"Rail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no amount of coaxing could induce in me the wish to remain there. The fact is, such was my dread of leaving the little cabin, that I wished to remain little forever, for I knew the taller I grew the shorter my stay. The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads upstairs, and its clay floor downstairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship dug in front of the fireplace, beneath which grandmammy placed the sweet potatoes to keep ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... something to do with that Prince chap, or I'm a Dutchman," was Drake's reply. "I was leaning over the rail here, a little while ago, thinking of nothing in particular—for Lieutenant Sing is on duty until midnight—when I saw a light appear suddenly away in that direction," pointing. "There was nothing out of the way in that, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Hill kicked off his shoes, rolled over the rail and went into the water with a splash. Clancy reached for him, but was a minute too late, for his fingers ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... shirt and trowsers,) which I put on, swab and all, thinking no harm. But there must have been mighty great offence nevertheless, for the fisherman, in a twinkling, casting a fierce look at me, jumped overboard like a feather, clearing the rail like a flying fish, and swam to his canoe that had shoved ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... three gold bars on the sleeve of his tunic. He might fairly be reckoned a man of courage. His position, when Miss Willmot spoke to him, demanded nerve. He stood on the top rail of the back of a chair, a feeble-looking chair. The chair was placed on a table which was inclined to wobble, because one of its legs was half an inch shorter than the other three. Sergeant O'Rorke, ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... mining country in the world. If the United States will make just and liberal laws for us; give us protection; remove those trifling and unprofitable custom houses on the frontier, at least for 5 or 6 years; procure us a transit through Sonora to Guaymas, and hasten along the rail-road to California, this will indeed be a prosperous country, and will astonish the world with its production of silver and copper. But with such terrible obstacles as those mentioned above and the great length of transit to transport ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry
... the polls were opened for the election of officers. A box was placed on the fife-rail, at the mainmast, in which the ballots were deposited, under ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Separate Place: and [437] before it stood the Altar, in the center of another square area, called the Inner Court, or Court of the Priests: and these two square areas, being parted only by a marble rail, made an area 200 cubits long from west to east, and 100 cubits broad: this area was compassed on the west with a wall, and [438] on the other three sides with a pavement fifty cubits broad, upon which stood the ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... didn't rail at fate. He had learned what fate could do to him, and he had learned to take its blows with a strange fatalism and composure. Besides, would he not have the joy of her presence for many days to come? Their adventure had just begun: weeks would pass before she could go home. In those ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... corner, head on paws, watching his master's every action. Burton struck out, without warning, straight from the shoulder. Thornton was sent spinning, and saved himself from falling only by clutching the rail of the bar. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... year. Floating sea-weed and kelp is carried up into the meadows, as returning sailors bring oranges in bandanna handkerchiefs to friends in the country." And again: "We leaned for awhile on the wooden rail and enjoyed the silvery reflection on the sea, making sundry comparisons. Among other thoughts we had this cheering one, that the whole sea was flashing with this heavenly light, though we saw it only in a single track; the dark waves are the dark providences ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... darted quickly toward Brandon, and the moment that the vessel yielded to the blow of the storm he fell violently against him. Before Brandon had noticed the storm or had time to steady himself he had pushed him headlong over the rail and helplessly ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... he asked, as she bent over the guard-rail. "Oh, gladly." He turned instantly, but Gertrude had gained the step. "Thank you, thank you," exclaimed Marie. "What is their name, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... knew that his appointment had been made in pursuance of the emperor's policy of road and rail. For Corsica was to be opened up by a railway, and would have none of it. And though to-day the railway from Bastia to Ajaccio is at last open, the station at Corte remains a fortified place with ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... posts let into the earth. If the shore is of rock, rings with staples let into the stone form the best means for securing the ends of the main ropes. Plank are laid on these cables to form the roadway. The ropes forming the "side-rail" of the bridge are passed over trestles at each shore, and then fastened as before. Short vertical ropes attach the main supports to these side ropes, in order that they may sustain a part of the weight passing over the bridge. Constructions of this character are fully described ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... That was enough for him. He was "pals" in ten minutes; in fifteen, from his eminence on the deckhouse, with a biscuit in one hand and a tumbler of much-diluted Hollands in the other, he gazed down at his erstwhile beach fellows with almost the disdainful wonder of a tourist from a white ship's rail.— ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... remarkable manner, and it was mainly owing to his power over them that I was able to arrange with camel contractors to transport to Quetta and Kandahar the huge stocks of winter clothing, medical comforts, grain, and the various requirements of an army in the field, which had been brought by rail to Sibi, and had there remained for want of transport to take them ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... needed not to look to the right or the left, for the path of the iron rails led them directly on. Now and again clods of new-broken earth caused them to stumble as they hobbled loosely along. If the foot of either struck against the rail, its owner sprang aside, as though in fear, toward the middle of the track. Slowly and unevenly, with all the zigzags permissible within the confining inches of the irons, they came on up toward ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... High-church English divine, who had met me half an hour before and had hastened to spare me future heartaches by explaining at once that he was married, rose abruptly from his chair beside me and wobbled uncertainly to the deck-rail, where he hung suspended in an attitude of pathetic resignation. Thus recalled to the grim realities of life, Jessica and I looked up and down the deck. It was deserted—deserted save for a little black figure that ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... me. I give you my word that that flat-iron jibed twice—once for practice, I jedge, and then for business. She commenced by twisting and squirming like an eel. I jest had sense enough to clamp my mittens onto the little brass rail by the stern and hold on; then she jibed the second time. She stood up on two legs, the boom come over with a slat that pretty nigh took the mast with it, and the whole shebang whirled around as if it had forgot something. I have a foggy kind of remembrance of locking my mitten clamps fast ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that one could not even look over them, and where they were obliged to turn from the road, and to drive across fields and hedges, at the risk of being dumped into a ditch or having the horse spiked on a fence rail. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... He went by rail as far as Felixopolis. There he takes a horse, and goes across the prairies to Broncho Junction; a three days' journey. I told him he wouldn't do much business on that route, but he said he was going partly for his health, and partly to see the country. He expected to reach Broncho Thursday ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... central India, at Manikyala in the northwest, at Amravati in the south, and in Ceylon at Ruanwalli and Tuparamaya. The best known among them is the Sanchi Tope, near Bhilsa, 120 feet in diameter and 56 feet high. It is surrounded by a richly carved stone rail or fence, with gateways of elaborate workmanship, having three sculptured lintels crossing the carved uprights. The tope at Manikyala is larger, and dates from the 7th century. It is exceeded in size by many in ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... us with a rope and some rails. It was twenty minutes before the poor horse was extricated; he was down in the water up to his neck, his eyes looked glassy, and I was afraid the poor thing was dying. However the Indians evidently knew what to do, they got the end of a rail under him as a lever to raise him up, and put a noose round his neck; then, having first loosened the harness, they pulled with a will, and in a few moments had him out of the hole kicking on the ice; they then gave him a good rubbing, and soon he made ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... him for his counsel, and set out for the mountain. But no sooner did he reach it than loud jests and gibes broke out on every side, and almost deafened him. For some time he let them rail, and pushed boldly on, till he had passed the place which his brother had gained; then suddenly he thought that among the scoffing sounds he heard his brother's voice. He stopped and looked back; and another stone ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... wasn't any sound except the splashing of the oars and I thought that was mighty funny. In a couple of minutes the boat came alongside and I heard someone say, "Pst" very quiet like. I went and looked over the rail and there I saw a fellow all alone in a rowboat. I couldn't see him very well, but I could see he had on an old hat and ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... flower, demands her adoration. Then it is, perhaps, that she turns her thoughts from all lesser companionships and, rapt in universal worship, suffers us to pass and repass as unnoticed as the idlers in the cathedral by those who kneel at the chancel rail. ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... finest cliff scenery in Ireland. From Limerick or Galway the county may be explored. On the journey by rail from Limerick, beyond Long Pavement, we come on a fine view of Cratloe woods. An ancient saint referred to Cratloe as "a pleasant seclusion from sin"; but in later times it became a haunt of rapparees, and its thick ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... tenderly black, The morning eagerly bright, For that old, old spring is blossoming In the soul and in the sight. The red-winged blackbird brings My lost youth back to me, When I hear in the swale, from a gray fence rail, O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee! ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... which treated upon my case. I read and compared my case with the insight you so ably explained, so I was satisfied you understood your profession well. I started full of hope and as I reached Buffalo, after three days' travel by rail, some 1,500 miles, there was something that cheered me on. I made my way to your Invalids' Hotel. I was examined and pronounced curable. I was operated upon for a local affection that caused much of my suffering, the same day I arrived, and in ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their love ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... a visit to a very old friend living at the town marked Z. What he proposed was this: that he would start from his home, enter every town once and only once, and finish his journey at Z. As he made up his mind to perform this grand tour by rail only, he found it rather a puzzle to work out his route, but he at length succeeded in doing so. How did he manage it? Do not forget that every town has to be visited once, and not ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... common with all men, but especially with those of his rough trade, what little sense or manners he possessed deserted him; and he behaved himself so scandalous to the young lady, jesting most ill-favouredly at the figure she had made on the ship's rail, that I had no resource but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ain't!" said Dan, exultant. "The ol' man, and the nigger, and the gal, and Jim's wife and darters inter the bargain! Went with 'em myself all the way, by stage and rail, till I seen 'em over the line inter ol' Kentuck'. Durned if I didn't wish I war gwine for ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... the town first, then went by rail to Alpignano, where Costanza was staying with a relative of the family, Count Buglioni di Monale. Here I was received like a son, and shown straight to my room, where there stood a little bed with silk hangings, and where, on the pillow, there lay a little, folded-up ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... it began to snow. What with this thick, blinding cloud driving past, shrouding the face of the sea, and what with the tumultuous waves breaking over her, and what with the roaring gale drowning her lee rail, the First Venture was having a rough time of it. Skipper Bill, with his hands on the wheel, had the very satisfactory impression, for which he is not to be blamed, that he was "a man." But when, ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... we thought it a hundred, we were so impatient to get there! What a march we had! all day and all night, the engine helping us a little, and we helping the engine by hunting up and replacing now and then a stray rail which the traitors had torn from the track. A good many got used up, and Charley Homans took 'em aboard the train. It was on that march I fell in with one of the pleasantest fellows I ever saw; always full of wit and good-humor, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... said, "I've changed my mind about going back to Lost Hollow to-morrow. I'm going to Bretherton and that is only a half hour by rail from here. I want you to come to me, there. I must see you again. I'll explain to Mrs. Treadwell and Lans. I declare I haven't felt so like my old self ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... which oppressed and checked his sister. He did not laugh much; he had not a nature for wholesome laughter, but he chuckled, lengthened his lips, half shut his eyes; asked his companion whether the rail did not hurt her, put his arm on the top, so that she might lean against it, and talked in a manner which even she would have considered a little silly and a little odd, if his position, that ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... in another direction, swayed herself backwards and forwards on her hand as it clutched the rail of the bridge; till, moved by amatory curiosity, she turned her eyes critically ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... too late, now, to look for any of the early spring flowers, but I can recall the exquisite effect of the tender blue hepatica fringing the centre rail of the grip-cars, all up and down Broadway, and apparently springing from the hollow beneath, where the cable ran with such a brooklike gurgle that any damp-living plant must find itself at home there. The water-pimpernel may now be seen, by any sympathetic eye, blowing delicately along ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... girls, liked to think that perhaps the old gentleman knew Father, and would meet him 'in business,' wherever that shady retreat might be, and tell him how his three children stood on a rail far away in the green country and waved their love to him every ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... witty." Another time he saw a figure from which the students were making drawings lying broken to pieces. "Now who the devil has done this?" "Mr. Medland," said an officious probationer, "he jumped over the rail and broke it." He walked up to the offender—all listened for the storm. He calmly said, "Mr. Medland, you are fond of jumping—go to Sadler's Wells—it is the best academy in the world for improving ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... hesitation, she slipped over the rail of the porch, being still out of sight of the raiders, and went down the pillar, which, being nothing more than a tree with its bark still clinging to it, gave her an easy descent. Once on the ground, her task was easy. She worked very quietly, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... I can crowd in the fact that bits of family wash hung from the rail of the old pulpit in the Court of Oranges beside the cathedral, and a pumpkin vine lavishly decorated an arcade near a doorway which perhaps gave into the dwelling of that very custodian. At the same time I must not fail to urge the ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... cabin, crossed the deck, and laid her hands upon the softly quivering rail. Close beside her the darkness gave up a ghost—Hamoud, who also stood silent, gazing toward the coast. His robes exhaled an odor of ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... he and his mistress were sitting, quite as in old times, into the adjoining chamber, that had been Viscountess Isabel's sleeping apartment, and where Esmond perfectly well remembered seeing the old lady sitting up in the bed, in her night-rail, that morning when the troop of guard came to fetch her. The most beautiful woman in England lay in that bed now, whereof the great damask hangings were scarce faded since Esmond saw ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... finding that Mark had breakfasted and gone out alone, was climbing the path by the waterfall, when, on one of the bridges which span the cascade, he saw a girl's figure leaning listlessly over the rough rail. It was Gilda Featherstone, and he thought he could detect an additional tinge in her cheeks and a light in her eyes as he came towards her. Her father and mother were in one of the shelters above, and Mrs. Featherstone's greeting when she recognised him was the reverse of ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... well, I know we have our faults, quite possibly a crowd of them, And sometimes we deceive ourselves by thinking we are proud of them; But we never can have merited that you should set the law to us, And rail at us, and sneer at us, and preach to us, and "jaw" to us. We're much more tolerant than some; let those who hate the law go And spout sedition in the streets of anarchist Chicago; And, after that, I guarantee they'll never want to roam ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship. But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... party, pressing handkerchiefs to their faces meanwhile, since, despite the wrappings of canvas, the valuable mass gave most decided proof of its being in the vicinity, and when the boat started for the shore Neal and Teddy clambered into the hammocks, for even leaning over the rail was an ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... Acadian homes—the traveller accepted a drink of water in a blue tumbler, brought by the meek wife. The galerie just now was scattered with the husband's appliances for making Perique tobacco into "carats"—the carat-press. Its small, iron-ratcheted, wooden windlass extended along the top rail of the balustrade across one of the galerie's ends. Lines of half-inch grass rope, for wrapping the carats into diminished bulk and solid shape, lay along under foot. Beside one of the doors, in deep hickory baskets, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was playing airs from the operas of the day, and Maurice yielded to the spell of the romantic music. He leaned over the pavilion rail, and out of the blackness below he endeavored to conjure up the face of Nell (or was it Kate?) who had danced with him at the embassies in Vienna, fenced and ridden with him, till—till—with a gesture of impatience he flung away ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... off about a sad and depressed-looking countenance was stealing "in and out and round about," and distributing sheets of score to the company. In the conductor's place was a tall man in gray clothes, who leaned negligently against the rail, and held a conversation with a pretty young lady who seemed much pleased with his attention. It did not strike me at first that this was the terrible direktor of whom I had been hearing. He was young, had a slender, graceful figure, and an exceedingly handsome, though (I thought ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... In those days, rail transportation had not developed into its present proportions, and New Orleans was even more interesting as a shipping-point than now. Along the levee stretched rows of craft from every port, big black ocean liners, barques ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... as night after night went by and Ashe, the suspect, did not walk into the trap so carefully laid for him, he found an increasing difficulty in keeping awake. The first two or three of his series of vigils he had passed in an unimpeachable wakefulness, his chin resting on the rail of the gallery and his ears alert for the slightest sound; but he had not been able to ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... given on board the Oriental steamer, by the directors of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company, from whom he had received a special invitation. With the exception of the brief transit from Blackwall to London on his arrival, this was his first trip by rail, but, as his place was in one of the close first-class carriages, he saw nothing of the machinery by which the motion was effected, "though such was the rapidity of the vehicles, that I could distinguish nothing but an expanse of green all round, nor could I perceive even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... twenty or thirty feet above our heads; and on either side was a precipice, so that a false step must have been certain death. In other places a single piece of bamboo was thrown over a frightful chasm, by way of bridge. This, with a slight bamboo rail for the hand, was all that we had to trust to. The careful manner in which we passed these dangers was a source of great laughter and amusement to the Dyaks who followed us. Accustomed from infancy to tread these dangerous paths, although heavily ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... with commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a two-storey brick building with ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... his place against the rail. He drew on his pipe and pretended to be stolidly interested in the sweating stevedores, the hoist-booms ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... and the moon threw light sufficient to enable the hunter to strike with a more certain aim: he found also on the ground one of the rails, made of the blue ash, very heavy, and ten feet in length; he dropped his knife and tomahawk, and, seizing the rail, he renewed the fight with caution, for it had now become a struggle for life ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... he shouted, standing at the rail and bowing, flourishing his arm as though he were snapping the long whip lash he took into the ring with him, "this little exciting episode—this epicurean taste of the thrills to follow in the big tent—although of an impromptu nature, merely ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... the chapel had been accomplished and I felt like a storm-torn bird who finds its sanctuary among the green leaves of a great tree, while with Martha and the boy I went up to the very chancel rail itself. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... by the King's River, which at times is so rapid and impetuous as not to be fordable by the strongest horse. A plank bridge, eighteen inches wide, and one hundred and ten feet long, with a rail on one side, is thrown across for the convenience of those who may be ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... space, is rail'd around, Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone, Made the walls echo with his begging tone: That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground. Though thou art tempted by the linkman's ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... leaped forward, seized one of the Atlantean victims, hurled him to the stone platform and, in an unbelievably short interval, strapped the shrieking wretch by wrists, elbows, knees and ankles to a long, brass rod. Slung like a dead deer from a rail, they lifted the helpless Atlantean, and, while five hundred thousand voices roared in acclaim the priests fitted the pole ends into notches above the hands of the idol with the effect that the idol actually seemed ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... able to lead a solitary life, so that the definition of man as a social animal has met with general assent; in fact, men do derive from social life much more convenience than injury. Let satirists then laugh their fill at human affairs, let theologians rail, and let misanthropes praise to their utmost the life of untutored rusticity, let them heap contempt on men and praises on beasts; when all is said, they will find that men can provide for their wants much more easily ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... They travelled by rail to Edgware Road, exchanging scarce a word on the way. On the stairs of the Mansions, Alma found the ascent too much for her; she stopped, and put out a hand to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... as the boat came abreast, he saw one of the great dogs leap from the stage, run to the stern, and sit down, the others following and joining it behind the seat provided with a back rail. ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... He was the one who rescued her. Hearing her ask in the drug store for the carbolic acid, which she did not get, he thought she was desperate and questioned her, but she tearfully refused to answer. He quietly followed her until she got to the river, and then, when she had her foot on the rail of the bridge and was about to jump off, he seized her. She fought and kicked him so that she badly hurt one of his legs. She told him she had reason to commit suicide. He got her to some house and there ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... mile. Shrouded in the tropical twilight, the landscape below was but dimly discernible. As the darkness came on, Ethel discovered that a small light glowed from the side of the car in front of the driver. Gripping the hand-rail, she made bold to raise herself; and, stopping beneath the searchlight and machine-gun that hung, one beneath the other, on swivels in the center of the framework, she ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... me. Grandmamma has a fortune, which she says I am to have: since then they have insisted on my being with her. She is very clever you know: she is kind too in her way; but she cannot live out of society. And I, who pretend to revolt, I like it too; and I, who rail and scorn flatterers—oh, I like admiration! I am pleased when the women hate me, and the young men leave them for me. Though I despise many of these, yet I can't help drawing them towards me. One or two of them I have seen unhappy about me, and I like it; and if ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how it happened. ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... dense, encompassing wilderness, he saw them all trooping down from the unenclosed passage between the two log-rooms which constituted the house. An old hound had half climbed the fence, but as he laid his fore-paw on the topmost rail, his deep-mouthed bay was hushed,—he was recognizing the approaching step of his master. The yellow curs were still insisting upon a marauder theory. One of them barked defiance as he thrust his head between ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... Wolfshead," he said. "How soon can you be ready? We must go by rail—I have a special ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Tonsard was stationed on the road to Soulanges, sitting on the rail of a culvert waiting for Bonnebault, who had spent the day, as usual, at the Cafe de la Paix. She heard him coming at some distance, and his step told her that he was drunk, and she knew also that he had lost money, for he ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... (completed in 1905) from Port Sudan on the Red Sea to the Nile a little south of Berber, thus placing the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan within easy reach of the markets of the world. A west to east connexion across the continent by rail and steamer, from the mouth of the Congo to Port Sudan, was arranged in 1906 when an agreement was entered into by the Congo and Sudan governments for the building of a railway from Lado, on the Nile, to the Congo ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... rail at the clergy, being sure, at that time, of a favourable audience. His topick is such as will always serve its purpose; an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment; and he exhorts the commons "carefully ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... silence then as the Nomad raced on through the blackness. Mado gripped the rail of the port and peered long and earnestly at the tiny pinpoint of light ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... the wishes of the aga, the two casks containing the Jew and the Ethiopian slave, were placed together on settles higher than the rest, in the centre of the store. He would come in the evening, and rail at the cask containing my late master for hours at a time; during which he drank so much wine, that it was a very common circumstance for him to remain in the house until the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... steep, wooden stairway between two walls of solid masonry, not over two feet apart, we passed, and arrived on a none too stable wooded runway with a guide rail on either side. Looking up through the ragged remains of the wooden roof frame, now almost nude of tiles, we could see the starry sky. Proceeding along the runway, we arrived, somewhere in that cluster of ruins, in a darkened chamber whose interior ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... the roof of the log cabin, and the eaves were decorated with shining icicles. The enchantment had followed the zigzag lines of the fence, and on every rail was its embellishing touch. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the "glorious uncertainty" which backers of horses execrate and ring-men adore. All the favorites were out of the race early. Our best man, Barlowe, the centre of many hopes, and carrying a heavy investment of Oxford money, was floored at the second double post-and-rail. The Cambridge cracks, too, by divers casualties, were soon disposed of. At the last fence, an Oxford man was leading by sixty yards; but it was his maiden race, and he lost his head when he found himself looking like a winner so near home. Instead of taking the stake-and-bound at the weakest ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... scrambling up to the window-sill this time. My visitors shot in like so many arrows, and "brought up" on their hands on the tablecloth, or lit on their feet on the top rail of a chair-back or on my shoulder, as the fancy took them. It would be tedious to go through all the congratulations and thanks which I offered, and indeed received, for it was important to them that the Jars should not get ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... careful the umbrellas aren't caught in the stair rail. I saw a beautiful umbrella broken in half like that on ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... certain death, and be unmoved; and as that old man, in tremulous tones, uttered the dread fiat of his fate, Owen's eyes seemed actually to sink within his head—the veins of his brow swelled and grew black, and his hands grasped the iron rail that surrounded the dock, as though he would force his fingers through it. When all was over, and the fearful cap drawn off, Ellen seemed only then to awake to consciousness. Her eyes slowly opened to their fullest extent—their expression of despair was absolutely frightful—a ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... content to play With thy free tresses all a summer's day, Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade. Or we might sit and tell some tender tale Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn, A tale of true love, or of friend forgot; And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail In gentle sort, on those who practise not Or love or pity, though of ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... barn-yard fowl. This it resembles in many respects, and among others, in its habit of going a-foot, except when the covey crosses from one feeding or roosting ground to another, or when the cock-bird mounts upon a rail-fence or stone-wall to sound his call in the spring. This persistence exposes the quail to hardship when the ground is covered with snow, and the fruit of the skunk-cabbage and all the berries and grain are inaccessible. He takes refuge at such times in the smilax-thickets, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Nay, if you say so, I'll not be against it: But, sir, you might have us'd my daughter better, Than to have beat her, spurn'd her, rail'd at her Before ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... forest trees. Scattered all around in the open space, are beds containing all manner of medicinal and other plants from all parts of the earth. This part of the garden is to the botanist a very interesting spot. The flowering-shrubs are surrounded by a rail fence, and the level of the ground is sunk beneath that of other parts of the garden. There is a special "botanical garden," which is much frequented by students. On another avenue there are plantations of forest shrubs, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... coal-field. A century later it became the custom to nail thin strips of wrought iron to the wooden rails, and about 1767 cast-iron rails were first used. Carr, a Sheffield colliery manager, invented a flanged rail, while Jessop, another colliery engineer, took the other line by using flat rails but flanged cart-wheels. The outburst of canal building in the last quarter of the eighteenth century overshadowed for a time the growth of the iron road, but it soon became clear that the 'tramway' was necessary ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... the veteran and gallant Colonel Stark harangued his regiment, in a short, but animated address; then directed them to give three cheers, and make a rapid movement to the rail-fence which ran to from the left, and about forty yards in the rear of the redoubt, towards Mystic river. Part of the grass, having been recently cut, lay in winnows and cocks on the field. Another ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... Echo Mountain is but a shelf on the side of Mount Lowe. Here they take an electric car that winds five miles on towards the sky. There is hardly a straight rail in the track. Every minute a new thrill, and no two thrills alike. Five miles of winding and squirming, twisting and ducking, dodging ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... the rail on the forward deck. A flambeau fastened to the wharf bowed its light to the wind as the boat swung about, showing the King of Beaver smiling and waving his hand in farewell. He did not see Emeline. His farewell was for the man whom he had ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Madrid by rail will bring us to the Escurial, which the Spaniards call the eighth wonder of the world. This vast pile of stone buildings is more than three hundred years in age, and nearly a mile in circumference,—tomb, palace, cathedral, monastery, all in one. It was the royal home of that bigoted monarch ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... troubled, Noddy," said Mollie, in a low tone, as she placed herself by his side at the lee rail. "My ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... in a handwriting which he did not know: it was that of Mr. Bows, indeed, saying, that Mr. Arthur Pendennis had had a tolerable night; and that as Dr. Goodenough had stated that the major desired to be informed of his nephew's health, he, R. B., had sent him the news per rail. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... central house in Amsterdam—'het Bestelhuis voor den Boekhandel' (the Booksellers' Collecting and Distributing Office). In this establishment the publishers' parcels are opened, and all books sent by the various publishers for one retailer are packed together and forwarded to him, by rail, steamer, or other cheap mode of conveyance. In consequence, any doctor, clergyman, or schoolmaster can receive a penny or twopenny pamphlet in his out-of-the-way home, as well as any book or periodical from London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, etc., within a remarkably short time, without trouble, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... after overhang, tending the sheet, and bracing muscular legs against the swirling seas that, leaping over the low freeboard, tried to swirl him off among them. Kathryn Blair, leaned lithely against the weather rail, little, white—canvas-shod feet braced, skirts whipping about her slender body, rounded arms gripping the wet edge of the cockpit rail. The gold-brown hair, in loosened strands, whipped across her tanned cheek; her gown, open at the throat, revealed a glimpse of straight, perfectly-poised throat; ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... bridge, the central pier of which was built of the crudest kind of masonry piled on top of a gigantic boulder in midstream. The main arch of the bridge consisted of two long logs across which had been thrown a quantity of brush held down by earth and stones. There was no rail on either side, but our mules had crossed bridges of this type before and made little trouble. On the northern side of the valley we rode through a compact little town called Mungi and began to climb out of the canyon, passing ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... father's farm, a half a mile from our dwelling. It was constructed of round logs, and had five corners—the fifth was formed at one end by having shorter logs laid from the corners at an obtuse angle, like the corner of a rail fence, and meeting in the middle. It was built up thus to the square, then the logs went straight across, forming the end for the roof to rest on; consequently this fifth corner was open, and this was the fire-place. Stones laid with mud mortar were built in this ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... traverse the lines of rail beside which the body was found are those which run from west to east, some being purely Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying junctions. It can be stated for certain that this young man, when he met his death, was travelling in this direction ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... guiding instinct of the firm was found to be concentrated in the handsome head of Mr. E. Tatnall Warner, a son and now a partner; and it was he who sketched out the amplitude of the store-houses, and determined to bring the line into victorious competition with the rail for all the freight of the port that would bear slow moving. The wharves of Warner & Co. now extend from Water street to the Christine River, and from Market to King streets. There are three communications daily with Philadelphia, and tri-weekly ones with New York and Boston. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... down he slips, poor boy, and breaks both his legs below the knee on an iron rail, whereby he becomes ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... and trucks stopped, the men shouldered their tools and tumbled out, and we followed them. A few hundred paces in front of us was a railway bridge, over which a road passed, and under which the rail went at a sharp curve. The snow had drifted heavily against the bridge, with its high earth embankment, making manifest at a glance the cause ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... now become so real to Judy that her galloping imagination had leaped over every difficulty, as the hunter leaps the intervening fence rail. In a flash she had decided on her own costume, of violet velvet and silk—a gentleman of the court, perhaps—when Molly, sitting pale and quiet ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... the least detail of his visit, from the shining brass rail of the outside steps and the pompous little hard-eyed servant in a striped waistcoat and brass buttons, who looked at him insolently as he went in, to the same servant as he bowed to him obsequiously as he came out. He never forgot Alice Yorke's ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... by the streak of boyishness in him—the perfectly transparent desire of this young man to detain her in conversation. And, still amused, she leaned back against the rail. If he wanted to talk to her she would let him—even help him. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... to see what's waitin' for one of our plutiest directors outside the brass rail. In fact, I almost gasps. Lady! More like one of the help from the laundry. The navy blue print dress with the red polka dots was enough for one quick breath, just by itself. How was that for an afternoon street costume to blow into the Corrugated general ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... replied Henry in his firm tones, and dropping the fence rail that he held he walked to the house, every nerve in him thrilling with expectation of the pleasure that was to come. His mother was there, and she started in ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... over to the rail. "He's only just come, you know, Miss Mathewson. You don't have to call him out this ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... by a magnificent bridge 400 yards long, railway above and carriage road underneath. Crossing it the train enters the Portuguese town of VALENCA, where there is a strong fortress and a custom-house. VIANNA (pop. 7000; hotel, Central). The river Lima is here spanned by a double bridge (rail and road) 700 ft. long. From FAMALICAO there is a loop line to Oporto running round the coast and 15m. longer than the main line. ERMEZINDE is the junction with the Spanish line to ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... some idea of what an American theatre is like," said Mrs. Kendal. "You reach your destination by rail at some small place for a one-night stay. If it is raining and the ground is wet, men in long jack-boots catch hold of you and gallantly take you across the puddles. You do not see a soul about—and you are in fear and trembling as to where your night's audience is coming from. You get ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... leisurely up the broad staircase with its white spindles and polished mahogany rail to the rooms overhead, furnished with huge curtained four-posters and fascinating chests of drawers ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... transport reeking with its cargo, still tied up to the sun-scorched wharf where scores of loungers loafed and gazed up at the rail and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... disclosing a single bedroom with shaving materials on the bureau still secure; there a drug store lay fallen into the street, and the iron railing about it was torn and twisted out of shape. A man and a boy had just been carried away dead. All around small pieces of iron rail and ripped-up asphalt lay scattered. Iron bars were driven into the woodwork of houses; there were great gaps in walls and roofs; the attack had not spent itself on any one section of the city, but had scattered itself in different wards. The freaks of the shells were ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... Staggs now rests beneath this rail, Who loved his joke, his pipe, and mug of ale; For twenty years he did the duties well, Of ostler, boots, and waiter at the Bell. But death stepped in, and ordered Peter Staggs To feed the worms, and leave the farmers' nags. The church clock struck one—alas! ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... came from a dozen voices, and the whole passenger list crowded the port rail, just to see a cow whale throwing up streams of water, not immensely larger than the streams of milk which my cow Holsteins throw down. The crowd seemed to take great pleasure in this sight, but ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... that, running south and east, would take him back to the banks of the James and to his own house, he had not slackened speed, but now, as he saw through the trees before him a long zigzag of rail fence, he drew rein. The road turned, and a gate barred his way. When he had opened it and passed through, he was ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... begin slowly. It was only the milk boy and the paper boy who ran up the stairs, and they generally whistled or sang as they ran, heedless of feminine reproofs or masculine curses. There was no lift at Brown's; its steps were as stony and as steep as those of which Dante complained; the rail on which Celia's hand rested occasionally was of iron; and Brown's whitewashed corridors, devoid of ornament, were so severe as to resemble those of a prison; indeed, more than one of the inhabitants of the Buildings spoke ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... to ring. Lewis Rand came from the vestry and stood beside the chancel rail. A sound at the door, a universal turning as though the wind bent every flower in a garden—and Jacqueline Churchill came up the aisle between the coloured lines. Her hand was upon the arm of her father's schoolmate; Unity and Deb followed ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... authority in such a manner as to insure friendship. That you should make the panegyric of the ministers is what I expected; because, in praising their bounty, you paid a just compliment to your own force. But that you should rail at us, either individually or collectively, is what I can scarcely think a natural proceeding. I can easily conceive that gentlemen might grow frightened at what they had done,—that they might imagine they had undertaken a business above their direction,—that, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... another. This was the system of making the haul as long as possible. Any one who is familiar with the exposures which resulted in the formation of the Interstate Commerce Commission knows what is meant by this. There was a period when rail transport was not regarded as the servant of the traveling, manufacturing, and commercial publics. Business was treated as if it existed for the benefit of the railways. During this period of folly, it was not good railroading to get goods from their shipping point to their destination by the ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford |
