"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... big wave struck the schooner a resounding slap on the starboard quarter, causing her to lurch suddenly. Drew was thrown off his balance. He tried to regain his footing, but the slippery deck was treacherous and he fell heavily, striking his head on the corner of the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... Suddenly with a terrific lurch the train was derailed and plunged down an embankment, not steep but rocky. The heavy Pullman toppled over, then planted itself firmly in a bed of fresh earth, and was still. There were wild cries of fear and pain, a loud crashing of glass lamps, and some wrenching of seats. Leslie ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... in the lurch," said Doc. "And the game promises to be interesting once more. I don't like racing on the flat. It's the ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... was distorted with terror. Her hands took hold upon me with the instinctive clutch of an infant. The chaise gave a flying lurch, which took the feet from under me and tumbled us anyhow upon the seat. And almost in the same moment the head of Bellamy appeared in the window which Missy had ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... in the lurch by those from whom he expected aid and penned in by the Americans, there was nothing for him to do ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... this could only be the arrival of the long-awaited reinforcements, for we knew that Johannesburg had Maxims, and that the Staats'-Artillerie were not expected to arrive until the following morning. To leave our supposed friends in the lurch was out of the question. I determined at once ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... gentleman the newcomer bent a regard steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped that the gentleman had ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... from beneath it, like the crunch of snow under sledge-runners; the van begins to shake and the sounds cease. Silence reigns again. But now comes the clank of buffers, the violent shock makes the van start and, as it were, give a lurch forward, and all the ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... not listening to what she was saying. Let her accuse herself, let others accuse her, she was still his sun, his heaven, his highest aim. And he would [Pg 184] never, never, never leave her in the lurch. If she wished it, he would swear it by all the saints. If only she had asked his advice about this too. The poultry had not died from eating the poisoned wheat she had scattered, because—he had once read it somewhere—because ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... you find anything about a savings bank that has failed and left the people in the lurch for their money, you show it to me. Savings banks don't fail nowadays! ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... left us both in the lurch, Susie," he said. "Good luck to you, beastie, and may you find a secure hiding place until ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... you listen to me. You are going to stick right with this show—you and Christine. And you're going to do what I tell you to do. You got to treat Bob Grand half-way decent. He's liable to leave us in the lurch any time. How'd you suppose we'd get on without his help right now? Just as soon as we get on our feet I'll put an end to his funny business. I'll show him what's what. He'll get out of the show business ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... dreariness for about an hour, when Mary Carmichael suddenly became conscious that the prods she had been receiving from time to time in her back were not due either to their manner of locomotion or to the freight carried. Clinging to two barrels, she waited for the next lurch of the wagon to shake her free from the rolls of bedding, and, at the peril of life and limb, looked round. Leander hung over the top row of barrels, gesticulating wildly. The change in the man, since leaving camp some ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... breeze the canvas fill'd, Lifting us o'er the bright-ridged gulf, And every lurch my darling thrill'd With light fear smiling at itself; And, dashing past the Arrogant, Asleep upon the restless wave After its cruise in the Levant, We reach'd the Wolf, and signal gave For help to board; within caution meet, My bride was placed within the chair, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... wager ten to one on it," I answered. "That's like him. He'll leave the others in the lurch if he can. He's aiming at it. And he'll leave Pye there, too, I shouldn't wonder. And if so, what sort of a man is that ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... from her chair, and he knew from the exceeding dignity of her manner that his offence was serious. But this dignity met with cruel reverses. As she stood up, their side of the steamer was just starting on a downward lurch,—one of those long, deep, quivering plunges, apparently for the bottom of the sea, slow at first, but gaining in rapidity. And Elinor Marshall, instead of turning away with frigid ceremony, as she intended, first stood irresolute, as if taken unawares,—yet suspecting danger,—then tiptoed forward ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... viewing the fine landscape with one eye while the other watched the scene of devastation within. Everything was in great confusion after the accident, so it is not strange that the dolls were not missed when they slowly slid lower and lower till a sudden lurch of the car sent them out of the window to roll into a green field where cows were feeding and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the huge reptile, driven frantic by pain, made a sudden lurch, and dived down into the depths of the river, as though hoping in this way to relieve himself of the terrible enemy ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... back and ascertain what has become of our young adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on the bow—or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case of a sudden lurch of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... went along at an excellent, though somewhat erratic, pace, for every now and then he sprang forward with a lurch that was somewhat disconcerting to the occupants of the cart. The first time, indeed, that he did so, Barbara was quite unprepared, and, after clutching wildly at the side of the cart and missing it, she subsided into the straw at the back, from which she was extricated by her companions, ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... told him that if the conflict remained localized between Russia—not Serbia—and Austria, England would not move, but if we "mixed" in the fray she would take quick decisions and grave measures; i. e., if I left my ally Austria in the lurch to fight alone England ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... like it," telegraphed Polly, nodding away to her. So Phronsie turned again to her watch, lest Grandpapa's head should slip from the blanket pillow in a sudden lurch of ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... solemn occasions to depart from his slow walk, made a most astonishing departure; for, taking his driver unawares, he suddenly started after the flying white steed, breaking into a lumbering gallop, that set plumes nodding, curtains flapping, and glasses rattling, and made the huge unwieldly vehicle lurch and bob about in a way to ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... thought I saw her a wrack, as plainly, ay, as plainly as you may see the stump of that mast; and, I will own it, for it's as natural to love the craft you sail in as it is to love one's self, I will own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch at the sight." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in a second. The horse bolted straight ahead. Barney swerved the roadster to the turn. It caught the animal full in the side. There was a sickening lurch as the hind wheels slid over the embankment, and then the man shoved the girl from the running board to the road, and horse, man and roadster went over ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they'll stand there maybe until we get out among the big waves; when, at the first lurch of the ship, down they'll ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... paw. The Indian jerked it tight, and they were bound together. But now his only weapon was down at the bottom and the water all muddied. He could not see, but plunged to grope for the tomahawk. The snapper gave a great lurch to escape, releasing the injured hand, but jerking the man off his legs. Then, finding itself held by a forepaw, it turned with gaping, hissing jaws, and sprang on the foe that struggled in ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... would have given as a credible number in such conditions. Many who were wounded as they tramped through woods splintered by bursting shells and ripped with bullets, bandaged themselves as best they could and limped on, or were carried by loyal comrades who would not leave a pal in the lurch. Others who lost their way or lay down in sheer exhaustion, cursing the Germans and not caring if they came, straggled back later—weeks later—by devious routes to Rouen or Paris, after a wandering life ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... me, James," said the Bailie, nervously, as the figure came with a heavy lurch on the pavement. "The faintness may pass off. Take care of your feet," and the Bailie shouldered his double to the ticket-office and propped it against the wall while he went to take ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... curious fellow you are! calm as a philosopher, usually, wise as a judge, possessed in full measure of the very Ware moderation and wisdom, and yet every now and then taking some tremendous lurch—against England or for Kossuth! I go far enough, go a good way, please to observe,—but to go to war, that would I not, if I could help it. Fighting won't prepare men for voting. Peaceful progress, I believe, is the only thing that can carry on the world to a fitness ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... sat in a high-backed chair before the fire with his heels on the fender. He was engaged in solemnly perusing the leading editorial in the evening paper, when all at once the table at his side gave a sudden lurch, the lamp slid into his lap, setting the paper on fire, and, before the Squire realized his situation, the flames singed his whiskers, and made ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... candle from the bureau, but old Mazey's cunning hand was too quick for her. "Let the candle be," said the veteran, winking in momentary forgetfulness of his responsible position. "You're a trifle quicker on your legs than I am, my dear, and you might leave me in the lurch, if I don't carry ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... himself accused would have to defend himself and prove the accusation he has made against you. But in the present state of things, if he does not put in an appearance we will get judgment against him for contempt of court and also for libel. Even his counsel will leave him in the lurch if he persistently ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... many interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning, These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. They all suppose the earth a created existence. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone. He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later on; He guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle filled again, And he gave a lurch and vanished in the ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... a hangdog lurch—his heavy jaw was rough with stubble beard. His coat and trousers fluttered rags and his toes stuck out of his boots. Women snatched back their skirts as he slouched near, and men muttered and scowled at him for a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... It was like one of those dreams he'd had where he was unable to move, his muscles frozen, as some unknown horror stalked him. It could only end in a terrifying fall through cold space towards a tremendous lurch against the bedsprings that brought little comfort until his pounding heart came back to normal. But this was no dream; it was a known horror that stalked him, and it could not end as a ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... ever asserted that Mr. Chamberlain left his comrades in the lurch, failed to support a friend in a tight place, or accepted help from others and then was careless about helping them in return or making them acknowledgment for what they had done. Remember that it is very rare in the case of a public man to find so total an absence ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... voiced, young gentleman, who took his arm kindly and walked with him several blocks. As they walked he told "Dodd" that he was on his way to attend a revival meeting, and asked him to go along. Just then "Dodd" "took a bicker," and in the lurch, he knocked a book out from under the arm of his companion. ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... moment Mr. Fison felt the boat under him lurch violently, and a hoarse scream, a prolonged cry of terror from Hill, the boatman, caused him to forget the party of excursionists altogether. He turned, and saw Hill crouching by the forward row-lock, his face convulsed with terror, and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... man got off his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave the perspiring tout his hand. With a heave and a lurch Joses scrambled ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... Another plunge, a lurch, a twist, a sharp descent, and the breathless horses halted on the bank of a stream whose shallow waters were crowded with flatboats, generally laden ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... the others reached the deck, the shock of Richard's strange appearance had somewhat died away and when Samuel, who was one of the last, appeared, a sharp blow which, but for a sudden lurch of the vessel, would have laid him low fell on one side of his head. Drayton and Sayres,[4] who were witnesses of this incident, were horrified to think that, having not so much as a penknife with which to defend themselves, these poor creatures might be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... know too, Mr. Kittelhaus. But it's what William always does. No sooner does a thing come into his head than off he goes and leaves me in the lurch. I've said enough about it, but it ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Assembly. This was not the only occasion on which Wilmot contrived to change his principles, for he performed a similar feat during the confederation contest, and left the anti-confederate government of 1865 in the lurch at a moment when its existence almost depended on his fidelity. Wilmot never was an eloquent man, and he entertained some highly visionary views in regard to an irredeemable paper currency, but he was a useful public servant, and he afterwards became ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... can't arrive in time for the Market, as aplication has not yet been made to Monsr. la force [Paris Mont Martell]. I think I can easily divert them from this, as I can convince St. Sebastien [Young Pretender] in case I see him, that they would leave him in the lurch. This proposal comes from your side the watter. I find Mrs. Strange [Highlanders] will readly except of any offer from Rosenberge [King of Sweden] as that negotiant can easily evade paying duty for any wine he sends hir. I can answer for Mrs. Strange's [Highlanders] conduct, as it will wholly depend ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... think a proposition is right. Therefore I shall vote for this amendment if nobody else votes for it, trusting that if I am right the world will finally see it and come up to the mark where I am; if I am wrong, on further investigation and further thought I shall be left in the lurch. Believing that I am right, and believing that the world will come up to this standard finally, I am ambitious to make my ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sloop, her companion, were pressing hard to gain the land. The sloop had sprung a leak, and was straining, as if for life and death, under a press of canvas. He saw her outsail the vessel to which he belonged, but, when a few shots a-head she gave a sudden lurch, and disappeared from the surface instantaneously as a vanishing spectre, and neither sloop nor crew were ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... was, to be sure, avenged on her for that by taking her for a middle-aged woman; but, nevertheless, he was hardly satisfied with himself; "I might give her a heartache yet," said he to himself, "and she might find afterwards that she was left in the lurch with all her money." And so he retired, solitary, into a far part of the room, and began to think of Mary Thorne. As he did so, and as his eyes fell upon Miss Dunstable's stiff curls, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the loitering figure drew, With naked bosom red from fight, With ruthless fingers clutching tight A dagger stained by murderous hue, Till now, in one great lurch, he threw His whole frame forward, aiming quick A deadly, inexorable blow, That, weakly faltering, missed its mark, And left the assassin breathing thick, Levelled by nerveless overthrow, There near the Greek chief, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... fat woman, a stage-passenger to-day,—a wonder how she could possibly get through the door, which seemed not so wide as she. When she put her foot on the step, the stage gave a great lurch, she joking all the while. A great, coarse, red-faced dame. Other passengers,—three or four slender Williamstown students, a young girl, and a man with one leg and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... into Cape Colony, but he was against any such project. This, however, was not because he disapproved of my suggestion in itself, but because he feared that the Transvaalers might say that the Free-Staters, now that their own country was in the enemy's hands, were going to leave them in the lurch. Yet in spite of his opposition, I had ultimately to carry out my own ideas, for, even if I was misunderstood, I had to act as I thought best. I can only say that each man of us who remained true to our great cause ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... happened. When 'Merican Joe had removed his snowshoes he had stuck them upright in the snow and hung his coat over them. The figure thus formed caught the bear's attention, and with a lurch he was upon it. There was a crackling of ash bows as the snowshoes were crushed in the ponderous embrace. And, seeing his chance, Connie darted forward, for the momentum of the bear's lurch had carried him on to all fours in the soft snow at the edge of ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... got it properly in the neck," shouted an excited special constable, as the Zeppelin gave a sudden lurch and began to drop at an ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... for such he looked then, tried to raise himself, but another lurch of the Bellophron sent him on his back, and myself on my beam-ends. As soon as I recovered my former position, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... and with our swallows in section of a cow-house—neither of which groups have yet been attempted for the national collection. I am trembling with apprehension, however, that ere long Mr. Sharpe and his "merry men"—one of them, a German, the cleverest bird-mounter I ever saw—will leave us in the lurch. Nevertheless, healthy emulation of the best features of our national collection will do us ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... reasons dat I don't see an' derefore can't explain, our leaders 'pear ter hev deserted us and ter hev left dis gran' rally of non-partisan citizens in de int'rust of Reform (cheers) in de lurch. Dis is werry unforchernit, but we, as Reformers, must hump ourselves ter meet de crisis. I nomernate fer Mayor of New York de Hon. Doyle O'Meagher! ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... its driver. It answered his least touch on the lever controls. The engines were working perfectly. Only now and again he caught a faint lurch which told his practiced senses that some of the rudely improvised splices were working loose. Even these gave him no great alarm; at least, they did not seem sufficiently serious to ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... my young fox, so ye thought to leave the hounds in the lurch? Come, cease thy kicking, else will I give thee an inch of steel to quiet thee. Tell me thy name, and what thou art about here, and I will consider whether to make use of thee or hurl thee ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... to your nursery to get some help. He brought along a ninepin, and they fought two against one; the poor ninepin was nearly done for, and he rolled away under the bed and fainted. Then Nobbles slunk off and left him in the lurch. And this morning the young villain thinks he will play me a trick, so he put two marbles in my boots. He must have done that in the early ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... George looked hard at me, but, without speaking, stepped sulkily into the ring, moistened his palms, looked at me again, and seizing the hammer, began to whirl it as he had seen me. Round and round it went, faster and faster, till, with a sudden lurch, he hurled it up and away. Indeed it was a mighty throw! Straight and strong it flew, describing a wide parabola ere ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... go down alone as soon as dinner is over, and see what she would like,' said Lady Merrifield. 'We must not leave her in the lurch, as if we cast her off, though I am afraid Constance has been very foolish in this matter. Oh, Gillian, I wish we could have made Dolores happier amongst us, and then this ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all in the busy town— For the girls in their sealskin sacques— For the dainty dudes idling up and down, With overcoats on their backs; And the horse-cars lurch and the people run And the bell at the bridgeway rings— But never perspires a single one, Attending to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... attention, he told Anderson to take the lines from him. In attempting to obey the Captain's order, Anderson lost his footing and fell out of the wagon. The Captain now sprang forward, put his foot on the brake to lock the wheels, when a sudden lurch of the wagon caused him to lose his balance, and he fell headlong on the prairie. Fortunately, he alighted near a deep gully, where the water had cut out the bank, and, rolling himself into it, he looked out and saw Anderson crawling into a bunch of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... took his station at the great tiller. The wind lulled, as the trough of a squall passed over; he gave a few sharp orders. Moorings were cast off, a pinch of sail was lifted forward. The big craft found her freedom with a lurch and a stagger; then pulled herself together and left the land with a steady rush, skimming dead before the wind across the smooth upper reach of the harbor and quickly losing herself in the murk and spray that hung off Kowloon Point. Lee Fu somehow managed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... around with the young Frenchmen, and a few moments later announced that they must be on their way. The Frenchmen escorted them to their car, which was now ready and waiting for them, and, as Hal sent it forward with a lurch, they sped the lads on ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... make such a desideratum. I was, moreover, perched on the top of the wheel house, and reflecting on the poor taste of the author of the Book of Revelation when he said that in heaven "there shall be no more sea." At this moment I came to with a lurch. "She's stuck!" yelled, or as he himself would put it, "bawled," the Prophet. For once he was undeniably right. Fortunately the tide was on the flood, and we floated ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... have me called to Berlin. You can't have any more aversion to Wilhelmstrasse than myself, and if I am not persuaded that it must be, then I will not go. I consider it cowardice and disloyalty to leave the King in the lurch, under pretence of illness. If it is not to be, then God will permit those who search to find another princillon who will offer himself as cover for the pot. If it is to be, then "s'Bogom" ("with God"), as our Russian drivers used ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... keep plenty of good liquor going in the house these next few days. I know his nature, and if he once gets into that fearfully low state that he does get into sometimes, he'll never do the honourable thing by me in this world, and I shall be left in the lurch. He must be kept cheerful. He has a little money in the savings bank, and he has given me his purse to pay for anything necessary. Well, that will be the licence; for I must have that ready at hand, to catch him the moment he's in the humour. You must pay ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... when human endurance of the Briggs brand could last no longer, the plebe gave an expected lurch sideways, falling flat, upsetting the bucket and causing much of the water flow along his own neck ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... looks 'at well our meanin' boded How full o' fight we both was loaded. At last it come, the thing broke out, An' this is how it come about. One night ('t was fair, you'll all agree) I got Eliza's company, An' leavin' Zekel in the lurch, Went trottin' off with her to church. An' jest as we had took our seat (Eliza lookin' fair an' sweet), Why, I jest could n't help but grin When Zekel come a-bouncin' in As furious as the law allows. He 'd jest be'n up to ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... no denying it would be a help. However, with what you and Bob and I are going to earn this summer we should make out very well, even if your Uncle Mark Miller has left us in the lurch and your Uncle Henry King's investments have gone bad on us. I'll be turning a tidy penny with my boarders, thanks to you. And for a lad your age ten dollars a week is not to be sneezed at. Why, we'll have quite a ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... bolt after Kagig and leave us in the lurch I'm going to waste exactly one cartridge as a warning," Fred announced. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... feel. I couldn't help feeling more or less responsible. For after all I did start the thing and though Madeline was always too good a sport to blame me I knew and I am sure she knew that she wouldn't have taken up with Hubbard if I hadn't left her in the lurch just when she had gotten to care a whole lot too much for me. Besides I couldn't help thinking what it would have been like if Tony had been caught in a trap like that. It didn't seem to me I could stand off and let her go to smash alone though I could see Doc Hendricks had common ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... me in the lurch again: partly perhaps from taxing them with a little more Reading: partly from going on the Water, and straining after our River Beacons, in hot Sun and East Wind; partly also, and main partly I doubt, from growing ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... have torn a great hole in the ship's bottom, for I could see she was settling down in the water before we had left her five minutes, and in a quarter of an hour she gave a sudden lurch and sank. As I was in for it now, I knew the best thing was to put a good face on it, so I lent a hand at shifting the cargo and did my best to seem contented. We sailed off in company, and in the morning when I came on deck I found the two craft riding side by side ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... nature: she will help Mr. Poole with his literary work and she will also give music lessons to his daughter Edith. Mr. Poole lives in Berkshire, and wants her to come down at once, which means she will have to leave me in the lurch. "You will be without an organist," she writes, "and will have to put up with Miss Ellen McGowan until you can get a better. She may improve—I hope and think she will; and I'm sorry to give trouble to one who has been so ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... of the willowy stream; And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs warped and bent, And the ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch of the machine, the heathkeeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver would have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round and upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper telling ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... a mother going home to put her little child to bed. It seemed to this mother interminable. When at length she felt a welcome jar and lurch her patience was threadbare. She sat bolt upright, as if by so doing ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... brightly, to an old woman who was sitting outside her cottage door. 'How are you feeling? I must come—— ' but the sentence remained unfinished, for at this point the donkey gave a violent lurch forward, then, putting his head down, commenced to kick just as hard as ever ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... pianoforte rehearsals of the "Flying Dutchman" I have already held, and can guarantee a successful performance on February 16th. After the second on the 20th "Tannhauser" is to be given, and on the 26th "Lohengrin" will follow. Let me ask you once more to persuade Tichatschek not to leave us in the lurch at the latter. I have special hopes for this performance of "Lohengrin", and should not like to let it be spoiled on account of our small means. I can assure you, however, that the interest of the public in "Lohengrin" is in the ascendant; at every performance the strangers in ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... house" put to such a use. So we made ourselves comfortable with it, until, at an invisible station, it was taken off. Then we were obliged to stand, or to retreat into a miserable small box-car behind us. The platform would lurch a little now and then, and I, for one, was not experienced as a "train hand;" but we all kept our places till the Frankenstein trestle was reached. Here, where for five hundred feet we could look down upon the jagged rocks eighty feet below us, one ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... and the horses sprang forward with a lurch. He swung them around a sharp bend with a skillful hand and poised his weight above the brake as they plunged at terrific speed down a steep grade. The roaring was louder than ever now, and it became deafening as they suddenly emerged from the ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... wallowin' right at us. It keeps comin' and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin' for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. It gives a lurch, like a cow playin' leap-frog, and over she ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... so Polly sat there at the old man's head, feeling as if every minute were an hour, and he kept gurgling, "Tom's a bad boy—he gets money all the time, and I'm going to see what he's doing with it," with feeble waves of his legs, that put Polly in a fright lest he should roll off the sofa at every lurch of ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... base flattery, like so many weather-cocks turn round, a rout of temporisers, ready to embrace and maintain all that is or shall be proposed in hope of preferment: another Epicurean company, lying at lurch as so many vultures, watching for a prey of Church goods, and ready to rise by the downfall of any: as [281]Lucian said in like case, what dost thou think Democritus would have done, had he been spectator ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... now, which was to speed along at such a clip as to allow him to finally overtake and pass the treacherous Nick, and leave him in the lurch. The spur of punishing the other for such dastardly conduct was apt to prove an incentive calculated to add ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... men, ignoring their solemn duty, left their companions in the lurch without sense of shame or respect for the braves who fell fighting ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... joining the leading lady. (This has been done before, but seldom with such a lurch and on ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... my goal on—we were whirling down to Solon, With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar— "She was very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been imprinted?"— "'Would ha' saved a world of ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... little pink image lying on the bricks, and with a lurch forward bent to examine it. Miss Terry flattened her nose against the pane eagerly. She expected to see him fall upon the Angel bodily. But no; he righted himself with a ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... he beheld him re-enter the Palace, and found himself, as he supposed, left in the lurch.—"Now, plague on ye," he muttered, "for a cunning auld skinflint! that, because ye are an honest man yoursell, forsooth, must needs deal with all the world as if they were knaves. But deil be in me if ye beat me yet!—Gude guide us! yonder comes Laurie Linklater next, and he will be ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... enticing letters on the green walls. Whenever one of the omnibuses lumbered away on its journey, she followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea gazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip with it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a corner, grazing the shop-windows with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... for a moment rested poised upon the foaming crest as if she had been a great sea-bird. Before we could draw breath a heavy gust struck her, another roller took her unfairly under the weather bow, she gave a toppling lurch, and filled her decks. Captain Allistoun leaped up, and fell; Archie rolled over him, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... maliciously employed his skill To work them woe—defiant of God's will. Their worldly property he did not touch, For loss of this would not be felt so much As trouble with their brethren in the church, Severed from whom they might be left in lurch. His plan succeeded, as I know too well, For some deemed wise were held as by a spell In hands of strongest preconceived opinion, While Ignorance held them in his dominion. WILLIAM had seen this long, and mourned in soul, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... thrills than we care to have crowded into one hour on that down-grade run from Poentjak to Sindanglaya. Several times, we retrimmed at the request of the driver, and we kept the barang from falling upon him, while he manipulated our three rakish adventurers from Battak. When an unusually severe lurch nearly precipitated us into the deep storm-water channel on the left or the carefully-irrigated paddy fields on the right, Jehu turned round and grinned a grin of fiendish appreciation, whilst we thanked with ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... in the scene—and I have a copy of it done by the same artist. I well remember (as if it was only yesterday) how anxious I was during the time you were away on the job, and how my heart was frequently in my mouth (as the saying goes) when the old ship gave an extra heavy lurch, and you and the dear old cutter were out of sight for a few seconds in the trough of the sea; and I often think now what a wonderful and merciful thing it was that we got that boat up without accident,—but you see we had so many willing hands on ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... who left him in the lurch, for he was not the most ardent; in those nocturnal sports between two sheets, which so please women, he possessed but little merit. Get you gone, you are but an old fool. But you, young man, just consider a little what this ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... stood on the deck of a ferry boat as it arrived in the slip? And have you ever experienced the slight sideward shove when the boat rubs against the piling and comes to a stop? That was the unmistakable lurch we felt, but no one expects to run into pilings in mid-ocean, so every one knew what ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... a shot as the other's was bad," calmly remarked the Master, brushing from his sleeve some glittering splinters of glass. A lurch of Nissr threw him against the rail. He had to steady himself there, a moment. Down his cheek, a trickle of blood serpented. "Yes, rather neat," ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... with a lurch and a stagger which proved his condition. He seemed a little suspicious at first, but the silence of the house, the steady gleam of the light over the fanlight, seemed to dispel any suspicions. Then he advanced more boldly ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... I am in a hurry, though," said that nameless individual, coming forward. "It's all very well for you: you put a man up to everything that's dangerous, and then you leave him in the lurch, and say it don't matter. I daresay it don't matter to you. All that you've done has been to share the profit—you've nothing to do with the danger; but I'm savage to-night, and I don't mean to stand it any more," said the stranger, his great ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... and much less likely to be restless. The other herd was a little nearer, and the cow-boys were bedding it as the trio from the ranch approached. The camp-fire flickered between the riders and the herd, and its flaring light seemed to make the cow-boys and cattle nearest it lurch back and forward in and out of the gloom while their changing shadows danced fantastically over the prairie. Here the three riders paused again to listen. Closer by, the cow-boys' crooning would have sounded harsh and ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... swung his rifle about, aimed and fired. Blue Bonnet put her fingers in her ears with an exclamation of alarm. The bird toppled as if to fall, then righted itself with a lurch and fluttered out from the tree. Blue Bonnet gave a sigh ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... and usually treated to warm biscuit and pie for supper. A few families were very poor, and there I was lucky to get bread and potatoes. In one house I remember the bedstead was very shaky, and in the middle of the night, as I turned over, it began to sway and lurch, and presently all went down in a heap. But I clung to the wreck till morning, and ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... whom we had several on board. But this was no easy task, for the drunken sailors pushed them aside and tried to spring into the boats, the first of which overturned, so that all were lost. Just then the carak gave a lurch before she sank, and, seeing that everything was over, I called to the priest to follow me, and springing into the sea I swam for the second boat, which, laden with some shrieking women, had drifted loose in the confusion. As it chanced I reached it safely, being a strong ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... like a Parson, that no Souls does Lurch, And keeps the true Decorum of the Church; That always preaches by Just Reason's Rule; But for a Hypocrite, a Canting Fool, Who, cramm'd with Malice, takes the Rebels side, And would, for Conscience, palm on us his Pride, Let him, for Stipend, to the ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even keel, only swaying to and fro with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position when we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... chains on his arms and legs. This sight caused them more grief than even the thought that he was to be sent away from them for so many years. Poor Mary also went to see him. He shocked her by the way he spoke of those who had tried him, and at James Grey for leaving him in the lurch. Mary was thankful to find that James's name had not once been mentioned during the trial, and that he was not suspected of having been mixed up in the matter. In vain she spoke of religion to her brother. ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... activity. There came a lurch, a straining of ropes and a creaking of masts, and the good ship Saint Laurent swam out to sea. Suddenly the waters trembled and the air shook: the king's man-of-war had fired the admiral's salute. So the voyage began. Priests, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... carries it out—'if'!" exclaimed Marise, with a lurch of the shoulders and a flirt of her pudgy hand. "Soul of me! that's where the difference lies. Had it been the Cracksman, there would have been no 'if'. It were done as surely as he attempted it. ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour! You will not ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... light conversation. Even Coke withheld some jibe at the unfortunate mate's expense. A chill silence fell on the little group. The more imaginative among them were calculating the exact kind of lurch taken by the unstable raft that would mean "drowning ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... proceeded on our journey, I was again carried by Mr. Miller in a blanket on his back as young children are carried by Indians on long journeys. My head above the blanket folds bobbed uncomfortably at every lurch. The trail led up and down and around snow peaks, and under overhanging banks that seemed ready to give way and ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... the Buford ranch being equally at variance. The horses decided it, breaking once again down wind, and striking a low-headed, sullen trot, as though they would out-march the storm. And so the two argued, and so they rode, until at last there was a lurch and a crash, and they found themselves in rough going, the sled half overturned, with no fence, no house, no landmark of any sort visible, and the snow drifting thicker than before. They sprang out and righted the sled, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... was a fresh one, with a sea in the bay that kept the Suffolk rolling like a porpoise. A heavier lurch than ordinary sent her main channels grinding down on the mackerel boat's gunwale, smashing her upper strakes and springing her mizzen mast as she ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... amiss. That, and a pseudo sensation of lurching caused by the pulsing of gravity—a pull when the Moon was beneath our hull to combine its forces with our magnetizers; a lightening, when it was overhead. A throbbing, pendulum lurch! ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... of the contents of the pockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends right over the stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the cross-swell of two steamers, or in not being quite prepared, or through all or most or some, gets a lurch, overbalances and goes head-foremost overboard. Now see! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he strikes out. But in such striking-out he tangles his arms, pulls strong on the slip-knot, and it runs home. The object he had ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... had given a sudden lurch. The next instant it rolled quite over, piling the two women and the corpse in a heap and sending the door shut with a bang. The Russian had fallen outside. The craft rolled over, once, twice, three times and then hung there, with the floor for ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... reins in placid contentment; there was a parting volley of admonitions from brother and sister—the latter was telling us where we would find our white shirts—when Uncle Lance signaled to us; and we sprang away from the team. The ambulance gave a lurch, forward, as the mules started on a run, but Tiburcio dexterously threw them on to a heavy bed of sand, poured the whip into them as they labored through it; they crossed the sand bed, Glenn Gallup and Theodore Quayle, riding, at their heads, pointed the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... lurch forward, frigate and men; 'All hands for themselves' the cry ran then; But she who had housed them thither Was around them, bound them or wound ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... tight. What shall we do with all these ghosts? they must eat one another. O woe! O woe! they are all with cub, and are come here to whelp: new brutes keep sprouting out of the old ones, and the child is always wilder and frightfuller than its dam. My wits are leaving me in the lurch. And then this music into the bargain, this ringing and piping, and laughter athwart it, and funeral hymns enough to make one cry! Look master! look! the walls, the rooms are stretching themselves, and spreading out into vast halls; the ceilings are running away ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... and the sinister possibilities in that phrase are overlooked in the wonder at seeing him lurch upward through the air, all glorious in black tights and yellow breech-clout. Up and up he soars above the tree-tops, and the wind gently wafts him along, a pendant to a dusky globe hanging in the sky. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... mocked and humiliated who had attributed to cowardice the forbearance dictated by his prudence. He set aside only the regiment of Pampangos, arquebusiers and bowmen; and committed the exploit to the Pampango master-of-camp, Don Francisco Lacsamana—leaving in the lurch those who attached so much importance to the enterprise, and who attributed his delay to fear. Unaffected by considerations of mere policy, his Lordship moved in accordance with right and the light of truth which belongs to those free from prejudice; he had carefully ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... predecessor in question was {CTSS}). Honeywell commercialized Multics after buying out GE's computer group, but it was never very successful (among other things, on some versions one was commonly required to enter a password to log out). One of the developers left in the lurch by the project's breakup was Ken Thompson, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of {{Unix}}. For this and other reasons, aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also {brain-damaged} ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... lurch backward; her feet left the pier; then came a splash. Tommy Thompson had gone over backward and taken to the water ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... drawled Grace, from the tonneau, helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie Billette, and pick them up. That's ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... consort and the rest to have followed our example. But when the Portuguese had passed our consort and the two French ships, firing as they went along, all of these ships and our own pinnace continued to seawards, leaving us in the laps, (lurch.) We continued our course after the enemy, keeping the weather gage, that we might succour the French admiral who was to leeward of them all; and on coming up with him, all the enemies ships bore down and gave him their broadsides, after which they put about again, but durst not board him as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... the entire world. Hence, with a show of reluctance, he yielded. The consuls for a time sent tribunes and others forbidding him to assume any such authority and to submit to the jurisdiction of the people and the senate and the laws; but, when their attendant soldiers left them in the lurch, then finally they too yielded and voted him all the remaining privileges pertaining ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... was suddenly a seething mass of confusion. The pilots distributed spacesuits and helped passengers into them while the cabin continued to sway and lurch. Fear-crazed passengers ran aimlessly in circles. Some fainted and others were shocked ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith
... circled at the same altitude, pouring broadside after broadside into each other. Presently a great hole was torn in the hull of one of the immense battle craft from the Zodangan camp; with a lurch she turned completely over, the little figures of her crew plunging, turning and twisting toward the ground a thousand feet below; then with sickening velocity she tore after them, almost completely burying herself in the soft loam of the ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the clashing gears as the car got under way with a lurch that spoke volumes for the driver. It was tough to be held to the ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... 'that does a tip so much good as to give it circulation,' he says. 'I think, be this time,' he says, 'all me frinds knows how to proceed, but—Great Hivins!' he says. 'What have I done? Whin all the poor people go to get th' stock they won't be anny f'r thim. I can not lave thim thus in th' lurch. Me reputation as a gintleman an' a fi-nanceer is at stake,' he says. 'Rather than see these brave people starvin' at th' dure f'r a morsel iv common or preferred, I'll—I'll sell thim me own stock,' he says. An' he done it. He done it, ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... continued, twirling the end of his moustache upward, Prussian fashion. "If there's no help for it, then the fellows ought simply to be chucked overboard. What is the captain thinking of?" he kept shouting, while an unexpected lurch of the vessel sent him plunging against the wall almost back into his cabin. "I didn't leave the service and give up a career ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... to back her husband: if SHE leaves him in the lurch, there is little hope for him. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... was finished Garnet's retort was bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling——" He was cut short by the lurch of the carriage into a hole. It flounced him into the seat from which he had half started and faced him to the horses. With a smothered imprecation he rose and laid on the whip. They plunged, the carriage sprang from the hole and ploughed the mire, and Garnet ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable |
