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Brakes   /breɪks/   Listen
Brakes

noun
1.
A braking device consisting of a combination of interacting parts that work to slow a motor vehicle.  Synonym: brake system.



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"Brakes" Quotes from Famous Books



... and others accustomed to fly, can never experience. And then at length the glorious mad descent down three plunging cataracts of rocky road, the exciting rattling of the harness, the grinding of the strong brakes, the driver's soothing calls to his horses, and the long burnished horn trailing wild music behind us, like invisible banners of aerial brass,—oh, it stirred the dullest blood amongst us thus as it were to tear down the sky towards the white roofs of Yellowsands, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... is a strong conservative instinct in the average man or woman, born of the hereditary fear of life, that prompts them to cling to old standards, or, if too intelligent to look inhospitably upon progress, to move very slowly. Both types are the brakes and wheel-horses necessary to a stable civilization, but history, even current history in the newspapers, would be dull reading if there were no adventurous spirits willing to do battle for new ideas. The militant women ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... brakeman for conductor. The scope of these examinations covers the whole range of train operating. Each of the five large railroads entering Cleveland has air-brake cars equipped with various forms of air brakes, air signals, pumps, valves, and injectors for the purpose of giving instruction to trainmen. A competent instructor is put in charge of these cars to explain the theory and practice of the apparatus and also to give instruction in any new type of ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz

... barren brown moors from the village of Porlock. The road that leads from Exmoor down to Porlock is incredibly steep, the steepest coach-road in England. It twists dangerously in sharp right-angle turns, the surface is loose and stony, worn by the dragging of brakes and the scouring of winter rains, and on a summer afternoon it is so hot, so dusty and glaring, and so steep, that it seems impossible for man or beast to climb. As soon as you are at the top, however, the fresh air of Exmoor fills your lungs and freshens your face, so let ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... reconnoiter, the infantry following; and the advanced force halted at Ahmed-I-shama for the night. Not a single habitation was passed, during the nine miles march. The road was generally a mere track, 6 feet wide; passing through tangled brakes of dwarf palms, intersected by stony gullies, except when it ran along the steep ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... brakes and cried out a warning. Instantly the lamp stopped, but its glare was blinding and our chauffeur was clearly afraid ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... share of that delightful holiday's enjoyment, but whose spirit was frequently harrowed with alarm at the riotous conduct of her invalid father. In his glee the man might have been compared to a locomotive with a bad driver, who was constantly shutting off the steam and clapping on the brakes too soon or too late, thus either falling short of or overshooting his mark. What between the door and the dresser, the fire, the crib, the window, and the furniture, John showed himself a dreadfully bad pilot and was constantly running into or backing out of ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... upper portion of a statue, the tree-clumps of the Tuileries, grouped in chilly fashion near the gates. The veil, not raised, but broken in places, disclosed fragments of horizon; and on the avenue which leads to the Arc de Triomphe could be seen brakes passing at full trot laden with coachmen and jobmasters, dragoons of the Empress, fuglemen bedizened with lace and covered with furs, going two by two in long files with a jangling of bits and spurs, and the snorting of fresh horses, the whole lighted by a sun still invisible, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... and the clear water that gushed from the pumps told a tale that there was no mistaking. I noticed that five men were now working at the pumps—the cook and steward being two of them—and all hands were growling together, and cursing both loud and deep as they toiled at the brakes. ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... above him; for he sprang to his switch, shut off all the cheery blue and white lights along "the line" and swung on with a mighty jerk the ruby signal of danger. The engineer in the on-rushing train jammed down his brakes and brought up his locomotive with a complaining, grinding moan, a hundred yards beyond Walthamstow station. Tom Cumbers had done a greater thing than any other in all ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... moved through a patch of jungle. A sudden shadow flitted from the brush, leaped the ditch, and sprinted along beside the rails. Another followed it, and another. The low-flying shadows slowly overtook the engine. The leader sprang, clung for a moment by its forepaws, and pulled itself aboard. Brakes howled on the rails as Oren stopped the train. Two man-figures leaped from the cab—and into ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis

... as slim as a young girl's. She was looking across the tree-tops towards an angry bank of clouds—long, pencil-like streaks of black on a purple background. Below, in the street, a taxi passed with grinding of brakes and noisy horn. The rail against which she leaned looked very flimsy. Sir Timothy stretched out his hand ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... snort of a taxi broke the thread of her thoughts. With a grinding of brakes the cab came to a standstill at the entrance to the block of flats, and after a few minutes Emily, the unhurried maid-of-all-work, whom Nan's sense of fitness had re-christened "our Adagio," jerked the door open, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... out your clutch and put your brake on!" McKnutt yelled, his voice almost drowned by the rattle and roar inside the tank. The man kept his head. As the tail of the tank started tipping up, he managed somehow with the brakes to hold her on the edge. For a second or two, she swayed there. She seemed to be unable to decide whether to kill them or not. The slightest crumbling of the earth or the faintest outside movement against the tank would precipitate them over the edge. The brakes would not ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... more sharp shouts, a great grinding noise of brakes and rushing wheels brought to a sudden pause, then the darkness of black, absolute night surged over and beyond the pain which for a moment had held Joan. She floated out, so it seemed, on to a sea of nothingness, and a great peace settled about ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... slope of the divide appeared to be much more thickly peopled than the northern, for, as we sped down the steep grades with brakes a-squeal, villages of mud-walled, straw-thatched huts became increasingly frequent, nor did the natives appear to be observing Menjepee as strictly as in the vicinity of Boeleleng, for they stood in the gateways of ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... a rest," she confessed. "The old moss-troopers used to ride this way to ravage Cumberland. It was advisable for them to follow hidden paths among the moors, and once an interesting little skirmish took place among those brakes ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... the English fort at Natchez to pass, which might be very dangerous when going slowly up-stream. So he concluded to let the boat go and travel by land through the forest. This also was a hard task in a land of dense cane-brakes and matted woodland, and the small party had a toilsome time of it in pushing through the woods. At length, however, the Spanish fort on the Ozark was reached, and the men of the expedition were reunited. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... the church. It always makes me nervous to get into a church where enthusiasm runs away with the meeting. It makes me feel somewhat as if I were in a trolley car that is running down grade while the motor-man has lost control of the brakes. It makes it uncomfortable ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... omitted, the subsequent peace of the investor! The peculiar location of the road, with the ancestral estates dotted along its line! The dignity of the several stations! He could hear them now in his mind called out as they whistled down brakes: "Carter Hall! Barboursville! Talcott!" No; there was nothing about the road that should disturb his aunt. For all that a still more anxious look came into his face. He began pacing the floor, buried in deep thought, his thumbs hooked behind ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the feeling that he was winning Pyrrhic victories; it was as if he were trying to handle a complicated mechanism with the working details of which he was only theoretically familiar. There were wheels within wheels, and the application of the brakes to the smallest of them led to discordant janglings throughout ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... are those that are distinct and distinguished, with lines that suggest the etching-point rather than a brush loaded with paint. Cypresses shaped like flames, tall pines with the abrupt flatness of their tops, thin canes in the brakes, sharp aloes by the road-side, and olives with the delicate acuteness of the leaf—these make keen lines of slender vegetation. And they own the seasons by a gentle confession. Rather than be overpowered by the clamorous proclamation of summer in the English woods, we ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... darkness and shaken like peas in a pod because of defective brakes, we skirted the German army, and by a twist in the line almost ran into the enemy's country; but we rushed through the night, and the engine-driver laughed and put his oily hand up to the salute when I stepped out to the platform ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... the streets were thronged with vehicles. Brakes, wagonettes, omnibuses, private carriages, and cadger's carts all loaded to their utmost, were climbing out of Douglas by way of the road to Peel. The town seemed to shout; the old island ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... within the grove he strayed, Till Fate or Fortune near the place conveyed His steps where secret Palamon was laid. Full little thought of him the gentle knight, Who flying death had there concealed his flight, In brakes and brambles hid, and shunning mortal sight; And less he knew him for his hated foe, But feared him as a man he did not know. But as it has been said of ancient years, That fields are full of eyes and woods have ears, For this the wise are ever on their guard, ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... faint trail seemed a broad road, blazoned through the wild canons and up the rocky fastness and through the thick brakes. She led on and on and up and down, never at fault, with familiar landmarks near and far. Cleve hung close to her, and now his call to her or to the pack-horse took on a keener note. Every rough and wild mile behind them meant so much. They did not halt at the noon hour. They did ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... and with his hands made motions to the engineer to run slower and slower, till, with a crash, the two parts of the train came together. This feat was not so successful as the first, as the engineer could not see the rear cars. The engine was reversed, and the brakes put on, and they came to a stop—not a wheel off the metals, and not a man hurt. Two of the cars badly smashed, but that was all. What had threatened to be a fearful disaster, with a loss of men, engine, and cars, was only a slight splintering ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... wanderers I meet, As from their night-sports they trudge home; With counterfeiting voice I greet And call them on, with me to roam Thro' woods, thro' lakes, Thro' bogs, thro' brakes; Or else, unseen, with them I go, All in the nick To play some trick And frolic it, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... boughs, arranged A fashion from a ridge pole make good temporary shelters and are first rate as wind brakes at night. ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... as he was, the train might have passed him, but the light of a match in the still, dark night could be seen for miles, and he heard the jar of the brakes. He pushed the book and the loose leaves into his pocket and ran along the embankment to meet the slowing special—for ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... town on the main line, one is continually hearing locomotive whistles. All the inhabitants know that one long moan of the steam is the signal of the train's swift approach; that two short shrieks of the whistle direct the trainmen to tighten the brakes; that four, given when the train is still, are intended for the flagman, who has gone away to the rear to warn back the next train, and that they tell him to return to his own train as it is about to start; that five whistles in succession announce a wreck and command the ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... the candid youth. "But you're quite right. I'll clamp on the brakes. I'll be as cool and conventional as a slice of lemon on an iced clam. 'How well you're looking to-night, Miss Leffingwell'—that'll be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities. Trust me, Dominie, and thank you ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... might have killed the then Chairman of the Company! The night was wet, and the driver, accustomed to a straight run down the bank to Moat Lane, was astonished to find the signals against him at Carno. He applied the brakes, but it was no easy matter suddenly to curb the speed of a heavy train, and he floundered on, right into a "special" toiling up the hill bearing Earl Vane home to Machynlleth. {118} Happily for everyone concerned, no great damage was done; Board ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... crowded into the region, these mountain steps may have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now thriving along the hills of the Rhine. Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride. The sparrows are all at Jerusalem, among the housetops, where their ceaseless chirping and twittering forms the most ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... cut off more or less, so there was nothing to be seen but the uneven ground, which was not fit for even a pasture yet. But it was not without a beauty of its own; for the little hills and hollows were covered thick with brakes and ferns and bushes, and in the swamps the cat-tails and all the rushes were growing in stiff and stately ranks, so green and tall; while the birds flew up, or skimmed across them as we went by. It was like a town of birds, there were so many. It is strange how one is always ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various

... the branches drops a low, soft wind. Where the narrow trail begins there start I. Yellow sun and shadow are spinning gold behind, Long brakes are clutching as my knees ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts

... the brakes to stop the train," I answered very slowly and distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to say ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... wood, a remnant of that famous forest which in the ancient times the Romans dreaded as the borders of hell. The Tiber rolls close by, yellow and muddy with the black buffaloes descending to its brink to drink, and the snakes and the toads in its brakes counting by millions—sad, always sad, whether swollen by flood in autumn and vomiting torrents of mud, or whether with naked sands and barren bed in summer, with the fever-vapors rising from its shallow shoals. The villa is dull and mournful like the river—built ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... gone up to the house of one John Castleman, and during the night the Indians came up, murdered nearly all of the number, and made off with the traders' packs. Castleman hastened to Gonzales with the news, and a posse was organised to follow the red men. This resulted in another battle, in the cedar brakes along the San Marcos, and some of the Indians were killed. But the majority got away, taking most of the stolen goods ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... of them in the form, hidden among the coarse brakes of a little opening. Kagax went straight to the spot. A weasel never forgets. He killed them all, one after another, slowly, deliberately, by a single bite through the spine, tasting only the blood ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... wild and dreary. There was nothing to be seen all around but hills and mountains, all covered with brakes and ferns, and moss and heather. There were no woods, no pastures, no fields, and no farm houses. It was the dreariest-looking country I ever saw. In the middle of the way we came to some old stone hovels, with ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott

... Street Rosewarne walked to his hotel, ordered a beef-steak and a pint of champagne, and lunched leisurably. Lunch over, he lit a cigar, and strolled in the direction of the Barbican. The streets were full of holiday-keepers, and he counted a dozen brakes full of workers pouring out of town to breathe the air of Dartmoor on this fine afternoon. He himself was ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... somewhat yet: had I but kept Sheep on the mountains till the day of doom, My name should in obscurity have slept, In brakes, in briars, shrubbed furze and broom. Into the world's wide care it had not crept, Nor in so many men's thoughts found a room: But what cause of my sufferings do they know? Good Cuddy, tell me how doth ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... in, just then, and with a squealing of brakes stopped so that its chair car blotted her dismal view of the close hillside. Between the two trains the snow sifted continuously, coming out of the gray wall above, falling into the black shadows beneath. Two ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... out Mr. Twist, putting on the brakes so hard that the Ford skidded sideways along the ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... of brakes is coming up for more attention in these days of high speed, heavy cars and crowded roads, and the total available braking power, which has hitherto been but partially taken advantage of, must ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... a loud creaking of brakes and groaning of wheels, Bob jumped from the caboose and accompanied the burly conductor to the head ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster

... Illustrations Preface Introduction Key to Genera Classification of Ferns The Polypodies The Bracken Group: Bracken Cliff Brakes Rock Brake The Lip Ferns (Cheilanthes) The Cloak Fern (Notholaena) The Chain Ferns The Spleenworts: The Rock Spleenworts. Asplenium The Large Spleenworts. Athyrium Hart's Tongue and Walking Leaf The Shield Ferns: Christmas and Holly Fern Marsh ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... seen throughout its entire length, and when he had pulled half way up, he saw a section of a freight train coming down the grade at a tremendous speed. A coupling had broken, and this part of the train was without a man to put on the brakes. To go on was death. To stand still was the same. No speed which he could give his train by backing would enable it to escape those uncontrolled cars. He sent his fireman back to the first car, with orders to uncouple the engine. He whistled 'on brakes' to his ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... know. I used to gather them when I was a child. My grandmother liked them, though she called them plain 'brakes.' So you're not afraid to trespass, then? And you're able to have a dinner-party even so soon after—and with all the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... ('twas the lover's day) Conceal'd in brakes the jealous kindred lay; When Hesiod, wandering, mused along the plain, And fix'd his seat where Love had fix'd the scene: A strong suspicion straight possess'd their mind, (For poets ever were a gentle kind.) But when Evanthe near the passage ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... came down the decline, the mules braying with excitement at the sight of the water gleaming through the green foliage of the cottonwoods and the verdant acres of rich grass that stretched along the river-side. Brakes were put on and wheels double-locked, until the harness could be stripped off and the half-frantic animals set free to take a ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... angels, cane brakes, and chills; Farewell to sage and sassafras and corn dodger pills. If ever I see this land again, I'll give to you my paw; It will be through a telescope ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... France, England and the United States that Germany stole the typewriter, the steel building, the use of rubber, the aniline dyes, reenforced concrete bridges, air-brakes, ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis

... machinery would work only along certain lines and only for certain occupations. Since we cannot completely live these tendencies down, we are all more or less "unadjusted" and ill adapted. These maladjustments are exhibited whenever the brakes are off, that is, whenever our higher and well-developed habits of speech and action are dormant, as in sleep, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... glittering red, as Regan makes plain how it is to be done. From the top of the high hill at the end of the line the car is to be turned loose with brakes unset, so that it will leave the track where it ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the station gates, who had witnessed his hurried entry into the cab, lounged in front as it was passing out. The driver swore and slammed on his brakes but the loafer took his own time and chances. The speed of the taxi fell almost to a walking pace. The loafer caught the nearside canopy stay with his right hand and slung his knee on to the projecting end of the rear wing. From there he mounted to the roof of the cab, keeping his legs clear of the ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... Titans haunt, but with No plenty did abound, Whom beasts raw hides for clothing seru'd; For drinke, the bleeding wound ; Cups, hollow trees; their lodging, dennrs ; Their beds, brakes; parlour, rocks; Prey, for their food; rauine, for lust; Their games, life-reauing knocks. Their Empire, force; their courage, rage ; A headlong brunt, their armes ; Combate, their death; brambles, their graue. The earth groan'd ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... one utterly mastered, and it was several seconds before she recovered from this helplessness. Subdued screams and struggles, audible from neighboring brakes, revealed that there had been other lurkers thereabout for a similar purpose. Grace, unlike most of these companions of hers, instead of gasping and writhing, said in a trembling voice, "Mr. Fitzpiers, will you ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... village festivity was one of the lawn-like oases which were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the heath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated abruptly round the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green cattle-track skirted the spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this path Eustacia followed, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... machinery, winding itself over the drum, and then stretching out to full length and disappearing down the covered wooden cable troughs on the main and quarter decks, and so into the sea at the stern of the ship; the hose meanwhile playing a stream of water over the drum, brakes, and jockey pulley, where the friction is always greatest. This water ran off in a dirty yellow stream, flooding the forward deck, while the tar from the cable decorated the ship from stem to stern, thus transforming ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... fashioned poke-bonnet of deep pink, her red dress was of old- fashioned homespun, her stockings were of yarn, and her rough shoes should have been on the feet of a boy. Had the vanished forests and cane-brakes of the eighteenth century covered the land, had the wild beasts and wild men come back to roam them, had the little girl's home been a stockade on the edge of the wilderness, she would have fitted perfectly ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... in the doorway with her flour sack in her hand looking at Prouty as the brakes relaxed and the wheels began to grind. It was not exactly the way in which she had pictured her first trip into the world, but, with a cynical smile, it was as near the realization as ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... one of its owner's rivals had ever failed to wish it smaller, and not one of its owner's satellites had ever seen it without praise. They somewhat avoided the roadway passing under the huge, misshapen, ragged trees, and through fern brakes, ruddy and crisp in their decay. On reaching a suitable eminence, the father and son stood still to look upon the many-chimneyed building, or rather conglomeration of buildings, to which these groves and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... McLeod; "he's gaun' to fecht us!" and he dropped the cord, grabbed the levers, and threw the steam off and the brakes on hard. The heavy train slid groaning and jarring along the track. The moose never stirred. The fire smoldered in his small narrow eyes. His black crest was bristling. As the engine bore down upon him, not a rod away, he reared high in the air, his antlers flashing in the blaze, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... queens' faces Through the dust of the lists and the din, So, remembering these holiest places In the days when I lose or I win, I will yearn to them, all being over, Triumphant or trampled beneath, To this beautiful isle like a lover, To her evergreen brakes for a wreath, For a ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... appalling burst of sound, the gale was upon them. Contrary to their expectations, there was scarcely any perceptible shock, but the ship's speed was rapidly checked much as is the speed of an express train when the brakes are suddenly and powerfully applied, and in some six seconds, though the engines were still going ahead at their utmost speed, the progress of the Flying Fish over the ground was as effectually checked as though she had been ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... desert outside we stepped at once into a miniature paradise, to our surprise, almost our consternation. Excepting the footpaths through it, it bore no appearance of having ever been a thoroughfare. Around the foot of every tree had grown up clumps of ferns or brakes, a yard high, luxuriant, graceful, and exquisite in form and color; and peeping out from under them were flowers, dainty wildings we had not before seen there. A bit of the tropics or a gem out of fairyland it looked to our sun and sand weary eyes. Outside were the burning sun of June, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... the spicy gloaming, Where the brakes their songs instil, Fond affection silent roaming, Loves to linger ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... the brakes, and the distracted attention of the passengers on reaching a new station, possibly ignorance of the real locality on the part of those near enough to have heard him, prevented any correction of the boy's cruel falsehood. Mr. Randal knew it ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... was also occasionally met with, in the brakes of bamboo, where these gigantic canes, four or five inches in diameter, and rising to a height of over fifty feet, grew so close together that even a snake would have found difficulty in working its way through them. ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... nakedness. But where the Vale winds deep below, The landscape hath a warmer glow There the spekboom spreads its bowers Of light green leaves and lilac flowers; And the aloe rears her crimson crest, Like stately queen for gala drest And the bright-blossomed bean-tree shakes Its coral tufts above the brakes, Brilliant as the glancing plumes Of sugar-birds among its blooms, With the deep-green verdure blending In ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... At 6 a.m. on the 14th the handspike was thumped on the deck, and a sailor said, "Turn out, boys; she's going down!" Worn out with want of rest, their hands and feet half flayed, the men staggered out and went desperately to work again. The brakes of the pumps hung far above their heads, and after toiling for three hours one of the standards broke and things looked hopeless. By six o'clock next day there were four and a half feet of water in the hold, and still the struggle ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... Queensland had all the appearance of the American plantations, where crowds of dusky figures, decked in the brightest of colours, plied their labours with laughter and with song, among the tall cane brakes or the bursting pods of cotton. The "Kanakas" generally worked for a year or two in the colony, then, having received a bundle of goods—consisting of cloth, knives, hatchets, beads, and so forth, to the value of about L10—they ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... that the last year's Beano had been an unqualified success, and for his part he would be very sorry if they did not have one this year. Last year they had four brakes, and ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... decks of water by knocking out the ports on either side. They next sounded the pumps, and found three feet of water in the well. Immediately double pumps were rigged, and the steady clinking of brakes added to the noises and terror of ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... was far behind when, abruptly, with a grinding crash of brakes, the cab came from full headlong tilt to a dead halt within twice its length. She pitched forward from the seat with a cry of alarm, only saving herself a serious bruising through the instinct that ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... its egress at such a wasting rate and at such a violent speed that we should lose too great a portion of the cable, and its future stopping within controllable limits be almost impossible. Hence our anxiety. All were on the alert; our expert engineers applied the brakes most judiciously, and at the moment I write—latitude 52 deg. 28'—the cable is being laid at the depth of two miles in its ocean bed as regularly and with as much facility as it was in the depth of a ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... afterwards called the Lancaster Buildings. Henry himself, too, had been much employed in improving this place, and surrounding it with pleasure-grounds and arbours,[217] instead of the thorns and brakes which had formerly been seen there. Just seven years before this visit with his Queen, he had drained and planted the rough land near the castle; and the local historians tells us the spot was called "The Plesance in ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... kiss come, Black Richard or Bliss come, Or Tom with a flagon, Or Karl with a jag on— Then up and after The joy of the night With the hounds of laughter To follow the flight Of the fox-foot hours That double and run Through brakes and bowers ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... great expense to him, as well as the chief point in a fine scheme. He had made brass rails for it—sufficient to extend about the four sides of the studio—something like seventy feet. He had made most handsome passenger-cars with full equipment of brakes, vestibules, Pintsch gas, and so on, and had painted on their sides "The Great Pullman Line." One day, when we were quite friendly, he brought from his home all the rails, in a carpet-bag, and gave an exhibition of his engine's speed, attaching the cars and getting up sufficient steam to ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... break into murmurs on a pebble bar, as if its feet were tickled. A few more steps and it burst into a peal of laughter that lasted half the year as it tumbled over narrow shelves of rock into a foamy pool. Many a day I had sat fishing for hours at the little fall under a birch tree, among the brakes and moss. No ray of sunlight ever got to the dark water below me—the lair of many a big fish that had yielded to the temptation of my bait. Here I lay in the cool shade while a singular sort of heart sickness came over me. A wild partridge was beating his gong in the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... "Brakes!" thought I (forgetting they were out of action), and wrenched at a handle which was offering itself. The car jumped off the mark like a hunter at a hurdle, jumped clear away from the child (who sat down abruptly on the pave) and bolted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... were completed in the Spanish camp, the bright arms and banners of the French were seen glistening in the distance amid the tall fennel and cane-brakes with which the country was thickly covered. As soon as they had come in view of the Spanish encampment, they were brought to a halt, while a council of war was called, to determine the expediency of giving battle that evening. The duke of Nemours would have deferred it till the following ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... "Brakes on!" and was afraid this shout would disturb his reverie and bring him back to reality. ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... fragrance from the shore Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drips the light drop of the suspended oar. * * * * * At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy,—for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various

... the brakes, and ignorance of the real locality on the part of those near enough to have heard him, prevented any correction ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... see him yet, in my mind, on his knees, holding the wagon from rolling into the canyon till the wheel could be blocked and the brakes set. Then, when bidden to start the load, he did not flinch. He was the best ox I ever saw, without exception, and his loss nearly broke up the expedition. His like I could not find again. He had a decent burial. A headboard marks ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... it appeared as if the son and heir of the Stebbins family had decided to take his mother's advice. The car suddenly slowed up—so suddenly as to slide us out of our seats. There was a grinding of brakes, and a bump of something under the wheels; then a wild stream from the sidewalk, and a half-stifled cry from the chauffeur. Mrs. Stebbins gasped, "Oh, my God!" and put her hands over her face; and Lucinda exclaimed, in outraged irritation, "Mamma!" Carpenter ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... and down the avenue in search of a tramp motor-hack cruising in search of a fare. He had only a moment or two to wait before one of the bright yellow variety came racketing along. He stuck up his hand and waved his baton at the driver. There was a crunching of brakes and the taxi hove to and warped into the curb. The chauffeur had the countenance of a pirate, but ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... savages. Avoiding, from the same calculation, the passage of the Cumberland Gap, he explored a track in which man, or at least the white man, had never trodden before. We may add, it has never been trodden since. Through cane-brakes and tangled thickets, over cliffs and precipices, and pathless mountains, he made his solitary way. Following his directions implicitly, his companions, who carried the ammunition, also reached the fort, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... studying, pretended that they were locomotive engineers. With a careful eye upon the teacher, who was his semaphore, such a boy would work the reverse lever, open and close the throttle, apply and disengage the brakes, test the lubrication, and otherwise go through the motions of running a locomotive with great seriousness ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... could be established between Europe and America. He plunged into the undertaking with all the force of his being. It was an incredibly hard contest: the forests of Newfoundland, the lobby in Congress, the unskilled handling of brakes on his Agamemnon cable, a second and a third breaking of the cable at sea, the cessation of the current in a well-laid cable, the snapping of a superior cable on the Great Eastern—all these availed not to foil the iron will of Field, whose final ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... express for Gavin Balchrystie, every man on the line felt that it was an honour to the dead. John Platt sent a "gurring" thrill through the train as he put his brakes hard down and whistled for the guard. He, thinking that the Merrick Viaduct was down at least, twirled his brake to such purpose that the rear car progressed along the metals by a series of convulsive bounds. Then they softly ran back, and there lay ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... all," said King, loosening his grip very gradually. The native noticed—as Hyde did not—that King had begun to seem almost absent-minded; the thief lay quite still, looking up, trying to divine his next intention. Suddenly the brakes went on, but King's grip did not tighten. The train began to scream itself to a standstill at a wayside station, and King ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... the usual slight conscious smile. For she was thinking of more than the desire to be fair in her own eyes, in those of her friend; she wondered if she were to seem fair in the eyes of this Lassiter, this man whose name had crossed the long, wild brakes of stone and plains of sage, this gentle-voiced, sad-faced man who was a hater and a killer of Mormons. It was not now her usual half-conscious vain obsession that actuated her as she hurriedly changed her riding-dress to one of white, and then looked long ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... to the window. Pickford's van swung down the street. The omnibuses were locked together at Mudie's corner. Engines throbbed, and carters, jamming the brakes down, pulled their horses sharp up. A harsh and unhappy voice cried something unintelligible. And then suddenly all the leaves seemed ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... chopped out a path through the dense undergrowth and cane-brakes broad enough for a pack-horse. You will be interested to know that this bridle-path was the beginning of the famous "Wilderness Road," as it is still called. Later the narrow trail was widened into a highway for wagons, and it was along this way, rightly called a "wilderness ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... a little later, as the cab drew up, with a screeching of brakes, in front of a rather dingy building. "I only hope we're in time, and ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope

... the following morning—in that it was late and leisurely and he ate from a chair at a table—he heard the squealing brakes of a motor car and saw one brought to a difficult stop at the Penniman gate. Sharon Whipple, the driver, turned to look back at the machine indignantly, as if it had misbehaved. Wilbur Cowan met him ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite, Whence springs the woodbine and the bramble-rose, And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows; Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes; When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine, Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine, Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright; When odours which declined repelling day Through temperate air uninterrupted stray; ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... application of the brakes caused me to stop abruptly, and the elderly man to seize the arms of his ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne

... from Boston. Singularly enough, five minutes after resuming his place, he was once more peacefully slumbering. The pause at Worcester scarcely roused him; but near Framingham a sharp shriek from the locomotive, and the rapid working of the brakes, banished his dreams, and put an end to his drowsy humor for the remainder of the journey. It was soon made known that the engine was suffering from internal disarrangement, and that a delay of an hour or more might be expected. The red flag ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... were interrupted by a shrill shriek from the locomotive. Leaning out of the window, he saw the little old-fashioned brick car-shed ahead and heard the grinding of the brakes on the smooth wheels beneath the car. Grasping his bag in his hand, he made his way out and descended ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... the "Railways of the World," an exhibit of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Co., showing the development of locomotives and cars from the earliest days to the modern time. One of the unique features in the American Railroad Section was the operation of air brakes on a train of a hundred cars, the longest ever witnessed in ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... people who still have wild game take heed now, and clamp down the brakes, hard and fast before it is too late, or will they ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... was very still. Up from the tangle of brakes in the pasture came the lowing of cattle. A faint sweetness from budding apple trees filled the room. Radiating, narrowing away toward the sky line, row after row of low green shoots barred the brown earth of the hillside ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... outskirts of Parksville he called to the good-natured truckman who sat behind the wheel, and the latter obligingly put on the brakes. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant

... from the bank of the brook back to this pool, in order to let the water off. The last time that Rollo had seen the marsh, it had been very wet, so wet that it was impossible for him to walk over it; it was then full of green moss, and sedgy grass, and black mire, with tufts of flags, brakes, and cranberry-bushes, here and there all over it. If any person stepped upon it, he would immediately sink in, except in some places, where the surface was firm enough to bear one up, and there the ground quivered and fluctuated under the ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott

... trespassers of the morning, squatted on the heather at the base of Isla Craig—a vast heap of rocks—their machine drawn up in the tall green brakes ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... whistle, and it is "down-brakes," for here we are at Ginkville, and every little one knoweth that pleasant waking-place, where mother with her gentle hands holdeth the gracious cup to her sleepy ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... ground under the brakes, I pulled down the window with a bang and looked out no longer upon the soft rolled military cap of Holland but upon the business-like spiked helmet of Germany. I steeled myself. There was no backing out now. I had crossed the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... studied on the large-scale map he and the Master had used in planning the attack; but the Master's intimate knowledge was not his. After two and one-half minutes, the leader stopped again, and gestured at heavy fern-brakes that could just be distinguished as black blotches in ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... where no track Of steps had worn a way. Not verdant there The foliage, but of dusky hue; not light The boughs and tapering, but with knares deform'd And matted thick: fruits there were none, but thorns Instead, with venom fill'd. Less sharp than these, Less intricate the brakes, wherein abide Those animals, that hate the cultur'd fields, Betwixt Corneto ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... come around the curve in the road now, that brought them alongside the shady gorge at the foot of Cone Hill. Here was the little group of brick-makers' houses; empty, weather-beaten, their door-yards overgrown with brakes and mulleins. Beyond, up the ledge, to which a rough drive-way, long disused, led off, was the quaint, rambling edifice that with its feet of stone and brick went "walking up" ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled, throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V, Sect. 1)... Kornilov was ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the Peasant ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the canteen, over the motley slush. Fair Rebel! Fair Rebel! Even money the favourite: ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... boy had said. With many a bump and groan of grinding brakes the train crawled to a standstill beside a hut built upon a rise of ground. Here was stationed a force of soldiers detailed to the work of searching and examining all who attempted to pass from Belgium ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... while a ribbon three inches wide stretched over the head from ear to ear would roughly cover the Rolandic area, in which are contained the motor cells through which impulse is translated to action. These motor cells are controlled by inhibitory cells, which act as brakes and release nerve energy in a gentle stream; otherwise our movements would be convulsive in their violence, and life would be impossible through inability usefully to direct ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... the mountain brook is dyked into a weir, whence the crystalline white water leaps into a chain of shady pools. And there, on the brink of that weir, and all along that stream's shallow upper course among grass and brakes of reeds, are the bay-trees I speak of: groups of three or four at intervals, each a sheaf of smooth tapering boles, tufted high up with evergreen leaves, sparse bunches whose outermost leaves are sharply printed like lance-heads against the sky. Most modest little trees, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... to be explored, it is said not to have been claimed in individual property by any nation of Indians. Its extensive forests, grassy plains and thick cane brakes, abounding with every variety of game common to such latitudes, were used as common hunting grounds, and considered by them, as open for all who chose to resort to them. The Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Cataubas, and the Chicamaugas, from the south ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... off his power and put on the brakes. His machine came to a gradual stop. There was a bump behind and the other had collided with it, but not ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis

... the Federal base at Manassas. All went well with Jackson, except that some news escaped to Washington and Warrenton sooner than he expected. A Federal train dashed on to Washington before the rails could be torn up. The next two trains were both derailed and wrecked. But the fourth put all brakes down and speeded back to Warrenton. Jackson quickly took up a very strong position on the north side of Broad Run, behind the burnt railway bridge, and sent Stuart's troopers with two battalions of "foot-cavalry" to raid the base at Manassas, replenish the ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... taut, vibrated and then cranked through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor came home, dripping gray slime. A nor'west wind filled the schooner's sails, a strong ebb tide ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... In this labored and ambitious tragedy, as in the two parts of "Antonio and Mellida," we see the poet at his best—and also at his worst. A vehement and resolute desire to give weight to every line and emphasis to every phrase has too often misled him into such brakes and jungles of crabbed and convulsive bombast, of stiff and tortuous exuberance, that the reader in struggling through some of the scenes and speeches feels as though he were compelled to push his way through a cactus hedge: the hot and heavy blossoms of rhetoric blaze and ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... among the little puddles of water. With a muttered curse he dashed after the cat without discovering, until within a few feet of it, that it was the cat who belonged to him. He tried to stop himself in his impetuous career, he put on all his brakes, literally skimming along the street railway-track as if he were out simply for a slide, passing the cat, who gave him a half-contemptuous, half-pitying look; and then, after inspecting the sky to see if the rain was really over ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... reversed in the next, and the guide in gardening of whom I am most afraid is the man who is always sure he is right. It was my privilege to have the late Mr. Charles Downing as one of my teachers, and well do I remember how that honest, sagacious, yet docile student of nature would "put on the brakes" when I was passing too rapidly to conclusions. It has always been one of my most cherished purposes to interest people in the cultivation of the soil and rural life. My effort is to "boil down" information to the simplest and most practical ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... the brakes are turned on Time, Life's throttle valve shut down, He wakes to pilot in the crew That ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... together. The hotel omnibuses, backed against the curb of the footway, displayed the most sacred names on their large boards—Jesus and Mary, St. Michel, the Rosary, and the Sacred Heart. Then there were ambulance vehicles, landaus, cabriolets, brakes, and little donkey carts, all entangled together, with their drivers shouting, swearing, and cracking their whips—the tumult being apparently increased by the obscurity in which the lanterns set ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... to the necessity of covering themselves with the skins of beasts. Their swords were all without scabbards, and almost destroyed with rust. Their legs and arms were torn and scratched by the brushwood, thorns, and brakes, through which they had travelled; and the whole party were so pale, lean, and worn out with fatigue and famine, that their most intimate acquaintances were hardly able to recognize them. Among all their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... and they started down the track. The freight was whistling for brakes, far up the grade. And ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... with a pair of links and fastened to the draw bar on one car and the other thrown over a hook opposite and brought into tension by a right and left hand screw between the links. This is obviously very inconvenient for shunting purposes, especially as the cars are not provided with hand brakes and no chance to get at them if there were any. Consequently it appears that when a train is made up it stays so for an indefinite period. A load of passengers is brought into the station and the train remains in position until it is ready to go out. As the trains run very frequently ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... preferably at the opposite pole. This shifting of ballast is most easily accomplished, as you will readily perceive, by confining and removing water, which is easily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose to apply these aqueous brakes to check the wabbling of the earth, by means of the attraction of the sun, you will now see. "From Commander Fillmore, of the Arctic Shade and the Committee on Bulkheads and Dams, I have just received the following by ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... engineer must have thrown the air brakes on then in a big hurry! We're coming to a sudden stop, too! Oh! I wonder if anything can have happened? Are we going to have an accident, ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... hardy and self-reliant set of men. Nature—always careful that nothing should interfere with the procreative functions—had provided him with a sheath or prepuce, wherein he carried his procreative organ safely out of harm's way, in wild steeple-chases through thorny briars and bramble-brakes, or, when hardly pushed, and not able to climb quickly a tree of his own choice, he was by circumstances forced up the sides of some rough-barked or thorny tree. This leathery pouch also protected him from ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... dipped suddenly into a deep wash that was almost a little gulch. There was a grinding of brakes, then a sudden lurch that threw Ramona against ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... down the hill, the brakes grinding against the wheels, the little rough-coated horses holding back in the shafts. Sometimes, where there should have been two horses, there was only one. The others evidently had been sold or else died on the way. Only one small ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... your Utopian schemes. If you were raving mad, I should sympathize, but nevertheless I should see that the strait-jacket was brought into requisition. When your generosity train dashes recklessly beyond regulation schedules of safety, I must discharge engineer sympathy, and whistle down the brakes. What new hobby do you intend that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... dust, the great box cars clanged by. He was savage with dismay, for it seemed that the engineer had not seen his signal; then his heart bounded, a shrill hoot from two whistles was followed by the screaming of brakes. When he came up with the standing train at the end of the trestle, one engineer, leaning down from the rail ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... was little water below. In spite of the tremendous straining the ship had made no more than could be expected, and in a little over an hour at the brakes we had the satisfaction of ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... gasped the engineer. "There's something wrong." Before the words had left his lips the shrill whistle was shrieking for "brakes"—"double brakes" at that—and the gigantic engine almost leaped from the rails as the halter was thrown about her neck. On she rushed, slipping, grinding, rocking in her restraint. The train crew and passengers in the rear car pitched almost on their faces ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... sloping narrow lane to the gate of Mr. Saunderson's house with a noise like the coming of a great storm, and were nearly hurled from their seats when the brakes were applied, and the car brought ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... leader of the Cherokee party advised me to take a southern direction, till we should arrive at the head waters of the river Sabine, from whence, proceeding either northward or eastward, we should, in a few days, reach the Red River, through the cane-brakes and the clearings of the new settlers. Before parting, the Indians made us presents of pipes and tobacco, of which we were much in want; and after a hearty breakfast, we ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... I followed. Fortunately the slope was a gentle one, and, without much of the harder labour, we managed to top the rise. Then we got in again, and began to descend the hill. When the brakes failed, one after another, I was, if possible, more pained than surprised. I rebuked Pomfret and turned ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... that blue china he got fr'm ol' Mis' Simms, an' them ol' stoneware platters that Mis' Rivers was goin' to fire away, an' he give her two dollars for the lot—all that's scattered round on tables and shelves. An' that ol' black secr'tary he got fr'm Lord knows where, an' brakes growin' in colored pots standin' right up there, an' statyers o' men an' women—no heads onto 'em, some ain't got; it's all one to him—he'd buy any ol' thing so's 'twas broke, you might say. An' them ol' straight chairs—no upholsterin' ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam

... brought Lee out of his awed thoughts. It was outside the house—the crunching of wheels in the gravel of the driveway—the squeal of grinding brakes. A car had stopped. He sat erect in his chair, stiffened, listening, with his heart pounding so that the beat of it seemed to shake ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings

... of power to smile At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth, More ragged than need was. Among the woods, And o'er the pathless rocks, I forc'd my way Until, at length, I came to one dear nook Unvisited, where not a broken bough Droop'd with its wither'd leaves, ungracious sign Of devastation, ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... branches of the oaks have a coating of thick, bright velvet. It is now the middle of November; and the young grass is springing up after the rain, and even where it does not grow there is no bare earth, but brown oak-leaves and brakes, with soft warm colors, particularly when the sun strikes across them. The skies, too, are like those at home, with the magnificent sunrise and sunset that only clouds can give. The California sky is, much of the time, pure ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... out gingerly, his heart in his headlight, so nervous that the clang of his own bell almost made him jump the track. Lanterns waved, or danced up and down, before and behind him; and on every side, six tracks deep, sliding backward and forward, with clashings of couplers and squeals of hand-brakes, were cars—more cars than .007 had dreamed of. There were oil-cars, and hay-cars, and stock-cars full of lowing beasts, and ore-cars, and potato-cars with stovepipe-ends sticking out in the middle; cold-storage and refrigerator cars dripping ice water on the tracks; ventilated fruit—and milk-cars; ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... itself, but of a certain use which it serves for, exceeding odious and hateful to thieves and robbers, unto whom it is more contrarious and hurtful than the strangle-weed and chokefitch is to the flax, the cats-tail to the brakes, the sheave-grass to the mowers of hay, the fitches to the chickney-pease, the darnel to barley, the hatchet-fitch to the lentil pulse, the antramium to the beans, tares to wheat, ivy to walls, the water-lily to lecherous monks, the birchen rod to the scholars of the college of Navarre in Paris, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... fashioned on so frail a mould, A hand may launch, a hand withhold: I, rather, with the leaping trout Wind, among lilies, in and out; I, the unnamed, inviolate, Green, rustic rivers, navigate; My dipping paddle scarcely shakes The berry in the bramble-brakes; Still forth on my green way I wend Beside the cottage garden-end; And by the nested angler fare, And take the lovers unaware. By willow wood and water-wheel Speedily fleets my touching keel; By all retired and shady spots Where prosper dim forget-me-nots; By ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... brows of all th' impending hills. The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn, And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn. The fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove, And round the plain in sad distractions rove: In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear, And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair. With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs wound, And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground. Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... This occasioned much mirth. This was a great sight for the tender-foot. My passengers declared it excelled any fiction they had ever read. The boys and girls pulling and pushing the coaches went so fast that I had difficulty in keeping the little fellows from being run over. I applied the brakes several times. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus



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