"Sprawling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up the breach, on the express condition, however, that they should drink a bottle of wine each between the toasts. But Mr. Tooke would not give his assent unless the liquor should be brandy. By the time a quart had been quaffed Boswell was left sprawling ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the King saw coming through the sky the great straggling, sprawling, wicked shape of the Red Dragon. And he knew at once what he must do. He caught up The Book of Beasts and jumped on the back of the gentle, beautiful Hippogriff, and leaning down he whispered in the sharp, white ear: "Fly, dear Hippogriff, fly your ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... rescued by the lady of the house; the Dog was once more sprawling on the boards when the man on Jack's trail arrived. He carried, not a gun, but a stout stick, sometimes called "dog-medicine," and that was all that prevented the Dog attacking the enemy of ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... felt a severe blow from behind, which sent him sprawling. I also received a push or a drive, and a loud laugh burst ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... of bacon and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright Chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... resistance to chastisement by old Father Ambrose, the regular teacher; but once, when the fat old monk was sick, and a great long-legged strapping young friar, who had temporarily taken his place, undertook to administer punishment, Myles, with a wrestling trip, flung him sprawling backward over a bench into the midst of a shoal of small boys amid a hubbub of riotous confusion. He had been flogged soundly for it under the supervision of Prior Edward himself; but so soon as his punishment was over, he assured the prior very seriously that should like occasion ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... broke a little. We had leisure to notice that even the drip from the eaves had ceased. A faint, diffused light vouchsafed us dim outlines of sprawling figures and tumbled bedding. Far in the ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... with a snarl, and snorting out a laugh still more frightfully idiotic; 'pay me, first pay what you owe me. I stopped your fine little nag for you; without my help, both you and he would be now sprawling below there in that stony ravine. Hu! from what a ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... which they need in order to secure their rapid-swimming prey, all these things make the waders, almost in spite of themselves, handsome and shapely birds. Their feet, it is true, are generally rather large and sprawling, with long, wide-spread toes, so as to distribute their weight on the snow-shoe principle, and prevent them from sinking in the deep soft mud on which they tread; but then we seldom see the feet, because ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... daylight. The noise brought my friends hurrying into the apartment, and we found, sprawling over my improvised bed, the dismayed valet, who, while bringing me my morning cup of tea, had tripped over this obstacle in the middle of the floor, and fallen on his stomach, spilling, in spite of himself, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... quay overnight after discharging her ballast with the usual disregard of the Harbour Commissioners' bye-laws; and a number of ponderable stones, now barely covered by the tide, encumbered the foot of the landing. On one of these the boat caught her heel, with a jerk that flung the two oarsmen sprawling and toppled Captain Hocken's tall hat over his nose. Mr Tregaskis thrust out a hand to catch it, but in too great a haste. The impact of his finger-tips on the edge of the crown sent the hat spinning forward over the thwart whereon sprawled Ben Price, the stroke ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... authority—the authority he had come to respect in hospital—and he waited, setting his teeth. Next moment he set them still harder, for Li Ho and the girl picked him up without ceremony and laid him, whitefaced, upon the sprawling sofa. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... as though the bullet had lodged in himself, Lanyard tumbled back into the room, tripped, and fell sprawling; while to a tune of clattering boots two sergents de ville lumbered valiantly into the library and pulled up to discover Madame Omber standing calmly, safe and sound, beside her desk, and Lanyard picking himself up from the floor by the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... all gone to mildew—cows beneath willows by the creek, milkweeds dripping, dried mullein weed stalks no longer dry. The bank of the stream was so slippery that she shot down two feet, and nearly went sprawling. Her knee did touch the bank, and the skirt of her gray sports-suit showed a ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... was, she had made no attempt to pry into her husband's business, but spent the days preparing for the journey, she and the nut-brown sprawling child of immense girth, who was the apple of ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Hiram got some few yards from the hitching rack, the seat was suddenly pulled from under him, and he was left sprawling on his back in ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... or kummil (a spirit prepared with cummin) at every hand. Wild snatches of song, and hurried bursts of dialogue. Some are all violence and uproar; some are half dead with sleep and fatigue, their arms sprawling about the tables. Such is the inside of ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... saw his opportunity and before the huge beast could right himself, he had swiftly cast the loop of his rope around one of the sprawling hind legs and ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... in his library, had never left her mind. She thought of them now when she and Nannie sat down in that silence of waiting which seems to tingle with speech. The dim light from the gas-jet by the mantelpiece did not penetrate beyond the dividing arch of the great room; behind the grand piano sprawling sidewise between the black marble columns, all was dark. The shadow of the chandelier, muffled in its balloon of brown paper muslin, made an island of darkness on the ceiling, and the four big canvases were four black oblongs outlined ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... he catapulted himself across the room and with a vicious upper-cut sent the emissary sprawling unconscious to the floor. Without a thought of himself he rushed into the next room where Eva now stood in panic, glued to the spot, in fear of the Frankenstein monster that would ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... line. The Benton quarter launched himself forward. Carmine swung to the left and leaped. A hand groped at his ankle, caught, and Carmine fell sprawling to the turf. But he found his feet like a cat, wrenched the imprisoned ankle free and went staggering, stumbling on. Again he fell, on the five-yard line, and again the Benton quarter dived for him. But Carmine was not to be stopped ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... uplifted wrist with both hands, Applegate pounced on the other arm. Pringle leaped through the doorway. But something happened swifter than Pringle's swift rush. Foy's knee shot up to Applegate's stomach. Applegate fell, sprawling. Foy hurled himself on Creagan and bore him crashing to the floor. Foy whirled over; he rose on one hand and knee, gun drawn, visibly annoyed; also considerably astonished at the unexpected advent of Mr. Pringle. Applegate lay groaning on the floor. Pringle kicked his gun from the holster and set ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... fire, Vic. It begins to look spooky back here. I've just had my ear to the ground and I heard an awful roaring somewhere." Trench, who had been sprawling lazily in the shadows, now declared, "Say, I'd hate to be penned into this place so I couldn't get out. There's no skinning up that rock wall even if a fellow could swim the river, and I can't," and the big guard stretched himself ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... 'the yards' used to assemble regularly to see Dominie Sampson (for he had already attained that honourable title) descend the stairs from the Greek class, with his lexicon under his arm, his long misshapen legs sprawling abroad, and keeping awkward time to the play of his immense shoulder-blades, as they raised and depressed the loose and threadbare black coat which was his constant and only wear. When he spoke, the efforts of the professor (professor of divinity though ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... into moving footsteps, and the front door opened and closed with a bang. Mr. Grimm's listless eyes snapped, and his white teeth came together sharply as he started toward the front door. But fate seemed to be against him still. He stumbled over a chair, and his own impetus forward sent him sprawling; his head struck the wall with a resounding whack; and then, over the house, came utter silence. From outside he heard the clatter of a cab. Finally that ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... flowers, which are 1in. to 2in. across, are borne on slender stems, 4in. to 6in. long. They are nearly white, but have various tints, bluish reflections, with a line of blue in each petal. The leaves resemble those of the snowdrop when overgrown and turning flabby, and have a somewhat untidy and sprawling habit; they are abundantly produced from the rather small cocoon-shaped bulbs. On the whole, the plant is very ornamental when in flower, and the bloom is produced more or less for many weeks; at any rate, it is an early flower, and if it cannot be used indoors it should be ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... the plaza, and we raced for the barrack wall, each of us yelling as we ran. A half dozen of us reached there in time to throw ourselves against the gate that was just closing, and the next instant I fell sprawling ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... of the kind that for distinction's sake is called royal, now raged with the utmost violence during a few minutes; till Blifil being a second time laid sprawling by Jones, Thwackum condescended to apply for quarter to his new antagonist, who was now found to be Mr Western himself; for in the heat of the action none of the combatants had ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... how long a while, Perion propped his chin between his hands and, still sprawling upon the rushes, stared hard into the little, crackling fire. He was thinking of a Perion de la Foret that once had been. In him might have been found a fit mate for Melicent had this boy not died very ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... dandled the bundle laboriously, like some bony prophetess—Judith, or Deborah, or Jael. He had last seen the baby sprawling on the knees of Miss Abbott, shining and naked, with twenty miles of view behind him, and his father kneeling by his feet. And that remembrance, together with Harriet, and the darkness, and the poor idiot, and the silent rain, filled him with sorrow and with the expectation ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... gate Dragonfly was on was as wide open as it could go, and Dragonfly who didn't have a very good hold with his hands—and the gate being icy anyway—slipped off and went sprawling head over heels into a ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... in the dining-room; she was pacing up and down the room with a small black kitten in her arms, but the moment Audrey appeared the kitten was discarded, and flung upon four trembling, sprawling legs, and Mollie sprang towards her, almost overwhelming her with ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... motors change in pitch, and the needle-nosed shuttle plane began to dip once more toward the horizon. Ahead he could see the sprawling lights of Hospital Seattle, stretching from the Cascade Mountains to the sea and beyond, north to Alaska and south toward the great California metropolitan centers. Somewhere down there was a council room where a dozen of the most powerful physicians on Hospital Earth, now sleeping soundly, ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... confessed to me that, but at some certain times, that is, I suppose, when she apprehends being with child, he never has the privilege of using the familiarity of a husband with a wife. He was once given to scrambling with his hands, and sprawling in his sleep, and ever since she has him swaddled up in blankets, and his hands and feet swathed down, and so put to bed; and there he lies with a great beard, like a Russian bear upon a drift of snow. You are very great with ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... either beauty or utility. By the Washington monument, if completed, neither would be achieved. An obelisk with the proportions of a needle may be very graceful; but an obelisk which requires an expanse of flat-roofed, sprawling buildings for its base, and of which the shaft shall be as big as a cathedral tower, cannot be graceful. At present some third portion of the shaft has been built, and there it stands. No one has a word to say for it. No one thinks ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... have rats, mice, toads, bugs, and all sorts of creepy things sent sprawling over one's clean kitchen floor. But the pity of it was that Mrs. Edwards did not understand her boy, and thought the only cure for what she deemed his mischievous propensity as whipping. So Tommy was whipped and scolded, and scolded and whipped, which, however, did ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... with the ruins which lay not many miles from Homeport. And he knew that that sprawling, devastated metropolis was not taboo to the merman. But this other mysterious settlement he had recently heard of was still shunned by the sea people. Only Sssuri and a few others of youthful years would consider a journey to ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... the path and down again, talking of dogs, because it happened that Tom Tripe's enormous beast was sprawling in the shadow of a rose-bush at the farther end. The commissioner did not like dogs. "Something loathsome about them—degrading—especially the big ones." She disagreed. She liked them, cold wet noses and all, even in the dark. Tom Tripe, stepping behind a bush with the obvious purpose of ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... to the drivers, who were sprawling in the carriages, perfuming the cushions with cigars. The miscreant, a bony young man scorched black by the sun, rose to greet her with the courtesy of a host and ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... and, knowing his own great strength, he watched his opportunity as the guards led him from the prince's quarters towards the Bastile. He suddenly wrenched himself away, and knocked one of them sprawling upon ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... so mighty brisk yourself. When you're not sprawling on the top of the oven you're squatting on the bench. To goad others to work is ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... about her ankles as she ran; it was a windy, chilly night, and, in spite of the fact that it was a steep climb to the top of the low bluff, she was chilled to the bone when she came panting into the sprawling cluster of habitations that formed the temporary town of White Horse. Tents were scattered over a dim, stumpy clearing, lights shone through trees that were still standing, a meandering trail led past a straggling row of canvas-topped structures, and ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... of news from the morning paper; they read out bits of home news from their stacks of correspondence, written for the most part on eight pages and in the sprawling, uncontrolled script of the woman who has nothing but trivialities with which to ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... had me by the throat, there was no chance for me at all. I got hold of his thumb and bent it back, until he let go with a yell. In a bound, I was on my feet, and easily sent him sprawling to the floor. Then I made a dive for the open window, struck the wire screen, knocked it out, and tumbled after it into ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... seen wild-fowl alone in that island enough to feed them all the year round. I was there in the moulting-time, and saw them take,—one day one hundred, one two hundred; and once, as I am a belted knight, a thousand duck out of one single mere. There is a wood there, with herons sprawling about the tree-tops,—I did not think there were so many in the world,—and fish for Lent and Fridays in every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every old-wife's table; while the knights think scorn of anything worse than smelts ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the movement forward was resumed. There was a small stream to cross, and a long hill, and then they entered into the depths of a primeval forest, where the tops of the trees were a hundred feet and more overhead, and the great twisted roots lay sprawling in all directions, covered partly with moss and decayed leaves. The trail was still visible, but the branches of the trees on either side met overhead, cutting off the sunlight and making it uncomfortably ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... Oh, me and him are purty good friends now. Gee-whoa-haw," continued he, taking hold of the string behind, and endeavouring to drive the silent captive like an ox. The young chief whirled round indignantly, and with such force as to send Sneak sprawling several paces to one side. He rose amid the laughter that ensued, and remembering the words of Boone, conducted his prisoner away in a ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... the side of the cattle pony, and, as the horse veered away, Hal Dozier dropped limply into his arms. He lay with his limbs sprawling at odd angles beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyes were bright and wide, and his ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Sprawling comfortably in the chair he lit his pipe, his ear on the alert to catch the slightest sound of the captive in the cask above. The warm air was laden with the scent of flowers, and nothing stirred with ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... was deserted; we saw from that time neither man nor beast. I was cramped and painfully tired, and feeling that if I could but walk for a few minutes it would be quite a relief, I dismounted—quite a difficult thing to do and keep from sprawling upon the ground. But I was no sooner off my horse than Haleel was beside me, and my dragoman, who was at that time nearly a hundred yards ahead of me, rode back and sternly commanded: "You get right back on that horse; this is no time to think of walking; you can do that some other time." ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... eat you now," shouted Reddy Fox, and then he sprang on Peter Rabbit's baby brother and gave him a cuff that sent him heels over head sprawling in the grass. ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... addressed was at the moment lying in a somewhat undignified position on the floor. Half sprawling, half resting on one knee, Robbie was surprised in the midst of an amusement of which the perky little body whom he claimed as his sweetheart had previously expressed her high disdain. This consisted ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... oath against the Six, I gave certain orders, and then rested in greater contentment than I had known for some time. I was at work; and work, though it cannot cure love, is yet a narcotic to it; so that Sapt, who grew feverish, marvelled to see me sprawling in an armchair in the sunshine, listening to one of my friends who sang me amorous songs in a mellow voice and induced in me a pleasing melancholy. Thus was I engaged when young Rupert Hentzau, who feared neither man nor devil, and rode through the demesne—where ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... jumped aboard the locomotive, unheeding Chester's cry of wonder, released the brakes, and threw the throttle wide open. Then he dropped sprawling to the ground, while the engine dashed ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... mathematical precision. The objects around him, however, have all been tampered with by a mischievous wag, the result being that when he dips his pen into the inkstand he draws it out all covered with mud, when he fancies he is sitting down on a solid chair he finds himself sprawling on the floor, in a word his actions are all topsy-turvy or mere beating the air, while in every case the effect is invariably one of momentum. Habit has given the impulse: what was wanted was to check the movement or deflect it. He did nothing of the sort, but continued like ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... original cabins had spread by an addition of one or two or three to sprawling bungalow size. Not an atom of their wooden structure showed. Blocks of green, cubes of color, only open doorways and windows betrayed that they were dwelling-places. A tide of tropical jungle beat in waves of green with crests of rainbow up to the very ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... road was littered with bodies. Sprawling in ghastly fashion, the faces had almost the same greenish-gray hue as the uniforms worn. The road is lined with poplars, the branches of which, severed by fragments of shells, were strewn among the dead. In places whole tops of trees had been torn ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... to notice the young thrall when he came among them and began to refill the empty cups. The older men, sprawling on the sun-flecked grass and over the rude benches, were still drowsy from too deep soundings in too many mead horns. The four young people were talking together. They sat a little apart in the shade of some birch trees which served as rests for their backs,—Helga enthroned on a bit of ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Magellan Mr. Harley would have him in his power, filled Storri with an angry uneasiness. He decided that for his own security, if nothing more, he might better bestir himself to gain a counter-grip upon Mr. Harley. And thereupon Storri began to lie in ambush for Mr. Harley; and at a lurking, sprawling warfare that sets gins and dead-falls, and bases itself on surprise, your savage makes a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and pitched forward upon his knees, his arms sprawling helplessly out before him. It was characteristic of the man that he had not uttered a sound; only as Burke stayed his hand his breathing came with a whistling noise through the tense silence, as of a wounded animal brought to earth. His face ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... foremost of the Indians came up. He approached Carson with the air of a man sure of an easy victory, and, with a bland smile, proffered one hand in friendship, while, with the other, he grasped Kit's rifle. A powerful blow from the fist of the latter released his hold and instantly laid him sprawling upon the ground. The other Indians, seeing the fate of their companion, hastened to his rescue. When they reached talking distance, Kit, standing with his rifle brought to his shoulder, informed them that, upon the first hostile ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... from the warrior's grasp and wielded by muscular hand, came down with resounding whack on the head of the struggling chief, and for the second time, in the very face of his astonished braves, Red Dog, the redoubtable, went sprawling to earth, downed by the white chief whom ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... sounded something beneath Hans' feet. Next his strokes grew shorter, ending oftimes with a jerk, and finally, he lay sprawling upon the ice, kicking against the air ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... time he aroused, for some part, and the things about him began to take form. He saw that the ground in the deep shadows was cluttered with men, sprawling in every conceivable posture. Glancing narrowly into the more distant darkness, he caught occasional glimpses of visages that loomed pallid and ghostly, lit with a phosphorescent glow. These faces expressed in their lines the deep stupor of the ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... to see it safely past. Just as the horses emerged from the fog, a man came up behind and lurched violently against me and, strangely enough, at the same moment passed his foot in front of mine. Of course I went sprawling into the road right in front of the lorry. The horses came stamping and sliding straight on to me, and, before I could wriggle out of the way, the hoof of one of them smashed in my hat—that was a new one that I came home in—and half-stunned ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... of pain and amazement, the man shot sprawling over the bank, and landed, half-stunned, in a clump of blueberry bushes. Dazed and furious, he picked himself up, passed a heavy hand across his scratched, smarting face, and turned to see the ram disappearing among the thickets above the road. ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... pivoted on his heel; his open hand caught Vahr just below the ear and knocked him sprawling. It must have been some kind of trick-blow. That or else the slim stranger was stronger than ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... of conversation with her godmother, who did her best to sympathise except on the subject of Kettles; but nothing made up for the loss of Nancy and her brothers—not even the long letters which the former sent now and then from Easney, written in a bold sprawling hand, covering three sheets of paper, and a good deal blotted. Here is ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... the armchair in which he was seated. He was Inspector Gorton of the Sussex County Constabulary. Malcolm Sage nodded a little absently. His eyes were keenly taking in every detail of the figure sprawling across the writing-table. The head rested on the left cheek, and there was an ugly wound in the right temple from which blood had dripped and congealed upon the table. In the right hand was clutched a small, automatic pistol. The arm was ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... George Eliot wished that she could inflict on one of those literary slovens whose manuscripts bring even the most philosophic editor to the point of exasperation: 'I should like to stick red-hot skewers through the writer, whose style is as sprawling as his handwriting.' By all means. But much that even the most sympathetic reader finds repellent in George Eliot's later work might perhaps never have been, if Mr. Lewes had not practised with more than Russian rigour ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... who had threatened him drop; he took the girl with him as he fell, and his spear flew wildly from his open hand. Garry was alone!—and the enemy was only a tangle of sprawling bodies where the twitching of an outflung arm marked the last ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... was rising rapidly now, not an inch at a time but inches, for the days were warmer—warm enough to start rivulets running from sheltered snowbanks in the mountains. Daily the distance increased from shore to shore. Sprawling trees, driftwood, carcasses, the year's rubbish from draws and gulches, swept by on the broad bosom of the yellow flood. The half-submerged willows were bending in the current and water-mark after water-mark disappeared on the ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... at last to a gap in the hills and looked down on Morgantown in the hollow, twoscore unpainted houses sprawling along a single street. The snow was everywhere white and pure, and the town was like a stain on the landscape with wisps of smoke rising and ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... gravel slithered and slid under the heels of Old Pie Face as Skinny Rawlins whirled the broncho into the open space in front of the low-built, sprawling, adobe ranch house of the Quarter Circle KT and reined the pinto to a sudden stop. Skinny had been to Eagle Butte and with other things brought back the mail. It was hot, late June, the time between cutting ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... like a shot and jerked the door open. There was a rattle, a series of thumps, and a crash. Lute was sprawling upon the floor at our feet. I gazed at him in ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... at the little creatures crawling aimlessly about. Aimless, did I say? There they were, filling up the floor of the glass case, moving with difficulty, getting in each other's way, sprawling and colliding, apparently without aim or purpose. At that spectacle my thoughts might well have taken a leap into the future and seen, instead of a crowded mass of butterflies, a crowded mass of humanity. I asked Sarakoff ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... stood waiting in the dinner queue I had an imaginary fight with our Commanding Officer. I knocked him down and gloated over him as he lay sprawling in the mud with my hand savagely clutching his throat. Our pent up feelings often found ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... entreating brown eyes at her elbow, straightway forgave Toady, and released her victim so suddenly that he fell sprawling into a nest of sharp-thorned Mormon pears; but of this she was unaware, for with one swoop she gathered up the now hysterical baby, and stalked off toward the house, saying grimly, "You boys stay right where you are until you are willing to apologize and promise to behave ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... After a little persuasion the inirza is induced to try the experiment of a trundle; it is but an experiment, however, for, being less active than the khan, the first time he tumbles the bicycle over finds him sprawling on top of it, and, fearful lest he should snap some spokes, I take it in hand ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... is Beulah, just two years, and she exercises her gentle but despotic sway over all, from the least to the greatest. She is continually upsetting the standard of neatness which was once the glory of this Home, by sprawling on the floors, dragging after her a headless doll with sawdust oozing from every pore. A dilapidated bunny and several mangled pictures complete the procession. It is hopeless to protest, for she just looks as if she could not understand how any one ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... Tom's head; but in a moment it was spinning harmlessly in the air, and Jonas himself lay sprawling in the ditch. In the momentary struggle for the stick, Tom had brought it into violent contact with his opponent's forehead; and the blood welled out profusely from a deep cut on the temple. Tom was first apprised of this by seeing that he pressed his handkerchief to the wounded part, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... gentleman, with one arm, removed his cloak, and stretching forward the other into Hayes's face almost, stretched likewise forward a little boy, grinning and sprawling in the air, and prevented only from falling to the ground by the hold which the Ensign kept of the waistband of his little coat ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... low-lying hills began to cast cool shadows down their eastern slopes, there appeared against the velvet green of the distance the sprawling blotch of a little town, ugly, naked, and unashamed in its bustling newness. And nearer, by a mile or more, on a green slope which caught the golden-red rays of the sinking sun, was a little enclosure, naked and ugly ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... name of his sister, coupled with that of John Burrill, brought him staggering to his feet, and a few moments later, a plain statement of the facts, hurled bluntly at him by one of the loungers, sobered him completely. In an instant he had laid his informant sprawling in the saloon sawdust. He declared it a calumny, as you did, and declared war upon the lot of them. Soon kinder hands rescued him from these tormentors, and men he could not doubt convinced him of the truth ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the air of the hold had glowed dull-red at the moment of the explosion. In the twinkling of an eye, in an infinitesimal fraction of a second since the first tilt of the bench, I was sprawling full length on the cargo. I picked myself up and scrambled out. It was quick like a rebound. The deck was a wilderness of smashed timber, lying crosswise like trees in a wood after a hurricane; an immense curtain of soiled rags waved gently before me—it was the mainsail ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... in that direction. The play takes us back to 1809, when Napoleon appeared a second time outside the gates of Vienna. The central character, Medardus Klaehr, is said to be historical. The re-created atmosphere of old Vienna is at once convincing and amusing. But the play is too sprawling, too scattered, to get firm hold on the reader. There are seventy-four specifically indicated characters, not to mention groups of dumb figures. And while the title page speaks of five acts and a ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... leaning and sprawling round her, half in and half out of the window, told the story, the triumph overcoming all compunction, as they described the morning raid, the successful scaling of the park-wall, the rush across the sward, the silence ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pitying faces bent over me, but where was I now? Again I opened my eyes, and noted the gay patchwork covering of the bed, and the green paper curtain of the window in the golden wall—green, with a tall yellow flower-pot on it, with sprawling roses of blue and red. Turning with an effort toward the side whence all the brightness came, in a moment two warm arms were round my neck, and a face that I could not see was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... keen scent of horse-sweat passed from him through the room. For a moment he stood at the door, bracing himself with legs spread wide apart, and stared wildly about—then he reeled drunkenly across the room and fell into a chair, sprawling at ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... brought in a batch of duplicate certificates for the Commissioner to sign. As he traced his sprawling signature, "Hollis Summerfield, Comr. Genl. Land Office," on each one, the chief clerk stood, deftly removing ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... separated the road from the woods. He was going so fast that instead of climbing that fence and balancing on the top and jumping off he jest simply seemed to hit the top rail and bounce on over, like he had been throwed out of the heart of the woods, and he fell sprawling over and over in the road, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... responded, and at the same moment the bedroom door was flung open, and her brother, who had been hastily fetched by the neighbours on the other side, burst into the room and with one hearty blow sent Mr. Grummit sprawling. ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... and senseless in his place, Prone and sprawling on his face, More like brute than any man Alive or dead, By his great pump out of gear, Lay the peon engineer, Waking only just to hear, Overhead, Angry tones that called his name, Oaths and cries of bitter blame,— Woke to hear ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... with a twist in the coward's collar, that, with the help of an opportune kick by Kent, sent him sprawling down ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... the tower, and I mighty near killed myself doing it. When I glanced up, that little head on the end of its long neck was coming straight down on top of me, and once more I tumbled into greater safety, sprawling upon the ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hand, to guard against any mistake. The man on horseback rode toward him, while the sprawling army of Cos still slept. Then Ned saw clearly that it was Obed, and that he rode a magnificent black horse, sixteen hands high, as fiery as any that could ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... few steps the woman gave a shriek as if she were suffering some intermittent agony which caught her at regular intervals. At the sight of the crowd she gave a quick cry of despair, and ran forward, leaving her child sprawling on the road. She knelt by the dead man's side with shriek after shriek, and seemed to lose all control over herself, for she gave way to those strange gestures of despair of which many read in novels and ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... that note the letter ended, and underneath was his sprawling signature, "H. Bryce," written as firmly as ever ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... and leave them to the ants, who soon stream in. Those who have seen them say that it is a wonderful spectacle. Nothing living escapes them. They search every hole, nook, and cranny. Here, dozens may be seen surrounding a great spider or scorpion; there, they chase sprawling long-legged creatures across the window-panes; yonder, hundreds of them may be observed dragging out a rat or a mouse which they have killed: even snakes can not escape from the sharp and poisonous bite of these bold foragers. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to believe, an affair as far off as the opening nineteenth century. I do not forget as a young man filling a newspaper poster with the title of an article which recounted from my own observation the woes of women chain makers who, with bared breasts and their infants sprawling in the small coals, slaved in domestic smithies for a pittance. And as I write it is announced that the head of the United States Steel Corporation says that "there is no necessity for trade unions," which are, in his opinion, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... ashore; some would not wait for a boat; the Mary Ann had swung close to the bank, and they made running jumps from the rail, to land sprawling in the shallows or to plump out of sight and swim. When the Adams party finally stepped from the skiff to the levee (which was called embarcadero, of course) they were fairly deafened by a multitude of cries from citizens who insisted upon their buying lots. But ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... sprawling in a soft leather chair in front of the open fire. With the privilege of an old school-fellow and college classmate, he had been jabbing the soft coal with his walking-stick, causing it to burst into tiny flames. His cigarette drooped from his lips, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... and palms stretched up against the sky, and beneath him scores of shrieking blacks fought in their boats for a place beside the steamer's companion-way. He jumped into one of these open wherries and fell sprawling among his baggage, and laughed lightly as a boy as the boatman set him on his feet again, and then threw them from under him with a quick stroke of the oars. The high, narrow pier was crowded with excited customs ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... a frantic lunge at the brindled streak as it whirled past him, with the result that he overbalanced himself and went sprawling on the floor with a crash. I ran to help him up, which only ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... brought; and five little sprawling kittens, with their eyes scarcely open, were soon crawling at my feet. "Oh, you dear little ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... and he resumed his reading. Suddenly something in the text suggested a thought which made him start and drop the book for the third time to the side of the sofa, whence, escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the floor, back upward. Brayton, half-risen, was staring intently into the obscurity beneath the bed, where the points of light shone with, it seemed to him, an added fire. His attention was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and imperative. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... cuddle, Such queer little hearts to beat, Such swift, round tongues to kiss, Such sprawling, cushiony feet; She could feel in her clasping fingers The touch of a satiny skin And a cold wet nose exploring The ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... on a knee beside the sprawling, huddled figure. No second glance was needed to see that the man was dead. Life had been trampled out of him almost instantly and his features battered beyond any possible recognition. Unused to scenes ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... American mail, a week earlier than by computation. The computation, not the mail, is supposed to be in error. The vols. of Scribner's have arrived, and present a noble appearance in my house, which is not a noble structure at present. But by autumn we hope to be sprawling in our verandah, twelve feet, sir, by eighty-eight in front, and seventy-two on the flank; view of the sea and mountains, sunrise, moonrise, and the German fleet at anchor three miles away in Apia harbour. I hope some day to offer you a bowl of kava there, or a slice of a pine-apple, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
