"Cracked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... captain said to the horses, as he cracked his whip, while our men quietly smoked their pipes. I was half suffocated in my box, which only admitted the air through some holes in front, while at the same time I was nearly frozen, ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... mermaids associated with him had been consistent in catching; and his trident had been so deeply affected as to drop its prongs. Altogether, this heavy work of heavy art, smoked dry, hugely scabbed, cracked, and crumbling, was a dismal sight to the distracted eye of George Amberson Minafer, and its present condition of craziness may have added a mite to his own. His own was sufficient, with no additions, however, as he stood looking at the Johnsons' house and those houses on both sides ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... does not the dweller in the National Capital endure in reaching these days! Think of the agonies of the heated term, the ragings of the dog-star, the purgatory of heat and dust, of baking, blistering pavements, of cracked and powdered fields, of dead, stifling night air, from which every tonic and antiseptic quality seems eliminated, leaving a residuum of sultry malaria and all-diffusing privy and sewer gases, that lasts from the first of ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... means idle ones, for numerous are the jobs to be done—washing and mending clothes, patching up boots and hats, hair cutting, diary writing, plotting our course, arranging photograph plates (the majority of which were, alas! spoilt by the heat), mending a camera cracked by the sun, making hobble-straps, mending and stuffing saddles, rearranging packs cleaning firearms, and other like occupations. The heat was extreme; too great for my little thermometer which registered up to 140 (degrees) F., and intensified by hot winds ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... red hand, and grasped Stangrave's till the joints cracked: his face grew as red as a turkey-cock's; his eyes filled ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... hardly deny that the mansion fits well into its setting and that, architects tell us, is a prime consideration. The flagstones for the floor of the portico he imported from Whitehaven, England, and these still remain in place, though many are cracked ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... knots of men, some of whom stared at her father, though as she passed their hats came off. Miss Schuyler, on her part, noticed that most of the stores were shut, and felt that she had left New York a long way behind as she glanced at the bare wooden houses cracked by frost and sun, rickety plank walks, whirling wisps of dust, and groups of men, splendid in their lean, muscular symmetry and picturesque apparel. There was a boldness in their carriage, and a grace that approached the statuesque in every poise. Still, she started when they ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... discovered; a library containing the fine works of Mazois, of Raoul Rochette, of Gell, of Zahn, of Overbeck, of Breton, etc., on Pompeii, enables the student to consult them in Pompeii itself; workshops lately opened are continually busy in restoring cracked walls, marbles, and bronzes, and one may there surprise the artist Bramante, the most ingenious hand at repairing antiquities in the world, as likewise my friend, Padiglione, who, with admirable patience and minute fidelity, is cutting a small model in cork of the ruins that have been cleared, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... me that the horse chosen for me was the most vicious of the lot. Everything being in readiness, the "45" cracked and we all sprang forward together, each of us making ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... The rifle cracked again, and a bullet plucked into the sod twenty feet beyond the circle of men and horses. But no one looked up or gave any other sign of realization that they were still the target; they were staring, with that frowning painfully intent look men have at such moments, at a purplish ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... out. The first signal rocket showed the village crowded with Indians, over whose heads the cracked rocket slowly whizzed. The light of the next rocket did not disclose a single person, and it was apparent that the place was deserted. The third rocket happened to strike one of the roofs, and exploding there, ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... for merry-makings. Cristobal, eager to see what the Yule-log might have in store for him, rushed out of the church with careless speed, stumbling over a boy who stood in his way,—the haughty, insolent Jasper. Jasper's beautiful Christmas-candle was cracked in ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... gaily, and cracked the long whip he carried. The Canadians understood and cracked their own whips, and away went the whole party, over the fields of ice and snow, in ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... He shook his head, with rather a grim smile. "Told you once I worked in a pottery. Supposing the clay of a piece wasn't mixed right, it wasn't the dish's fault if it cracked in the firing. Just the same, it ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... the whole, and delicate woman and well-born lady though she was, made each of those hard-working sisters feel that it was only her weakness, and not her station, that prevented her doing all that they did. "Eleven o' the clock," said John Alden, as the Mayflower's cracked bell told six hoarse strokes. "They said they'd bring our dinner ashore for us," and he ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... whatever it had been, for it bore evidence of long sea immersion, and the band had been broken and cracked by the manner in which the negro fisherman had ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... inflation. Georgia had suffered from a chronic failure to collect tax revenues; however, the new government is making progress and has reformed the tax code, improved tax administration, increased tax enforcement, and cracked down on corruption. In addition, the reinvigorated privatization process has met with success, supplementing government expenditures on infrastructure, defense, and poverty reduction. Despite customs and financial (tax) enforcement improvements, smuggling ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... the Dummy, after all, who settled that for him. He came with his afternoon offering of cracked ice just then and stood inside the screen, staring. Perhaps he had known all along how it would end, that this, his saint, would go—and not alone—to join the vanishing circle that had ringed ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... very pleasant when I met him," he remarked. "He cracked jokes. And he laughed at ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a game where Ethel Brown can do herself justice," cried James, but no one seemed to have any inspiration, so they all went to the fire, where they cracked ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... mellow tones of its Sabbath bell, echoing through the valley, summoned the pious congregation to their austere devotions. Before the worn threshold of the great double-leaved door, in the broadside of the building, lies a platform, which was once a solid shelf of red sandstone, but now is cracked in twain, and hollowed by the footsteps of six generations. In the very spot where it now lies it has lain ever since the first framed meeting-house was built in Belfield, in the reign of good King William III. There, gathered in a little knot, on Sundays and public days, the forefathers of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... slowly on. The few spectators teased the ant-eater in one corner, or the first violin in another. One or two young farmers' boys were a little uproarious with egg-pop, and danced awkward breakdowns at the end of the tent. Then a cracked bell sounded and the curtain rose, showing hardly more of the stage than was ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... forward rapidly. Their rifles cracked, quickly cutting a path through the patrol, and before Urrea could get up his main force they were gone through the forest and ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with broken dishes, earless jugs, cracked plates, and bottomless saucepans," continued Mrs. Kitson. "What a dish of nuts for my neighbours to crack! They always enjoy a hearty laugh at my expense, on Kitson's clearing-up days. But what does he care for my distress? In ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... from below. "Go," he cried to Nan. "There'll be shooting here that I can't stop!" He slapped Sassoon's pony viciously with his hand, yelled loud in answer to Lefever, and before the startled girl could collect herself, de Spain, crouching in his saddle, as a fusillade cracked from Lefever's and Scott's revolvers, urged Sassoon's horse around Nan's, kicked it violently, spurred past her himself, and was away. White with consternation and anger, she steadied herself and looked after the fleeing pair. Then whirling in her saddle, she ran her pony back ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... gambling-house. Cheyenne stepped back, drew down the curtain, and turned on the light. The bare board floor was littered with cigarette stubs. A pair of saddle-bags hung on the iron bedstead. Other furniture was a chair, a scratched and battered washstand, a cracked mirror. Standing by the washstand Cheyenne took his gun from its holster, half-cocked it, and punched out the loaded cartridges. He pulled the pin, pushed the cylinder out with his thumb, and examined it against the light. ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... stole unlawful pennies to pay for admission to the charmed circle of equestrian delights, and in youthful purity of soul, and general dirtiness of face and hands, listened to the ingenious witticisms of the clown, while we cracked the peaceful peanut, and shared the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... ledge round a horn of rock I beheld what made me perfectly sick and dizzy to look at—the terminal Peak itself—a smooth, cracked face or wall of pink granite, as nearly perpendicular as anything could well be up which it was possible to climb, well deserving the name of ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... its head off and stick it in a vawse o water to look at. [The grasshopper chirps: Keegan turns his head and addresses it in the vernacular]. Be aisy, me son: she won't spoil the swing-swong in your little three. [To Nora, resuming his urbane style] You see I'm quite cracked; but never mind: I'm harmless. Now ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... us together, we sprang upon the snow with a shout, and slid down splendidly, turning now and then a somersault, and shooting out like cannon-balls almost to the middle of the frozen lake; I upon my back, and Cotter feet first, in a swimming position. The ice cracked in all directions. It was only a thin, transparent film, through which we could see deep into the lake. Untying ourselves, we hurried ashore in different directions, lest our combined weight should be too great a strain upon ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... cheered. The horses and burros in the corrals began to snort and tramp and race in fright. At the base of the long slope of the foothill Link cut the speed more than half. Yet the car roared up, rolling the dust, flying capes and veils and ulsters, and crashed and cracked to a halt in the yard before ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... long before Albert fell asleep; for the cold kept up a continual fusillade, as of musketry, during the entire night. The woodwork of the walls snapped and cracked with loud reports; and a little after midnight a servant came in and stuffed the stove full of birch-wood, until it roared like an angry lion. This roar finally lulled Albert to sleep, in spite of the startling ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... shoulder, while he, thinking to cheer me up, cracked his foolish jokes, I passed through two narrow passages, and going down three steps I found myself in a well-lighted hall, at the end of which, on the left-hand side, was a door leading into another passage two feet broad by about twelve long, and in the corner was my new cell. It ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which burns under it. The pot is suspended by a line of sinew at each end to the framework over the fire, and thus becomes so black on every side that the original colour of the stone is in no part discernible. Many of them were cracked quite across in several places, and mended by sewing with sinew or rivets of copper, iron, or lead, so as, with the assistance of a lashing and a due proportion of dirt, to render them ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... my adieus, the postillion cracked his whip, and we started. "There is no danger of bad weather for a month," said the driver, "and when we get up farther you will see what will pay you for the trouble of coming:" a speech that promised well for the day, I argued; and a certain share ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... story was correct, had been Hovig's personal stateroom. As Dasinger approached that point, it was like climbing into silent thunder. The door was locked, and though the walls beside it were warped and cracked, the cracks were too narrow to permit entry. Dasinger dug out a tool which had once been the prized property of one of Orado's more eminent safecrackers, and went to work on the lock. A minute or two later he forced the door partly back in its tilted ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... plethora and the commoners by famine. At last there was but one real proprietor left,—the emperor,—whose dependent, flatterer, parasite, or slave, each citizen became; and when this proprietor was ruined, those who gathered the crumbs from under his table, and laughed when he cracked his jokes, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... sewed up, our boots stuffed with wet cotton, our tooth-brushes dusted with quinine and our cafe noir sweetened with salt. These practical jokes are all taken in good part and made to contribute to the jollity of the season. At the breakfast-table lumps of cracked marble serve admirably for loaf-sugar, except that the hottest coffee will not dissolve them, and boiled eggs tempt the appetite only to disappoint with their sawdust filling. Then all assemble on the piazza to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... N. thud, thump, dead sound; nonresonance^; muffled drums, cracked bell; damper; silencer. V. sound dead; stop the sound, damp the sound, deaden the sound, deaden the reverberations, dampen the reverberations. Adj. nonresonant^, dead; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the rest of these desolate isles, all of dark whinstone, cracked in every direction, and worn with the action of winds, waves, and tempests since the world began. Over the greater part of it was not a blade of grass, nor a grain of earth; it was bare and iron-like stone, crusted, round all the coast ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... had been built to keep it up. It leaned against them like a weary old thing that wanted to go to sleep. It had a short square tower, like so many of the churches in England; and although there was but one old cracked bell in it, although there was no organ to give out its glorious sounds, although there was neither chanting nor responses, I assure my English readers that the awe and reverence which fell upon me as I crossed its worn threshold were nowise inferior, as far as ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... to herself, "and wild roses are crowdin' up to her door, and the meadow larks are sittin' round all over blinkin' at the sun, and she has her man with her, and she ain't tired with the work, and her hands ain't cracked and sore, and she hasn't been there long enough to dislike the twins the way she will when she knows them better, and there's no mosquitoes, and she hasn't been left to stay alone, and still she cries! God help us! What will she do in the long drizzle in the fall, when the wheat's ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... tragedy. Then he inscribed our names, ages, descriptions, and the like in a great book, when we followed him up three flights to a low room under the eaves, having but one small window, and bare of furniture save two narrow cots for beds, a broken chair, and a cracked mirror. He explained that cash boarders got better, and added that we might be happy we ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to the singing of an old man who had brought his fiddle to the field in order to be ready to play at the squire's "harvest-home." He was a thin, crooked, old man, very spare and ruddy. "Eighty-three years old, young sir," he said to Julius; and then, in a trembling, cracked voice, he ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Bells of Berlin, are they cracked through and through (Oh, dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee,) Or deaf to the discord like Germany, too? For whether their changes be many or few, The worst of them is that they never ring true, (Oh, dangle ding ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... something about it that rather attracted him. He strode along on the dry boughs. "Crack!" went one; "crack-crack!" went another; and Kellyan arose on the platform and strained his eyes in the gloom till a dark form moved into the opening by the bones of the sheep. The hunter's rifle cracked, the Bear snorted, wheeled into the bushes, and, crashing away, ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... birthday, you mean? No, I don't think I ever did. Aunt Myra doesn't believe in cake. She says she liked it when she was young; but since she was converted to cracked wheat and oatmeal at the age of thirty-three, she has hardly ever touched it. We never had any at North ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... hain't jest ter say busted, but 'pears like hit's right smart cracked. I reckon, though," he added in half-disgust, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... with a brick front, green shutters on weak hinges, and a dress-maker's sign in the window above the shop. On each side of its modest three stories stood higher buildings, with fronts of brown stone, cracked and blistered, cast-iron balconies and cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings. These houses too had once been private, but now a cheap lunchroom filled the basement of one, while the other announced itself, above the knotty wistaria that ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, even ruder than those of Shakspeare's house,—though, perhaps, not so strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is the little original window, of only four small ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... it. Some of Mrs. Otis's crocks froze on the hearth that night. No such cold had been known in Vermont for years. The frost on the window-panes thickened—the light of the full moon could not penetrate them; all over the house were heard sounds like those on a straining ship at sea. The old timbers cracked now and then with a report like a pistol. "It's a dreadful night," said Mrs. Otis, and as she spoke the returning wind struck the house, and she gasped as if it had in ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... coolly to where he could look over the heap of the collapsed wall. He saw a bundle of torn clothing that had been a man. It was flung against a cracked and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... does not cover the whole of its foundation, and therefore thrusts less heavily and settles less. Hence, the pier b e in settling cracks and parts from the wall e o. This may be seen in most buildings which are cracked round the piers. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... found on the upper part of New York Island, near High Bridge, in a natural depression where the water stands most of the year, except in July, August, and September, when it becomes an area of drying, cracked mud two hundred feet across. As the mud dries these plants develop in great profusion, giving an appearance to the surface as if covered ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... passed over his head as a dozen rifles cracked. This time he was surely killed! He was in some other world! Which was it, the good or the bad? The good, for he had a glimpse of blue sky. No, that could not be, for he had been alive when he leaped for the crater, ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... may leave, the profession, I suppose he'll take to writing. He's always told me that when he could afford to, he'd like to cut the traces and wollop the race with his pen. Many doctors would like to do that. A gag and a chain and ball are not what they're cracked up to be. The pen is mightier than the pill, sometimes, but it often eliminates the butter from ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... the metal of the gate. Its insulation was one of these space-age wonders, a form of clear plastic that would remain ductile under zero temperature and pressure. Only it didn't. It had shrunk and cracked, and there was a simple short against the metal of the gate. There were so many forms of circuit-breakers and self-protectors in the machine that the whole gate had been switched off as long as the short was in existence. No wonder telemetry hadn't ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... just hated school," grinned Lizzie. "It ain't so nice as it's cracked up to be. Just sit and study all day long. Why, they were always keeping me after school for talking or laughing. I was glad enough when I got through. You may thank your stars you didn't ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... now going through a period of misrepresentation. Every absurd meaning that can be given to any combination of words will be given to every plank of the platform. In the heat of partisan hatred every plank will look warped and cracked. A great effort is being made to show that the Republican party is in favor of intemperance,—that the great object now is to lessen the price of all intoxicants and increase the cost of all the necessaries ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Duchesse's ball. I will get an invitation for you, and will keep the cotillion for you. The idea of running away as you did, and never telling any one where you were going to. I always said you were a little cracked. And letting all your things be sold! If you had only told me! I should like so much to have had that ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... defence of his client, in this desperate strait maintained that there might exist several copies of the books found in his possession, and that it was out of the question to condemn, on his own sham avowal, a man who appeared to be half cracked. The counsel for the prosecution said that that plea could not be urged in the case of the book printed by Lambert Palmart, as but one copy of that was in existence. But the prisoner's counsel retorted by putting in evidence attested affirmation that a second ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... up, with the reins in his hand, and called out to the horses to start on. He talked to his horses in French, and they seemed to understand him very well. The great thing, though, was cracking his whip. You can scarcely conceive how fast and loud he cracked his whip, first on one side and then on the other, till the whole court rang again. The horses sprang forward and trotted off at great speed out of the place, and wheeled round the corner to the quay; and while they were going, the conductor came climbing up the side of the coach ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... her, there—and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere else—these seven years. When Sissy got into the school here," he pursued, "he was as pleased as Punch. I suppose he had this move in his mind—he was always half cracked—and then considered her provided for. If you should have happened to have looked in to-night to tell him that you were going to do her any little service," added Mr. Childers, "it would ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... on: 'Now it so happened that the house opposite to the one taken by the mechanician was peculiar. It was a tall narrow building, wholly unornamented, the walls covered with a layer of white plaster cracked and soiled by time. I seem to see that house now! Six stone steps led up to the door, with a rusty iron railing on each side, and under these steps were others which went down to a ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... large paper bags which he had pushed over near the dasher. Patricia began to bring out the cushions, and the boy tossed them in upon the straw which lay upon the floor of the pung. Then Patricia and Arabella climbed in, the boy cracked his whip, the horse sprang forward with a surprising jolt, then settled down to a ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... jewels, in Grace Abounding (No. 232)-"It was glorious to me to see His [Christ's] exaltation. Now I could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies, (Irish sixpences, which, in the dearth of silver coin in England, were made current at fourpence-halfpenny-ED), that rich men carry in their purses, when their GOLD is in their trunks at home. Oh! I saw that my gold was ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... On she came. I felt sure that our last moments had arrived. There was no use shouting. The other men looked up. Terror kept them dumb. Had we indeed strained our voices till they cracked, no one would have heard us on board the ship. The dark pyramid of canvas seemed to reach up to the very clouds as she flew along, careering before ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... more day and then it will be time to eat. I didn't take but one bowl of hasty pudding this morning, so I shall have plenty of room when the nice things come," confided Seth to Sol, as he cracked a large hazel-nut as ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... which I have described, placed many trophies, such as cracked mirrors, fans, rumpled plumes, pearls, broken quivers, precious stones and jewels scattered about, bits of broken chains, the whole to signify the abandoning of all worldly pomp, since, now that her husband was dead, her mourning for him was never to cease, and without the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... were upon them as he spoke. Revolvers cracked. Jack Harkness, blonde, curly haired, and of magnificent physique, let his firearm drop as he clapped his hand to a suddenly ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... bucket containing chicken food was conveniently at hand, so she could scatter it on the ground to call her chickens away from depredations on the flowers. A little mouse made frequent excursions into the bucket and helped himself to the cracked grains in the chicken food. "Don't mind him," she admonished, "he jes' plays 'round my cheer all day, and don't ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... were not so fortunate, however, with the loftier spars; for scarcely was the vessel beneath the arch, when she lifted on a swell, and her main-top-gallant-mast snapped off in the cap. The ice groaned and cracked over our heads, and large fragments fell both ahead and astern of us, several of them even tumbling upon our decks. One large piece came down within an inch of the extremity of Dr. Reasono's tail, just escaping the dire ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... impression abroad that the King is cracked, and I dare say there is some truth in it. He gets so very choleric, and is so indecent in his wrath. Besides his squabble with old Lord de Saumarez, he broke out the other day at the Exhibition ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... voice. It was the speech of the old Negro track-walker, taking two days to get to his dying daughter because he could not afford the railroad ticket that would have brought him to her in two hours. Donny recognized the high, cracked, pathetic tones which had addressed him at ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... slab on which Akbar sat to administer justice was pointed out. When one of the Jat chiefs seated himself upon it, the story goes, it cracked, and blood flowed from the fracture. Lord Ellenborough tried the experiment, and the stone broke into two pieces. The Mosque of Pearls is a small building of white marble on a rose-colored platform. ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... windows on the facade, and of those on the Piazzetta, one by one, with great care, and I found them all to be of far inferior workmanship to those which retain their traceries: I believe the stone framework of these windows must have been so cracked and injured by the flames of the great fire, as to render it necessary to replace it by new traceries; and that the present mouldings and capitals are base imitations of the original ones. The traceries were at first, however, restored ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... man standing beside me seized my arm and pointed. I could just see through the trees, which were lower than elsewhere in the front of the wood, a Turk moving stealthily; so I waved my hat. At the same time a rifle underneath me cracked. A second or two later the spy pitched forward on his face and lay still. At the same instant my eyes sought the beech-tree, and I saw the close-lying figure raise itself and slide forward to a joint of the branch. Then the Gospodar, as he rose, hurled himself ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... of red and a spurt of blue came from the mouth of the gun even as the sharp report cracked the echoes in the gully. Instantly following the shot, a wild howling as of fifty beasts fighting, made Polly shoot again. Snarls and yelps followed, until Polly heard the clamor grow fainter until ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... doubted but that one man, and one man alone, was responsible for what might have been the most awful catastrophe of civilized times. And it was that man who sat in my study and watched me now, with ghastly face and passionately inquiring eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded thin and cracked. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... having been so, and is capable of giving the ideas of power, and the consequent pleasures, in their full degree. For observe, that a thing is not properly said to have been the result of a great power, on which only some part of that power has been expended. A nut may be cracked by a steam-engine, but it has not, in being so, been the subject of the power of the engine. And thus it is falsely said of great men, that they waste their lofty powers on unworthy objects: the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... The three muskets cracked. A great ta-yar-r-r and screeching followed the reports; under cover of which and the smoke we legged it for the boat, and, tumbling in, were shoved hastily off by Weymouth. Before we had got twenty yards, however, the savages were on the bank, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... her, Mr Sharnall made the most of his defective organ and inadequate choir. He was a man if much taste and resource, and, as the echoes of the singing rolled round the vaulted roofs, a generous critic thought little of cracked voices and leaky bellows and rattling trackers, but took away with him an harmonious memory of sunlight and coloured glass and eighteenth-century music; and perhaps of some clear treble voice, for Mr Sharnall was famed ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... engines. What was it—what was it? She must at least find out. Everybody was going mad in the staterooms, the stewards were rushing about, trying to quiet people, their own voices shaking and breaking into cracked notes. If the worst had happened, everyone would be fighting for life in a few minutes. Out on deck she must get and find out for ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... put them into the fire to roast, stirring them round and round with a stick. In spite of my repugnance, so excessive was my hunger that as soon as we thought the eggs were done, and Natty had pulled them out, I cracked one. The yolk alone had set, but that looked tolerably tempting; and on putting it to my mouth I could scarcely distinguish it, except by a peculiar flavour, from the yolk of a bird's egg. A couple, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... But here, above all, I was pleased to see the person who had his blood taken out. He speaks well, and did this day give the Society a relation thereof in Latin, saying that he finds himself much better since, and as a new man, but he is cracked a little in his head, though he speaks very reasonably, and very well. He had but 20s. for his suffering it, and is to have the same again tried upon him: the first sound man that ever had it tried on him in England, and but one that we hear of in France, which was a ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... tenderness came into his somewhat mercenary look. He devoted himself more to his nephew; he took him aside, and, with some ceremony, gave him money. He offered us cigars. We took one each. His round French face became all wrinkles, like a cracked plate. ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... They could see that the wreck was a small vessel on her beam-ends. Being to leeward, they could hear despairing cries distinctly, and four or five human beings were seen clinging to the side. The lifeboat-men strained till their sinews well-nigh cracked; it seemed doubtful whether they had advanced or not, when suddenly an unusually large wave fell in thunder on the Break; it rushed over the shallows with a foaming head, caught the boat on its crest and carried it far ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... perfect nest of small servants' rooms, with broken pieces of furniture, dirty cane-bottomed chairs, chests of drawers, cracked mirrors, and decrepit bedsteads. The rooms had low sloping ceilings already hung here and there with cobwebs, small windows, and badly plastered walls—a depressing and dismal region which they ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... black eyes strayed as if by accident to Claire's face, "our heroic friend seems to have cracked under the strain, eh? Cut and ran, like a rabbit. Frankly, my dear Milo, you'd do better to put your reliance on me. A man who will run away,—with a woman looking on, too—and leaving you both in the lurch, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... drop of blood to him, And he loved that comedy part. We played one night to a right good house, Eight dollars and a half; But to my ill-luck in my lines I stuck And I queered the comedian's laugh. He fell down dead of a broken heart— The coroner, old and sage, Said his brain was cracked with a bad attackt Of the centre of the stage. I played that part all by myself For a week in Kankakee; O'er rails and rocks with this property-box I've walked to where I be. I never say an actor's good, I always damn a play; I always croak, and a single joke I have, which is to say: That I am ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... a word. He had learned the taciturnity of the woods, and leveling his rifle, took sure aim. There was no buck fever about him now, and, when his rifle cracked, the deer bounded into the air and dropped down dead. Ross, all business, began to cut up and clean the game, and with Henry's aid, he did it so skillfully and rapidly that they returned to the camp, loaded with the juicy deer meat, by the time the fire ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... vender who roomed next to him at the Reno House was employed at a stall here. Vandover knew him a little, and it was not hard for him to get a thin slice of cocoanut out from the inside rind of one of those that were lying cracked open ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... fairly stung to madness and foaming at the mouth with fury; "curse you, fiend that you are!" And as he hurled forth words of rage and defiance he tugged and strained with such superhuman strength upon his bonds that the stout rope fairly cracked whilst it cut into the flesh of his wrists down to the bone. But the lashing was too strong to yield to even his frenzied efforts, apart from the fact that, with his arms lashed behind him, he had no opportunity to exert his strength effectively, and at length, completely exhausted, he was fain to ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... that most likely, if Mr. Selincourt is such a rich man, he will be sure to have a steamer run up through the Strait two or three times during the summer with provisions, and so it will be bad for Father and the store," he said, carefully setting the cracked cup for Miles, although by rights it was his own turn ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... better. Her head ached less; she sat up on her pillows and drank a cup of tea. Mary was smoothing her mother's hair with soft pats of the brush, when suddenly the church bells began to ring. She had never heard such sounds before. The bell at Valley Hill was cracked, and went tang—tang—tang, as if the meeting-house were an old cow walking slowly about. These bells had a dozen different voices,—some deep and solemn, others bright and clear, but all beautiful; and across their pealing a soft, delicious chime from the tower of the Episcopal ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... room utterly miserable. Nobody took the slightest notice of him, only one person asked his name, and that was a small person of one term's standing who wanted to show that he was a power in the land. At last, however, the old cracked bell rang out for supper, and very thankfully he took his place among the new boys at the bottom of the day-room table. Evening prayers in the School House had once been rather a festive occasion, and a hymn chosen by the head of the House was sung every night. It had been ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... been left in a somewhat dilapidated and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in the part which Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing-boxes in the cellar, with broken chairs, broken china, and other household wrecks. A cracked mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contents of which were airing themselves through wide rips and rents. A lame clothes-horse was saddled with an old rug fringed with a ragged border, out of which all the colors had been completely ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a little cracked sometimes," coughed Val; and, in truth, he now and then did think so. "I hope ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... saw Rheims Cathedral was in a spring twilight, when the great west window glowed, and the only lights within were those of candles which some penitent English had lit in Joan's honour on those same candlesticks.] The high altar was covered with floor-carpets; the pavement tiles were cracked and jarred out by the rubbish that had fallen from above, the floor was gritty with dust of glass and powdered stone, little twists of leading from the windows, and iron fragments. Two great doors had been blown inwards by the blast of a shell in the Archbishop's garden, till they had bent ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... store-house, some stayed for a long time behind the barn, screaming like foxes, others answered from afar like cats; one stood behind the smoke-house, barking like a cross old dog whose upper notes were cracked; and at last all joined in a general chase. The girls came sauntering along in large groups, having a few boys, mostly small ones, with them, who had gathered about them on the road in order to appear like young men. When such a bevy of girls ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... of mine collected a quantity of hazelnuts, while yet the green husks enclosed the nuts, and placed them near the house to dry. At once they were discovered by a blue jay, which picked out a nut at a time, flew away, held the nut between its toes, cracked it from the small end, and ate the contents. In this operation a number of nuts slipped away and were lost. But it seems that all were not eaten, for the next season half a dozen or more hazel shoots came up, and to-day a new patch of hazel bushes is growing in the yard. ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... Napoleon I. Bones should never be thrown away, but cracked and placed in stock pot, covered with water and let simmer. This makes "stock" which is the foundation of ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... appetite I should have had for my breakfast, at that moment awaiting me, if I had had to reflect over it that the great bell of the great basilica of St. Francis of Asisi had that very morning been cracked into pieces by my fore finger! What visions of horrified crowds of Asisinati, of black storms of newspaper items, of censuring gossip the world over, would have come between me and that purple pigeon smothered in rice which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... coming from the south-west, as it had done the first time, but with threefold violence. We sat on the veranda, ready to jump off at any moment, in case the house should be blown away. The view was wiped out by the mist; dull crashes resounded in the forest, branches cracked and flew whirling through the air, all isolated trees were broken off short, and the lianas tangled and torn. The blasts grew ever more violent and frequent, and if the house had not been protected by the mountain, it could never have resisted them. As it was, it shook and creaked, and ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... never-to-be violated, Secrets of Poverty! Should I disclose your honest aims at grandeur, your make-shift efforts of magnificence? Sleep, sleep, with all thy broken keys, if one of the bunch be extant; thrummed by a thousand ancestral thumbs; dear, cracked spinnet of dearer Louisa! Without mention of mine, be dumb, thou thin accompanier of her thinner warble! A veil be spread over the dear delighted face of the well-deluded father, who now haply listening to cherubic notes, scarce ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... high-sheriff, Anton Petersdorf was protonotarius to the criminal court, and Johann Caude, the notarius, conducted the protocollum. Besides, when I look back and think of her shrieks, and how the dry withered limbs writhed and cracked upon the wheel, till the black blood poured forth from her nails and teeth, my head swims and the sight leaves my eyes—therefore, away with it! This only will I notice, that her advocate, Doctor Elias Pauli, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... They have been at war with the Genoese for upwards of twenty years, and have never yet taken their fortified towns. They might have battered down their walls, and reduced them to powder in twenty years. They might have pulled the walls in pieces, and cracked the stones with their teeth in twenty years.' It was in vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery: he was not to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the ancient old sailormen give a hail in their cracked old voices. And the brothers heard them, and came on board to greet Ivan and his bride. And when they saw that she was a Tzar's daughter, and that the very decks were heaped with precious stones, because there was no room below, they said one thing to ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... at their journey's end distant thunder rolled behind heavy and opaque clouds. Ethelberta bade adieu to her attentive satellite, called to Cornelia, and entered a cab; but before they reached the inn the thunder had increased. Then a cloud cracked into flame behind the iron spire of the cathedral, showing in relief its black ribs and stanchions, as if they were the bars of a blazing ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... outlined with thick burns which stood up from the black flesh. Mick went over to his swag for his whip. It was long and supple, made of plaited kangaroo-hide, and ended in a well-rounded lash. He drew it once or twice through his fingers and then cracked it in the air. The sound was like the sudden banging together of two flat wooden boards. Mick stood back from the prostrate native and measured the distance ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... my charade. My first is the same as my second, my third may be cracked, my whole ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... possession as a record of the visit she was making; henceforth she would have a specimen of the Sevres china, "which is only made for kings!" I would not undeceive her by telling her that the products of the manufactory are sold all over the world, and that her saucer, before it was cracked, was the same as those that are bought at the shops for sixpence! Why should I destroy the illusions of her humble existence? Are we to break down the hedge-flowers that perfume our paths? Things are oftenest nothing in themselves; the thoughts we attach to them alone give ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... received with joyful shouts. They had plenty of meat and drink, and plied the fiddler and his man with more than was agreeable to them. Never was a more joyful wedding seen. They sung, they danced, told their stories, cracked jokes, &c., in a vein of humor more entertaining to the two guests than they probably could have found in any other meeting on a like occasion. When they were about to depart, they pulled out the leather pouches, and rewarded ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... know that she knew it now, and I just believe, I do, That her poor little heart was broken, and so her head broke too. Oh, my baby! my little baby! I wish my head had been hit! For I've hit it over and over, and it hasn't cracked ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... she had washed up and was ready, she felt in her pocket and found the three nuts which the old toad had given her. She cracked one and was going to eat the kernel, when behold! there was a beautiful royal dress inside it! When the bride heard of this, she came and begged for the dress, and wanted to buy it, saying that it was not a dress for a serving-maid. Then she ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... thought had occurred to me at that time of beginning it at the end, and reading it backwards; surely, in that manner, the book might have been got through. It was of a winning exterior, and tolerable thickness. Never did an unsound nut look more tempting to be cracked, than this volume to be opened and read. It had for its title the imposing sentence of, "A Naval and Military Tour up and down the Rio de la Plate, by ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... end curled up, was brought to him by a hungry-looking squaw. Four dogs were attached to it with miniature harness made to fit them. When all was ready the hunter flung himself flat on his face at full length on the sledge, cracked his whip, and away went the dogs at full speed. Herr Winklemann was armed only with bow and arrows, such weapons being most suitable for ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... called for a large stone and hammer, and proceeded to examine them. The Hindoos were all in a dreadful state of consternation, and expected to see the earth open and swallow up the whole camp, while he sat calmly cracking their gods with his hammer, as he would have cracked so many walnuts. The Tulasi is a small sacred shrub (Ocymum sanctum), which is a metamorphosis of Sita, the wife of Rama, the seventh ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... It cracked distinctly against his head and the weight of it fairly drove him into the floor. He fell with a limp thud on the boards. Silent, reeling and blind, staggered to and fro in the centre of the room. Morgan and Lee Haines reached ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... keep almost any length of time in lime-water properly prepared. One pint of coarse salt, and one pint of unslacked lime, to a pailful of water. If there be too much lime, it will eat the shells from the eggs; and if there be a single egg cracked, it will spoil the whole. They should be covered with lime-water, and kept in a cold place. The yolk becomes slightly red; but I have seen eggs, thus kept, perfectly sweet and fresh at the end of three years. The cheapest time to lay down ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... tradition which looks like the story of Solomon and the harlots, there is not a name like Tom Earthquake or Sam Shake-the-ground in the whole country. They have a tradition which may refer to the building of the Tower of Babel, but it ends in the bold builders getting their crowns cracked by the fall of the scaffolding; and that they came out of a cave called "Loey" (Noe?) in company with the beasts, and all point to it in one direction, viz., the N.N.E. Loey, too, is an exception ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... 104, and the doctor spoke gravely about heart strain. It seems inconceivable that human creatures, living a few yards away, are actually going to parties, and attending theatres, trying on new clothes, and worrying about cracked cups. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... melted and froze; and April came, and wherever the Poor Boy went with his love there was a sound of water falling, running, and roaring. The ice in lakes and streams wore thin along the shores, broke, lost its grip, tinkled in the brooks, clashed and cracked in the river. In the lakes the margin of water between the ice islands and the shore grew wider and wider. In open spaces, faced south, the snow melted and thinned until black soil showed in patches. Rain came, more and more frequently, until no ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris
... Lane?" with consternation. He stood looking after her as she drove away, saying to himself that the old man had undoubtedly been mad, and that this poor young thing was evidently cracked too. He thought it would be best to write to Sir Thomas, who was not Sir Tom to Mr. Chervil; but if it was going to happen that the poor young lady should show what he had no doubt was the hereditary weakness, Mr. Chervil could not restrain a devout wish that it might ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... chances of escaping candle-snuff accumulations with melancholic prostration are much better. Nevertheless take care. The pitcher is a very valuable piece of crockery, and I don't want to live to see it cracked by going to the well ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the manner of its protrusion. If pale, moist, and coated white, it indicates a mild, febrile condition of the system. If coated in the center, and the sides look raw, it indicates gastric irritation. If red and raw, or dry and cracked, it is a sign of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach. If the inflammation is in the large intestine, the tip of the tongue presents a deep red color, while the middle is loaded with a dark brown coating. When the tongue is elongated and pointed, quickly ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... when cracked by a tumble, Must be laid, till repaired, on the shelf, While the heart, although shattered and humble, Will be mended ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... time to time, with a voluptuous expression, or else leaning against a barn with their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up. They, being commonly out of doors, heard whatever was in the wind. These are the coarsest mills, in which all gossip is first rudely digested or cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more delicate hoppers within doors. I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... fighter in a field was there never y-found. To me no man is maked,[226] For Manhood Mighty that is my name. Many a lord have I do lame:[227] Wonder wide walketh my fame, And many a king's crown have I cracked. I am worthy and wight, witty and wise: I am royal arrayed to reven under the ris,[228] I am proudly apparelled in purpur and bis, As gold I glister in gear: I am stiff, strong, stalwart, and stout, I am the royallest readily that renneth in this rout, There is no knight ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... would have been well-nigh intolerable to her. She could not have endured being stared at and pointed out in the streets of her own little town. But now Fame had come to her with broken wings and a cracked trumpet, and she shuddered at the sound of her own name harshly proclaimed ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... turn round again and face his horse, that was all. He thought they wanted him to drive faster; and there followed a terrifying ten minutes during which, as he supposed, he was gratifying them. He was proud of his horse, and it could go very fast. He rose in his seat, the whip cracked, the horse rushed forward, the rocks leaped towards them, the little fly swayed, the suit-cases heaved, Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins clung. In this way they continued, swaying, heaving, clattering, clinging, till at a point near Castagneto there was a rise in the ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... was a gate, equally high, but with a handle to shut, ledges running across, and two or three cracked places that afforded hold for the hand. You and I, Louisa, have often discoursed on the excellence of active courage, and the much greater efforts of which both sexes are capable than either of them imagine. I climbed the gate with great ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the master?" shouted Poll, in a reedy-weedy tone, like a cracked clarionet, as soon as the lads came in sight. "Stealing the grapes. Stealing the grapes," she shouted again. "Rogues, rogues, rogues! Two in the morning, hi! hi!" And then she gave a shrill whistle, and burst out into a loud hearty laugh, that made Fred stare, ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... alcohol. Russell and Hastings[210] found a lactose-splitting yeast in a severe outbreak of gassy cheese in a Swiss factory. In this case the gas did not develop until the cheese were a few weeks old. In severe cases the cheese actually cracked ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... interview, despite the tempest that raged above and around them. The great branches of the elms groaned and cracked under fury of the wind, the thunder pealed overhead and then died away with slow majesty out towards the sea. From afar could be heard the angry billows dashing ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... pick some more seeds for me, and I'll—just look at it." She touched the stained old book with shrinking fingertips; the moldering leather cover and the odor of soiled and thumb-marked leaves offended her. The first page was folded over, and when she spread it out, the yellowing paper cracked along its ancient creases; it was a map, with the signs of the Zodiac; in the middle was a ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... entrance into my cave, I was terribly frighted with a most dreadful, surprising thing indeed; for all on a sudden I found the earth come crumbling down from the roof of my cave, and from the edge of the hill over my head, and two of the posts I had set up in the cave cracked in a frightful manner. I was heartily scared; but thought nothing of what was really the cause, only thinking that the top of my cave was fallen in, as some of it had done before: and for fear I should be buried in it I ran forward ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... are dressed in white or light colours; the mothers and grandmothers (the whole family turns out) in black with flowers in their bonnets. There is usually a fiddler walking ahead making most remarkable sounds on his old cracked instrument, and the younger members of the party take an occasional gallop along the road. They are generally very gay; there is much laughing, and from time to time a burst of song. It is always a mystery to me how the bride keeps her dress and petticoat so clean, but she does, with that extraordinary ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... Neel dived headlong towards the cracked and filthy pavement. The darkness meant that the police were moving slowly towards him from both ends of the alley, trapping him in between. There was nothing doubtful about the fate of an armed Earthman caught here. He didn't care. ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... fields, marshes, and ploughed fields again, with a rare group of furiously swaying pine trees or of silver birches bent double before the wind. "What a part of the world to come and live in! That old uncle of yours was as cracked as he could be to think you'd ever stay here for good. And imagine spending even a single shilling buying land here. I wouldn't take a barrowful ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... respects, it was once better off than now; since now it is less than second, showing signs of decay everywhere, but nowhere so much as in the dwelling itself, and the enclosures around. Its walls are weather-washed, here and there cracked and crumbling; the doors have had no paint for years, and opening or shutting, creak upon hinges thickly-coated with rust. Its corrals contain no cattle, nor are any to be seen upon the pastures outside. In ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid |
