"Splintering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him! he had laid up no other treasures. None in heaven; none in the hearts of his wife and children; none in his own mind. The staff upon which he had leaned was now a splintering reed, wounding ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... with a substance which seemed not water, but a mass of shrieking and screaming demons set loose under the name of no known element. There came a vast roar, but with it a number of smaller sounds, as of voices deep down under the flood, glass splintering, rocks rumbling. The gorge seemed inhabited by furies. And back of this came the pressure of twenty miles of water, a hundred feet deep, which would come through. The river had its way again, raving and roaring in an anvil chorus of its own, knocking the great bowlders together, shrieking its glee. ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... a bolt for the window, striking at the fastened grill. He heard the snapping of wooden bolts and the splintering of wood and out through the hole he climbed to a precipitous, head-long flight that fairly felt the clutching ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... screen for our batteries. These trees did not escape the storm of shot and shell that was rained in that direction. Some of them were perforated by cannon-shot, or have been completely cut off in that peculiar splintering that marks the course of a projectile through green wood. Near the scene of this fighting is a large pile of muskets and cartridge-boxes collected from the field. Considerable work has been done in thus gathering ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... the servant hurried after him. Once he called his son's name in a loud voice; but receiving no reply he launched his great weight, backed by all the undiminished power of his giant muscles, against the heavy door. With a snapping of iron butts and a splintering of wood the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... obstacle consisted in a very deep and difficult spruit, the Jagd Spruit, which forms an ugly passage in times of peace, but which when crowded and choked with stampeding mules and splintering wagons, under their terrified conductors, soon became impassable. Here the head of the column was clubbed and the whole line came to a stand. Meanwhile the enemy, adopting their new tactics, came galloping in on the left flank and on the rear. The first attack was repelled by the steady fire ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in a turbulent, foam-streaked flood; great sheets of ice, rocking and grinding against one another, made a continuous soft crash of sound. Sometimes one of them would strike the wooden casing of a pier, and then the whole bridge jarred and quivered, and the cake of ice, breaking and splintering, would heap itself on a long white spit that pushed up-stream through the rushing current. The river was yellow with mud torn up by a freshet back among the hills, but the last rays of the sun,—a disk of copper sinking into ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... thus been finished to the degree required, there would often remain some little irregularities of surface, due, for example, to the presence of nodules and heterogeneous substances, which the sculptor had not ventured to attack, for fear of splintering away part of the surrounding surface. In order to remove these irregularities, another tool was employed; namely, a stone cut in the form of an axe. Applying the sharp edge of this instrument to the projecting nodule, the artist struck it with a round stone ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... onslaught. He reeled, stumbled, and collapsed on his knees. However, he was lacking neither in Teutonic efficiency nor in resource. Putting out a prompt hand, he seized my ankle and jerked my foot from under me; the table dropped from my grasp with a splintering uproar, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... own waist; and as he knotted, click, click! chip, chip! went the ice-axe, deftly wielded by the guide, who with two or three blows broke through enough of the crust to make a secure footing while the ice flew splintering down the slope in miniature avalanches, with ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... impetus, simply sat down with a bump. The chassis and the under plane smashed with a sound of ripping canvas and splintering wood. Joe had a good bump, too, but was none the worse for it physically. He stepped out of his seat before the boys could run to the wrecked biplane. They were all sympathy and eagerness to see if Joe was hurt. He had not dropped ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... new unity of the State still sat lightly upon them; and a cobbler in Henry's army, who would at home have thought first that it was the day of St. Crispin of the Cobblers, might truly as well as sincerely have hailed the splintering of the French lances in a storm of arrows, and cried, "St. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... stood out to sea right in his path. No news of our presence on the isthmus had got abroad, and the foe did not suspect us until he was within range of our small guns, when we promptly sent a couple of shots splintering into his bulwarks. He was not long before he swung round and replied. But we were too low in the water to be in any danger from his bigger pieces, and in a little while we were under his lee and swarming aboard. For a few minutes there was as pretty a fight as man could wish for; then ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... considered—the condition and care of the wounded. Modern weapons of precision can not only kill or wound more accurately and at greater distances than the older weapons, but have more penetrative power. A rifle bullet of to-day will pass through three or four bodies, shattering and splintering any bones it may encounter in its course. Hence wounds will be more numerous than they have ever been; and, owing to the unwieldly size of armies and the poor physical condition of many of the men, sickness will be more ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... fore gig davits had been carried away, taking with them a piece of the rail, stanchion, and cavil. The gig was hanging from the after davits, one might say, by a thread, splashing and dashing in and out of the water, and crashing and splintering against the side of the yacht. All hands were speedily on deck; and in spite of the risk they ran, and of the remonstrances of their comrades, two of the gig's crew jumped into her with a rope, which they tried to pass round her. It was a difficult task ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... holes in the face of the cliff marked the entrance to these deep, rambling caves, wonderful caverns wrought by the convulsions of the dead volcano, cracks made by these splintering earthquakes when the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... a smashing blow on the stern port quarter and the Kilo heeled over at a dangerous angle, while, with a rending, splintering sound of wood, the big red motorboat swept on past Tom and Ned, her rubstreak grinding along the ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... they are subject to become weak and flaccid, and want support; for which purpose some gardeners have thought of splintering them up with birchen Twigs, which has seem'd of some service for the present, tho' the plants have very soon come to the same or a more ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of range —I began to feel ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... place for some thirty seconds, while there was a sound of splintering glass as the bullet rushed out into the darkness above the river; ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... of introducing, although good in effect upon the stage, are not favourable for any keen wit. Such conflicts must be kept up by artifice, cannot flow from natural suggestion, and degenerate into a mere splintering of words. One cause of the absence of "salt" in his writings is that he was not of a censorious or cynical spirit; another was that his turn of mind was rather sentimental than gay. Shakespeare evidently knew there might be humour among men of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... happy circumstance, after all. For as the car swerved, there was a splintering crash, and the windshield was shivered. The body of the panther shot to one side and the motor car escaped the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... With a voice So harsh himself scarce knew it, he desired This fair new courtier's errand. With grim eyes He scanned the silken knight from head to foot, While Sidney, smiling graciously, besought Some place in their adventure. Drake's clenched fist Crashed down on the old oak table like a rock, Splintering the wood and dashing his rough wrist With blood, as he thundered, "By the living God, No! We've no room for courtiers, now! We leave All that to Spain." Whereat, seeing Sidney stood Amazed, Drake, drawing nearer, said, "You ask More than you dream: I know you for ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... masses of shapeless ruins. One street into which I drove was so undamaged that I could hardly believe my eyes, having looked back the night before to one great torch which men called "Dixmude." Nevertheless some of its window- frames had bulged with heat, and panes of glass fell with a splintering noise on to the stone pavement. As I passed a hail of shrapnel was suddenly flung upon the wall on one side of the street and the bullets played at marbles in the roadway. In this street some soldiers were grouped about two wounded men, one of them only lightly touched, the other—a French marine—at ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the single door of the room, inserted the point of the bar between door and frame near the lock, and the next moment the dry wood gave way, splintering all around the lock. The door came open at ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... He heard the splintering of glass and a rending of woodwork, some oaths, and a sudden cry. The whirr of an engine filled his ears and seemed, as it were, on top of them. Then there was a crash all but at his side, and next instant a half-smothered groan and ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... near the south end of Whitsunday Passage, large enough for topmasts and bowsprits for vessels of 400 tons burthen. It is not probable that larger spars can be obtained: they are very tough, but full of knots; and, when carried away by the wind, break short without splintering. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... lips he saw, and Broussard saw, a huge boulder suddenly start down the mountain side and strike like a cannon ball the splendid tree. There was a fearful breaking and splintering and all at once it was as if the cliff crumbled and trees and boulders and ice and snow came thundering and crashing down into the roadway. One moment the crystal air had been so still that the click of the iron hoofs of their horses seemed to be the only ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... confused and frightened. The giant's voice roared, reverberating around us. Anger. A note of fear. Finally stark terror. He heaved, but the rocks of the opening held solid. Then there was a crack, a gruesome rattling, splintering—his shoulder bones breaking. His whole gigantic body gave a last convulsive lunge, and he emitted a deafening shrill scream ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battle-axes on shatter's [shatter'd?] helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down Look'd up for heaven, and only saw ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... himself impetus, and rushed against the door. With raised foot he struck it just by the handle, and the house seemed to quiver. A second assault was successful; with crash and splintering the lock yielded, the door flew open. At the far side of the room stood Polly, but in no attitude of surrender; she held a clothes brush, and as soon as the assailant showed himself flung it violently at his head. Another missile would ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... of a moment; it had to be. The inner room was so dark they had to feel their way about blindly, yet those splintering crashes on the outer door, interspersed by the shouts of the men, spurred both to hurried effort. Nor was there much to be done. The heavy bed was thrown upon its side, and hauled and pushed forward until ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... something which seemed very near a curse, and clutched at my throat. I loosened my grasp to fend away his hand, and he broke away from my other arm, and sprang to his feet. Just as he did so there was a blow, a splintering of wood. The door was carried off its hinges, and Brutus leapt beside him. The floor had not been clean. My father brushed regretfully at the smudges on his ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... monitor at a target like the Tennessee, and suggestive of considerable distance between the vessels; second, that eye-witnesses have affirmed that only one of the Manhattan's shot took effect, a solid shot that struck the ram on the port beam, crushing her armor and splintering the backing, but not entering the casemate, though leaving a clean hole through; third, that the effect of that one shot showed what the Manhattan might have accomplished had she taken as favorable a position as that chosen by the Chickasaw; fourth, that ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... the girl stood staring after him till roused by a blow of such splintering force as to suggest that an axe had been brought into play upon the door, then ran to a ponderous club chair and with considerable exertion managed to trundle it to the door and tip it over, wedging its ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... be fomented by a large piece of flannel soaked with boiling water, and placed round the diseased part. We have seen a wasting bone healed entirely in a few weeks by this means. We have seen a man with the bones of both his legs splintering off and coming through the skin perfectly healed in a few months. It stands to reason that it should be so. The bathing in his case, like the fomenting in others, were so effectually done that the bones themselves ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... of the White Invaders did their work silently. But what a roar surged up into the moonlit night from the stricken city! What tumult of mingled sounds! What a myriad of splintering, reverberating crashes, bursting upward into the night; echoing away, renewed again and again so that it all was a vast pulsing throb of terrible sound. And under it, inaudible, what faint little sounds must have been the agonized screams of ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... rounding a corner, both this and perpendicular chiseling are common methods. In both cases care should be taken to cut from the side toward the end and not into the grain, lest the piece split, Fig. 75. In horizontal end paring, Fig. 74, in order to prevent splintering, it is well to trim down the arrises diagonally to the line and then to reduce the rest of the ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... listened at first, resting on his elbow, but after a minute or two he sat up. He heard the rushing of the rain, the crack of splintering boughs, the flowing of the rising river, and the gurgling of its waters as they lapped against the stone shelf. They would not enter it he knew, as he had observed that the highest marks of the ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... Sherrif, was a very small, active-looking man, with a withered left arm. An elephant had at one time killed his horse, and on the same occasion had driven its sharp tusk through the arm of the rider, completely splitting the limb, and splintering the bone from the elbow-joint to the wrist to such an extent, that by degrees the fragments had sloughed away, and the arm had become shrivelled and withered. It now resembled a mass of dried leather, twisted into a deformity, without the slightest shape of an arm; this was about fourteen inches ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... There was a moment of horrible grinding, crashing, and splintering, a mad surging of brown waters, and then the little showboat passed beneath the monster that had crushed out its life. It was gone as utterly as the flame of a candle is extinguished by a puff of wind, and the great river was its grave, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... dark water; I heard the ringing command, "In at them! To hell with them!" and then, I think, for many minutes together I fired wildly at the figures before me, swung round now to this side, now to that; was unconscious of the bullets splintering the rock or of the lead shower pouring on us. The battle raged; we were at the heart of it. What should a man remember then but ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... away when a loud banging on the front door reached even their ears, and after several repetitions new fear was given them by the crashing of wood and splintering of glass, which told that some one had broken in a shutter and window to effect an entrance. Once again footsteps on the stairs were heard, and a man rushed into the room underneath them ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... should be planning to come back. With joy I saw he had risen to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. Suddenly the plane swooped up as though Woods were trying to loop. For a second it tipped sidewise like a cat boat reeling over in the wind, and then there was the sound of splintering wood and tearing silk, and the plane crashed miserably to ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... guns, but whenever a shot told amongst the rigging, the injury was repaired as if by magic. It was evident we had repeatedly hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter and, across her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, but it ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... wheels. And I hope it is as honourable to give eyes to the blind as to slash them out of the head of those that see, and to show us how to value our time as it passes, as to fling it away in drinking, brawling, spear-splintering, and such-like unchristian doings. And you maun understand, that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but follows a liberal art, which approacheth almost to the act of creating a living being, seeing it may be said ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the line of the miter to be formed. Beginning as it does at b, this quick turn of the handle to the left takes out the little bit of wood shown by dotted lines at b, and forms one-half of the miter. The cross-grain cut should be done first, as in this way there is less risk of splintering. Now repeat the process on the long-grain side of the panel, and one miter is in a good way ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... white hand the spear, Straight through the flank its path to shear, But, splintering there, left the head buried deep; The shaft fell in three as it whirred o'er ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... A succession of heavy, splintering blows, echoing over the cove, announced that the pair imprisoned on the sloop had at last discovered some means of ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... hysterical abandonment of utter joy as anything else, which had surged through him when, with the stinging odor of the overturned jug in his nostrils, he had stooped and straightened and sent the old stone demijohn, that had stood sentinel for years in the corner near the door, splintering its way through the window into the night; and, last of all, the sick horror of the girl's face as she recoiled before him came vividly before his eyes, and his own strange impotence of limb and lip when he had tried to follow ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanging a cloth over that also. She was one of those people who, if they have to work harder than their neighbors, prefer to keep the necessity a secret as far as possible; and but for the slight sounds of wood-splintering which came from within, no wayfarer would have perceived that here the cottager did not ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... settling. The Thunder Bird jerked, staggered drunkenly, wheeled over the pile and then, with a gentle determination quite unexpected in so docile a bird, turned itself up on its nose and with a splintering crash of the propeller tilted on over until it lay flat on its back. Which was a silly ending to so ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... through the snow defile, when the leading sleigh, in which rode Ruth and Alice, swerved to one side. There was a crashing sound, a splintering of wood, and the two forward horses went down ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... once in the wilderness of America, to contemplate the traces of some blast of wind, which seemed to have rushed down from the clouds, and ripped its way through the bosom of the woodlands; rooting up, shivering, and splintering the stoutest trees, and leaving a long track of desolation. There was something awful in the vast havoc made among these gigantic plants; and in considering their magnificent remains, so rudely torn and mangled, and hurled down to perish prematurely on their native ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... the latter, certain knights of his came forth and challenged the knights of St. Omer to fight them man to man. Whereon there was the usual splintering of lances and slipping up of horses, and hewing at heads and shoulders so well defended in mail that no one was much hurt. The archers and arbalisters, meanwhile, amused themselves with shooting at the castle walls, out of which ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... With splintering of wood and clanging of metal, the iron bar was wrenched from its deck-fastenings and began to fly to and fro across the deck at the end of its tether, like a giant's slung-shot. It circled, it spun, it flung itself afar and returned ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... then, with a sharp exclamation, down he pitched bodily into the garden beneath! A thousand thoughts flew through his brain like a cloud of flies, and then a leafy greenness seemed to strike up against him. A splintering crash sounded in his ears as the lattice top of the arbor broke under him, and with one final clutch at the empty air he fell heavily upon the ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... either he was ignorant of the management of the lever, or else the thing had got beyond control. The cage rammed the buffers with a crash that echoed through the sounding halls like a peal of thunder-claps; it was instantaneously plunged into darkness. There followed a splintering and rending sound, and Maitland, heart in mouth, could make out dimly a dark, falling shadow in the further shaft. Yet ere it had descended a score of feet the safety-clutch acted and, with a third tremendous jar, shaking the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... A little splintering crash, the sound of a glass falling upon a stone floor in the next room, broke the stillness. Dalrymple's arms relaxed, and the two stood for one moment facing one another, pale, with fire in their eyes and hearts beating more loudly than before. Dalrymple raised his hand to ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... leap of Ocean scatters on the sand The quarried bulwarks of the loosening land; One thrill of earth dissolves a century's toil Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil; One hill o'erflows, and cities sink below, Their marbles splintering in the lava's glow; But one sweet tone, scarce whispered to the air, From shore to shore the blasts of ages bear; One humble name, which oft, perchance, has borne The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's scorn, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... could hear crash after splintering crash sounding dully muffled from the cabin of the Alethea: a veritable devil's tattoo beaten out by the feet of the prisoners. Evidently the fastening was serving him better than he had dared hope. But as the black rushing waters widened between ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... about her biscuits. Marvin had to have his hot bread. Suddenly she heard a little splintering crash, followed by a whimpering wail—"Myry! Oh, Myry! I've broke the sasser!" The last remnants of Nellie's saucer, with their pink, fluted edges like ravished petals, lay spread out at old ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to the bed in which he had slept and quickly stripped it of its coverings. Then, when nothing but the bare frame remained he stepped inside of it. Doubling up his huge fist, he drove it into the footboard with tremendous force. There was a splintering crash and it fell in twain. Wrapping his hardly-used knuckles in a cloth he picked up from the floor, he repeated the operation on the headboard—and the bed lay in ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... carronade was invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging 68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result from such practice. The first piece of the kind was cast at the Carron Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in their possession a small model of this gun, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... potent sway of sound, her voice soared into the glorified chants of churches. What to her was death by cold or famine or wild beasts? "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," she sang. High and clear through the frore fair night, the level moonbeams splintering in the wood, the scarce glints of stars in the shadowy roof of branches, these sacred anthems rose,—rose as a hope from despair, as some snowy spray of flower-bells from blackest mould. Was she not in God's hands? Did not the world ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... fusillade of shots, the tinkle of breaking glass; against the pine boards at his side came the wicked thud of bullets, the splintering of wood as they tore through the partition and embedded themselves in the outside wall. He ducked low and ran to the rear door, swinging it open. Braman's body bothered him; he could not leave it there, knowing the building would soon be in flames. He dragged the body outside, to a point several ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... tie and felt the hard, splintering wood, he wondered where it had come from, what kind of a tree it was, who had played in its shade, how surely birds had nested in it and animals had grazed beneath it. Between him and that square log of ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... board, no smoking, no other lights in cabin or saloon. There was scarcely a sound to be heard on the ship, save the throbbing of her engines, the long, splintering crash of heavy seas, and the dull creak of her steel vertebrae tortured by ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... shell fired from Cape Grisnez fell directly down the main hatchway, bedded in one of the water-casks, and shortly after exploded, without, fortunately, doing more mischief than destroying a few more casks and splintering the beams and deck without wounding a man. I was in consequence reluctantly obliged to give up the chase, but not before I had taken ample revenge. In tacking I gave her all the larboard broadside, and not a vestige of her ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... began to shout, "Open this door! Want us to die like rats in a trap! Open this door!" There was a sound of splintering glass and the acrid smell ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... aft the wheelhouse," says Colonel Ellet to the pilot. The commander of the Price turns towards the approaching antagonist. Her wheels turn. She surges ahead to escape the terrible blow. Too late. There is a splintering, crackling, crashing of timbers. The broadside of the boat is crushed in. It is no more than a box of cards or thin tissue-paper before the ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... open window she could smell the frost; she could hear it tingle. She put up her mouth above the bedclothes and drank down the clear, cold air. She thought with pleasure of the ice in her bath in the morning. It would break under her feet, splintering and tinkling like glass. If you kept on thinking about it you ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... hour, at the marine leg, but it was not serious. They heard a splintering sound, down in the dark, somewhere, and Pete, shouting to them to throw out the clutch, climbed out and down on the sleet-clad girders that framed the leg. An agile monkey might have been glad to return alive from such a climb, but Pete came back presently with a ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... air had been heavy, still; weatherwise pickers watched the white sky anxiously. In the middle of the night, Rose-Ellen woke to the shriek of wind and the crack of canvas. Then, with a splintering crash, the tent-poles collapsed and she was buried under ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... their knives with deadly aim. One Stratton avoided by a swift duck of his head; the other he caught dexterously on the chair-bottom. Then, over the heads of the crowd, another chair came hurtling with unexpected force and precision. It struck Buck's crude weapon squarely, splintering the legs and leaving him only the back and precariously ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... unreasoning fear, had taken the chair from under him and had swung it at the figure. A lamp had stood on the bar top. It was caught by the backward swing of the chair, overturned and quenched. The splintering of glass mingled its small sound with an ominous thud in the thick darkness. It was the end of all things; the falling of an impenetrable curtain over a horror half sensed, yet all the greater for ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... hands, and buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go, breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail with all its hamper of blocks and cordage, which, half in and half out the boat, threatened to capsize and swamp her before it could ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... jar of the panel rebounding! In the crash of the splintering wood! In the ears to the earth shock resounding! In the eyes flashing fire and blood! In the quarters above you revolving! In the sods underneath heaving high! There was little to aid you in solving Such ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the action of the day before, shot and shell had beaten against the sides of the ram so rapidly that one could not count the concussions. Now it was a series of tremendous blows about a minute apart; and, if the men had not been working away at their guns, they could have heard the oak timbers splintering behind the iron plating. At a critical moment in the fight the "Merrimac" ran aground; and the "Monitor" steamed around her several times, seeking for weak places in which to plant a shot Once Worden dashed at ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... it came,—a crash as if heaven and earth had met; a wild, deep cry, made up of all tones of human agony and fright; the shriek of escaping steam; the rending and splintering of wood and iron; destruction, terror, pain, and death, all mingled in one awful moment. Then those who had escaped unhurt began the sad and terrible task of withdrawing from the ruin the maimed and bleeding bodies of those who yet lived, the crushed remains ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... to be our work. Alas! what work have we set ourselves upon instead! How have we ravaged the garden instead of kept it—feeding our war-horses with its flowers, and splintering its trees ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and he came down with a splintering crash; Casson galloped madly about, pretending his chair had become unmanageable. It, also, ultimately collapsed, landed him flat on his back, whence he surveyed the exercises of the haute ecole in which three flushed and laughing ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... now begun in this manner, and, both parties being at the outset studiously well sheltered, with little or no injury—the shot doing no more harm to the enemy on either side than barking the branch of the tree or splintering the rock behind which they happened individually to be sheltered. In this fruitless manner the affray had for a little time been carried on, without satisfaction to any concerned, when Munro was beheld advancing, with the apology for a flag which ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... unexpected resistance on the part of the pilot, flung himself on the skylight, and tore it up bodily. As he did so, Barker, who had reloaded his musket, fired down into the cabin. The ball passed through the state-room door, and splintering the wood, buried itself close to the golden curls of poor little Sylvia. It was this hair's-breadth escape which drew from the agonized mother that shriek which, pealing through the open stern window, had roused ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... above, and the green earth beneath, are in unison with a tone of coloring not unlike the brown of one of our own early winter landscapes. The travertine is also of a coarse grain and porous texture, not splintering into points and edges, but gradually corroding by natural decay. Stone of such a texture everywhere opens laps and nooks for the reception and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air by the lazy breeze of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... ridges and awful canons, along whose arid bottoms no water streams. As you stagger through their chaotic bottoms, you see vast boulders poised overhead, tottering to a fall; a shiver of earthquake, a breath of hurricane, and they come crashing and splintering in destruction down. Along the sides of these acclivities extend long, level lines and furrows, marks of where the ocean flowed ages ago. But sometimes the hills are but accumulations of desert dust, which shift slowly from place to place under ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... The men in the room beyond were battering at the door. With a sudden crash it fell splintering in, and at the same instant Abdul felt himself lifted like a feather onto the roof above. They were not a moment too soon, for as the men broke into the room which they had just quitted a dozen more rounded the corner in the street below and ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in his famous bull-like bellow. "Thanks, sir. Thanks a million!" He turned and wrenched open the sick-bay door, almost splintering it in his enthusiasm. Tom was just sitting up on the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... men endued with strength, threw the cannibal down with violence. The sounds that in consequence of those mighty combatants pressing each other's hands, were frightful and resembled the sounds of splintering bamboos. And hurling the Rakshasa down, seized him by the waist, and began to whirl him about, even as fierce hurricane shaketh a tree. And thus seized by the mighty Bhima, the fatigued Rakshasa, became faint, and trembling all over, he still pressed the (Pandava) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the one solitary gun still intact in an entire battery belched forth a lone shell into the enemy lines. In the fantastic flash of each explosion three shirt-sleeved forms showed a ruddy silhouette of blackened hands and features. A tearing, splintering crash awoke echoes as some great bough was shattered in impact with a "heavy" and crackled its cumbersome way past smaller branches to where it splashed into ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... raining, though not so hard. Soon we began to hear a peculiar noise, which seemed to come from behind the wagon. It was a breaking, splintering sort of noise, as if a board was being smashed and split ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... hand-net scourges the broad stream, Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils Along the main; then iron's unbending might, And shrieking saw-blade,- for the men of old With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;- Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all, Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push In times of hardship. Ceres was the first Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod, When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear Acorns and arbutes, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... clouds at night gave forth a most violent hailstorm; the terrible waves roared and piled themselves up into great fiery-looking mountains, the lightning flashed and quivered in the air, now and then splintering the top of a mast. With thunder on all sides and fearful in the expectation of the approaching storm, the soldiers sank down in silent resignation and the crew remained during the whole night on ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... would be more correct to say, to see to it that they did not miss their full share of the plunder. Roused to fresh efforts by the sight of the others, those on the spot fairly riddled the doors and windows of the house. The bullets were whizzing into the kitchen in every direction, splintering the furniture and sending the plaster flying from the walls until the room was filled with a fine, blinding, choking dust. It was impossible to hold out much longer. The final rush was sure to come in a very few minutes—and all would ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... was working near the road, when he was startled by an outcry from his Chinese laborers, their rapid dispersal from the strawberry beds where they were working, the splintering crash of his fence rails, and a commotion among the buckeyes. Furious at what seemed to him one of the usual wanton attacks upon coolie labor, he seized his pick and ran to their assistance. But he was surprised to find Jocelinda's mustang caught ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... but with this fencing of Pantagruel's Loupgarou lost his head, which happened when Pantagruel struck down one whose name was Riflandouille, or Pudding-plunderer, who was armed cap-a-pie with Grison stones, one chip whereof splintering abroad cut off Epistemon's neck clean and fair. For otherwise the most part of them were but lightly armed with a kind of sandy brittle stone, and the rest with slates. At last, when he saw that they were all dead, he threw the body of Loupgarou as hard as he could against the city, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... voices, but none of them human. A wind was racing to almost gale-like violence and with it came the inrush of warm air to peaks and valleys that had been tight-frozen. Between precipices echoed the crash of ice sliding loose and splintering as it fell in ponderous masses. Men sweating in the glare of collossal bonfires toiled at the work of ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... little body from the street. How horribly they would feel. And then—she screamed and shut her eyes. The carriage had dashed into something that tore off a wheel. There was a crash—a sound as of splintering wood. But it did not stop their mad flight. With a horrible bumping motion that nearly threw her from the carriage at every jolt, ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... on one of them—a huge thing, with sharp pinnacles and great clefts. The same instant a wind began to blow from the south. North Wind hurried Diamond down the north side of the iceberg, stepping by its jags and splintering; for this berg had never got far enough south to be melted and smoothed by the summer sun. She brought him to a cave near the water, where she entered, and, letting Diamond go, sat down as if weary on ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... the swordfish and the whale: it was a fight of hammer and anvil; one hit, the other made a noise. Cautious and cruel, the pirate hung on the poor hulking creature's quarters and raked her at point blank distance. He made her pass a bitter time. And her captain! To see the splintering hull, the parting shrouds, the shivered gear, and hear the shrieks and groans of his wounded; and he unable to reply in kind! The sweat of agony poured down his face. Oh, if he could but reach the open sea, and square his yards, and make a long chase of it; perhaps ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... sharp crack as the occasional table, never designed by its maker to bear heavy weights, gave way in a splintering flurry of broken legs under the pressure of the master of the house: and Sally's mood underwent an abrupt change. There are few situations in life which do not hold equal potentialities for both tragedy and farce, and it was the ludicrous ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... she was sharply recalled from whatever her mind was dwelling upon by a sudden jar, due to the checking of the carriage, and simultaneously with it came the sound of crashing of glass and splintering of wood. So abrupt was the halt that Miss Durant was pitched forward, and as she put out her hand to save herself from being thrown into the bottom of the brougham, she caught a moment's glimpse of a ragged boy close beside her window, ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... pain was sharp; his temper was already thoroughly undermined; by a last misfortune his hand closed on the hammer as he fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned and struck at the offending statue. There was a splintering crash. ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... something about the power of recuperation of youth, about the comparative harmlessness of the pointed, steelmantled rifle bullets which on account of their terrific percussion make small clean wounds and rarely cause splintering of the bone or blood poisoning. I remember saying that I had quite a medical knowledge and that it seemed to me that his son was not mortally wounded. But he knew better. He never said a word, only, a few minutes later, "He was my only hope"; and I can't express ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... each 3/4-in. square and 30-1/2 in. long. The tops should be beveled to keep them from splintering at the edges. With a string or tape measure, find the circumference of the tray or basket and divide this into four equal parts, arranging the lap seam on both to come midway between two of the marks. When assembling, make these seams come ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... be a wave Splintering on the sand, Drawing back, but leaving Lingeringly the land. Rainbow light Flashes bright Telling tales of coral caves half hid in ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing, all-imploring, and all-confiding look on ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... South we picked up the small steamer, and towing her to a Hudson Bay Company's Post we put her "on the hard," photographed the hole, with all the splintering on the outside, and had a proper survey of the hull made by the Company's shipwright. The unanimous verdict was "wilful murder." In the fall as her own best witness, we tried to tow her to St. John's, but in a heavy breeze of wind and thick snow we lost her at sea—and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... they came, their guns hurling shells at all the British vessels without favor. A shell struck squarely upon the bridge of the Canopus, killing an officer; and the splintering wood that flew about accounted for two more, making the British death ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... spears they couched, With helms stooped low, behind their shields they crouched; Now rang the clarions; goading spurs struck deep, The mighty chargers reared with furious leap And, like two whirlwinds, met in full career, To backward reel 'neath shock of splintering spear: But, all unshaken, every eye might see The bloody hand, the scarred gules falcons three. Thrice thus they met, but at the fourth essay, Rose sudden shout of wonder and dismay, For, smitten sore ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... A splintering crash broke in upon this series of questions, and the bowl of Red Wolf's pipe was shattered into a hundred fragments, the atoms flying into the faces of the startled Pawnees, who, accustomed to surprises, leaped to their ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis |
