"Wrenching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was before he reached the post office.) His wife, whose sweet and rosy bulk took up most of the space on the seat, listened, smiling with content. When he was placid, she was placid; when he wasn't, which happened now and then, she was an alertly reasonable woman, defending him from himself, and wrenching from his hand, with ironic gayety, or rallying seriousness, the dagger of his discontent with what he called his "failure" in life—which was what most people called his success—a business career, chosen because the support of several inescapable blood ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Badenoch, stamping with his foot, and plucking forth his sword; "is the man to exist who thus braves the assembled lords of Scotland?" While speaking, he made a desperate lunge at the regent's breast; Wallace caught the blade in his hand, and wrenching it from his intemperate adversary, broke it into shivers, and cast the pieces at his feet; then, turning resolutely toward the chiefs, who stood appalled, and looking on each other, he said, "I, your duly elected regent, left you only a few days ago, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... households that brought about this revolution. Such as the white people of Wilmington have been compelled to resort to would never have happened had the good-for-nothing Yankee left the black where he belonged, instead of wrenching him from his master and then educating him into the belief that he is as good as he who owned him. This Manly is a new Nigger—a product of Yankee schools and colleges. Freedom and education have worked only harm to the Negro by putting high notions ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... what was anticipated. The ten thousand or more of their expatriated countrymen were not to be subdued by acts of despotic injustice. Their opinions were dear to them, and were as fondly cherished as were the opinions of those who had succeeded in wrenching away a part of the old Empire under a plea of being oppressed. They claimed only the natural and sacred right of acting upon their honest convictions; and surely no one will pretend to say that their position ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... huge wild grapevine has wreathed its ragged arms around a whole thicket and brought it to the ground,—swarming to the tops of hemlocks, clenching a dozen young maples at once and tugging them downward, stretching its wizard black length across the underbrush, into the earth and out again, wrenching up great stones in its blind, aimless struggle. What a piece of chaos is this! Yet come here again, two months hence, and you shall find all this desolation clothed with beauty and with fragrance, one vast bower of soft green leaves and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... livid; his tongue stuck to his front teeth. At last, wrenching the words out, he groaned, "If monsieur Goujaud will accept my hospitality, I shall be charmed!" He was not without a hope that his frigid bearing ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... rattle, and he wagged the leather strap almost in my face and said, "there's hoals in't, an' ye can jest let it down to yer own satisfaction if ye fin' it gets clos." Then he rattled it up again, mounted the box, and off we went. Oh, such a jolting drive of six miles! Such wrenching over tramway lines! But I had my fine air-cushions, and my spine must simply be another thing to what it was six months back. Oh, he was funny! I found that he did NOT know the way to Thornliebank, but ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... bill right bravely and added sixpence for the waiter, though it cost him as great a pang as the wrenching of a double tooth. A rapid calculation told him that he must dine at the Aerated Bread Shop for several days to come. Whilst he was thus computing Polly drew out her gold watch. It caught his eye, he stood transfixed, and his stare rose from ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... stooped over Chester and cut his bonds. The lad rose to his feet and stretched himself. For a moment he considered the advisability of leaping upon his captor-friend, wrenching his revolver from him, and making his escape. But this plan he immediately put aside as unwise, for his captor still held the weapon ready, and the boy knew that a single false move and the German would fire. Therefore, he did ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... was of less account now, and the vessel was once more under command of her canvas. It was the leak which gave them most cause for anxiety. Likely enough it was caused by the mere wrenching away of a couple of rivets. But the steady inpour of water through the holes would soon have made the ship grow unmanageable and founder if it was not constantly attended to. Where the leak was they had not a notion. Probably it was deep down under the cargo ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... as he rode on, wrenching right round in his saddle, and trusting to his mustang to follow the back trail, "just as far as the mule would walk from the time we started till daybreak this morning. Hours and hours and hours, all going so slowly, for we should have been woke up if they had broken into a fast ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... been room for half his plunder, to say nothing of himself. "What on earth can Nixon want?" he sleepily asked himself, "fumbling about there among those cases? Was that a crack or a snap?" It sounded like both, a splitting of glass, a wrenching of lock spring or something. "Be careful there!" he managed to call. No answer. Perhaps it was some one of the big hounds, then, wandering restlessly about at night. They often did, and—why, yes, that would account for it. Doors and windows were all wide open here, what was to ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... black, whom Boss Joe had so eccentrically addressed at the negro meeting, years before, was in the act of whipping the woman; but with one bound, young Preston was on him. Wrenching the whip from his hand, he turned on his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wrench herself asunder, as far as such wrenching might be done compatibly with her solemn promise. It might be right that Frank should have an opportunity offered him, so that he might escape from his position without disgrace. She would endeavour to give him this opportunity. So, with one deep sigh, she arose, took herself pen, ink, and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... stifled voice, wrenching forth each sentence; and now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table. "In extremis my brother did more than confess. He signed,—your Majesty," said Gloucester. The Duke on a sudden flung out his hands, like a wizard whose necromancy fails, and the palms were bloodied ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... came the Captain with the mighty heart: And when the step of Earthquake shook the house Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold, He held the ridge-pole up, and spiked again The rafters of the Home. He held his place— Held the long purpose like a growing tree— Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. And when he fell in ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... inaudible voice of terror, and Billy flung one strong arm about the girl and dashed toward the dangling rope. Gripping it with one hand he flung the light figure over his left shoulder, and with a cheerily whispered "Hang tight," he threw himself into the ascent. It was arm-wrenching, muscle-racking work, with that dead weight upon him, but the touch of those soft arms clinging childishly about his neck seemed to double and treble his strength, and with incredible quickness he ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hitches he succeeded in gaining a ticklish seat upon the broken top of the stump, where he maintained himself by resting his feet upon two of the stoutest sprouts. Seated thus, he could feel an unsteady quivering of the trunk, a trembling, wrenching motion, that told, but too plainly, of the powerful force of the flood, and of the uncertain tenure which he possessed on ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... could see the cruel gleam of his eyes as I gave slowly down. It was God who saved me, for as I fell I struck the sharp shelving of the bank, and the quick stoppage swung the savage to one side and below me, so that, even as he gave vent to an exulting yell of triumph, wrenching his hand loose from my weakening clasp to strike the death-blow, I whirled and forced him downward, his face buried in ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... how much character a person's got, it's gone when sick-stomach is a-wrenching of 'em." Mrs. Mundy groaned feebly. "I 'ain't had a spell like this since Bettina was a baby. Pig feet did it. When they're fried in batter I'm worse than the thing I'm eating. I et three, and I never can eat more than two. And to think you had to do everything ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... close with me, seizing the rifle, but I was stronger than he, and, wrenching the weapon from his grasp, tossed it aside and made for his throat with my bare hands. I had not dared fire the weapon for fear that its report would bring the larger guard stationed at the farther end ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... seems to me, many things—religion, love, work, seriousness and so on; but what we need most of all, as I believe, is to wash our hands. For five years they have been groping and wrenching in the vitals of other people. They are foul and we are still drunk with the reek. In God's name, let us wash and then we can begin to build up the world again. We see the need of that out in the country, but so far as I can judge by what I read or have seen of London, there's ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... unintermittent. The old woman came closer, and her hand touched the girl's skirt. Wrenching herself away, Daphne found herself in the grasp of two skinny arms, and an actual physical struggle began. The girl had no time for fear, and suddenly help came. A firm hand caught the woman's shoulder, and ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... the lad, as his right arm was swung round by the violence of the raven's stoop, and the unfortunate bird had shared its mate's fate, for with the rush it had not only pierced itself through and through, but swept itself off the blade, wrenching the holder's shoulder, and falling, fluttering feebly, downward, till ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... must be 'nutcracker' again," and Rolf ran off, wrenching himself from his tormentor's hands. But the boy followed him, crying, "Wrong, wrong! you are ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... angry person holding someone by the hair, wrenching his head against the ground, and with one knee on his ribs; his right arm and fist raised on high. His hair must be thrown up, his brow downcast and knit, his teeth clenched and the two corners of his mouth grimly set; his neck swelled and ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... had eaten, the Squaw-who-has-dreams went out of the teepee among the people an' called all the Sioux to come an' see the Raven die. So the Sioux came gladly, and the Raven was twisted an' writhen with the power of the whirlwind wrenching at his heart; an' his teeth were tight like a trap; an' no words, but only foam, came from his mouth; an' at last the Spirit, the Chee-bee, was twisted out of the Raven; an' the Squaw-who-has-dreams was revenged for the death of the Gray Elk whom she loved an' who ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... can't bear it! I can't bear it!" panted the little chap, and wrenching himself free from Glyn's grasp he rushed out at the well-house door, ten or a dozen of his comrades bounding up to him as he shouted, "Oh, come and look! come and look! Here it is! They've pulled it up, drowned and ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Vestals and maid-servants were cowering on their knees, or prone on cushions, writhing and screaming with fear unspeakable. A swart Spanish brigand, with his sabre gripped in his teeth, was tearing a gold-thread and silk covering from a pillow; a second plunderer was wrenching from its chain a silver lamp. Demetrius rushed past these also, before any could inquire whether he was not a comrade in infamy. But there were other shouts from the peristylium, other cries and meanings. As the pirate sprang to the head of the passage leading to the inner house, a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... he pulled himself together and leaped forward again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... prettily dressed, passed him. She clung charmingly to the arm of a big boy; and to Canby's first glance she was Wanda Malone. Wrenching his eyes from her, he saw Wanda Malone across the street getting into a taxicab, and then he stumbled out of the way of a Wanda Malone who almost walked into him. Wherever there was a graceful gesture or turn of the head, ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... wretched vagrant pioneer; later he gave expression to the humanity of a people engaged in a purpose physically and morally as vast and as grand as any enterprise which the world has seen. Thus, with perfect fairness, without wrenching or misrepresentation or sophistry, the ugliness of his youth ceases to be his own and becomes only the presentation of a curious social condition. In his youth he expressed a low condition, in later life ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... been a sinner in his day—a rattler of the ivories at Almack's, and an ogler of wenches in the gardens of Vauxhall, a sanguine backer of the Negro against the Suffolk Bantam, and a devil of a fellow at boxing the watch and wrenching the knockers when Bow Bells were chiming the small hours. Nor do we feel that he is a penitent. He is too Olympian for that. He has merely put these things behind him—has calmly, as a matter of business, transferred his account from the worldly bank to the heavenly. He has seen fit ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... anyway," said McGinnis wrenching it from his grasp and tossing it to one of the men who stood by. "I'm thinkin', Merritt, that we'd better take the boy away. When he's sot, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... moment torn aside again, and there roared up towards the blurred arch of indigo a great rush of flame. The heat of it smote into prickliness the uncovered skin, and in spite of all that Winston could do, the beasts recoiled upon the machine behind them. Then they swung round wrenching the shares from the triplex furrow, and for a few wild minutes man and terrified beast fought for the mastery. Breathless half-strangled objurgations, the clatter of trace and swivel, and the thud of hoofs, rose muffled through the roar ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... was moving forward again. For the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale did not move, save to straighten rigidly as though from some sharply administered galvanic shock; and then, with a low cry—"the Tocsin!"—he was at the door, his head thrust out through the window, his fingers mechanically wrenching at the door handle. A mass of people were surging across the street toward the opposite corner. Eagerly his eyes swept over them; he pushed the door open a little as though to step out—and shut it again quickly, as, with a yell of warning, another car, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... infernal villain, and show me your warrant!" thundered Lord Vincent, wrenching himself from the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... turning round the remaining nail, as on a pivot, left a sufficient space for my body to pass between it and the window-frame. I had but to twist the bar back again, stick in the head of the nail, and everything was, apparently, in its former state. By wrenching, in a slight degree, the tenter-hooks, I could now disengage the lower part of the grating in a moment, sufficiently to pass beneath, and having constructed a sliding board in the floor, under which I deposited ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... to himself that what so plainly was right should be firmly done, the color suddenly left his face, and there went through his heart the sharp pang that he had learned to dread because of the agony of it. So wrenching was the pain that he could not repress a cry; but it was not a loud cry, and the sound of it was lost in the glad carolling ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... the feeling that a rope was about his neck. Ronald at last reached him, and by a dexterous turn sent his sword flying over the side. The old man drew a pistol, but before he could fire it, Bob Doull, had sprung up at him, and, wrenching it from his hand, pulled him down to the deck. In vain he struggled, other seamen surrounded him, and he was secured. Several men of the pirate crew were driven overboard, and the rest leaped down below to avoid the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Wrenching around now, he applied the flame to his left wrist, which was still bound. As the living fire touched his flesh, he winced with pain, but almost anything was better than the grisly fate ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... and thorns which catch you as you pass, and gird the long flowing skirts close to yourselves in order that they may not be caught by these hindrances. There is no Christian life worth living except upon condition of wrenching oneself away from dependence upon idolatry of, or longing for, perishable things. The lesson of my text is the same as the solemn lesson which the beloved Apostle sharpened his gentle lips to pronounce when he said, 'If any ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and hurled into the water. The new combatant, whose arrival had so effectually changed the aspect of affairs, was the hermit, who followed up his first stroke by another still more decisive. Springing into the pirate craft, wrenching a weapon from the grasp of the chief of the assailants, he drove before him the three remaining men, terror-struck at his sudden and inexplicable appearance, his superhuman size and strength. One by one he swept them overboard; then grasping a huge stone, which formed ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... he said, wrenching the conversation into a harmless generality. "Are you sleeping on the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... and pounded iron scrollwork of a huge door, and threw himself upon it, wrenching at the old latch until the door swung open with a screech of rusty hinges. He fell forward on his face, and the ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... down. Now they came rushing through the jail, calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells and wards; wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the door-posts to get men out; endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and windows where a child could scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without a moment's rest; ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... himself by bending his toes over the base of the stallion's neck. When I add that the foot with which he performed this remarkable bit of horsemanship was the one with the sprained ankle, you may faintly imagine the wrenching torture he suffered. Only by a superhuman effort did he keep control ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... The widow Tresize's dogs were peradventure caught napping. At all events, neither one nor the other uttered a sound. Doctor Unonius, wrenching a lamp from its socket, walked boldly forward at Dapple's bit and, coming to the back entrance by the midden-yard, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had even worse times to take care of Dotty. She, too, suffered intensely and even made it worse because she wouldn't stay still. With a sudden jerk she would sit up in bed and then scream with the pain occasioned by wrenching her injured arm. ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... powerful beast, and if allowed to work his wicked way, Toby would not have had a hope. But today, for some reason known to himself, Druro had an objection to hitting Gay's dog and contented himself with wrenching Weary's jaws apart, a dangerous and not very easy feat to accomplish. Weary, however, came in for several sound kicks and cuffs from other directions, and his mistress was in by no means an angelic frame of mind by the time she had her champion safe back between her knees, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... his taxi-cab and jerked the starting handle violently. The clatter of the engine arose. He climbed into his seat, and pulled at his gears savagely. In a few moments he had turned his cab, after wrenching in fury at the steering-wheel, and was jolting down the road in the morning brightness ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... no idea of giving up his treasure-trove, and resisted so stoutly that a regular scramble ensued. For his dimpled fingers were shut so tightly over the wad that Morton could not at first undo them, and the baby, wrenching his hand away, crept rapidly to Sara, half crying, half laughing, then, with a sudden thought, turned when in front of the fireplace, and with a wild little giggle of mischief and rebellion tossed the thing into the ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... in astonishment, but her father put his big hand over the gate, and, wrenching the little latch open, strode up to the front door ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... to be danger about them. And suddenly it reached out and gripped them - gripped Harry, at least. As he took a step his foot sank through the ground, as it seemed. The next moment he had all he could do to suppress a cry of agony as a trap closed about his ankle, wrenching it, ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... of faintly audible sounds such as would have been made by writing on the slate under the table. A knock indicated that the writing had ceased. The Medium then attempted to withdraw the slate, but in this encountered a seeming resistance, and only succeeded by a jerk, as if wrenching the slate from the grasp of a strong person who was below the table. Upon the slate, which was at once inspected, appeared in a fair, running handwriting, and as if written with a pencil held firmly in ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... this day, when he stood for the first time on historic ground, where the famous musicians of the past had found inspiration for their immortal works. And his thoughts spread their wings and circled above his head; he saw himself already of these masters' craft, their art his, he wrenching ever new secrets from them, penetrating the recesses of their genius, becoming one of themselves. In a vision as vivid as those that cross the brain in a sleepless night, he saw a dark, compact multitude wait, with breath suspended, to catch the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... our own to the cosmic mechanism, a series of cataclysms occurred. In fact, your planetary system was itself the result of a catastrophe, or of what might have been a catastrophe, had the two great suns collided whose near approach caused the wrenching off of your planets. From this colossal accident, rare, indeed, in the annals of the stars, an endless chain of accidents was born, a chain of which this specimen, this professor, and the species that he represents, is one of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... Nelson drew a slightly deeper breath and at once became conscious of a horrible, throat-wrenching stench. Dimly, he recalled having once before encountered such an odor; when was it? Oh, yes; during the Great War when he'd stumbled into a dugout tenanted by long unburied corpses. A cold finger ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... acquaintanceships of the kind—other circumstances and other scenes might have wiped out the memory of all but common civilities between them, and Sylvia might never have discovered that she had for the chaplain any other feeling but that of esteem. But the very fact of the sudden wrenching away of her soul-companion, showed her how barren was the solitary life to which she had been fated. Her husband, she had long ago admitted, with bitter self-communings, was utterly unsuited to her. She could find in his society no enjoyment, and for ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... a large scar, extending from one side to the other, right across the centre of the back. Beneath it the backbone was thickened to treble its normal size, and perfectly rigid; in fact, it had become a mass of solid bone. At some time or other this shark had been harpooned so severely that, in wrenching himself free, he must have nearly torn his body in two halves, severing the spinal column completely. Yet such a wound as that had been healed by natural process, the bone knit together again with many times the strength it had before—minus, of course, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... of bulbs, tubers, roots, and branches, than any thing else. Where they have been feeding, great numbers of trees, as thick as a man's body, are seen twisted down or broken off, in order that they may feed on the tender shoots at the tops. They are said sometimes to unite in wrenching down large trees. The natives in the interior believe that the elephant never touches grass, and I never saw evidence of his having grazed until we came near to Tete, and then he had fed on grass in seed only; this ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... "Quick!" yelled Dick, wrenching himself loose from the paralysis that had seized him. "A raft. We've got to get over there with the guns. We've got a paddle left and we can push ourselves over. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... confront them. They began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony. There was something rite-like in these movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking, muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing. They were awed and afraid. They hung back lest he have at command a ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... be true six months from now, if the Executive Committee succeed in wrenching my control from me; but to-day I have the strength. The stockholders have invested because of their faith in me; because of this same faith they will accept my statement that the Companies' future is imperilled,—and the Government itself will help ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... protect him; for quick-seeing Madge, observing the action, gently but firmly unclasped the younger sister's hand, and so disclosed the telltale marks of Ned's fingers upon the delicate wrist, by squeezing or wrenching which that tyrant had evinced his ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... being was seething with passionate and revengeful thought. It was as though with violent straining and wrenching the familiar links and bulwarks of life were breaking down, and as if amid the wreck of them she found herself looking at goblin faces beyond, growing gradually used to them, ceasing to be startled by them, finding in them even ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... may be due to the revision of earlier productions by later writers, which has thus brought more primitive conceptions into a degree of conformity with maturer and profounder views; but, even in such cases, the earlier conception often lends itself, without wrenching, to the deeper interpretation and the completer exposition. The Bible is ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... thus I tear you," he cried, wrenching the letter to pieces with both hands like a madman, and stamping upon the fragments. "I am off for ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Albany, with feeble hand, Held borrowed truncheon of command, 125 The young King, mewed in Stirling tower, Was stranger to respect and power. But then, thy Chieftain's robber life! Winning mean prey by causeless strife, Wrenching from ruined Lowland swain 130 His herds and harvest reared in vain— Methinks a soul, like thine, should scorn The spoils from such ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... faint to resist, or appeal. Nancy, whom the shot had summoned, followed, holding back her grief and terror because help and silence were what her mistress needed. Archdale had stayed but a moment in the tent. But he had seen everything, Harwin unhurt rushing toward his assailant, the surgeon wrenching the pistol from the disabled hand that had missed its aim, and Edmonson's face wild with horror at the lodgment that his ball had found. He had seen all, and ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... touch, seemingly deliberate and gentle. But the Niccola shuddered horribly. Then the vision screens flared from such a light as might herald the crack of doom. There was a brightness greater than the brilliance of the sun. And then there was a wrenching, heaving shock. Then there was blackness. Baird was flung across the radar room, and Diane cried out, and he careened against a wall and heard glass ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... Commander's orders, the Captain, I, and our Esquimos, left camp with loaded sledges and trudged over the newly made trail, coming to rough ice which stretched for a distance of five miles, and kept us hard at back-straining, shoulder-wrenching work for several hours. The rest of the day's march was over level, unbroken, young ice; and ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... I tell you. I must write to Mr. Jones. Hearts cannot be wrenched asunder without some effort in the wrenching. For the great honour you have done me ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... all his life he had been wrenching at the frame of life to break it apart. And now, with something of the terror of a destructive child, he saw himself on the point of inheriting his own destruction. And during the last months, under the influence of death, and of Birkin's talk, and of Gudrun's penetrating being, he had lost entirely ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... object of replacing it on the cart, but Crass got hold of it as well and they had a tussle for it—a kind of tug of war—reeling and struggling all over the shop. cursing and swearing horribly all the time. Finally, Sawkins—being the better man of the two—succeeded in wrenching the bundle away and put it on the cart again, and then Crass hurriedly put on his coat and said he was going to the office to ask Mr Rushton if he might have the things. Upon hearing this, Sawkins became so infuriated that he lifted the bundle off the cart and, throwing it upon the muddy ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... on his every-day clothes, and thus arrayed, and without meeting a single villager to realize the importance of his errand, he waded up to the court house, the pelting rain rattling on his old umbrella, the fierce wind almost wrenching it inside out. ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... his tone, she peered at him curiously through the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms were, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his head. ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... that cramped, tarry, fishy cabin was hard enough for a fellow who had lived at the best hotels and had the cream of everything. This painful wrenching of dollars out of the sea told sorely on his tender skin and undeveloped muscles. Yet beneath the surface he had enough of his father's stubbornness to make him stick doggedly to his lot, disagreeable ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... cast themselves into the sea, as the only chance of saving their lives; and first they endeavoured to loose the chains by which the Negroe men were fastened to the deck; but in the confusion the key being missing, they had but just time to loose one of the chains by wrenching the staple; when the vehemence of the fire so increased, that they all but one man jumped over board, when immediately the fire having gained the powder, the vessel blew up with all the slaves who remained fastened to the one chain, and such others ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... the rear of Trevison. As Lefingwell concluded they leaped. The arms of one man went around Trevison's neck; the other man lunged low and pinned his arms to his sides, one hand grasping the pistol and wrenching it from his hand. The crowd closed again. The girl saw Corrigan lifted to the back of a horse, and she shut her eyes and hung dizzily to the railing, while tumult and ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Tribunal!".. And in a trice of time, he was completely surrounded and hemmed in by an exasperated, gesticulating crowd, whose ominous looks and indignant mutterings were plainly significant of prompt hostility. With a few agile movements he succeeded in wrenching himself free from the grasp of his assailants, and standing among them like a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... domestic policies intended to wring speculative excesses from the stock and real estate markets. Growth picked up to 3.9% in 1996, largely a reflection of stimulative fiscal and monetary policies as well as low rates of inflation. But in 1997-98 Japan experienced a wrenching recession, centered about financial difficulties in the banking system and real estate markets and exacerbated by rigidities in corporate structures and labor markets. In early 1999 output has started to stabilize as ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... not hold out against such a tension,—such a bursting and wrenching and tossing,—and it ended by Colin declaring that upon the whole he would prefer making the journey ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... from the dead: give thanks to him who alone merits our thanks. But Rachel, who had been following the bier in great grief, hanging on the bridegroom's arm could not contain herself at the sight of Ruth raised from the dead, and it wrenching her reason out of her control compelled her to call upon the people to cast out the Nazarene, who worked cures with the help of the demons with whom he was in league, which proved to everybody that her friendly words to Ruth at the feast were make-believe, and that she ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... o'clock and we looked anxiously from time to time at the Glow-worm to see if it was nearly finished, but some of the parts were scattered out on the floor and the man was wrenching away at what was left in the car and did not seem to be in any hurry to put the others back. At eight o'clock it was not done and Nyoda asked him how soon ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... say, between the floor and the foundation of the house—was just deep enough for him to lie there at full length. Here, then, was a possible avenue of escape. Setting to work, he succeeded, after much effort, in wrenching up another board, and then another, and getting into the excavation thus made, he worked his way along on his stomach, until he came to a grating, which, to his utmost joy, proved to be loose. It was but the work ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... burning coals; he learns to detect some of the effects of the mechanical powers, which he frequently applies, although he cannot explain them. This we perceive exemplified in his ingenious contrivances in cutting his sticks, wrenching with forks, hammering with stones, kicking with his toes, and afterwards more powerfully with his heels; in trundling his hoop, in sailing his mimic fleets by the force of his breath, and in adapting to the requisite moving powers his wind and water mills. He even learns ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... track on the ranch and many fine horses. After siesta the company mounted fresh steeds and rode off to applaud the feats of the vaqueros, who, not content with climbing the greased pole, wrenching the head of an unfortunate rooster from his buried body as they galloped by, submitting the tail of an oiled pig in full flight to the same indignity, gave when these and other native diversions were exhausted, such ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... pursued, after a pause, furtively wrenching at the seat of his chair with one hand, as if he would have wrenched the chair to pieces, and gloomily observing her while her eyes were cast down, 'that my humble services would not have found ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... parting! of tearing away and wrenching asunder!... At eleven we were obliged to go to rehearsal, and when we returned found my mother busy with her packing.... When she was gone, I sat down beside my father with a book in my hand, not reading, but listening to his stifled sobbing; and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... you, did you?" He began to cry, and as we hurried along over the fields, he sobbed with the wrenching, rending sobs of a man. "I knew you did, and I believe it was God himself that put it into your heart to write me that letter and take off that much of the blame from me. I said to myself that if I ever lived through it, I would try to tell you how much you had done for ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Wrenching his other hand from under the rope, he fought them back as a hurt grizzly does the wolf pack gathered for the kill. None but a very powerful man could ever have reached his feet. None less agile and sinewy than a panther could have beaten them back as at ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... vertebrae were filled with fluid iron. And still his skin remained dry as if tanned. Then the anguish grew so intense as to force a groan with almost every aspiration ... Nausea,—and the stinging bitterness of quinine rising in his throat;—dizziness, and a brutal wrenching within his stomach. Everything began to look pink;—the light was rose-colored. It darkened more,—kindled with deepening tint. Something kept sparkling and spinning before his sight, like a firework ... Then a burst of blood mixed with chemical bitterness filled his mouth; the light became ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... the money," he grinned, wrenching from her fingers the plain gold band he had given her mother as a wedding ring, as well as another, bigger, broader, showier, and set with two infinitesimal white ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... waved and leaped in the cavern-like darkness of the church. But they fought like Spaniards, hacking blindly with their swords, cleaving dusky skulls with furious maledictions, using their fists, their feet, their teeth—wrenching torches from malignant hands and hurling them upon distorted faces. Curses and wild yells intermingled. De la Torre fought at the head of his men until men and savages, dead and living, were an indivisible mass, then thrust back and front, himself unhurt. The only silent ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... stood crossways and was re-enforced by the spokes themselves, he proceeded to bind it in place with the wire. Then he moved the wheel gently around, and found that the projecting edge of wooden strip knocked against the mud-guard. Hesitating not a second he pulled and bent and twisted the mud-guard, wrenching it off. The wheel revolved freely now. The spokes were beginning to shine ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... England, where the former later supplied Shakespeare with some of the characters for a Midsummer Night's Dream. It was to offset the very popular romance of Alexander, that some patriotic poet evolved the romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, explaining how this king earned his well-known nickname by wrenching the heart ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... even as were the rags that covered her. She whined and whimpered querulously, mouthing inarticulate plaints and prayers as Roger haled her along, with Cnut and Walkyn, fierce and scowling, behind. Having brought her to Beltane, Roger loosed her, and wrenching away her bundle, opened it, and lo! a yellow-gleaming hoard of golden neck-chains, of rings and armlets, of golden spurs and belt-buckles, the which he incontinent scattered at Beltane's feet; whereon the gibbering creature screamed in high-pitched, cracked and ancient voice, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... Jorgensen's Range, by "Simon's Gap." The track from this point to the junction of Warroul and Parallel Creeks with the river (where the camp was pitched) was very winding, from having to avoid the basalt, which was laming some of the cattle, besides wrenching off the heads of the horse-shoe nails: it could not be altogether avoided, and made it past noon before the cattle reached the camp. A native companion, a rock wallaby, and a young red kangaroo were the result of the hunting in the afternoon, which saved the necessity ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... windows were blurred with rain, and I was trying to strike a match. The first thing I was conscious of was a violent swerve. I looked up, saw a tall, cloaked figure wrenching at the reins with a crooked stick, and over we went. I fell into a bed of mud. It absolutely blinded me. I jumped up, and fancying that the blackguard ran up Northumberland Street I dashed after him. I cannoned against some passer-by and we both fell. A news-runner, who witnessed the affair, did ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... male-heirs had to pass to the next male-agnate of the other branch. This pact therefore, by virtue of the exchange that had taken place, applied to the new Grand-Duchy. It is necessary here to explain what took place in some detail, for this arbitrary wrenching of Luxemburg from its historical position as an integral part of the Netherlands was to have serious and disconcerting consequences ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Lester, wrenching his right arm loose, began to shoot. What happened after that no one ever clearly knew, but the team sprang wildly forward, and Compton's pony reared and fell backward, and the bride and groom were thrown violently ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... wrenching crash that sent the Planeteers in a jumbled mass into the front of the boat. It ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... him, Bill was the pride and joy of his hard life. A blow aimed at Bill struck him with redoubled force. His hatred of Derrick Sterling arose from the fact that the lad had thrashed his boy. Now to tell him that his boy Bill was so badly hurt that he was likely to die was like wrenching from him all that ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... Clara announced that I was recognised, and with an eager hand she endeavoured to let down the glass, but was prevented by Cumberland, who was seated on the side nearest the spot where-! was standing. In an instant my resolution was taken: wrenching open the carriage door, and flinging down the steps, I sprang upon him, and seizing him by the coat-collar before he had time to draw a pistol, I dragged him out head foremost, an I, giving way to an ungovernable impulse ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... true, Your Exc'llency, some cankered minds Have been a daily hind'rance in our House. No measure so essential, bill so fair, But they would foul it by some cunning clause, Wrenching the needed statute from its aim By sly injection of their false opinion. But this you cannot charge to us whose hearts Are faithful to our trust; nor yet delay; For, Exc'llency, you hurry on so fast That other ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... kept his place, wheeling ponderously to face his agile opponent, who circled about him at a distance of ten to twelve yards, seeking an opportunity to get in a rush upon his open flank. This wheeling and circling made the cool watcher in the tree impatient. Wrenching off a heavy branch, he hurled it down with all his force upon the King's face. To the King this seemed but another insult from his black antagonist, and his rage exploded once more. With a roar he wallowed forward, thinking to pin the elusive foe to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... dwell on it. That night we pass'd at Chippenham—a small market town—and on the morrow went tramping again through worse weather, but always amid the same sights and sounds. There were moments when I thought to go mad, wrenching at my cords till my wrists bled, yet with no hope to escape. But in time, by good luck, my wits grew deaden'd to it all, and I march'd on with the rest to a kind of lugubrious singsong that my brain supplied. For hours I went thus, counting ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... arranged terms—not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I draw my chair up to his ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... his crimes To wreak my vengeance due; but in my grasp My faithless sword is shatter'd, and my spear Hath bootless left my hand, nor reached my foe." Then onward rushing, by the horsehair plume He seiz'd his foeman's helm, and wrenching round Dragg'd by main force amid the well-greav'd Greeks. The broider'd strap, that, pass'd beneath his beard, The helmet held, the warrior's throat compress'd: Then had Atrides dragg'd him from the field, And endless fame acquir'd; but Venus, child Of Jove, her fav'rite's ...
— The Iliad • Homer |
