephew as she spoke. "How sudden and awful it all was! There were we chatting together, and thinking no more of danger than if such a thing did ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape. It is an old remark, that boys who shine at school do not make the greatest figure when they grow up and come out into the world. The things, in fact, which a boy is set to learn at school, and on which his success depends, are things which do not require the exercise ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the wounded men would die, though the president had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that the bandits would be able to make good ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... glance. There was something curious about Jake's tone, but Dick knew he did not mean to emphasize the value of his warning. It was plain that he had had a very narrow escape, but since one must be prepared for accidents in heavy engineering work, he did not see why this should jar his nerves. Yet they were jarred. The danger he had scarcely heeded had now a disturbing effect. He could ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... fold in the boy's forehead smoothed itself away as he left her, saying to himself with a sigh of relief, "A narrow escape; it's well I ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... have gone queer with us if Peggy had not come in with the rake. How d'yee feel, old girl? for you've had a narrow escape too. I wonder we were not too heavy for you, and so pulled you in to go ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... West India Regiment, had a narrow escape. Shortly before the Naval Brigade had advanced to storm, he had been despatched by Lieutenant-Colonel Murray with an order to Major Hill, commanding on the left, and, in crossing the front of the stockade under a heavy fire, both he and his horse were shot ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... It was a narrow escape, but forgotten directly in the excitement of his discovery; and freeing himself from the rope he picked up the candle carefully, to find that he had only about an inch left, and perhaps a ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... bare; and the weather being, at this time, that of December, and the night too very long, the northerly wind, with its biting gusts, was sufficient to penetrate the flesh and to cleave the bones, so that the whole night long he had a narrow escape from being frozen to death; and he was yearning, with intolerable anxiety for the break of day, when he espied an old matron go first and open the door on the East side, and then come in and knock at the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the fourth round resulted in Elfred having a narrow escape from being torpedoed beneath the belt, and during several subsequent clinches he was requested to stop studying the pictures and get ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... narrow escape, a chance: he had a squeak for his life. To squeak; to confess, peach, or turn stag. They squeak beef upon us; they cry out thieves after ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... which they were only rescued by the promptitude of Newman and Mr. Parnell (as throughout the diary Newman alludes to Lord Congleton). Once, in travelling by canal near Marseilles, Newman found the level of the canal-boat was "dangerously high, from the arches. Once we had a narrow escape. There was a sudden cry of 'A bas!' We turned and saw we were rapidly nearing an arch which would knock off our heads. The horses kept at a short canter. Old Mrs. C. was sitting quietly on deck, wholly absorbed, and never dreaming that the sailors could be calling to her. Miss C. was ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... they carried out at Ocean Point, a seashore resort, at which they spent their vacation. How they advanced to the use of the vacuum tube receiving set from their first crystal set; their experiences in the wireless room of a seashore station; their narrow escape from death on the night of a roaring gale; how, under the stress of need, they were able to send a message to the ship on which relatives and friends were voyaging and bring other ships to their aid; how they tracked down and captured the rascal Cassey after he had assaulted and robbed their friend ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... cared for by the Committee he was sent on to Canada. When there he wrote back to let the Committee know how he was faring, the narrow escape he had on the way, and likewise to convey the fact, that one named "Rachel," left behind, shared a large place in his affections. The subjoined letter is the only correspondence ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... feat and a narrow escape of yours as it was described to me by my niece Claudia. Nothing less than the preservation of her life could have justified you in ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to a reasonable view of the situation, he rode twice to the very edge of the ditch to parley with her; but all that came of his endeavours was that on the occasion of his second appeal to her, he had a narrow escape of falling a victim to her treachery, and so losing ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... resembling the fate of the De Witts in Holland. And the consequences to me were such, and so full of all the consolation and indemnification which this world could give me, that I have often shuddered since then at the narrow escape I had had from myself intercepting this remarkable retribution. The villain had again been attempting to play off the same hellish scheme with a beautiful young rustic which had succeeded in the case of my ill-fated Agnes. But ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... cursed, though his teeth still chattered with fright from the narrow escape he had had, but through his prison jargon ran a hint of some power he had over the man Dunke. It was plain he thought the latter had incited the lynching in order to shut the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... venture to go again to his lodgings: he changed his dress at the house of an acquaintance, and, warned by his narrow escape, determined at once to leave England. He wandered along by the wharves, making inquiries about any vessels that were to sail immediately, little caring what their destination might be. It so happened that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... a narrow escape, for there is no doubt about those fellows being bushrangers," I ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... take it. He bucked and the lad had a narrow escape from following where Tad and Chunky had gone a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... father, huskily, as she took his hand and kissed it; "I have had a narrow escape; another instant and it would have been all over ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tree was almost cut off, the cutter usually thumped with his tail, at which signal all other cutters near by scampered away. But this warning signal was not always given, and in one instance an unwarned cutter had a narrow escape from a tree falling ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... Apparently the narrow escape from an accident when the turn had been made in the preceding lap had made the crew of each boat more cautious. At all events neither tried to cut in very far upon the other and even on the home stretch in the second lap neither ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... more than I did about Aunt Jane. I had spent the last three years, since Aunt Susan died and left Aunt Jane with all that money and no one to look after her but me, in snatching her from the brink of disaster. Her most recent and narrow escape was from a velvet-tongued person of half her years who turned out to be a convict on parole. She had her hand-bag packed for the elopement when I confronted her with this unpleasant fact. When she ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... had no patience with her husband when he declared to her that he could not accept the hospital unless he knew that Mr. Harding had refused it. Her husband had no right to be quixotic at the expense of fourteen children. The narrow escape of throwing away his good fortune which her lord had had, almost paralysed her. Now, indeed, they had received a full promise, not only from Mr. Slope, but also from Mrs. Proudie. Now, indeed, they might reckon with safety on their ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... power. The war goes on, and Incredulity is made Diabolus's universal deputy. Conscience and Understanding, the old Recorder and Mayor, raise a mutiny, and there is a fight in the streets. Conscience is knocked down by a Diabolonian called 'Mr. Benumming.' Understanding had a narrow escape from being shot. On the other hand Mr. Mind, who had come over to the Conservative side, laid about bravely, tumbled old Mr. Prejudice into the dirt, and kicked him where he lay. Even Will be Will ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... was made upon us by all the loafers of the place, shrieking in Arabic, and eagerly claiming us as their spoil. But the ladies had never been out of England before, and were naturally terrified by the wild scene, following as it did upon their narrow escape from drowning. They were going to an hotel in the town, and I escorted them to it. Then I set out on my walk to Bruzeaud's Hotel, beyond the city gates and the Soko. I was in a sorry plight when I ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... had a narrow escape," the surgeon said, after examining Ralph's arm, "a quarter of an inch lower, and it would have cut the main artery; and you would have bled to death in five minutes. As it is, there is no great harm done. It is a deepish flesh wound but, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... wife's and your and Bence Jones's friendly conspiracy) awaiting me at Cairo. A rapid journey home via Brindisi might have rattled my brains back into the colloid state in which they were when I left England. Looking back through the past six months I begin to see that I have had a narrow escape from a bad breakdown, and I am full ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... with narrow escapes, I, too, had a narrow escape, for that same bullet entered the partition on its death-dealing mission at identically the same spot where a few minutes previously my head had rested. Dr. Goodsell was quickly aroused, he attended Professor MacMillan, and ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... &c., in their huts at night. From this method of management a very great degree of comfort arises, of which Mr. Macqueen gives the following instance in a convict's feast, which he once witnessed. At Christmas, 1837, one of his assigned servants, (who had a narrow escape from capital conviction at home,) requested leave to draw the amount of some extra labour from the stores, since he wished to give an entertainment to a few of his colleagues, all of whom were named and were well conducted men. The party making this application had ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... fell upon him at the battle of Culloden, in 1746. In this battle the Highlanders were commanded by Charles in person, and the English by the Duke of Cumberland. The Highlanders wore completely routed, and the Pretender's rebellion brought to a close. He himself shortly afterward made a narrow escape by water from the west of Scotland; hence the reference to ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... you manage to find it, Tom?" asked Jack, breathing hard, as he pictured to himself the narrow escape he ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... "What a narrow escape!" said she, trembling, and covering her face with her hands; "it makes me shudder to think ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... of her neighbours came in, and talked to her about the narrow escape her son had had, that Mrs. Robson realized that Jack's life had been in considerable danger, and it was well that she had him before her enjoying his tea before she learnt ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... they did to Roy's intense delight, though Mrs. Bertram would have been horror-struck at the narrow escape the little invalid had, of falling to the ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... weak, and had had a narrow escape. For some time his companions worked over him before he opened ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... Fuego. If by a close shave only, still she carried me clear, though her boom actually hit the beacon rocks to leeward as she lugged on sail to clear the point. The thing was done on the 13th of April, 1896. But a close shave and a narrow escape were nothing new ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... world could produce. "How jolly they look!" said Nibble. "I wish I could jump down and play with them! and oh! don't they talk strangely, Brighteyes? 'Wogglety wagglety, chacka-chacka punksky'—what are they saying, Mr. Moonman?" "Nayato is telling Polpo of the narrow escape his father had yesterday," I replied. "It seems that he was out on the flat ice looking out for seals. He had just harpooned a fine fellow, and was just on the point of putting him on his sledge, when he heard a loud snuffling noise behind him; and turning round, saw to his ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... them when they left it on the bank. Then he climbed a tree and cried out to the frogs, "The army is frightened and is running away." "Oh, thank you, thank you," said the frogs, "we'll never forget your goodness to us." Then they sat down in the marsh and told each other what a narrow escape ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... most narrow escape hunting on Tuesday. His horse ran away with him; he was thrown on a gate; he seems to be marked out for a people (sic) to be distressed and disgraced in every way possible. Burke was last night in high spirits. I ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... true genius; he called on his countrymen to recognize that a great national poet had arisen amongst them, and to appreciate the gift that in him had been bestowed upon their generation. Alluding to his narrow escape from exile, he exhorted them to retain and to cherish this inestimable gift of a native poet, and to repair, as far as possible, the wrongs which suffering or neglect had inflicted on him. The Lounger ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... known patronage of the seamen employed in the Slave Trade; manner of procuring and paying them at Liverpool; their treatment and mortality.—Account of the murder of Peter Green; trouble taken by the author to trace it; his narrow escape.—Goes to Lancaster, but returns to Liverpool; ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... fearing the tree might be thrown down by the furious wind, he soon made for open ground. Scarcely had he done so when the oak was torn up by the roots and hurled to the earth. A few moments later the emperor would have been killed. This narrow escape occurred on the 24th September, the festival day of S. Thekla, and, therefore, attributing his deliverance to her intervention, Isaac rebuilt and greatly beautified the old sanctuary dedicated to her in Blachernae, and frequently attended services there in her honour. Anna ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... turned toward me, was one of anger that I had presumed to intrude so violently upon his thoughts. Then he saw what a narrow escape he had had, and anger gave place to a courtly smile and a slight twinkle in ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... to myself more than once at your injunctions to the doctor since Zillah revived. We've had such a narrow escape that I feel as if I ought not to laugh again for a year, but I can't help it. I won't thank you as I meant to—it might make you vain. Good-night," and she gave my hand a quick, strong pressure, and went swiftly back to ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... loss on our side than one man killed and two wounded. One of these was the Spanish pilot of the Teresa, who received a slight bruise by a ball, which grazed his wrist. The honourable Mr Keppell, son to the Earl of Albemarle, had on this occasion a narrow escape. He wore a jockey-cap, one side of the peak of which was shaved off by a ball, close to his temple, yet did him ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... very specially to come to the entertainment, he dismissed him with many marks of attention and honor. Harpagus went home, trembling at the thought of the imminent danger which he had incurred, and of the narrow escape by which he had been saved from it. He called his son, directed him to prepare himself to go to the king, and dismissed him with many charges in respect to his behavior, both toward the king and toward Cyrus. He related to his wife the conversation ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... so you wouldn't get dizzy from watching me do the flip-flops," answered the doggie. "My, but that was a narrow escape, though. Have you had many adventures like that since you started out to ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... Father Drono, the chaplain, read in the St. James's Chronykyll (which was the paper of news he of Ivanhoe took in) of "another glorious triumph"—"Defeat of the French near Blois"—"Splendid victory at Epte, and narrow escape of the French King:" the which deeds of arms the learned scribes ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Guthrie Carey. Met him in London last year, just after the DOVEDALE wreck. He told me of his narrow escape—was really going with her on her last voyage, and only prevented at the last moment by the offer of this captaincy from his former owners. It's the same ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... the Division had a narrow escape after we left last night. The roof of his house was blown off, just at the time he would have been there, only he was a little late, but an officer was killed; six shells came into the garden, and the seventh ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... to Miss Tinne. Notes on climate. Separation of Lake Nyassa from the Nile system. Observations on Victoria Nyanza. Slaves dying. Repentant deserters. Mohamad Bogharib. Enraged Imbozhwa. An attack. Narrow escape. Renewed attack. A parley. Help arrives. Bin Juma. March from the Imbozhwa country. Slaves escape. Burial of Syde bin Habib's brother. Singular custom. An elephant killed. Native game-laws. Rumour of Baker's ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... does say summat abaat th' war. It's still gooin on, an one chap has sprained his ankle an another has had a narrow escape an De Wet is expected to be captured as sooin as they get hold on him, an a lot moor sich tales, but they arn't worth thinkin abaat coss they'll all be ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... full and daring advantage of his peculiar position. He defies many laws in a quiet, persistent way which impresses the smaller authorities and to a certain extent paralyzes them. He was in the Charity League—deeply implicated. He had a narrow escape. He was pulled through by the cleverest man ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... toward the sleeping children. Sam awoke in a moment and, seizing a stout stick, struck the snake and killed it before it could reach the children. They were awakened by the blow and, trembling at their narrow escape, once more ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... of Westphalia's and of Davoust's divisions—Perilous situation and narrow escape ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... before these men come up with us, where we had been halted by an occurrence, which I have now to recappitulate, and which altho happily passed without ruinous injury, I cannot recollect but with the utmost trepidation and horror; this is the upseting and narrow escape of the white perogue It happened unfortunately for us this evening that Charbono was at the helm of this Perogue, in stead of Drewyer, who had previously steered her; Charbono cannot swim and is perhaps the most timid waterman in the world; perhaps it was equally ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... only sovereign who has really threatened our independence, and all but effected the subjugation of the Continent, we can scarcely conceive the terror with which a century and a half ago they, with reason, inspired all Europe, or the narrow escape which the continental states, at least, then made from being all reduced to the condition of provinces of France. The forces of that monarchy, at all times formidable to its neighbours, from the warlike ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... slaughter, ensued. The flower of the Austrian chivalry perished on the field of Morgarten, beneath the halberts, arrows, and iron-headed clubs of the shepherds. Leopold, himself, though he succeeded in gaining the shattered remnant of his forces, had a narrow escape, while the Swiss, animated by victory, hastened to Unterwalden, where they defeated another body of Austrians. In this instance Count Otho had as narrow an escape ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... sorry to say that the poor fellow must take his chance now. Dost was of opinion that we could not get in and out again safely, and I did not need to be told. We had a very narrow escape of being made prisoners." ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... was another narrow escape. As the prisoners quitted the post-house, they saw the whole population pouring in fury down the steep declivity on which the city is built. They passed near Niort, but could not venture to enter it. The inhabitants came forth with threatening aspect, and vehemently cried ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Golden Stairs by a lip not half an hour ago. I got a pipe-stem crossways in my gullet now, and it tickles." He coughed loudly, then shook his head. "No use; it won't come up." With feverish intensity he told of his narrow escape from destruction, the memory bringing a sweat of agony to his brow. "And the worst of it is," he concluded, "I'm 'marked' with guns. I've always ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... the like, when it was reckoned that the hero and his friends would be exhibited like "Bob Logic" and "Tom and Jerry" in a regular series of public places. "Mr. Pickwick has an Adventure at Vauxhall," "Mr. Pickwick Goes to Margate," etc.: we had a narrow escape, it would seem, of this conventional sort of thing, and no doubt it was this the publishers looked for. But "Boz" asserted his supremacy, and made the ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... noticed that his mother was greatly embarrassed, even to agitation, but he supposed it was because of his narrow escape from drowning, and it touched him even to caressing her, a thing he had never ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... "A narrow escape that for you, Lieutenant," said Jones. "But she was a plucky lass, and now it is time for us ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... upon the river we saw a low-laden vessel, all sail spread to the soft, faltering breeze, coming slowly up stream on the last of the tide. How she fitted into the old-time setting! She was one of Colonel Byrd's freighting ships just in from overseas. After a tempestuous voyage, and a narrow escape from the Spanish too, she had safely entered Chesapeake Bay and now, the wind serving but ill, she was slowly drifting ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... kindly shelter of a doorway; the ample omnibus of the chief hotel spares little space for pedestrians. It may be with something of a malicious chuckle that one notices that this four-wheeled tyrant is often empty; but the malice is of evanescent nature, born of narrow escape. There are some shops, respectable if not imposing, and a goodly supply of inns; a fine church and a notable old Cornish manor-house. But all the time one has a sense that the real life of the place is the river ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... which we made this narrow escape was so crushed in her collision with the bark that the sea battered her to pieces in the course of the night, and when I went on deck the next morning, a few ribs and shattered planks, floating awash at the end of the line astern, were all of her ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... welcome them. Among the first to greet them on their landing, were some of their old comrades and fellow-sufferers, who, under the conduct of Reed, M'Lellan, and M'Kenzie, had parted from them at the Caldron Linn. These had reached Astoria nearly a month previously, and, judging from their own narrow escape from starvation, had given up Mr. Hunt and his followers as lost. Their greeting was the more warm and cordial. As to the Canadian voyageurs, their mutual felicitations, as usual, were loud and vociferous, and it was almost ludicrous to behold these ancient "comrades" and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... thoroughly enjoyed these Icelandic experiences, for, to use one of his own phrases, the power of the hills was upon him. With Mr. Lock he visited the concession, and on his way passed through a village where there was a fair, and where he had a very narrow escape. A little more, we are told, and a hideous, snuffy, old Icelandic woman would have kissed him. In respect to the survey, the mass of workable material was enormous. There was no lack of sulphur, and the speculation ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... nor windows. We found a number of burial cists—some square, others rounded—lined with small cobblestones. In one house, at the foot of "cellar stairs" we found a subterranean room, or tomb. The entrance to it was covered with a single stone lintel. In examining this tomb Mr. Tucker had a narrow escape from being bitten by a boba, a venomous snake, nearly three feet in length, with vicious mouth, long fangs like a rattlesnake, and a strikingly mottled skin. At one place there was a low pyramid ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... and was introduced to his wife, a lovely woman indeed! to whom, with great glee, he related the whole history of the chase, and his own narrow escape, and then laughed very heartily. But not so his gentle partner. For, as he told of the shrill whizzing of our swords close behind him, and of the groans of his dragoons as they fell, cut down from their horses, her face turned pale, and ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... John, what a narrow escape!" gasped Marion, after Jack was safe. "I thought you would surely ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... ever the book of books to her, and this morning the solemn, tender feelings naturally caused by the discovery of her recent narrow escape from sudden death made it even more than usually touching and beautiful in her eyes. She had been alone in the arbor for some time, when, hearing a step at her side, she looked up, showing a face all wet ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... neared it, I saw some bluish object in the air closing in upon him with the speed of an arrow, and, as he vanished within, a shrike brought up in front of the spot, and with spread wings and tail stood hovering a moment, and, looking in, then turned and went away. Apparently it was a narrow escape for the chipmunk, and, I venture to say, he stole no more corn that morning. The shrike is said to catch mice, but it is not known to attack squirrels. The bird certainly could not have strangled the chipmunk, and I am curious ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... and slenderly formed; his head was nearly oval; his eye most strongly resembled that of a cobra di capello; its dart was perfectly wild and maniacal, restless, brilliant, metallic, and concentrated." The colonel had a narrow escape from irretrievably affronting this eminent professor of murder, by unguardedly enquiring whether he was in any way cognizant of a trifling robbery by which the colonel himself had been a sufferer. "No, sir!" he exclaimed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... a narrow escape on it," said one of the men surlily. "Old Humpy was pretty nigh going ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... Maecenas recovered from this fever, Horace made a narrow escape from being killed by the fall of a tree, and, what to him was a great aggravation of the disaster, upon his own beloved farm (Odes, II. 13). He links the two events together as a marked coincidence in the following Ode (II. 17). His friend had obviously been a prey to ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... had a narrow escape, by Jove," said Turpin, who had been thunderstruck with the whole proceeding. "Those big cattle are always clumsy; devilish lucky it's ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... on at Ostersund until I heard that my heavy luggage had arrived at Kuwatin, via Clear Water Bay and the Lake of the Woods, having had a narrow escape on its way over the portage. The horse ran away, and dragged the cart over a number of nitro-glycerine cans. The driver fled in terror, but returned some time afterward, and was astonished to find an atom of either horse, cart, or luggage ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... across the North Atlantic in search of a West Indian convoy, which he failed to sight, returning by the 31st of August to Boston. While he was absent, Captain Isaac Hull, commanding the "Constitution" (44), sailed from the Chesapeake, and after a narrow escape from a British squadron, which pursued him from the 18th to the 20th of July, reached Boston. Going to sea again on the 2nd of August he captured and burned the British frigate "Guerriere," (38). On the 8th of October ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... man of science, who seemed more grieved over his failure to collect the rare specimen than he did over his own narrow escape, "there is every other kind of flea around here, though, I found that out while I was ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Fitzwilliam, and confessions twisted out of Story and other unwilling witnesses, the Ridolfi conspiracy was unravelled before it broke into act. Norfolk lost his head. The inferior miscreants were hanged. The Queen of Scots had a narrow escape, and the Parliament accentuated the Protestant character of the Church of England by embodying the Thirty-nine Articles in a statute. Alva, who distrusted Ridolfi from the first and disliked encouraging rebellion, refused to interest ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... by the Restoration was attended with most of the hardships incident to an ejected minister, to which were added sufferings and sorrows of his own. He never was in prison, but he knew what it was to lead the life of a fugitive; and after making a narrow escape from dragoons sent to arrest him, he was compelled to quit his rural retreat, and seek a precarious refuge in the capital. In 1676 he lost his wife, but before this they had mingled their tears over the coffins of ten out of their eleven children; and the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Bucks as he stood dazed by his narrow escape. Stanley, above, shouted. And Bill Dancing, carrying his empty rifle, and with his face bleeding from the briers, made his way down the opposite side of the wash. Scuffy, mounting the body of his dead foe, ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... law-suit for presuming to do such a thing without his permission. Mr. Tower considered himself holden to Capt. Helm for my safe return, and was therefore justly indignant at their placing my life in such peril. It was indeed a narrow escape, for the horse was running with all his speed when I fell. My bones were unbroken, however, and I suppose it must have been the tremendous jar I got when I fell that rendered me unconscious; nor do I think it impossible ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... narrow escape her young lady had had from the auction-stand, she hastened with intuitive delicacy to change the subject. But the same thought had occurred to Flora; and she fell asleep, thinking how Tulee's ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... prototype early bought himself out of the Service. Both men, too, mixed in the game of Politics, only Bradlaugh's luck landed him at last in Parliament while France led a forlorn hope that ended, after many a narrow escape for life, in twenty years of weary exile from his beloved country. Finally both men hold nearly identical opinions with regard to Religious Questions, only Bradlaugh imagined he had a special mission ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... Peter Piper, of Piper's Crossroads, proved too much for Scoutmaster Ned. He kept his secret. But he had a very narrow escape from ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... his hand;—'I would, Sir,' said he, 'that I had the power!' That no innocent person should incur blame, Coleridge went directly afterwards to the Proctor, who told him that he saw him clap his hands, but fixed on this person, who he knew had not the power. 'You have had,' said he, 'a narrow escape.'"—"Life of S. T. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... instant the current had swept him away, and if it had not borne him by accident to a shallow place on the opposite side, where he managed to scramble up the bank, he would certainly have been drowned. As it was, he scrambled out, shaking with terror, and found the puma waiting for him. 'You had a narrow escape that time,' ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... less narrow escape. He was invited with a party of officers to spend an afternoon with some young ladies in the neighbourhood, and they were on the way to keep their engagement, when Mr. Pellew stopped, and said to his companions, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... quickly made her appearance, and she and her husband greeted the young ladies as they ran up the steps, and gave Carlos and me a cordial welcome. When the judge heard of Rita's narrow escape, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... work at once. He began to preach his new Christianity at Damascus about the year 51, and found out that the world was not prepared for his ideas. He had a narrow escape at Damascus, where the governor and soldiers pursued him. Like the spies at Jericho, he was let down in a basket over the city walls and made his escape. So he narrates the story. The author of the Acts, true to his hostility to the Jews, of course brings them in as the persecutors. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... grateful recollections of her kindly welcome, she lay tranquilly enjoying the friendly atmosphere about her, with so strong a feeling that a skilful hand had taken the rudder, that she felt very little anxiety or curiosity about the haven which was to receive her boat after this narrow escape from shipwreck. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the Burgundians killed a great number of those who had come out of Troyes, and captured many others, and saved their man, as you have heard, but he said that never in all his life had he had such a narrow escape as on that occasion. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... indeed a rare confession of weakness. But three weeks before his purblind nag Mettle had stumbled, flung him, trailed him a few yards on the ground with one foot in the stirrup, and come to a standstill with one hoof planted blunderingly on his other foot. It had been a narrow escape, had caused him excruciating pain, and he limped still. To walk, even with a stick, was impossible. But the money must be paid at Froddingham and he would trust no messenger. So he mounted the mare, Bounce, and set forth at a foot-pace, with Johnny striding alongside and noting ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of wireless telegraphy in relation to disasters at sea was proved in a remarkable way yesterday morning. While the Channel was enveloped in a dense fog, which had lasted throughout the greater part of the night, the East Goodwin Lightship had a very narrow escape from sinking at her moorings by being run into by the steamship R. F. Matthews, 1,964 tons gross burden, of London, outward bound from the Thames. The East Goodwin Lightship is one of four such vessels marking the Goodwin ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... a narrow escape; but fortune befriended us, as well as our mates in the long boat. We landed, in fine, more dead than alive, after four days of intense distress, upon the beach opposite Roanoke Island. We remained there a week, were not ill-treated by the wreckers, ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... had not come a minute too soon; for Freddy, his sensitive organization completely overwrought by the events of the morning and his narrow escape from death, had fallen fainting to the ground; his hands still clenched in the folds of little Louie's jacket. Will instantly raised him, when he saw that all danger was over, and he and some of the others, who had come crowding down the road, very gently and quickly carried the ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... the suspicion entertained by the owner and his elephant trainer had been breathed about the show. Nearly a week had passed since Phil's narrow escape from death; yet, despite all the efforts of Kennedy or the shrewd observation of his employer, they were no nearer a solution of the mystery than before. The days passed, and with them the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Gorhambury [Lord Verulam's] with Christine. On leaving the house on the 18th to go to the station, the horse in the fly ran away. We were overturned near the park gates, and had a narrow escape. Nobody was hurt, and we drove on [in another fly] to Lord Ebury's ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... heart that followed this narrow escape had subsided, he stood gazing down where the sunbeams slept so pleasantly at the roots of the tall old trees, with whose highest tops he was upon a level. Suddenly he seemed to hear voices—one well-remembered voice— ascending from beneath; and, approaching to the edge ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rapid George and Job were nearly wrecked. Job changed his mind about the course a little too late and they had a narrow escape. They were whirled round and banged up against a cliff with the bottom of the canoe tipped to the rock and held there for a while, but fortunately did not turn over till an unusually tempestuous rush of water reached up and ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior) |
