"Swirl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bank above, where lay a score of other anxious boats, Kit and his companions went ahead on foot to investigate. They crept to the brink and gazed down at the swirl of water. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... he sat at his desk, before he had time to be conscious of the summons. God had called him. Yes? What? Yes? His flesh shrank together as it felt the approach of the ravenous tongues of flames, dried up as it felt about it the swirl of stifling air. He had died. Yes. He was judged. A wave of fire swept through his body: the first. Again a wave. His brain began to glow. Another. His brain was simmering and bubbling within the cracking ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... all was blackness. Out of the dark came the breathing of the horses, fastened near the tobacco-cask, the croaking of frogs in a marshy place, and all the stealthy, indefinable stir of the forest at night. At times the wind brought a swirl of dead leaves across the ring of light, an owl hooted, or one of the sleeping dogs stirred and raised his head, then sank to dreams again. The tobacco-roller, weary from the long day's travel, wrapped himself in a blanket ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... gone. He had watched her from the steps until she had reached the end of the Square where the swirl of passing traffic had engulfed her. At the last moment she had looked back and smiled. For some minutes after she had vanished, he had stood there recalling the way in which her brave little figure had tripped out of sight among the blustering ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... a splash, and quick as a flash I knew he could not swim. I saw him whirl in the river swirl, and thresh his arms about. In a queer, strained way I heard Dick say: "I'm going after him," Throw off his coat, leap down the boat — and then I gave a shout: "Boys, grab him, quick! You're crazy, Dick! Far better one than two! Hell, man! You know you've ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station, and a reluctant porter opened his vestibule door to descend to the snow-swept platform: a solitary passenger had reached the journey's end. The swirl of snow and sleet screaming out of the blackness at the end of the station-building enveloped the porter in an instant, and cut his ears and neck with stinging force as he turned his back against the gale. A pair of lonely, half-obscured platform lights gleamed fatuously ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the swirl and eddy of human currents met and became a cauldron and whirlpool, he was held up at a crossing, while the crowd shrunk back on itself, waiting the raised ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... through even his heavy sweater and coat, he went on, following the tracks he had made coming down. They were almost obliterated with the snow, that went slithering over the drifts like a creeping cloud, except when a heavier gust lifted it high in air and flung it out in a blinding swirl. Battling with that wind sent the warmth through his body again, but his hands and feet were numb when he skirted the highest, deepest, solidest drift of them all and crept into the desolate fissure that was the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... the cavern, or on a rock, or being sucked down in the raging waters, or perhaps asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many other modes of death presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottom of the canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ran whither we knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and that was Alphonse's intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre of the canoe, and even that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed, the whole thing overpowered my brain, and I began to ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... the turmoil, was a black rock. It was a precarious foothold, a place to shrink from in terror. The sea reached for it; the greater waves boiled over and sucked it bare. It was wet, slimy, overhanging death. Beyond the brink was a swirl of broken water—a spent breaker, crashing in, streaked with irresistible current ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... met a swirl of smoke, with an occasional tongue of flame shooting through it from a shattered window. At the same moment they encountered a brass-helmeted fellow springing boldly up through ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... blue gloom, they stood gazing into the azure depths of the cavern, which grew darker till they were purple and then utterly black. Then they listened to the gurgle and babble of the tiny river, as it came rushing and dashing over the rock in many an eddy and swirl, while from far away up in the darkness there were mysterious whisperings and musical echoes ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... showers which had been falling upon hundreds of square miles of precipitous mountin sides were now gorging through the crooked, narrow throat of the Little Rockcastle. The torrent filled the ragged banks to the brim, and in their greedy swirl undermined and tore from there logs, great trees, and ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... anxious minute, swinging their lanterns far out over the current. Suddenly Glen thrust the lantern he held into Apple's hand and made a quick jump into the swirl of waters. He was up in a moment ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... day. Endlessly, ceaselessly the Pit, enormous, thundering, sucked in and spewed out, sending the swirl of its mighty central eddy far out through the city's channels. Terrible at the centre, it was, at the circumference, gentle, insidious and persuasive, the send of the flowing so mild, that to embark upon it, yielding ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Telles, which lasted only from April 11 until May 4; that of Wencelao de Lima, extending from May 4 to December 21; and that of Beirao, which continued from December 21 to early June of the following year. The De Lima cabinet was formed from elements which stood largely outside the swirl of party politics, (p. 640) but the Republican and Regenerador opposition was so intense that nothing could be accomplished by it. The Beirao government by which it was succeeded was composed entirely of Progressives. The Speech from the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... courage was of the heart and will, not of the head. He had small hope of reaching the hut at the entrance of Dead Man's Gulch or, if he could struggle so far, of finding it in the white swirl that clutched at them. Near and far are words not coined for a blizzard. He might stagger past with safety only a dozen feet from him. He might lie down and die at the very threshold of the door. Or he might wander in an opposite direction and miss the cabin ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... to do about it? What do we propose to do with more than two millions for whom Christ died, American citizens, in the very heart of our Nation, around whom the currents of commerce and industry swirl every day? Shall the greatest tidal wave of all time pass them by, and they not feel it for a moment? More than all, shall the great gospel of God, which is life, and hope, and peace, and home, for us, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... only a few minutes when they sighted Mascola's speed-boat astern. The girl frowned as the Fuor d'Italia roared by in a swirl of white water. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... fleet boldly sailed on its tremendous mission. The smoke of its funnels made but a tiny smudge on the wide, shining Southern skies. But with swift and terrible swirl this cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, grew into a storm whose black shadow ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... was a bad one. The bronco was carried down into a swirl of deep, angry water. So swift was the undertow that Powder River was dragged from beneath its rider. Bob caught at the mane of the horse and clung desperately to it with one hand. A second or two, and this was ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... vain to discern anything ahead of us—the blinding, blazing sun prevented my seeing aught but a mad seething swirl of water just beneath our bows, and on each side of us. Evers, however, ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... and, crossing to the door, opened it and hastily closed it again as a swirl of fine snow-powder enveloped him. Hedin caught the muffled roar of the wind, and in the draught of cold air that swept the room, the big swinging lamp flared smokily. Murchison returned to his chair and filled his pipe. "How's John's daughter comin' along?" ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... another boat, or at a fish "rising to itself," or at the sky, or at something else. When the eyes were turned to the point from which they should not have been diverted, they were just in time to see the water swirl, and the hand gave a futile strike at what had disappeared a second before. Perhaps we should have said at the beginning of this chapter to place implicit faith in the flies with which you are fishing. Nothing is more ridiculous ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... spoke, he sank again, and the water closed in a swirl over his head, while, after taking a long breath, I dived under into the depths, with the water thundering in my ears, as, during what seemed to be a long space of time, though less than a minute, of course, I groped and swam about till a curious sensation of confusion came over me, and, frightened ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... having put forth all his strength; and in an instant, as if touched by some divine spell, the agitation ceased, and he was himself again. In three minutes more he was by Susan's side, had gripped her by the bathing-dress at the back of the neck, and had managed to avail himself of a little swirl which turned inwards just before the rocks were reached. They were safe. She nearly swooned, but recovered herself after a fit ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... or the man's plight might have been more bearable, for the current of air would have carried the smoke and fire to one side. As it was, most of the smoke and flames went straight up, save now and then, when a draught created by the heat would swirl the black clouds down on the performer, hiding him from sight for a second or two. A breeze would have carried the sparks away instead of letting them fall ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... breast, for he suddenly caught sight of the man's inert body approaching him, after gliding right round the basin. It was quite fifty feet away, and seemed for a few moments as if about to be swept out of the hollow and down the gully; but the swirl was too strong, and it continued gliding round the pool, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... downward descent. Alec unclamped the seat belt, then slammed his magnetic clamp suit boots against the outer plates of the carrier. His suit buoyancy dragged him into an awkward crouching position and he swayed and fought against both the upwards lift and the current swirl. ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... sea seemed to surge through Mr. Heatherbloom's veins; he did not come about; he did not try to. Now it was too late! That ladder!—he would seize it as they swept by. Closer his boat ran; a swirl of water caught him, threw him from his course. He made a frantic effort to regain it but without avail. The big steel bow of the great boat struck and overwhelmed ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... they hurtle past. The snow-waves hiss along the plain, Like spectral wolves they stretch and strain And race and ramp—with hissing beat, Like stealthy tread of myriad feet, I hear them pass; upon the roof The icy showers swirl and rattle; At times the moon, from storms aloof, Shines white and wan within the room— Then swift clouds drive across the light And all the plain is lost to sight, The cabin rocks, and on my palm The sifted snow falls, ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... approached. He saw men outlined against the stars and then some gleams of lanterns. Something stirred ponderously near to him. It might be a crocodile, but he dared not move. The figures seemed to stay on the top of the bank for hours. He remained rigid, expecting a swirl of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... even now recall the feeling of wondering how much longer it would be, ere all was over and I struck. Time seemed to stand still, and all the worlds seemed poised on their poles, as I fell, soul-becalmed, through the eddying whirl and swirl of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... however, until an hour had gone that the flakes began to swirl in fitful flurries. By then the travellers were making better time, and Jim was convinced the blotted sun would soon again assert its mastery over clouds so abruptly accumulated in the sky. The wind, however, had veered about. It came directly ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... dignity by their firesides; they bare their bosoms and gallop egregiously to the ball-rooms of the young; and so we lose a particular graciousness that Kings Port retains, a perspective of generations. We happen all at once, with no background, in a swirl of ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the stout old man with white whiskers looked up, and the watering can fell from his hand, shooting a swirl of water ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... day, when all the canoes were ranged side by side, their gracefully curved bows came in line; dip, swirl, thud; dip, swirl, thud, sounded all the paddles together. The time was faultless. Then it was that the picturesque brigade appeared in wild perfection. Nearing a portage, spontaneously a race began for the best landing place. Like ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... gun. I remember going through the Red Sea; at the mouth of it where the entrance is narrow, and the currents run strong, when the ship approaches the dangerous place, the men take their stations at appointed places, and the ponderous anchors are loosened and ready to be dropped in an instant if the swirl of the current sweeps the ship into dangerous proximity to the reef. It is no time to cut the lashings of the anchors when the keel is grating on the coral rocks. And it is no time to have to look about for our ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... over street and stream to establish a sort of inviolate transition between the two palaces of art. We passed along the gallery in which those precious drawings by eminent hands hang chaste and gray above the swirl and murmur of the yellow Arno, and reached the ducal saloons of the Pitti. Ducal as they are, it must be confessed that they are imperfect as show-rooms, and that, with their deep-set windows and their massive mouldings, it is rather a broken light that reaches the pictured walls. But here ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... creature, which was distant about the eighth of a mile. Twice the grass choked the wheel and twice with desperate haste it was cleared by Ned. The boat had gone many yards beyond the place where Molly had seen the animal when there was a great swirl in the water beside the craft, followed by other swirls, which grew less and less as they led in a straight line up a broad tideway that opened into the upper end of the bay. A moment later another series of swirls was seen and followed, after which, for a time, nothing was seen, although four pairs ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... the wind. In fitful gusts they rushed up the gorge, then suddenly the boughs would fall still again, and one could hear the eerie rout a-rioting far off down the valley. Now and then the glow of the fire would deepen, the coals tremble, and with a gleaming, fibrous swirl, like a garment of flames, a sudden animation would sweep over it, as if an apparition had passed, leaving a line of flying sparks to mark ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the truth. The boys were enveloped, part of the time, in a haze of smoke and a swirl of burning brands. Tired, and physically and mentally exhausted as they were, they scrambled to their feet—for they had all stretched out on the grass—and made their way to a spot where they could breathe with freedom. The mill ruins were now ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... salmon comes to the top, there is a great swirl on the water. You don't see the salmon, but you know he is ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... confused impression of curious faces, of one face especially with eager eyes and bobbing grey curls, and then she was caught, as it were, in the swirl of Aunt Caroline and deposited, somewhat breathless, in a car which, providentially, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... of the occasion, and joined in the wild swirl. Uraso and Muro were at it, and the sole spectator was John, who said that he felt too old to learn ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... and, clasping the slim youth to him, leads the boy (who's as graceful as a girl and as sinuous as a serpent) through the voluptuous movements of the latest dance. Up and down go their outstretched arms like a pump handle, but oh! so sweetly; round and round with eyes half-closed swirl their bodies; and, just as you think they are going round again, they surprise you by teasingly stepping out the music in a straight line across the lounge; and, when you least expect it, they are retracing dainty steps along the same straight ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... moved toward it. He knew well enough what he had stumbled across—one of the tragedies that in the North are likely to be found in the wake of every widespread blizzard. Some unfortunate traveler, blinded by the white swirl, had wandered from the trail and had staggered up ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... not seem to change. Mile after mile we encountered the same impenetrable blanket of clammy moisture. I was huddling as tight as possible to the bottom of the seat, taking advantage of the least bit of cover from the biting, rushing swirl of icy-cold air. Mile after mile; it seemed hours up there in the solitude. I watched the regular dancing up and down of the valves on top of the engine. I was thinking of a tune that would fit to the regular beat ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... courtship, from the day when he dropped off the street-car with her in the rain and walked her over to the elevated and kept her note-books, down to the day on the bridge over the Drainage Canal in the swirl of that March blizzard, when she'd felt his first embrace, had been on foot like this, tramping along side by side; miles and miles and miles, as she'd told her mother. And there had been other walks since. Do you remember the last time they ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... flapping up above the Upper Rapids towards Buffalo. It was at any rate a comfort that the Falls and the wild swirl of waters below them were behind him. He was flying up straight. That he could ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... way, and almost every time he cast his fly there was a swirl, the end of the slender rod bent, there was a minute of excitement, and then upon the bank lay a beautiful speckled trout. On, on, on they went over the cool, green leaves and bright red berries ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... pale herself, and had a strong sense of the sadness of the occasion, still she had a feeling of importance. Edwin Shaw came lumbering up timidly, and Maud Page pressed quickly to Maria's side with a swirl of her ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hurried once more, through the swirl of white flakes that cut into his face, blown on the wings of a bitter wind. He bent his head to the blast, and buttoned his overcoat more closely about him, as he fought his way ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... collapsed and was disintegrating. All of the children were drowned save the oldest boy, who caught a tree and was taken out almost unhurt near Blairsville. Miss Caddick clung to her fraction of the building, which was pushed into the water out of the swirl, and in an hour she was taken out safe. She said her agony in having to cut away from the children was greater than her fear after she got ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Solomon's Temple was nearly four hundred years' old. There were the city walls, some of them still older, the Palace and the Tombs of the Kings—perhaps also access to the written rolls of chroniclers and prophets. Above all, Anathoth lay within the swirl of rumour of which the capital was the centre. Jerusalem has always been a tryst of the winds. It gathers echoes from the desert far into Arabia, and news blown up and down the great roads between ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... in bewildering profusion and variety every time the tides fall back and leave the rocks bare. At the bottom of the ebb I like to climb perilously down the rough Glades cliffs to life-brooding pools and inlets, where lazy waves swirl or are for a brief hour cut off. At the half-tide line the rock that is a reddish granite becomes chalky white with the shells of barnacles that cover every inch of space from there down. Acorn-like, they cluster ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... lovely head turning away from him, the swirl of her cloak as she ascended the steps, the flash of her tapering boot heel. He then stood looking round him through his ironical, weary mask, one hand on the back of a chair, however, as if without that support his quaking legs might let ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... darkness as they were, actively intermingled. The rather low sound of his voice as he spoke to the horses came velvety to her nerves. How near he was, and how invisible! The darkness seemed to be in a strange swirl of violent life, just upon her. She ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... seen one close. That sailor in the seaweed's asleep. Sleep is graceful, remember; death by drowning is generally ugly—stiff, stark, hideous, eyeless, fish-gnawed a week after the event. But what does it matter? You've painted a great picture. That sea, with the circular swirl, as each wave goes back into the belly of the next, is well done; and those lumps of spume fluttering above watermark—that was finely noted. Easy to write down in print, but difficult as the fiend ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... blinked about me, trying to collect my scattered wits. The strip of shingle stood perhaps a foot above the river and was only a few yards wide. In front, the horrible eddy lapped upon the pebbles at each revolving swirl, and behind us rose a smooth wall of rock absolutely unclimbable, even if it had not overhung. That, however, was not the worst, for a numbing sense of dismay, colder far than the chilly snow-water, crept over me as I remembered that most mountain streams in British Columbia ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... to April the British Columbian coast is a region of weeping skies, of intermittent frosts and fog, and bursts of sleety snow. The frosts, fogs, and snow squalls are the punctuation points, so to speak, of the eternal rain. Murky vapors eddy and swirl along the coast. The sun hides behind gray banks of cloud, the shining face of him a rare miracle bestowed upon the sight of men as a promise that bright days and blossoming flowers will come again. When they do come the coast is a pleasant country. The mountains ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... expressed it. And the whole reality of her relations to Evan and his relations to her stood in colours as distinct as those of the red and green maple leaves, and unsoftened by the least haze of self-delusion. In the dash of the rain and the roar of the wind, in the familiar swirl of the elm branches, she read as it were her sentence of death. Before this she had not been dead, only stunned; now she was wakened up to die. Nature herself, which had been so kind a year ago, brought ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... A dash, a swirl, a shock, a leap, horse and hunter working in perfect accord, and a fine big calf, bellowing lustily, struggled desperately for freedom under the remorseless knee. The big hands toyed with him; and then, secure ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... did not wait for their dreams to be realized. They threw themselves into the swirl of their country's ambition, as if they had never received anything other than the tenderness of a devoted mother at her hands. They were "kindled in a common blaze" of patriotism with the rest of the population. That in spite of all accusations to the contrary ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... soon, my friend," rejoined the captain of the voyageurs, casting an eye back across the great lake, which lay black and ominous under a threatening sky, the sweep and swirl of its white caps ever racing hard after the frail craft, as though eager to break through its paper sides and tear away the human beings who thus fled on ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... have lived without that window, she would have told you, nor without the river, which had lulled her to sleep ever since she could remember. It was in the south chamber upstairs that she had been born. Her mother had lain there and listened to the swirl of the water, in that year when the river was higher than the oldest inhabitant had ever seen it,—the year when the covered bridge at the Mills had been carried away, and when the one at the Falls was in hourly danger of succumbing to the force of ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... forced to take the side, for the village aqueduct or gutter—it served both purposes—monopolized the middle. At short intervals, it was spanned by causeways made of slabs of stone. Over one of these we made a final swirl and drew up before the inn. Then our shafts made their obeisance ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... I really belong with her in the middle of the last century, and she, born to what father says was really the best society and privilege of New York life, like his college chum Martin Cortright, is now swept quite aside by the swirl. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... hert o' the warl', wi' a swirl an' a sway, An' a Rin, burnie, rin, That water lap clear frae the dark till the day, An' singin' awa' did spin, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... to the two men. He knew the driving force which was sending him to the mountains was not only an impulse, but almost an inspirational thing born of necessity. Each step that he took, with his head and heart in a swirl of intoxicating madness, was an effort behind which he was putting a sheer weight of physical will. He wanted to go back. The urge was upon him to surrender utterly to the weakness of forgetting ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... highroad, wide and sunny, seemed to mock him, and the torn white clouds sailing before the March wind might have been a beaten navy, carrying with it a wreck of hope. The gusty air brought a swirl of sere leaves across his path, and the dust rose chokingly. "Caw! caw!" sounded the crows from a nearby field. The dust fell, the wind passed, the road lay quiet and bright. "Never!" said Cary between his teeth. "I will never ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... a swirl of the yellow water which hid a sandbar, and, with a sigh, gave the quartermaster a course which cleared it. "Guess I don't like ructions myself," he said. "Hullo, what's up now? There are two of the passenger boys getting pushed off the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... seated in a commodious open-air theatre, watching an excellent vaudeville performance. He enjoyed it thoroughly, for it was above the average. In fifteen minutes, however, the last soubrette disappeared in the wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of music. Her place was taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald individual, clad in a loose frock coat. He held up his ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... maintain the full expansion of the envelope. The brothers Robert constructed the first balloon in which this was tried and placed the air bag near the neck of the balloon which was intended to be driven by oars, and steered by a rudder. A violent swirl of wind which was encountered on the first ascent tore away the oars and rudder and broke the ropes which held the air bag in position; the bag fell into the opening of the neck and stopped it up, preventing ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... a short struggle at the surface, and then a swirl of waters, a little eddy, and a burst of bubbles soon smoothed out by the flowing current marked for the instant the spot where Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle, disappeared from the sight of men beneath the gloomy waters of the ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and inspected; the hackle was removed from the leader, and again the coachman spatted the water just above where the trout had disappeared. It floated down and down until it touched the swirl at the edge of the jagged rock. There was a short, sharp tug; the fly disappeared into the water; a plunge, a dash of spray, then everything kept time to the singing of the reel. Both jumped to their feet just in time to see the big trout clear the water, shake his head vigorously, then dive into ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... a tall girl, standing eighteen inches high in her heel-less shoes (Fig. 145). Her head, shown in Fig. 138, measures three inches from top to chin; this does not include the swirl of hair which rises in a peak above the head. Her hands, A (Fig. 144), are two and a quarter inches long from wrist to tip of middle finger, and her feet, B (Fig. 144), are two and ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... customers were going away. Every time that one of them would open the door to leave a gust of wind would blow into the cafe, making the tobacco smoke swirl around, swinging the lamps at the end of their chains and making their flames flicker, and suddenly one could hear the deep booming of a breaking wave and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... considerable extent, others mere islets of a dozen yards across, but all covered with trees and tangled with undergrowth. Landing on any of these was quite impossible unless through one of the verdant tunnels in which now and then there would be a swirl of the water that formed their bottom, showing where some huge reptile had dived at the sight of our boat and raft; while at other times a great snout, with the two eminences above its eyes, ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... snow crackled under his feet, and a layer of storm clouds cut off the wan heat of Kel's sun. He drew in a deep breath, watching the swirl of white as he exhaled. It was a good world—a world to build men. It was the world from which ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... Fadette, was compelled to move quickly. Fresh from her bath, a smooth, ivory Venus, she worked quickly through silken lingerie, stockings and shoes, to her hair. Fadette had an idea to suggest for the hair. Would Madame let her try a new swirl she had seen? Madame would—yes. So there were movings of her mass of rich glinting tresses this way and that. Somehow it would not do. A braided effect was then tried, and instantly discarded; finally a double looping, without braids, low over the forehead, caught ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... witnessed a solemn declaration. The die was cast. After such a manifestation he couldn't back out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me now. With a rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated clapping, the tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes and scorpions lurked under the stones; there was not a single blade of grass in sight ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... short jumps, a fish-like swirl sideways, and still Collie held his seat. He eased the hackamore a little. He was breathing hard. The horse took up the slack with a vicious plunge, head downward. The boy's face grew white. He felt something warm trickling ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... amused spectators! A few moments later, four broad-shouldered men in blue had him in their grasp, pinioned and guarded, clattering over the noisy streets behind two spirited horses. They drew after them a troop of noisy, jeering boys, who danced about the wagon like a swirl of autumn leaves. Then came a halt, and Luther was dragged up the steps of a square brick building with a belfry on the top. They entered a large bare room with benches ranged about the walls, and brought him before ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... wild stories concerning the perils that might be expected while crossing these same inlets, where at the full sweep of the tide small boats were in danger of being upset in the mad swirl. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... crossing the stream. There was a hissing shriek in the air, a geyser spouting from the creek, the remnants of a horse thrown upward, and five men tossed in a swirl like straw: and, a moment later, a boy feebly paddling towards the shore—while the water ran past him red with blood. And, through it all, looking backward, Crittenden saw little Carter coming on horseback, calm of face, calm of manner, with his hands folded over his ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... damp boisterous wind, that seemed blowing from all points of the compass at once, and in a minute I was caught in a swirl of blinding rain. I took no heed of it, however, but hurried along the lonely road till I reached the cottage, which I knew at once was the one I sought. It was picturesque, but had a ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... have time for a glimpse at the great dam, extending for over a mile in length and built of masonry eighty-two feet thick at the bottom. This banks up the water, we have already seen, among the hills into a prodigious lake when the great swirl of the river comes down at flood-time, and thus much of it, which would have rushed away and been lost, is stored and let out gradually through the sluice-gates ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... and shore are enveloped in soft mist, nothing can be more delightful than to flit with a favouring wind past the picturesque Chines, or by the white cliffs of Studland. The water in the little inlets and bays lies still and blue, but out in the dancing swirl of waters set up by the sunken rocks at the base of a headland, all the colours of the rainbow seem to be running a race together. Yachts come sailing in from Cowes, proud, beautiful shapes, their polished brass-work glinting in ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... turned downwards towards the swirl of water that leaped by them. He was quite plainly prepared for ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... settled slowly to the ground, the adventurers left the deadlight to use the windows. For a moment the view was obscured by a swirl of dust, raised by the spurt of the current; then this cloud vanished, settling to the ground with astounding suddenness, as though jerked ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... the moor was drifting closer and closer to the house. Already the first thin wisps of it were curling across the golden square of the lighted window. The farther wall of the orchard was already invisible, and the trees were standing out of a swirl of white vapour. As we watched it the fog-wreaths came crawling round both corners of the house and rolled slowly into one dense bank on which the upper floor and the roof floated like a strange ship upon a shadowy sea. Holmes struck his hand ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... fortunes—indeed, the very turning-point of my whole life. As I look back upon that beautiful June evening, I again hear the rumble of the elevated trains in the street beyond, and again I hear the clang of the electric cars as they swirl out of the avenue into the street. Probably every man and woman who ever came a stranger to a great city has his or her own particular secret and holy place where angels came and ministered in the hour of need. I do not doubt it, but I do often wonder whether every such person visits his ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... was one of the neat, unpretending, yet so respectable looking, New England villages, such as are still to be met with in the central part of Massachusetts. The country roads wound into the town and wound out of it; the river crept lazily by with only a slight swirl or eddy on its surface; and the wild flowers on its banks bloomed and faded without attracting more attention than in the days of the Indians. Early in the morning ten or a dozen well-dressed gentlemen might be seen ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... life of him. And, by my own word, it's he that could smoke: at times he would shoot the smoke in a slender stream like a knitting-needle, with a round curl at the one end of it, ever so far out of the right side of his mouth; then he would shoot it out of the left, and sometimes make it swirl out so beautiful from the middle of his lips!—why, then, it's he that must have been the well-bred puppy all out, as far as smoking went. Father Flannagan ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... of nature—and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?—the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night—all these ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... they cut into a patch of the great dark flat leaves of the yellow water-lily, there was a tremendous swirl in the river just beyond the bows of the boat—one which sent the leaves heaving and falling for some ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... in the crowded dining room of the House of Parliament where the Prime Minister had invited a group of Cabinet Ministers and leading business men of Capetown. Around us seethed a noisy swirl which reflected the turmoil of the South African political situation. Parliament had just convened after an historic election in which the Nationalists, the bitter antagonists of Botha and Smuts, had elected a majority of ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... its eyes, so as to feel the topsy-turvy swirl of the carpet's movement as little ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... half dozen they dropped; even those who dropped, fought until they were dead. Soon the platoon was merely a squad; the squad melted to a spot; there was a swirl, covering the spot; and the spot had ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... with a volcano of mud, dirt, smoke, and shrieking splinters, and, either from the shock of the explosion or in an attempt to escape it, throwing the man off his balance on the ledge of the firing-step to sprawl full length in the mud. In the swirl of noise and smoke and flying earth Rawbon just glimpsed the plunging fall of a man's body, and felt a curious sickly feeling at the pit of his stomach. He was relieved beyond words to see the figure rise to his knees and stagger to his feet, dripping ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... Family saddled and rode back to the claims, gravely discussing the potentialities of the future. Since they rode slowly while they talked, they were presently overtaken by a swirl of dust, behind which came the matched browns which were the Flying U's crack driving team, bearing Irish and Miss Allen of the twinkling eyes upon the front seat of a two seated spring-wagon that had seen far better days than this. Native Son helped to crowd ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... put his hand to the grass-encircled goal of the maiden's hopes and ball, its gloomy depths appeared to move, swirl round, rise up, as a small green snake uncoiled in haste and darted beneath Dam's approaching upturned hand, and swiftly ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... particles of air. An electric message sent through a mile of wire is not anything transmitted; matter is not transferred, but the particles are set to dancing in wavy motion from end to end. Particles are leaping within ordered limits and according to regular laws as really as the clouds swirl and the air trembles into song through the throat of a singer. When a wire is made sensitive by electricity the breath of a child can make it vibrate from end to end, ensouled with the child's laughter or fancies. Nay, more, and far more wonderful, the wire will be ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... reins and followed them; but, as bridges are not made for the traffic of ponies, Tom o' Dint was bound to go through the water. Never interrupting the sweep and swirl of the march he was playing, he gave the pony a prod with his foot, and it plunged in. But scarcely had it taken two steps and reached the depth of its knees, when, from the intenser cold, or from ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... grey stone seat had been placed beneath a shady laurel, and here he often sat without motion or gesture for many hours. Below him the tawny river swept round the town in a half circle; he could see the swirl of the yellow water, its eddies and miniature whirlpools, as the tide poured up from the south. And beyond the river the strong circuit of the walls, and within, the city glittered like a charming piece of mosaic. He freed ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... stout ship wallowed and plunged at her anchors—head to wind and sea, and everything, from groaning timbers to song of wind-curved rigging and creak of swinging yard, seeming to find a voice in answer to the plunge and wash of the waves, and swirl and patter of flying spray over the high bows—we found what shelter we might under bulwarks and break ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... back to the waiting mother, Eleanor had spent an unconscionable time tying the ponies, trying to control her own trembling lips and threshing round for some way to tell the untenable. She remembered the roil of the raging waters, the floating star blossoms on the muddy swirl, the light sifting in beaten rain dust through the silver pine needles, the curve and dip of the joyous swallows. Then, she had followed the little white haired lady ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... rush and swirl of muddy water; the swish and hiss of it smote their ears five minutes before they saw the brown, writhing thing itself. The girl tensed on her seat; her breathing was momentarily suspended; her cheek went a little pale. Then, conscious of a quick measuring ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Here is a big Silver Doctor that may do as the water is thick. I put one on, and begin again casting over where that fish rose. By George, there he came at me, at least I think it must have been at me, a great dark swirl, "the purple wave bowed over it like a hill," but he never touched me. Give him five minutes law, the hook is sure to be well fastened on, need not bother looking at that again. Five minutes take a long ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... was a rush and swirl, as the effervescent Muscovite burst his way through the throng and rushed to where Cuthbert sat. He stood for a moment eyeing him excitedly, then, stooping swiftly, kissed him on both cheeks before Cuthbert could get his guard up. "My dear young man, I saw you win ze French Open. Great! ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... boys was just emerging from the blacksmith shop; from the build of him Andy knew it must be either Weary or Irish, though it would take a much closer observation, and some familiarity with the two to identify the man more exactly. In the corral were a swirl of horses and an overhanging cloud of dust, with two or three figures discernible in the midst, and away in the little pasture two other figures were galloping after a fleeing dozen of horses. While he looked, old Patsy came out of the messhouse, and went, with flapping ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... central sea that washes round the core of the moon. Think of its inky waters under the spare lights—if, indeed, their eyes need lights! Think of the cascading tributaries pouring down their channels to feed it! Think of the tides upon its surface, and the rush and swirl of its ebb and flow! perhaps they have ships that go upon it, perhaps down there are mighty cities and swarming ways, and wisdom and order passing the wit of man. And we may die here upon it, and never see the masters who must be—ruling ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... on the top of the wall. She turned her legs over deftly to the other side with a swirl ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... a movement of the tail that caused the water to swirl and the dinghy to rock, turned upon his back and engulfed the head; then he slowly sank and vanished, just as if he had been dissolved. He had come off best in this their first encounter—such ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... in a measure withdrawing from the swirl of society in which so much of his life had been passed, he in no sense lost touch with the movements of the day, and in none of these did he take a more lively interest than in those which affected the state of France. And that seemed particularly unsettled. No one could attempt a forecast of ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... in too much dirt at once, boy," he cautioned. "Half full is enough. That's right. Now sink it to the rim in the water, and swirl it around and back again, so the current will carry the dirt off. Don't be afraid to keep it moving. That's it. The gold is heavy, you know; the dirt goes and the gold stays behind. Whoa'p! Let's see. No, it's all gone, this time. You've ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin |
