"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... given all necessary stores—a green flag, a red flag, lanterns, a horn, hammer, screw-wrench for the nuts, a crow-bar, spade, broom, bolts, and nails; they gave him two books of regulations and a time-table of the train. At first Semyon could not sleep at night, and learnt the whole time-table ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... hesitated, and a spasm, as if from a wrench of pain, passed over his face. Then he took the glass, and said coldly, "I drink to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... himself the surer about the flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was three weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great wrench, throwing ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... careless voice jarred upon her. Her nerves were all on edge. Fletcher Hill's hand was like a steel trap, cold and firm and merciless. She longed to wrench herself free from it, yet ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... suddenly darkened. Turning rapidly, he was conscious of a gaunt figure, grotesque, silent, and erect, looming on the threshold between him and the sky. Hidden in the shadow, he made a stealthy step towards it, with an iron wrench in his uplifted hand. But the next moment his eyes dilated with superstitious horror; the iron fell from this hand, and with a scream, like a frightened animal, he turned and fled into the passage. In the first access of his blind ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... battle, and this was the way it was being fought. If he rejected the opportunity, others would seize it; in fact, by refusing, he would be handing it to them. This great man, whoever he might be, who was manipulating stocks for his own convenience—could anyone in his senses reject a chance to wrench from him some part of his spoils? Montague saw the impulse of ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... cost money, and a great deal of money, until Marian had left the family in deep gloom for her absence, and Tom, with a final wrench of a vast sum from the willing but wincing father, had settled into a remunerative profession. Tom was now keeping himself and repaying the weakened parent. The rest cost more and more every year as their minds ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... had given his ultimatum, and was resolved to abide by it. At the same time he knew that it would be a terrible wrench to give up the girl. The very difficulty of winning her had stimulated to the utmost his passion for attainment. She was the best that existed in his superficial world, and fulfilled his ideal. Her delicate yet somewhat voluptuous beauty completely ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... something would happen," declared that worthy, as he picked up a monkey wrench, the only weapon at hand, and started off ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... pressure on his throat ceased, it fell away; the air rushed to the parched lungs. With a wrench his brain cleared, and he went down; but now with power in his arms, the arms that still clung about the dazed Hunsa, ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... royal troopers were armed only with a common axe,—dealt their blows with all the fury of civil hate. It was a fearful struggle, not merely of man against man, but, to use the words of an eyewitness, of brother against brother, and friend against friend.25 No quarter was asked; for the wrench that had been strong enough to tear asunder the dearest ties of kindred left no hold for humanity. The excellent arms of the Almagrians counterbalanced the odds of numbers; but the royal partisans gained some advantage by striking at ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... "Do you mind a wrench?" he asked. "No? Well, then—you and Colonel Winwood send him about his business and get another secretary. Let Savelli give all his time to his Young England League. Making him mug up material for Winwood's speeches and write letters to constituents about football clubs is using a razor to cut ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and peace with those abroad, people of the land of the Maple Leaf and the Beaver will look upon the twentieth century {481} as peculiarly their own. But in doing so it will not be without a wrench to see old institutions alter and in some cases pass away. One of these is the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, which in November, 1919, became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, provision being made for the absorption of the ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... his foot rested give a great crack, and with a violent start he made a spring for one of the lower branches. The motion caused his whole weight to rest for an instant on his arms;—unable to sustain the wrench, the heather gave way, and with a wild shriek he fell headlong down ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... days.") which the loss of our poor dear Annie caused. And this seems to me perfectly natural, for one knows for years previously that one's father's death is drawing slowly nearer and nearer, while the death of one's child is a sudden and dreadful wrench. What a wonderful deal you read; it is a horrid evil for me that I can read hardly anything, for it makes my head almost immediately begin to sing violently. My good womenkind read to me a great deal, but I dare not ask ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... wrench the giant drew a spearhead from his side, and his blood spurted over Ulf, as he swayed ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... or Pain in.—For ordinary slight injuries, complete rest, and rubbing with spirit lotion, should be sufficient. But where there is previous weakness, or constitutional tendency, even slight pain and stiffness, caused by wet or some blow or wrench, the joint must be treated thoroughly. Careless and wrong treatment may be given, and result in severe lameness. We wish, however, to point out that the treatment here recommended has cured many cases where this lameness appeared hopeless, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... Staple; his joyous face clouded now, his glib tongue mute—with two weeping girls clinging to his hands. Solemnly he bent down; pressed his lips to each pure forehead, in a kiss that was a sacrament—threw himself into their mother's arms, as she had been his own as well; then, with a wrench, broke away and hurled himself into saddle. There was a black frown on Staple's face, as he rode up by me; and I heard a sound—part sob; more heart-deep oath—tear out of his throat. If the Recording Angel caught it, too, I dare swear ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was to prove the final wrench to a heart that had been on the verge of breaking for many a year, and it was not long before Olive ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ivy and creepers taken from the homestead in Devonshire, and brought away when the death of the old mother made it impossible for life to be sustained by Miss Ophelia unless wrenched up from the roots where clustered so many memories. So Brother John decided to make that wrench, and to make it complete. So here ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... Jerry," he remarked earnestly. "He's a lad after my own heart. What he said about not wanting to shoot defenceless game gave me a wrench, for we cherish notions along that same line up here in the wilderness. Of course, the grizzly, as I said, does not come under that law, for he's too terrible a customer ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... father thried ivrything f'r him, an' got nawthin.' He didn't dhrink much, he cared little f'r women, he liked to play ca-ards, but not f'r money. He did nawthin' that was bad; an' yet he was no good at all, at all,—just a slow, tired, aisy-goin', shamblin' la-ad,—th' sort that'd wrench th' heart iv a father like Ahearn. I dinnaw what he did fin'lly, but wan night he come into my place an' said he'd been turned out be his father an' wanted a place f'r to sleep. 'Ye'll sleep at home,' says I. ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... consecrated shade, His mournful friends divine Sarpedon laid: Brave Pelagon, his favourite chief, was nigh, Who wrench'd the javelin from his sinewy thigh. The fainting soul stood ready wing'd for flight, And o'er his eye-balls swam the shades of night; But Boreas rising fresh, with gentle breath, Recall'd his spirit from ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... enough. Once when the Cayman pitched with exceptional fury, when the thunder crashed and roared loudest, Lesbia found her head lying on Montesma's breast and his arms round her, his lips upon her face. She did not wrench herself from that forbidden embrace. She let those lips kiss hers as never mortal man had kissed her before. But an instant later, when Montesma's attention was distracted by his duties as steersman, and he let her go, she slipped away in the darkness, and melted from his sight and touch like ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... was thoroughly out of place in these little mending-shops called sick-chambers, where bodies are taken to pieces, and souls set right. He had no faith in your slow, impalpable cures: all reforms were to be accomplished by a wrench, from the abolition of slavery to the pulling of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... as the current passed through the arm of steel to the foot of steel resting on the plate Locke had set in the floor. A suppressed cry escaped from the henchman. As for the monster, he strove with superhuman force to wrench himself away from the ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... depths of love in measure unsuspected, Ties closer than I knew, were round my heart; And half I thank the wrench that has detected How thoroughly and deeply ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... received a surprising wrench. "It's like an elopement!" he thought. "Ah, if she were ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... lariat with both bands, Tom gave a strong, sudden wrench and succeeded in drawing the imperiled man out of ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... weapon upon the new-comer just as the two men from below grabbed her. This diversion enabled the infuriated dog-owner to plant both hands in the enemy's hair, which came off at the first wrench. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... he cried. "I was as eager as yourself, only not so bright at the beginning. No; I've myself to thank for it; but it's a wrench." ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... determined. In placing the sample in the pan, and in adjusting the fuse, the top of the calorimeter is removed. It is then replaced and carefully screwed into place on the bomb by means of a long handled wrench furnished ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... was no way out of the place except through the scuttle, and we worked at that and schemed about it; but the wooden frame was bound inside with steel ribs, and on the outside with chains, and we had no tools equal to the task. Nothing but a jack-screw could wrench the covering ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... and saying not a word. The contest was bitter, but brief. Hammerton fought wildly, but Varney's arms presently closed round him, squeezing the life out of him. Locked fast in each other's arms, they fell heavily, Hammerton underneath. Varney freed his legs with a swift wrench, swung round and came up ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... guided. But it was necessary to hold a tight rein, and John's hands soon began to feel tortured and twisted with the strain upon them biting through their numbness like screws of pain. He shook his head determinedly when Nan offered to relieve him, and at last she had to wrench the reins from him in order to take her share of duty and give him a chance to recover ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... not a heavy one; bit of iron place for a ladle; gun-cleaning apparatus; turnscrews; nipple- wrench; bottle of fine oil; spare nipples; spare screw for cock (see chapter on Gun-Fittings).......................2 1/2 Two macintosh water-bags, shaped for the pack saddle, of one gallon each, with funnel-shaped necks, and having wide ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... to the crown or to the aristocracy. There was variance between the logic of the non-reformers and their sarcasms. The syllogisms were overthrown by their satire, and their arguments evaporated in their vituperation. This bill would wrench despotism from oligarchy, but it would not touch the legitimate influence of property, and birth, and station, and all the other circumstances which create a title to respect. It would take power from individuals, and give it to a class; it would cut off the secret ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of all human melancholy is in the sentiment of farewells. There are people roving about the world, to-day here, to-morrow afar, who cheat fate and avoid the most poignant wrench of this common experience by letting no root of their affection strike into a home or a heart Self-contained, aloof, unloved, and unloving, they make their campaign through life in movable tents that they strike as gaily as they pitch, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... you are a sympathetic donkey, and couldn't help yourself. Then you see that stout man on the bridge—that's Captain Anderson— well, his heart would—no—perhaps it wouldn't, for he's a sailor, and you know a sailor's heart is too tough to break, but it would get a pretty stiff wrench. And you see that gentleman looking at the ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... side the other rower was rising. Brian brought up his fist, caught the man full on the chin, and drove him backward over the gunwale. The lurch of the boat flung the Dark Master forward, Brian felt a sickening wrench of pain as the sword pierced his shoulder and tore loose from O'Donnell's hand, then he had clutched his enemy's throat, and his skean ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... beside the dog and trying to discover what its trouble was, the swinging white light approached so closely that he saw it to be a lantern, borne by a man who, in his other hand, carried a long-handled iron wrench. He was the track-walker of that section, who was obliged to inspect every foot of the eight miles of track under his charge, at least twice a day; and the wrench was for the tightening of any loose rail joints that he ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... destroyed the picture; and so vehement was the fall from glory into meanness, that it dislocated the machinery of clairvoyant vision. The inner perception clouded and grew dark. Outer and inner mingled in violent, inextricable confusion. The wrench seemed almost physical. It happened all at once, retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined. And, if he did not definitely see the awful thing, at least he was aware that it had come to pass. He knew it as positively ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... that. But Dolly's eye saw that his step was unsteady, his face dull and flushed, and his eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst into ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... beautifully, but a fleeter foot was behind her, and though she dodged and evaded like a creature of the woods, the reaching hand fell upon the loose sleeve of her red blouse, nor fell lightly. She gave a wrench of frenzy; the antique fabric refused the strain; parted at the shoulder seam so thoroughly that the whole sleeve came away—but not to its owner's release, for she had been brought round by the jerk, so that, agile as ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Colorado is, as a whole, the most sterile and forbidding of any valley of equal size on earth, unless it be that of one of the usually frozen rivers in or near the Arctic circle. Even Mormon energy, industry, frugality and subservience to sacerdotal despotism, barely suffice to wrench a rude, coarse living from those narrow belts and patches of less niggard soil which skirt those infrequent lakes and scanty streams of the Great Basin which are susceptible of irrigation; mines alone (and they must be rich ones) can ever render populous the extensive country ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... They hail'd him father to a line of kings: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. If't be so, For Banquo's issue have ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... very much into each other's hearts during the years they had shared together, and when friends part, no matter how big a wrench the separation may mean to the one who goes, there is a special kind of sadness reserved for the one who is left behind. For the one who sets out there are fresh faces, new activities in store. Even though the new ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Mahommed's ears endured a wrench, and for a time he heard nothing; but he was too intent following the flight of the ball to mind whether the report of the gun died on the heights of Galata or across the Bosphorus at Scutari. He saw the blackened sphere pass between the towers flanking ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... been ground flat and were in addition faced with soft rubber. Bolts were fastened in the door which passed through holes in the main sphere, and Dr. Bird spun nuts onto them and tightened them with a heavy wrench. He and Carnes lifted the smaller inner door into place and bolted it tight. Dr. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... around are left the bars and borers, The splitting wedges and the prying keys, Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers To crack, wrench open, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... this frame of mine was wrench'd With a woeful agony, Which forc'd me to begin my tale And then it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... developed among us. Not a dualism so violent as to break up the national unity, but yet one so marked and substantial, that thenceforward it was very difficult for any individual or body of men to represent the entire English character, and the old balance of its forces. The wrench which severed the Church and people from the Roman obedience left for domestic settlement thereafter a tremendous internal question, between the historical and the new, which in its milder form perplexes us to this day. Except during the short reign of Edward VI, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... time Thompson decided that in common decency he should offer to lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew by the impersonal ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... It seemed to him as if in an instant all his misfortunes, disappointments, and humiliations, that never before had seemed so many or so great, had been gathered up into the knowledge of that hard man upstairs, and, with one unmerciful downward wrench, had received his seal of approval. Indignation, wrath, self-hatred, dismay, in undefined confusion, usurped the faculties of sight and ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... would smile and tell him the wondrous news, and would put into his hands an unstamped letter to post, which he, with a wrench of the heart, would add to the collection in ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a strange sense of wrench—of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had only eyes for the boat down there. Then she sprang up, and tore down her black locks, and bound them round his feet, so that he had to wrench them off before he could ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... eye followed this last movement, however, and he picked up Gum roughly, and proceeded to wrench open its jaws. He felt all round his mouth, but the nugget was not there. He held the senseless body up by the tail and shook it, but no gold appeared. He took his head between his knees, and sounded all over its throat, but the nugget was not ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... moment Patch fought desperately. Then he heard a door opened and listened intently. A draught swept, and the door closed heavily. With a sudden wrench he was out of the girl's arms and across the shadowy hall. For a moment he stood sniffing, his nose clapped to the sill of the front door. Then he lifted up his voice ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and the midshipman understood it now. The boy had been baiting him to rouse him to attack, and he was doubly a prisoner now, held fast against the bars, so that he could not even wrench round his head as he heard the door behind him opened, while as he opened his mouth to cry for help, a great rough hand was placed over his eyes, pressing his head back, a handkerchief was jammed between his teeth, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... cried Joel after her, in great dudgeon, and giving a final wrench. "There, I've deaded him; see, Polly—see, Dave!" and he held the ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... forward with a furious bound He wrench'd a rocky fragment from the ground By far more ponderous, and more huge by far Than what Phaeacia's sons discharged in air. Fierce from his arm the enormous load he flings; Sonorous through the shaded air it sings; Couch'd to the earth, tempestuous ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... had been working for thirty-six hours; they lay like dead men. Lane kicked the soles of the nearest fireman. He returned only a grunt. The next fireman, however, woke up; Lane managed to get him enthusiastic. He found a wrench, and together he and Lane went from hydrant to hydrant, turning on the cocks. The first five or six gave only a faint spurt and ceased to flow. Then, and just when the fireman was getting ready to go on strike, they turned a cock no more promising than the others, and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... on the streets. She was a semi-invalid. Some obscure nervous disease had twisted her body out of shape, and her face twitched incessantly. One morning in the barn back of the Hunter house Steve, then a lad of fourteen, was oiling his bicycle when his sister appeared and stood watching him. A small wrench lay on the ground and she picked it up. Suddenly and without warning she began to beat him on the head. He was compelled to knock her down in order to tear the wrench out of her hand. After the incident she was ill in bed for ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... his back, and since there was no time to find the key and unlock it, seized the little padlock with which it was fastened between his finger and thumb, and putting out his great strength, with a single wrench twisted ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... the history of Dorlin, so far as it is connected with Mr. Hope- Scott: when, towards the close of his life, he had completely given up practice, he made up his mind to part with it, great as he acknowledged the wrench was—but to a Catholic purchaser—and sold it to Lord Howard of Glossop, the present proprietor, who worthily carries out the admirable example bequeathed him by his predecessor. [Footnote: Lord Howard of Glossop died as these sheets were ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... temple was filling and filling with folk who seemed to spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head on Fleete's breast before we could wrench him away. Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the crowd blocked all ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... except Ted, to whom Mandy Ann intrusted her charge, bidding him 'muse her when he could, and whispering to him the good luck which had come to her and Jake through the Colonel's generosity. Then with a terrible wrench in her heart, she took the child in her arms and said, "Doan' you forget me, honey, an' some time you'll be comin' agen. Oh, I can't bar it!" and with a wail which was scarcely like a human cry she dropped the child, and hurrying from the boat ran swiftly up the lane, and was ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should be moved for some days ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... the same voices, and desperately he pulled at the locked bracelet. As he made one final attempt to wrench it from Dorothy's wrist, his knife slipped, and cut clear across his own hand, the blood spurting from a long wound. With a cry he dropped his hold on Dorothy, and attempted to staunch the flow ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... he cried. "Come on! I dare ye!" He pulled himself up with a mighty wrench. But the unknown power held him. He felt the claws of the cow-catcher. He ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,— finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can live half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. And when you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in the darkness at the same reckless speed, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... colored man, dropping the wrench he was holding. "No sire I'm not goin' t' project myself int' a grave while I'se alive. Time enough when I kicks th' bucket. No sir! If yo' an' the boys wants t' risk yo' se'ves goin' down int' th' interior of th' earth, where th' Bible says there's fiery furnaces, yo' kin go, but Washington ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... second assailant he was crushed to the snow, his pistol slipped from his grasp, and two great hands choked a despairing cry from his throat. He saw a face over him, distorted with passion, a huge neck, eyes that named like angry garnets. He struggled to free his pinioned arms, to wrench off the death-grip at his throat, but his efforts were like those of a child against a giant. In a last terrible attempt he drew up his knees inch by inch under the weight of his enemy; it was his only chance, ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... pain of breaking such close ties. How his heart must have been torn asunder! On the one side was the lonely father who clung to him: on the other, the hunted friend to whom he clung. It is a sore wrench when kindred are on one side, and congeniality and the voice of the heart on the other. But there are ties more sacred than those of flesh and blood; and the putting of them second, which is sometimes needful in obedience to earthly love ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... followed, a voice cried, "Are you mad?" and there was the grating of chairs thrust hastily back. But, after a great wrench, her heart stood still within her as through the madness she perceived the purpose. As well as Edric of Mercia she knew that the young Viking's vulnerable point was his longing for his own self-esteem, a craving so ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... slid smoothly on its cushion of air, up the curved driveway, past the massive iron statue of the worker struggling against the forces of reaction, a rifle in one hand, a wrench in the other and stopped before, at last, the ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... soon he would not be able to wrench himself loose from those terrible arms. He knew all the phases of the fighting game. Chivalry and fair play had no part in this contest. Clear light, to observe what his blows were accomplishing; a minute or two of clear light! Half the time his blows glanced. The next time those arms wound about ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... The wrench from home and friends could not but be terrible. The sisters, indeed, were so far prepared that they had been aware from the first of his wish and his mother's reception of it, and when they told their Father, he was pleased ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the house, you remember, one passed on one's left a gate, on the other side of which was the golf-course. There Manderson said he would get down, and I stopped the car. "You've got it all clear?" he asked. With a sort of wrench I forced myself to remember and repeat the directions given me. "That's OK," he said. "Goodbye, then. Stay with that wallet." Those were the last words I heard him speak, as the car ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... be a wrench for her whenever it happens. In life one has to prepare one's self for wrenches—That, I fancy, is the better way of pronouncing the word. Yes, wrench after wrench, Norah—that's life; until the last great wrench ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... a rolling pebble. Instantly Lorey had taken advantage of the mishap, and, with a quick wrench, thrown him crashing to the earth. He lay there, scarcely breathing, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... up and turned as the glass of the window splintered to fragments, and, almost with the crash, Ravenslee leapt—a fierce twist, a vicious wrench, and the deadly weapon ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... seemed an unending period he occupied himself with endeavoring to obtain the sense of balance. Then, with a great effort, he managed to loosen the cords that bound his right arm to his side. A mighty wrench, and he had slipped them up above his elbow. His right lower ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... assented. "I'll speak to Mrs. Talbert—" He walked so inconclusively away that I was not surprised to have him turn and come back before I left my place. "Why, certainly! Make the announcement! It's got to come out. It's a kind of a wrench, thinking of it as a public affair; because a man's daughter is always a little girl to him, and he can't realize—And this one—But ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... farewell. He drew his arms tightly over his bosom, and choked back the bitter tears, and tried to pray. The poor old soul had such a singular, unaccountable prejudice in favor of liberty, that it was a hard wrench for him; and the more he said, "Thy will be ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... almost instinctively grasped the shaft of the weapon with both hands. Had the Earl let go his end of the weapon, he would have won the battle at his leisure and most easily; as it was, he struggled violently to wrench the gisarm away from Myles. In that short, fierce struggle Myles was dragged to his knees, and then, still holding the weapon with one hand, he clutched the trappings of the Earl's horse with the other. The next moment he was upon his feet. The other struggled to thrust ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... dismounted, and with a mighty wrench Sir Lavaine drew the spear forth from Sir Lancelot's side; whereat he gave a marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, and all his blood leaped forth in a full stream. Then he sank swooning to the earth, with a visage ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... this stranger mistook her for some one else—some one who had expected to see him. She tried to wrench herself free from the steel-like grasp of his fingers, that had closed like a vise about her slender wrist; but not a muscle responded to her will, nor could she find voice to ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... walking toward the door that led into the hall, and now he confidently put out his hand and turned the knob. His expression changed. He gave the knob a violent twist, then, setting his shoulder against the jamb, tried to wrench the door open. It did not yield. Doris, watching him wide-eyed, was the ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... with Greshamsbury! Angry as he was, the doctor felt that he could ill bear to quarrel with Greshamsbury. A man past fifty cannot easily throw over the ties that have taken twenty years to form, and wrench himself away from the various close ligatures with which, in such a period, he has become bound. He could not quarrel with the squire; he could ill bear to quarrel with Frank; though he now began to conceive that Frank had ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... answered back The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack, And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring, And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise, And over the smoke of the fusillade The Peacock ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... out; some of the boys were a little weak in the reply they made, for it came with an awful wrench; but so far as Paul could decide ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... and slowly bent the threatening arm down, Morgan struggling, foot to foot with him in the test of strength. Joe held the captured arm down for a moment, and they stood breast to breast, glaring into each other's eyes. Then with a wrench that spun Morgan half round and made him stagger, Joe flung his ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head and offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted, and open, splashed in the tub, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... stoicism helped her to bear her lot quite as much as, if not more than, the evangelicalism of Sir Thomas and Lady Royden. Moreover, she was too much in love with life to give her mind very seriously to the difficulties of theology. Even with a body which had to wrench itself along, one could swim and row, read and ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... left about the Bill itself? He hardly knew. In truth it was not his reason that was leading him. It now was little more than a passionate boyish longing to wrench himself free from this odious task of hurting and defeating Marcella Maxwell. The long process of political argument was perhaps tending every day to the loosening and detaching of those easy convictions of a young Chauvinism, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... conferred with the private secretary of the governor, the first and second in command, and several old residents. They would apply to the British consul for warrants for the arrest of the ruffianly marksmen, they would wrench them from the rails, and sentence them ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... my own!" cried the determined Kirkpatrick, fixing his foot on the neck of the prostrate man, and trying to wrench his hand from ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... shallow excitability of women like Camilla, whose faculties seemed all wrought up into fantasies, leaving nothing for emotion and thought. The exhortation was not yet ended when she started up and attempted to wrench her arm from Camilla's tightening grasp. It was of no use. The prophetess kept her hold like a crab, and, only incited to more eager exhortation by Romola's resistance, was carried beyond her own intention into a shrill statement of other ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... tree-roots and poured upon us out of branch and leaf in vague showers of suggestions that have no words in any language? Who, in some day when life has seemed TOO bitter, when man has seemed too vile, when the world has seemed all old leather and brass, when some new twist of life has seemed to wrench the soul beyond all straightening, — who has not flown, at such a time, to the deep woods, and leaned against a tree, and felt his big arms outspread like the arms of the preacher that teaches and blesses, and slowly absorbed ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... to get any. I turned around, an' there was Monody holdin' the sub-cook's right wrist with his left hand an' grippin' at his throat with his right. The' was a horrid look on the sub-cook's face, an' just as I turned to interfere, Monody gave a wrench which tore out the cook's wind-pipe, gave him a sling which landed him under the table, an' handed me a fresh gun. I was some bothered about this; but that wa'n't no time to hold an investigation, so I begun shootin' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... desires to serve you; but because he serves your Grace best by serving and loving his God first of all.—And think how he cannot help a sob now and again; and whispers the name of his Saviour, as the pulleys begin to wrench and twist.—And,—and,—do not forget his mother, your Grace, down in the country; how she sits and listens and prays for her dear son; and cannot sleep, and dreams of him when at last she sleeps, and wakes screaming and crying at the thought of the boy she bore ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... wrench that I shall feel all my days," added she, making as though she were in great pain. (Her arms did, as a matter of fact, ache a little, and the muscular fatigue suggested an idea, which she proceeded to turn to profit.) "So stupid I am. When I saw him lying there on the floor, I just took him up ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... every one knows, to tell a drunkard to break off his habits gradually. There must be one moment in which he definitely turns himself round and sets his face in the other direction. Some things are best done with slow, continuous pressure; other things need to be done with a wrench if they are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... is the Spring," he whispered. "The beautiful Spring! She has entered unannounced to bring us cheer and hope, it is an omen of good. I am no longer sad. I have found one to love who loves me, and a weapon to defend her." With a mighty wrench Siegmund pulled the sword from its bed and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... and after they had got a little way on their journey he asked them if they could all swim. This question excited great laughter; but the giant coolly placed his hands on each of the gunwales of the boat, set his knees in position, called out, "then sink or swim, you B——," and with one mighty wrench he severed both sides of planking from the stem. Willie swam ashore, and how many of the men were said to be drowned I do not remember, though I have given the main facts as I heard them scores of times in my boyhood days. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... wondered at. As to Minnie, she'll probably cry over him all night; but I hardly fancy she has quite forgiven him. It's not a nice thing, either, when you think of it. And I suppose it cost the old fanatic a fearful wrench to give up what he considered his mission to reform that benighted town. Lord, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... fresh appearance of the rags that stuffed up holes where panes ought to have been, and a few very pale-coloured petticoats and very dark-coloured shirts fluttering in the wind, gave evident signs of habitation. It cost my conductor's one hand an arduous wrench to lay open the lock of the outer door, in front of which he had first to dislodge a very dingy female, attired in an earth-coloured gown, that seemed as if starched with ashes; and as the rusty hinges creaked, and the door fell against the wall, we became sensible of ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... run over once. It's horrible, it takes months to get over it. I can't think why dogs are so stupid about motors ... must have been a near shave that ... very decent of Brooke—he's taken pounds off his car with that wrench." ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... bar and with a great effort pushed the bottom from him. It moved through the groove without much difficulty, but it needed a great wrench to free the upper end. However, it was done, and laying it quietly down he pulled himself up and thrust himself through the loophole. It was a desperate struggle to get through, for it was only just wide enough for his head to pass, and he was ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... nut-cracker makes a splendid little household wrench for cans and bottles with screw tops. Even glass ...
— Food and Health • Anonymous
... nothing, the matter, except the doctor. He is all broken up over the accident, and says I must lie here or somewhere for two or three days to cure a wrench in my back ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... indestructibility, my sympathies flew back to Mrs. Effie. There was a cartoon emblazoned on this placard, depicting the futile efforts of two teams of stout horses, each attached to a leg of the garment, to wrench it in twain. I mean to say, one might be reduced to overalls, but this blatant emblem was not a thing any gentleman need have retained. And again, observing his footgear, I was glad to recall that I had included a plentiful supply of ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... then Lucile enter'd the room, undiscern'd By Lord Alfred, whose face to the window was turned, In a strange revery. The time was, when Lucile, In beholding that man, could not help but reveal The rapture, the fear, which wrench'd out every nerve In the heart of the girl from the woman's reserve. And now—she gazed at him, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... present effort. 'In the fulness of productiveness,' he confesses, 'at the hour when life is flowering, a young creature is snatched away, and cast upon a barren soil where all he has cherished fails him. Well, after the first wrench he finds that life has not forsaken him, and sets to work upon the new ungrateful ground. The effort calls for such a concentration of energy as leaves no time for either hopes or fears. And I manage it, except only in moments of rebellion (quickly suppressed) ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... out. But I could figure there's a monkey wrench somewhere—and since the two of you have been sticking together like Siamese twins, I know it will be perfectly all right to ask you in ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... hand on his arm had given him a wrench that made him feel as if his flesh were caught between steel pincers. Androvsky came up to ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... yet resume the search, Drag forth the legal monsters into light; Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod And bid the cruel ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... She tried again to wrench herself free, but she could not. Lydia, standing in the shadow, felt a passionate sympathy. He was kind, Lydia saw, he was compelling, but if he could have told the distracted creature he had something to offer her beyond the bare protection ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... The wrench with which he finally pulled it up did great damage to the giant's house and his feet broke through the floor. As Tyr and Thor were departing, the latter with the huge pot clapped on his head in place of a hat, Hymir summoned his brother frost giants, and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... that Chris had more than enough to think of. Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more distressing than it was. His last day passed like a flash, though from his attitude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the next morning he would not ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson |
