"Pell-mell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... befell; Not a head in white and black On a single fishing smack, In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 130 All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. Go to Paris: rank on rank Search the heroes flung pell-mell On the Louvre, face and flank! You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel. 135 So, for better and for worse, Herve Riel, accept my verse! In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... not time to answer this poser for along the road came the ambulance, pell-mell. Surely, the boys thought, Artie could not have spoken of Blythe's identity over the 'phone, yet following the ambulance came the touring car of Bridgeboro's police department with the chief in it, the policeman chauffeur, a couple of other men, and county detective Ferrett. A couple ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... now came triumphant shouts in English, and Roger could picture to himself the bravo fellows rushing the Spaniards pell-mell across their own decks and into the water, or below; and again the tide of battle seemed to turn, and the English to be getting the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... heavier case of Weltschmerz than I have ever experienced at a performance of "Tristan und Isolde." It was the fact of those little children advancing in unison; that is the word. If they had trudged or scurried along, pell-mell, I should not have minded. But May parties move forward in procession, and the movement of a compact crowd is, to me, always ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... except the violin case—were thrown pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa, instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he had worn at his first ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the puff'd with wind, Do all come here pell-mell in; And they are sure to work their ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... and it, both kingdoms borders, Were ever ordered, by their own disorders, Some sharking, shifting, cutting throats, and thieving, Each taking pleasure in the other's grieving; And many times he that had wealth to-night, Was by the morrow morning beggared quite: Too many years this pell-mell fury lasted, That all these borders were quite spoiled and wasted, Confusion, hurly-burly reigned and revelled, The churches with the lowly ground were levelled; All memorable monuments defaced, All places of defence o'erthrown ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... might the rowers can command. We lie to, the proas come nearer. Hurrah! the clothes, some wholly washed, some half-washed, and some not washed at all. Piles of fair white linen are bundled up the gangway pell-mell, Malay washerwomen bundled out ditto, and for payment, the revolving screws settle that ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... really this matter must be cut short—summon pell-mell all the actors and actresses who have ever strutted their little hour on the stage, and put to them the following comprehensive question: Is there in your midst one who had an honest, hearty, downright pride and pleasure in your ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, without touching the door-post: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... select a neat specimen or two. In the mean time let the full harvest moon wonder at them as they lie turned up after lying hid 2400 revolutions of hers. Think of that warm 14th of June when the Battle was fought, and they fell pell-mell: and then the country people came and buried them so shallow that the stench was terrible, and the putrid matter oozed over the ground for several yards: so that the cattle were observed to eat those places very close for some years after. Every one to his taste, as one might well say ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... also had in his ranks Goths, Burgundians, Gepidians, Alans, and beyond Rhine Franks, gathered together and enlisted on his road. It was a chaos and a conflict of barbarians, of every name and race, disputing one with another, pell-mell, the remnants of the Roman empire torn asunder and in dissolution. Attila had already arrived before Orleans, and was laying siege to it. The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained a while the courage of the besieged, by promising them aid from Aetius and his allies. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... cautious reconnoitering beyond the door. This was promptly followed by a pell-mell dash for the open. In a moment they were crowding the trackside, staring with stupid eyes and mouths agape at the miniature snowfall of sugar, and ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... got sidetracked by the train of thought that descended upon him when he was actually face to face with his decision. All sorts of memories came rushing pell-mell through his brain. The cold and hungry ones were the most insistent, but he brushed ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... came back, but presently he heard Tom's shrill whistle, and then a cry from Sam and Dick. The three Rover boys came down the path pell-mell, and their father and the captain were, ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... capture became known in Bristol, and a clamorous mob assembled before the Castle. The Mayor, to his credit, did his best to resist the rabble, and to save his prisoner; but the mob were stronger than authority. They carried the gates, rushed pell-mell into the Castle, and dragged the captive forth into the market-place. And then Bertram saw his master again—a helpless prisoner, in the hands of a furious mob, among whom several priests were active. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... studies peasant life, Simon Youshkevich, to the exclusion of all else, makes a study of the poor Russian Jews. Some of his stories have produced an overwhelming impression. They show us beings, heaped up, pell-mell in the ghettos of the cities of western and southern Russia, dirty and unwholesome ghettos, where consumption and all kinds of terrible sickness reign. These stories, often tragic, always sad, have given Youshkevich the name of "chanter of ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... unity of a paragraph most frequently result from including more than belongs there. The theme has been selected; it is narrow and concise. When one begins to write, many things crowd in pell-mell. Impressions, which come and go, we hardly know how or why, are the only products of most minds. Impressions, not shaped and logical thoughts, make up the mixed confusion frequently called a theme. The writer puts down enough of these impressions ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... perceiving on the floor a ball of wool which had rolled out of Lady Grosville's work-table, escaped in an ecstasy of mischief from his mistress's arm and flew upon the ball. Kitty rushed after him; the wool first unrolled, then caught; the table overturned and all its contents were flung pell-mell in the path of Lady Grosville, who, on the arm of the amused and astonished minister, was waiting in restrained fury ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... we stood dumfounded. And then we dashed after, pell-mell, tumbling over one another in our stampede. In the alley we ran against three or four of the guard answering Lucas's cry. We lost precious seconds disentangling ourselves and shouting that it was a ruse and our prisoner escaped. When they comprehended, we all rushed together out of the ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... adverse and violent storm arose, the sea became turbulent and there was much seasickness. No one could stand upright in the cabins, everything was tossed about pell-mell and sailors fell overboard and could not be saved; yet the fleet by the evening of the 9th was sailing with calmer weather through the dangerous region of the Scilly Islands, where, over a mass of rocks and reefs a warning ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... midst of all these characteristic types, moving about in a pell-mell fashion, making a constantly changing mosaic of vivid hues, there are the inhabitants of the innumerable valleys around Tarbes itself, each of them with its own peculiarities of costume, manners, speech, which make them easily distinguishable one ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... at the time I turned my head in his direction, two hags were amusing themselves sticking sharp pointed sticks into his body; he bore it manfully, but I saw tears of agony streaming from under his eyelids. Presently the air was filled with yells and whoops; our tormentors rushed off pell-mell, the guards only remaining. I asked what was the meaning of this new outbreak; to which the trapper replied that he supposed it was caused by the arrival of a new lot of those "gosh ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the open fireplace the fagots were blazing and snapping. Hanging above them, the great iron pot threw forth a circle of noisy steam around the loosely fitted lid, while the potatoes within were in a high state of commotion—little ones tumbling pell-mell over big ones, and big ones rocking dolefully backward and forward in the boiling water as though they felt sure their end ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... in Syria put up on their way to Egypt. He hoped to dispose of his wares there. When he reached the inn, one of the camels belonging to the merchants belched, and the sound frightened his mule so that it ran off pell-mell and broke three of the idols. The merchants not only bought the two sound idols from him, they also gave him the price of the broken ones, for Abraham had told them how distressed he was to appear before his father with less money than he ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Hutchinson, as he was "in expectation of very important news from town," and such as would make it necessary for him to withdraw. While with perturbed nerves he awaited Hutchinson's arrival, he must have been surprised to see moving towards his house, not a Parisian populace, pell-mell, flourishing liberty-caps and pikes, or even a growling London mob, but a peaceful train of eleven cozy chaises, conveying a very respectable committee from a public meeting, at the head of which were Warren, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... she struck on a weak point. Married from the first? Why not tell me of it? He could hear her voice as if she had spoken the words. And how communicate the pell-mell of reasons? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one of your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions in gymnastics—for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all of one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas. Pour them out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to catch you somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with your assistance than ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Max!" And out they came pell-mell, His old companions. "Max, where have you been? Not drink with us? Indeed you serve us well! How many months is it since we have seen You here? Jan, Jan, you slow, old doddering goat! Here's Mynheer Breuck come back again at last, Stir your old bones to welcome him. ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... been watching attentively from a distance the different phases of the interview, considered it prudent to beat a hasty retreat, and, mounting their steeds with unmistakable dispatch, galloped pell-mell down the hill, and then along the valley of the river, until they were lost to sight in the mist, while the poor ambassadors, who had been unable to rejoin their ponies, followed as quickly as possible under ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... been slowly working her way, with her several attachments clinging to her, toward the road which ran along the front of the field, turned and started pell-mell toward the river, which flowed wide and deep, through the rushes, at the rear of it. She left the path and took to the corn, and through the mass of growing stalks she swept like a whirlwind. Onward she came. I anticipated the awful catastrophe, and stood riveted to the spot. The old captain still ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... April, we pass through what I call the "robin racket,"—trains of three or four birds rushing pell-mell over the lawn and fetching up in a tree or bush, or occasionally upon the ground, all piping and screaming at the top of their voices, but whether in mirth or anger it is hard to tell. The nucleus of the train is a female. One cannot see that the males in pursuit of ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... delightful play, a piece which rivets one from the first to the last act. I listened greedily to passionate letters, those mad prayers whose secrets some lawyer violates and which he reads aloud in a mocking tone, and which he gives pell-mell to the bench and to the public, who have come to be amused or excited and to stare ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... go pell-mell. Zadkiel is hemmed up in a corner of the cart-shed, and his brother and sister make pretence, to tear him limb from limb. Zadkiel defends himself gallantly, but has to succumb at last, for he is fairly rolled on his back, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... as they were all scalped they started over again, and kept up the fun until the big plantation bell sounded, and then the Injuns deserted in a body and ran off pell-mell to the quarters; for that bell was for the Christmas dinner, and they wouldn't miss that for all the scalps that ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... molehill that shelters us. Speech then ceases and we seem to be struck dumb. Stooping or kneeling we bestir ourselves; we buckle on our waist-belts; shadowy arms dart from one side to another; pockets are rummaged. And we issue forth pell-mell, dragging our knapsacks behind us by the straps, our blankets ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... raises its head, until the animal, again assured of its safety, gives a skip or two and goes on feeding; again the native advances, and this scene is repeated many times until the whistling spear penetrates the devoted animal; then the wood rings with shouts; women and children all join pell-mell in the chase; the kangaroo, weak from the loss of blood, and embarrassed by the long spear which catches in the brushwood as it flies, at length turns on its pursuers, and to secure its rear places its back ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... detached paragraphs of uneven length, ranging from three lines to twenty. Extracts from foreign newspapers, official news, provincial reports, money matters, religious announcements, accidents, everything comes out pell-mell—absolutely all "the voices of the flying day," in Madrid and everywhere else, in one jumble, without order or sequence, one paragraph frequently being a direct contradiction to another in the same sheet. There are three editions during the day, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... following note: "Passionate friendships among girls, from the most innocent to the most elaborate excursions in the direction of Lesbos, are extremely common in theaters, both among actresses and, even more, among chorus-and ballet-girls. Here the pell-mell of the dressing-rooms, the wait of perhaps two hours between the performances, during which all the girls are cooped up, in a state of inaction and of excitement, in a few crowded dressing-rooms, afford every opportunity ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... understand that it is easier for us to fight the Nile six times over, than to keep our station all winter in the blockade. But I pray God that we may meet this new fleet of theirs and settle the matter by a pell-mell battle." ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Calestano and to cross the first high spur of the Apennines that separated me from it, when I saw, as I left the place, a very old church; and I stayed a moment and looked at carvings which were in no order, but put in pell-mell, evidently chosen from some older building. They were barbaric, but one could see that they stood for the last judgement of man, and there were the good looking foolish, and there were the wicked being boiled by devils in a pot, and ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... Khalid follows directly behind, listening to his guide who points out the objects and places of interest. And thus, through the alleys and by-ways, through the nooks and labyrinths of these underground temple-ruins, we get to the rear, where the ramparts and mounds crumble to a mighty heap, rising pell-mell to the ceiling. Here, one is likely to get a glimpse into such enchanted worlds as the name of a Dickens or a Balzac might suggest. Here, too, is Shakespeare in lamentable state; there is Carlyle in rags, still crying, as it were, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Potter himself repudiates the notion that there can be anything new in the drama—that it was almost criminal to slight it. Nothing was made of it. It almost escaped attention. Instead, we got a crew of comic opera Scotchmen singing songs, and an absurd picture of Robert Burns, who was injected pell-mell into the "romance." It ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... through the fighting, this girl, she had drunk her fill from staved-in wine-casks and slept on the bare ground, pell-mell with the men, out in the public square reddened with the glare of conflagration. They were killing all round her, and nobody had been killed yet for her. She was resolved they should shoot her someone, ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... at the outward shell That nothing of this secret fire divulges, See only raw civilians, heaped pell-mell, Having the kind of chest that peace indulges; Viewed from one end our lines are like a swell On the deep ocean, full ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... consideration acted as a spur to the romping girls, who were once more discovering short-cuts home from Second Mountain, and joining hands, they raced pell-mell through the daisy field, down to the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... hours before daybreak, but elation possessed them to the exclusion of all thought of fatigue. The sight of the field of action set Jim's sinews twitching; he longed for the strife, and found some difficulty in restraining himself from running with the preceding party pell-mell on to the creek. But he had nothing of the gold-seeker's fever in his blood; the thought of amassing a fortune had merely occurred to him: it was the free, strong, exhilarating life that stirred him ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... diversion of Deerfoot promised the brilliant success he hoped rather than expected. One of the savages standing close to the fallen tree, started with an exclamation and dashed off in an opposite direction from the point whence came the alarming sounds. The effect was contagious: the others followed pell-mell, every one plunging forward with the frantic desperation which the bravest man will show ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... time. With a hook-like clutch that was almost a blow, so swift was it, he flung me bodily out of the rear end of the wagon. I had barely time to crawl out from under when father, mother, and the baby came down pell-mell where I had been. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Ammidons heard, had been knocked down and injured in the pell-mell of the rush. Gerrit's countenance showed his contempt of what he held to be a characteristically ludicrous farce. After all, his wishes in regard to the Nautilus had been easy of execution, the ship was now his; he was already contracting for a cargo. He had ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and omitting routine duties unfortunate to omit and which she might perform if they would but let her. She noticed the presence of both pilots at once—Watson at the wheel, Ned on the bench. No wonder, with so awesome a charge; guiding a boat like this, teeming with human souls and driven pell-mell through such a war of elemental forces in desert darkness, with never a beacon light from point to point, from hour to hour; running every chute, with a chute behind nearly every point or island, and the vast bends looping on each ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... and digging in the spurs, he rattled pell-mell down the opposite steep toward Cottonville, shouting as ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... brigade we rode on, jesting and gay, expecting to see them disperse when we came within range and join the rabble beyond. We were mistaken. Just when we got within easy charging distance, down they came, pell-mell, as dashing a body of dirty veterans as I ever saw. The attack was so unexpected that for a time we were swept off our feet and fairly carried backward with surprise. Then we rallied, and there was a sharp, short struggle. The enemy ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... tornado, an entire caravan, disorganized, broken, and overthrown, was disappearing beneath an avalanche of sand. The camels, flung pell-mell together, were uttering dull and pitiful groans; cries and howls of despair were heard issuing from that dusty and stifling cloud, and, from time to time, a parti-colored garment cut the chaos of the scene with its vivid hues, and the moaning ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... for the laborers' mess-halls, where hundreds of sun-bronzed foreigners, divided only as to color, packed pell-mell around a score of wooden tables heavily stocked with rough and tumble food—yet so different from the old French catch as catch can days when each man owned his black pot and toiled all through the noon-hour ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... cars, exposed most of the time to a drenching rain, they were disembarked and tramped another twelve miles to Greensboro. Here the mass of weary, wet, and hopeless patriots were about to be driven, pell-mell, like a herd of cattle, into a train of filthy cars, when young Glazier thought he espied a chance of evading his captors. He waited until it appeared to him that the guard was sufficiently occupied with other duties to overlook his whereabouts, and then slipped behind a ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... seemed simple panic: and like a pack of dogs which rush to mangle a mongrel, they were at him pell-mell. ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... pell-mell, scouts clambered onto the platform and surrounded him, while the scouts of his own troop edged them aside and elbowed their way to where he stood and mobbed him. And amid all this a small form, with clothing disarranged from ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the soldier; 'I am sorry to say that our whole army is retreating, pell-mell, as fast as it can go. The enemy is in active pursuit, and its left wing is now advancing up this side of the valley. In less than twenty minutes the retreat of our cavalry and artillery will be cut off by the hills, and the infantry ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... landmark? What,—the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!) Was that my point of turning? I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone, or ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... once out of the mob amid a volley of execrations, which were replied to by angry oaths and threats of the cavaliers as they galloped across the Place d'Armes and rode pell-mell into the gateway of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... spelled agony to the poor rustic. Still he thought he would get used to the new home which his son had chosen. But the strange journey with locomotive and steamship bewildered him dreadfully; and the clamor of the metropolis, into which he was flung pell-mell, altogether stupefied him. With a vacant air he regarded the Pandemonium, and a petrifaction of his inner being seemed to take place. He became "a barrel with a stave missing." No spark of animation ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the girl, nodded to his drowsy uncle, waved his cap to the rest - and off they flew pell-mell, as if all the witches in England were in their horses' legs. They were out of ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... Tilden as the "old humbug of Cipher Alley" and to Robinson as having "sore eyes" when signing bills, kept his hearers expectant and his enemies disturbed. The World followed him, reporting his speeches as "failures" and his audiences as "rushing pell-mell from the building."[1663] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... to twist; to turn; to thwart. Thraws, throes. Threap, maintain, argue. Threesome, trio. Thretteen, thirteen. Thretty, thirty. Thrissle, thistle. Thristed, thirsted. Through, mak to through make good. Throu'ther (through other), pell-mell. Thummart, polecat. Thy lane, alone. Tight, girt, prepared. Till, to. Till't, to it. Timmer, timber, material. Tine, to lose; to be lost. Tinkler, tinker. Tint, lost Tippence, twopence. Tip, v. toop. Tirl, to strip. Tirl, to knock for entrance. Tither, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... generation coming. [Guerre de Boheme, ii. 23, &c.] And one hears in the mind a clangorous nasal eloquence from antique gesticulative mustachio-figures, witty and indignant,—who are now gone to silence again, and their fruitless bivouacs, and frosty and fiery toils, tumbling pell-mell after them. This of Pisek was but one of the many unwise hysterical things poor Broglio did, in that difficult position; which, indeed, was too difficult for any mortal, and for Broglio beyond ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Fretted by the ill-built piers, awhile it crested and hissed, then shot balefully through the Erebus arches, desperate as the lost souls of the harlots, who, every night, took the same plunge. Meantime, here and there, like awaiting hearses, the coal-scows drifted along, poled broadside, pell-mell ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... we thought, and dashed for the iron stairs. We rushed down pell-mell, calling all the way. By this time a steady procession was filing up. "No use. Save your ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... indeed which did not boast at least one Red Cross Hospital; now most of them are deserted, for the fashionable women who followed the fashion in joining hospitals have now again followed the fashion and fled, pell-mell. ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... for a second or two before hurling themselves directly upon the Northern flank. He saw the flash of sabers, the jets of white smoke from rifle or pistol, and then the Northern line was cut through. But new regiments came up, threw themselves upon the cavalry, and all were mingled in a wild pell-mell among the thickets and through the forests. Clouds of smoke, thick and black, settled down, and horse and foot, saber and gun were ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... housetop, Berinthia saw boats from the vessels in the harbor, gathering at Long Wharf. Drums were beating, troops marching. Abraham Duncan came with the information that four or five thousand men were to assault the works and drive the provincials pell-mell across the marshes to Roxbury. At any rate, that was the plan. He was sure it would be a bloody battle. Possibly, while General Howe was engaged at Dorchester Heights, Mr. Washington might be ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... came through the desert: Lo you, there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell 30 For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No hope could ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... the galling fire of the foe, would not wait, and, pushing them aside, clambering, boosting, and tumbling went over the obstruction. Not pausing to form in the ditch, they scrambled up the parapet and went surging over the crest, pell-mell, upon the British. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... howitzer. But it was headlong flight. At the trench they did not stop to grapple, but fought their way through and fled on down the hill, on across the grassy plain, nor paused until they had crowded pell-mell into the main Imperialist army drawn up before ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... imagination, he can have picked it all up. It is true that Monsieur de Balzac does not proceed with sureness, and that in his numerous productions, some of which appear to us almost admirable, at any rate touching and delicious or piquant and finely comic in observation, there is a dreadful pell-mell. What a throng of volumes, what a flight of tales, novels of all sorts, droll, philosophic, and theosophic. There is something to be enjoyed in each, no doubt, but what prolixity! In the elaboration of a subject, as in the detail ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... vain was pursuit, though some followed pell-mell: Through bramble and thicket they floundered and fell. On the backs of their coursers some dozed as before, And missed not the bride till they ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... open upon this multitude, crammed together near the bank, and each anxiously expecting the turn to pass, a shriek of utter terror ran through them, and men, women, horses, and waggons rushed at once, pell-mell, upon the bridges. The larger of these, intended solely for waggons and cannon, ere long broke down, precipitating all that were upon it into the dark and half-frozen stream. The scream that rose at this moment, says one that heard it, "did not leave my ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... it while the servants were belaboring to break open, but the storm was too heavy, and, raising a sash, I went through: and, in good faith, I believe she bounced through after me; for, when I got fairly into the street and looked round, there she went, bounce, flounce, pell-mell, all in a rage, steam up, puffing like a porpoise—though, thank Jupiter! she took another course from myself. I was glad to get out of her clutches, I ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... distraught to fetch Marian, do tilt pell-mell into Lord Robert, who hath come down to Amhurste for a week ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... Pertinax with gleeful shout, Plucked forth his blade and fiercely laid about. "Ha, rogues! Ha, knaves! Most scurvy dogs!" he cried. While point and edge right lustily he plied And smote to earth the foremost of the crew, Then, laughing, pell-mell leapt on other two. The fourth rogue's thrust, Duke Joc'lyn blithely parried Right featly with the quarter-staff he carried. Then 'neath the fellow's guard did nimbly slip And caught him in a cunning wrestler's grip. Now did they reel and stagger to and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... houses and saloons as they galloped by. There were eight or ten policemen on the truck, however, and there was no disturbance until they came to a place where the street was blocked with a dense throng. Those on the flying truck yelled a warning and the crowd scattered pell-mell, disclosing one of the steers lying in its blood. There were a good many cattle butchers about just then, with nothing much to do, and hungry children at home; and so some one had knocked out the steer—and as a first-class man can kill and dress one in a couple of minutes, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... succession and then the searchlights, being concentrated, struck the airship, revealing its presence to the troops below. Instantly a spirited fusillade broke out. The airmen, by throwing ballast and other portable articles overboard pell-mell, rose rapidly, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... consultations,—fresh rush on rush, now here, now there,—fierce shouts above, below, behind,—shrieks of agony, choked groans and gasps of dying men,—scaling-ladders hurled down with all their rattling freight,—dull mine-explosions, ringing cannon-thunder, as the old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep. It is all there: truly enough there, at least, to madden yet more Elsley's wild angry brain, till he tries to add his shouts to the great battle-cries of land and sea, and finds them as little audible as ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... hats, and many-coloured parasols, and silken rugs, and cloaks, and streaming ribbons, and dainty whites; when looking down into the lock from the quay, you might fancy it was a huge box into which flowers of every hue and shade had been thrown pell-mell, and lay piled up in a rainbow heap, ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... with their heads in the dust; others were left with heads snapped off and dangling in grey withered leaves, or with branches glinting white splinters and stripped naked, as in the dead of winter. In an orchard the fruit trees were smashed, uprooted, heaped pell-mell in a tangle of broken branches, bare twisted trunks, fragments of stump a foot or a yard high, here a tree slashed off short, lifted, and flung a dozen yards, and left head down and trunk in air; there a row of currant bushes with a yawning shell-crater in the middle, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... to the door. Before the triple assault it fell at last, and the three tumbled pell-mell downstairs into the hall. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, new faces, new years,—from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past disappointments. I am armour-proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... again. "Morgan forgot to see young Blue Arrow, his friend, before he got away, and nothing would do but that he should go back and speak to him. He said the boy would be disappointed. The men were visibly uneasy at his going, but that didn't affect him. He ordered them to wait, and back he went, pell-mell, all alone into that horde of fiends. They hadn't got over their funk, luckily, and he saw Blue Arrow and made his party call and got out again all right. He didn't tell that himself, but Sergeant O'Hara made the camp ring with it. He adores Morgan, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... yell, as the heavy drawbridge fell, Rushed the Gorbaliers pell-mell, wild as Druids; Mad with thirst for human gore, how they threatened and they swore, Till they stumbled on the floor, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... came with its cool breath and fanned him, with all his brothers, into a heavy gray cloud, after which he blew them apart and told them to join hands and hurry away to the earth. Helter-skelter down they went, rolling over each other pell-mell, till with a patter and clatter and spatter they touched the ground, and all the people ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... after 600 years having that honour in their family and name. [This must be a mistake for some other person. Robert, nineteenth earl of Oxford having died in 1632, and Aubrey de Vere, his successor, the twentieth Earl, living till 1703.] To the Park, where I saw how far they had proceeded in the Pell-mell, and in making a river through the Park, which I had never seen before since it was begun. Thence to White Hall garden, where I saw the King in purple mourning for ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... left Nottingham a week ago, and made our first stage to Derby, where we had to wait an hour or two at a great, bustling, pell-mell, crowded railway station. It was much thronged with second and third class passengers, coming and departing in continual trains; for these were the Whitsuntide holidays, which set all the lower orders of English people astir. This time of festival was evidently the origin of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... persons do the same. When the buffalo have been thus directed to the entrance of the pound, the Indian who leads them rushes into it and out at the other side, either by jumping over the enclosure or creeping through an opening left for that purpose. The buffalo tumble in pell-mell at his heels, almost exhausted, but keep moving around the enclosure from east to west, and never in a direction against the sun. What appeared extraordinary to me on those occasions was that, when word was given to the camp of the near approach ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... itself in a thousand fashions. We have palaces and ruins; gardens and solitudes: the horizon lengthens in the distance, or suddenly contracts; huts and stables, columns and triumphal arches, all lie pell-mell, and often so close that we might find room for all on the same sheet ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... the hedge close to the church; the gun squad serving it must have been found by the fire of our gunners; for presently there is noticeable in that quarter a foot race of red-trousered infantrymen. In the moaning of the shells there mingles the rattling of shrapnel. A whole group tumbles pell-mell; yonder one of them dashes madly this way and that, until a new load strikes him—they move like dolls in a miniature theatre; it is hard to realize at this distance that human lives ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... most things they could desire. Interest was made that they should not mix with the vulgar convicts, whose ribald choruses and loud laughter and curses could be heard from their own part of the prison, where they and the miserable debtors were confined pell-mell. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... last hundred yards had to be taken in the open. They did it under fire, on the run, with a dozen riflemen aiming at them from the fringe of blackberry bushes that bordered the mesa. Up the ridge they went pell-mell, Reeves limping the last fifty feet of the way. An almost spent bullet had struck him in the fleshy part of the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... the intention of the hunters to leave things thus. They had planned a way by which the quaggas, at a certain moment, would be thrown into a complete panic, and thus forced pell-mell upon the pit. In this lay their hopes of securing a ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... of the whips and away trots Tom, followed by his splendid pack and his two whippers-in. Then comes the master, and we all crowd after them pell-mell with horses plunging and kicking, and as soon as we are fairly out in the open a kind of stampede takes place among the unruly young ones, and we see many an involuntary steeple-chase over the smooth green cricket-ground. Through the dark avenues of fir trees we canter to the temple, a little summerhouse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... every moment go down. The working and rolling of the vessel, at one instant of dread, displaced and destroyed all the furniture of the cabin and saloons, and, broke it to pieces, throwing the passengers pell-mell about the cabin. Everything that occupied the upper deck was washed away, and a large part of the passengers' luggage was destroyed. Between twenty and thirty of those who were on board, including several ladies, had limbs and ribs fractured, with numerous cuts and bruises. One of the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... began operations by tossing up pell-mell through the companion, and piling in a squalid heap about the wheel, all clothes, personal effects, the crockery, the carpet, stale victuals, tins of meat, and, in a word, all movables from the main cabin. Thence we transferred our attention to the captain's quarters on the starboard side. Using ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... serious wound. Seeing the turn of affairs, the last ruffian, also wounded, sped for the mansion as though a legion of demons were after him. Those who had reloaded gave the fellow half a dozen shots, but he was not hit again, and tumbled pell-mell up the veranda steps and through a doorway opened hastily ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... learn the trick of verse that in the hands of Petrarch and his followers had fashioned the sonnet and other new lyric forms. This could not be without its influence on the manners of the nation, and the scholars who had been the first to show the way were the first to deplore the pell-mell assimilation of Italian manners and vices, which was the unintended result of the inroad on insularity which had already begun. They saw the danger ahead, and they laboured to meet it as it came. Ascham in his Schoolmaster railed against the translation of Italian books, and the corrupt manners ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... vanished. Just behind where she had stood, and not twelve yards from them, there was a huge chasm in the mountain, its jagged precipitous sides clothed with thorny bushes; the men now cried out that she had made her escape that way, and down after her they rushed, pell-mell. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... the one in which Gobseck had died, a quantity of eatables of all kinds were stored—putrid pies, mouldy fish, nay, even shell-fish, the stench almost choked me. Maggots and insects swarmed. These comparatively recent presents were put down, pell-mell, among chests of tea, bags of coffee, and packing-cases of every shape. A silver soup tureen on the chimney-piece was full of advices of the arrival of goods consigned to his order at Havre, bales of cotton, hogsheads of sugar, barrels ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... into the matter," continued my uncle; "here you see we have a series of one hundred and thirty-two letters, apparently thrown pell-mell upon paper, without method or organization. There are words which are composed wholly of consonants, such as mm.rnlls, others which are nearly all vowels, the fifth, for instance, which is unteief, and one of the last oseibo. This appears an extraordinary combination. Probably ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... of laughter. The ice was broken in good earnest. "Three cheers for Ben Hay! Three cheers and a tiger for Jack Darcy!" and amid all this hubbub the men and women, the boys and girls, rushed in pell-mell. A gladder crew one never saw. To decide when others doubt, to go forward boldly when others hesitate, to stand up for the principle of right when others have traduced and blackened it, to take the first step, is to be as heroic as the "six ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... before him—and the words jumped back into their places, letters separated from their entanglement and stood like soldiers at spruce attention. A relaxing of the effort—and dismiss! helter-skelter, pell-mell went letter, word, and line. It was all a blur again. Once more he made the necessary exercise of his will and was able to read a line or two; but, if the mistiness were not to come before his eyes, the effort had to be sustained, and that made his head feel very heavy. It proved too much for ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... them a surprise; so he gathered his reins and Winchester in his left hand, drew his revolver with his right, and within thirty yards started his horse into a run, yelling like an Indian and firing his pistol in the air. As he swept by, two or three figures dashed pell-mell indoors, and he ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the low roar of a great torrent, several hundred horsemen burst through the curtain of mist, riding at a furious pace for the British guns. The rear screen of Mounted Infantry fell back before this terrific rush, and the two bodies of horsemen came pell-mell down upon the handful of Buffs and the guns. The infantry were ridden into and surrounded by the Boers, who found nothing to stop them from galloping on to the low ridge upon which the guns were ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... are, you little grumbler," said her father. "We are only going to walk round by the road to them instead of tumbling pell-mell down the hill again. Come along with me, and let these two boys talk ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... the thoroughfares were clear. The whole town was out after the sight; equestrians, pedestrians, carriages, all pell-mell; the noise and the gibbet-psalm sounded far and wide. Now, says the captain, light up, light up! We all flew like darts; they set fire to the city in three-and-thirty places at once; threw burning firebrands ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... which in turn celebrated births, mourned for the dead, summoned the people to prayer, dispelled storms of thunder and lightning, and warned of danger. Half clothed the awakened villagers would rush to stable, to cattle-shed, and pell-mell drive their flocks and herds to the castle between the two arms of the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... those would drive them pell-mell; For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well To escape from the jury of women turned loose Who have drank to its dregs ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... suspension-bridge spans the river-banks just where Vienne faces the village of St. Colombe, ancient as itself. On the right we see the massive old town built by Philippe de Valois; to the left, behind the houses, crowded together pell-mell, rises the massive pile of Vienne Cathedral. Here another tributary, the Gere, flows into the Rhone. Vienne was reputed a fosterer of poetry in classic times. At 'beautiful Vienne,' Martial boasted that his works were read with avidity. The scenery now shows ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... say? I wish it were. I wish with my heart it were. Look at the crowds for yourself. There they go down the street, pell-mell, bewildered, blinded, some of them by will-o'-the-wisp lights, ditched and mired many of them. The thing is only too ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... that: we shall be able to take care of ourselves," the God answered, while Alberich lifted the ring and the Nibelungen rushed pell-mell into the rocks again. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... length succeeded in producing; for the pretty creatures became more frightened than ever; and instead of swimming, as hitherto, in concert, and parallel to each other as they had been doing, they got huddled into a crowd, and commenced darting, pell-mell, in every direction. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... o'clock, while yet two miles short of Lexington, ominous sounds of conflict smote his ears: not the rolling volleys and stately tread of victory, but the confused noise of fight and flight, betokening irretrievable disaster. The fresh troops were formed into a hollow square, and pell-mell the hunted fugitives came rushing into their place of refuge. Exhausted by their long march and hot fight, many of them fell prone upon the ground, "their tongues," says a high authority, "hanging ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the hints, more or less incautious, of nether treasures of embroidered linen; and, leaping over all this to the eye, the vivid colourings of silks and muslins, veils, plumes and flowers, piled as it were pell-mell in heaps on the universal green cushions to the furthest vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in gilt mirrors—the spectacle intoxicated Sophia. Her eyes gleamed. She drank the soup with ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... could be clearly picked out by reason of the heaps of corpses and dead horses, piled beneath overturned cannon and broken limbers, shattered needle- guns and chassepots, all of which were scattered around pell-mell in ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... do they settle down upon wages which must appear like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught, some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is recollected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful neighbourhood ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... flash the ravenous seven went rushing Pell-mell into the house, Nor left, of the fine roast upon the table, Enough to feed ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... Conrad Lagrange determined to go back from the mountains, the way they had come. Said the novelist, "It is as unseemly to rush pell-mell from an audience with the gods as it is to enter ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... paused on the mountain path and bent their heads, but Nanni was not a religious goat! She remembered the glimpse she had had the night before of green things growing in the garden and suddenly bolted down the steep path at a break-neck speed. All the rest of the flock followed pell-mell after her, and the children were obliged to cut short their prayers in order to save the carrot-tops from being ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... true that you get life served up to you rather pell-mell, lots of it, take-it-as-it-comes," admitted Marise, "but for a gross nature like mine, once you've had that, you're lost. You know you'd starve to death on the delicate slice of toasted bread served on old china. You give up and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... second the scouts were ready. In another, the little party emerged from the house and started pell-mell down the hill in a mad race to reach the landing before ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss |
