"Sprawling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had already disappeared below. Peter picked up his splendid guitar and, sprawling upon the transom, gave himself up to soft humming and, presently, to the work of composition. Soon, after some little painstaking effort, he produced the following, to be rendered to the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... with a harum-scarum devil of a half-bred, making his way at all risks, at a full gallop, as unmanageable in his career as his driver had been in his speculations; dust flying, women sprawling, men bawling, dogs barking, and the multitude continually increasing. Scouts, Scamps, Lords, Loungers and Lacqueys—Coster-mongers from—To the Hill Fields—and The Bloods from Bermondsey, completely lined the road as far as the eye could reach, both before ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... some seconds, reappeared carrying a lantern. Bonivon now saw for the first time the face of his conductor—it was that of a werwolf. With a shriek of terror Bonivon turned to run, but, catching his foot on a mat, fell sprawling on the floor. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... brought him some folio sheets covered with great pathetically sprawling letters, and when she had ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... up a chair awkwardly, and sat opposite her, tilting back to accommodate his sprawling length. Then ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... coal-black beard, who was sitting at a desk. He was smoking, and the spacious but bare room was thick with tobacco smoke. A table, on which were empty bottles and the remains of a lunch, stood in one corner. Several men, who also had cigars in their mouths, were sprawling on an enamel cloth lounge in the bay-window which commanded the street. At her entrance these latter arose, and, at a glance from their chief at the desk, shambled out of the room by a side door, casting, however, over their shoulders glances of curiosity and surprise. She waited ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... to the end of the string a pellet of tobacco stolen from the old man's pouch. With this bait he had been fishing in the lotus pond; and a frog had swallowed it, and was now suspended high above the pebbles, sprawling in rotary motion, kicking in frantic spasms of disgust and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Jeremy, sprawling on the bed again and laughing, "don't look all that serious. Bring back your brigadier and I'll kiss him on both cheeks while you hold him! But say; suppose that doctor's one of these swabs who serve out number nine pills for shell-shock, broken leg, ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... planted a left full on the nose of the nearer assailant and knocked him backwards over a sprawling chair. Then turning attention to the other, he was barely in time to duck an uppercut—and out of the corners of his eyes caught the glint of brass-knuckles on the fist ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... the train when it stopped for a couple of minutes, securing a bottle of Bass and then boarding the guard's van when the train was moving off. On one of these successful forays I saw J—— send three respectable people sprawling on their backs as he violently collided with them in his desperate efforts to overtake the receding train. The victims slowly got up and some nasty remarks about J—— were wafted to us over the veldt. We had a couple of cooks. One of them was ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... in the steamer's stem gradually reddened, as did the grey tints in the beard of the large peasant where, sprawling his ponderous form over the deck, he was lying asleep with mouth open, nostrils distended with stertorous snores, brows raised as though in astonishment, and ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... muttering evilly; and Beltane, standing rigid, gripped his dagger to smite, but even then the muttering ceased, and falling back, the man rolled over and fell a-snoring again. So, lightly, swiftly, Beltane strode over the sprawling sleepers—out through the open doorway—out into the sweet, cool night beyond—out into the merry riot of the wind. Swift and sure of foot he sped, going ever where the shadows lay deepest, skirting beyond reach of the paling watch-fires, until he was come nigh where the horses stamped and snorted. ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... feared the Alderman as he did fire, had grumblingly loosened the child from the chain; when that was done, the Alderman threw Gargousse into the air, received him on the end of a most magnificent kick, and sent him sprawling ten feet off. The ape cried like a burned child, gnashed his teeth, but fled quickly, and went to take refuge on the top of a shed, where he shook his fist at the Alderman. 'Why do you beat my ape?' said Cut-in-half to the Alderman. 'You ought rather ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... and gliding and sliding, And falling and brawling and sprawling, And driving and riving and striving, And ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... inside. He frowned at my interference, but taking my advice all the same, raised the box nearer his fierce eye and turned the handle once more and with greater force. Instantly there was a loud whirr, and a bright green trick-serpent leapt through the lid, caught him full on the nose and sent him back sprawling among his packing cases, carrying two of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... for full a minute, Yorke busying himself with the titles of the documents upon the table, written out in the chaplain's sprawling hand. ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... and jabbed them and speared them and spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek, and shriek and bellow; and here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and took the funeral procession right in the center, and sent that section of it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered apart and fled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on him, and not a rag of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally the bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle Laxart ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... against the Six, I gave certain orders, and then rested in greater contentment than I had known for some time. I was at work; and work, though it cannot cure love, is yet a narcotic to it; so that Sapt, who grew feverish, marvelled to see me sprawling in an armchair in the sunshine, listening to one of my friends who sang me amorous songs in a mellow voice and induced in me a pleasing melancholy. Thus was I engaged when young Rupert Hentzau, who feared neither man nor devil, and rode through ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... that, we shall soon see as silent a change as that in the Rehearsal, of King Usher and King Physician. It may well be so, when the disposition of the drama is in the hands of the Duke of Newcastle—those hands that are always groping and sprawling, and fluttering and hurrying on the rest of his precipitate person. But there is no describing him, but as M. Courcelle, a French prisoner, did t'other day: "Je ne scais pas," dit il, "je ne scaurois m'exprimer, mais il a un certain tatillonage." If one could ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... that direction and crouched. The door splintered and flew open. Dennis lunged, like a line-bucking football player. He hit both Brent Taber and Captain Abrams simultaneously, sprawling them both and sending Abrams' gun ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... brandy in the air; on the table two or three empty bottles of wine and a glass half filled with cognac testified to the truth of what the orderly had said, whilst sprawling across the camp bedstead, which obviously was too small for his long limbs, his head thrown back, his mouth open for a vigorous snore, lay the imperturbable ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... perturbed. He flung his poisoned spear over the head of the captive at the flitting form. It was a mighty cast, well intended, but the shadow, leaping, received the spear harmlessly between the legs, and, tripping upon it, was flung sprawling. Before he could get away, Binu Charley was upon him, clutching him by his snow-white hair. He was only a young man, and a dandy at that, his face blackened with charcoal, his hair whitened with wood-ashes, with the freshly severed tail of a ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... kummil (a spirit prepared with cummin) at every hand. Wild snatches of song, and hurried bursts of dialogue. Some are all violence and uproar; some are half dead with sleep and fatigue, their arms sprawling about the tables. Such is the inside of ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... map, England as she was in that day, sprawling in unwieldy fashion over the western half of France, we realize how much stronger she has been on "that snug little island, that right little, tight little island," and we can see that John's wickedness helped her ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... later, Nikky got up. He was another minute in locating himself. His cap lay in the gutter. Beside him, on his back, lay a sprawling and stertorous figure, with, so quick the downfall, a cane still hooked ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and while I was lamenting my ill-luck I heard a splash behind me and turned in time to see the seal come up through another hole. He looked awfully sick, and didn't see me until I had him by the flipper, sprawling on his back, at a safe distance from the hole. This was quite good luck for me, for such an opportunity rarely occurs, though I have occasionally known Toolooah to recover a lost one ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... there, rooting down under the sod, rubbing their backs against the trunks of the old apple trees, and sprawling in the ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... over the incoming and—as far as it could be controlled—the outgoing mail. One old morning, at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a sprawling school-girl's hand. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... exclaimed Tom Gladding, a tall, awkward, good-natured looking fellow, with legs sprawling out, and heels on the top of the stove, addressing himself to a man in a black suit, rather better dressed than the others, "what do you think of this here rusty old Father Holden cut ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... jacket pocket. He went scrambling again down the stairs, and as he scrambled down he cried, "I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll take him by the neck. I'll bash him across the face. And I'll cram the letter down his throat. When he's sprawling, when he's looking, perhaps I'll out with my gun and drill him, drill him for the dog, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... branch of a tree, leisurely surveying us and the dogs, with great complacency. The contents of my rifle brought him to the ground, and stirred his blood for battle. One blow from his powerful paw, sent my fine greyhound some yards distant, sprawling upon the ground, and when he renewed the attack, Bruin met him with extended jaws, taking and munching his head in his mouth. My rifle was now reloaded, and the second shot killed him on the spot. We tied his legs together, and lifting him on a pole, marched in triumph into the ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... butt of the polished weapon, wrested from the warrior's grasp and wielded by muscular hand, came down with resounding whack on the head of the struggling chief, and for the second time, in the very face of his astonished braves, Red Dog, the redoubtable, went sprawling to earth, downed by the white chief whom ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... say, when tired out With seeing her sprawling round about, "Beats all what ails that lazy gal! Why, piggy's ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... translations of Mozart's letters which have found their way into the books betray want of familiarity with the idioms and colloquialisms employed by Mozart, as well as understanding of his careless, contradictory and sprawling epistolary style. Some of the intimacy of that style the new translation seeks to preserve, but the purpose has chiefly been to ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... with the ruins which lay not many miles from Homeport. And he knew that that sprawling, devastated metropolis was not taboo to the merman. But this other mysterious settlement he had recently heard of was still shunned by the sea people. Only Sssuri and a few others of youthful years would consider a journey to explore the ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... tiny, bead-like eyes kept ceaseless watch, peering through the shadowy tangle for whatever might come near in the shape of foe or prey. Presently two or three stems above his head were beaten down, and a big green grasshopper, alighting clumsily from one of his blind leaps, fell sprawling on the stone. Before he could struggle to his long legs and climb back to the safer region of the grass-tops, the little mouse was upon him. Sharp, white teeth pierced his green mail, his legs kicked convulsively ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... extent that he started from his chair, seized the gun from Towser, and would certainly have shot Carlo on the spot, had not the youth sprung upon the Baronet, wrenched the gun out of his hands, and laid him sprawling on the floor. Towser ran to his master's assistance, and Carlo, without waiting for his sentence, jumped through the open window into the garden, flew across the lawn with the speed of a greyhound, and quickly put forty long ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... me give free attendance to all those from our country that he could find in the quarter and everywhere else, so that I had the patriotic satisfaction of seeing all the charcoal-dealers from Auvergne sprawling in my beautiful armchairs. Finally, by remaining religiously at home every Sunday in summer, while the other doctors were away, by rising quickly at night every time my bell rang, I was able to acquire a practice among a class of people who were more reasonable and ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... day as we all lay sprawling on the rocks or under the thorn-bushes, I saw a little party staggering along the defile which led up to the Sirt at ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... a stinging blow over his good eye, and was sent sprawling in the alkali dust. Not being in the least dismayed, he rushed for another and received a similar salute on the jaw, doubling him up and bringing him to the earth. By this time both messes joined in forming a ring and called for fair play. Mr. Perry tried hard to stop it, ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... saw the child lying there asleep. Liz was not with it. She passed quickly into the room adjoining and glanced around. It was empty. Moved by some impulse she went back to the bed, and in bending over the child, saw a slip of paper pinned upon its breast, and upon this paper Joan read, in the sprawling, uncertain hand ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... your rod," yelled Mr. Waterman, when he saw Pud go sprawling into the water. That was the last thing Pud thought of for he cast the rod away and turned to the canoe. Joe was already there. With an expert twirl, he righted the canoe with but little water in it. In another moment he was in the back seat, giving Pud directions ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... prompt reply. "That's the heart of England, my lord, and if Prince Charles gets into the heart he need not be concerned over Wade marking time in the heels or the Duke sprawling ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... packed earth sloping inwards, making a kind of open air auditorium. It is a huge place, 394 feet long, and 213 feet at the widest. The earthen slope is entirely devoid of seats; everybody casts himself down sprawling or on his haunches, perhaps with an old himation under him. Directly before the sitters runs a long ledge hewn out of the rock, forming, as it were, the "stage" side of the theater. Here the rock has been cut away, so as to leave a sizable stone pulpit standing forth, with ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... streaks peacefully winding far, far away to the distant horizon; they and the lakes the finest landmarks the Pilot can have. And the forests. How can I describe them? The trees cannot be seen separately, but merge altogether into enormous irregular dark green masses sprawling over the country, and sometimes with great ungainly arms half encircling some town or village; and the wind passing over the foliage at times gives the forest an almost living appearance, as of some great dragon of ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... they began to climb. But they soon found that to be impossible. As fast as they touched a hand or foot to the tree, back it flew with a jerk exactly as if the tree pushed it. They tried a ladder, but the ladder fell back the moment it touched the tree, and lay sprawling upon the ground. Finally, they brought axes and thought they could chop the tree down, Costumer and all; but the wood resisted the axes as if it were iron, and only dented them, ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... on the moist trail; her quick eyes missed nothing — not the dainty imprint of deer, fresh made, nor the sprawling insignia of rambling raccoons — nor the big barred owl huddled on a pine limb overhead, nor, where the swift gravelly reaches of the brook caught sunlight, did she miss the swirl of the furrowing and milling of painted trout on ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... tiny room, which housed an individual or a whole family, had the name of the owner upon it, in Chinese characters, black and sprawling, on a red label; and at one whose paper name-plate was peeling off, Angela's companion stopped. "Li Hung Sun; we makee visit," she announced, and opened the door ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... on—the foreman a Caffre, black as ink, six feet three inches high, and broad in proportion, with a staid, dignified air, and Englishmen working under him! At the streamlets there are the inevitable groups of Malay women washing clothes, and brown babies sprawling about. Yesterday, I should have bought a black woman for her beauty, had it been still possible. She was carrying an immense weight on her head, and was far gone with child; but such stupendous physical perfection I never even imagined. Her jet black face was like the Sphynx, with the same ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... fresh courage, the whole band plunged headlong down the sharp decline, striking the surprised "road-agents" with a force and suddenness which sent half of them sprawling. Revolvers flashed, oaths and shouts rang out fiercely, men clinched each other, striking savage blows. Lumley grasped the leader of the other party by the hair, and endeavored to beat him over the head with his revolver butt. Even as he uplifted his hand to strike, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the ultimate difficulty of my situation, but with a growing faith in the plan I had evolved for avoiding immediate explanations, I fell into a long-postponed sleep. The last thing I remember was tumbling from my chair and sprawling out upon the floor where I managed to snap out my light before the much ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... that the two men reeled, staggered, swayed, panting and gasping; and then—they had lurched back close to the office door—with a sudden swing, every muscle brought into play for a supreme effort, Jimmie Dale hurled the other from him, sending the man sprawling back to the floor of the office, and in the winking of an eye had slammed shut the door and ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... waited with the receiver held to his ear. While he waited he scrutinised keenly a sheet of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was a flimsy, faintly-ruled sheet from a cheap writing-pad, blotted and soiled, and covered with sprawling letters which had been roughly printed at irregular intervals as though to hide the identity of the writer. But the letters formed words, ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... damning his eyes, snapped a pistol at his head; which he had no sooner done than the other levelled a blow at him with his stick, which Joseph, who was expert at cudgel-playing, caught with his, and returned the favour so successfully on his adversary, that he laid him sprawling at his feet, and at the same instant received a blow from behind, with the butt end of a pistol, from the other villain, which felled him to the ground, and totally deprived ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... [{Princeps}] is well." All rise with one consent and applaud. The Flute-player kisses hands, {and} imagines that his friends are congratulating him. The Equestrian order perceive the ridiculous mistake, and with loud laughter encore the song. It is repeated. My man {now} throws himself {sprawling} at full length upon the stage.[10] Ridiculing him, the Knights applaud; while the people fancy he is {only} asking for a chaplet. When, however, the reality came to be known throughout all the tiers, Princeps, his ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... into the Everglades—I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed: ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay, sparkleberry, and live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the vultures, sailing, sailing—some mere circling motes lost in the blue above, some sheering the earth so close ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... moment or two Dick glanced down at his adversary in cold contempt. Then suddenly, without a word, he bent over, seizing Dodge by the shirt collar and belt, and threw him sprawling out into ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... shoulder against the door, and the staples flying before him sent him sprawling in the coal-dust. When he reached the head of the stairs, Beatrice Forbes was descending from the clubroom, and in front of the door the two cars, with their lamps unlit and numbers hidden, were panting to ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... said Crewe, so quietly that none suspected the surprising thing that would follow, for of a sudden his fist shot out and caught Pinto under the jaw, sending him sprawling ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... how long a while, Perion propped his chin between his hands and, still sprawling upon the rushes, stared hard into the little, crackling fire. He was thinking of a Perion de la Foret that once had been. In him might have been found a fit mate for Melicent had this boy not died very ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... am I, maintaining this, to fight." Here Martin Antolinez sprang upon his feet: "False hound! Will you not silent keep that mouth where truth was never found? For you to boast! the lion scare have you forgotten too? How through the open door you rushed, across the court-yard flew; How sprawling in your terror on the wine-press beam you lay? Ay! never more, I trow, you wore the mantle of that day. There is no choice; the issue now the sword alone can try; The daughters of my Cid ye spurned; that must ye justify. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... ceremony as though the bullet had lodged in himself, Lanyard tumbled back into the room, tripped, and fell sprawling; while to a tune of clattering boots two sergents de ville lumbered valiantly into the library and pulled up to discover Madame Omber standing calmly, safe and sound, beside her desk, and Lanyard picking himself up from the floor ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the carriage wheels awoke her from the dream which had lightly brushed away the night and the vision of the Arc de Triomphe—looming into the mystery of sky and stars, its monumental flanks sprawling across the Place de l'Etoile. She heard her name called by Mrs. Sheldam as their coachman guided his horses through the gateway of ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... and certainly unpleasing effect. It is true that we have in it one of the most notable examples of Verrio's decorative achievements, but it is an example which I frankly find unattractive. It is sombrely gorgeous but in an unrestful fashion, with its sprawling gods, goddesses, and heroes in all manner of impossible positions, its pillars overhung with clouds or clouds swooping down, as though weighted with the figures, about the pillars. Beneath in a brownish tone are painted various "trophies". The art of decoration, one cannot ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... howled, as his mother sent him sprawling once more. "I didn't mean any harm. I was only ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the floor, insolent dogs lie sprawling, their jaws agape, panting to snap up the bones and scraps their master throws ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... allow for the slightly greater gravity, and fell sprawling. Garth got down more successfully, in spite of a long package of some sort ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... is our law, and by that alone we will be governed!" "Nay," quoth Tom, "if it be so, these trusty clubs are our weapons, and by them alone you shall be chastised." These words were no sooner uttered than they madly rushed on the throng of men, bearing all before them, and laying twenty or thirty sprawling with every blow. The tinker struck off heads with such violence that they flew like balls for miles about, and when Tom had slain hundreds and so broken his trusty club, he laid hold of a lusty ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan's mushroom houses built of breeze. Shelter, for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... entered my garden I saw Mome sprawling on the stone doorstep. He eyed me sideways ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... And lo! when she was once launched, she danced up to her husband, and set to him with a meek deliberation that was as funny as any part of the scene. So then the mover of all this slipped on one side, and let the stone of merriment—roll—and roll it did; there was no swimming, sprawling, or irrelevant frisking; their feet struck the ground for every note of the fiddle, pat as its echo, their faces shone, their hearts leaped, and their poor frozen natures came out, and warmed themselves at the glowing melody; a great sunbeam ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... among the cattle. Wat had broken the ring, and men were hacking and slipping among the slab sides of the wearied beasts. The shelty came down over the rump of a red bullock, and Sim was sprawling on his face in the trampled grass. He struggled to rise, and some one ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... commanded from the dining-room window. The postman arrived. Edwin with false calm walked into the hall, saying to himself that if the letter was not in the box it would be at the shop. But the letter was in the box. He recognised her sprawling hand on the envelope through the wirework. He snatched the letter and slipped upstairs with it like a fox with a chicken. It had come, then! The letter safely in his hands he admitted more frankly that he had been ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... and him are purty good friends now. Gee-whoa-haw," continued he, taking hold of the string behind, and endeavouring to drive the silent captive like an ox. The young chief whirled round indignantly, and with such force as to send Sneak sprawling several paces to one side. He rose amid the laughter that ensued, and remembering the words of Boone, conducted his prisoner away in a ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... one of the maids, although warned of the danger, stumbled over the helmet of an old crusader, carved in stone, that rose some six inches or so above the floor. In a moment, she fell and lay sprawling, spilling out at least a dozen babies. "Heilige Mayke" (Holy Mary!), she cried, as she rolled over. ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... 'see it comes to me again; ah, what great favours the fathers of all grant me this day,' and, passing his hand gently over the sprawling animal, he inhaled from his palm deeply and long, at the same time invoking the favour of the gods. Then he leaned his chin upon his hand, and with large, wistful eyes regarded his ugly captive as it sprawled about, blinking its meal-bedimmed eyes, and clawing the smooth floor in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... him; and shortly, with his eyes still closed, he began to describe Ruth's island: the mountain at one end, with the ever-recurring scarves of mist drifting across the lava-scarred face; the jungle at the foot of it; the dazzling border of white sand; the sprawling store of the trader and the rotting wharf, sundrily patched with drift-wood; the native huts on the sandy floor of the palm groves; the scattered sandalwood and ebony; the screaming parakeets in the plantains; the fishing proas; the ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... exhibition of brutality, and then instantly every drop of blood in my body was set boiling at the sight. I lost control of myself. My old-time pugnacious spirit asserted itself, and I sprang forward like a maddened bull, striking the brute a vicious blow upon the head with my fist, and sending him sprawling several feet away. As he scrambled to his feet, in a dazed condition, I rushed forward furiously, with the intention of felling him to the ground. After allowing him to regain his feet, I raised my arm to ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... rooms were warmed by hot air from the kitchen. They had a cheerless aspect on a November afternoon, and nobody knew exactly where to sit. Light was obtained in the evening from Grecian lamps, which made it easy to understand why the ancient Athenians, as a rule, went to bed early. You dined sprawling on a couch. This was no doubt practicable when you took your plate into your hand and fed yourself with your fingers; but with a knife and fork the meal had all the advantages of a hot picnic. You did not feel luxurious or even ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... fired at me—from some twelve or fifteen yards' distance. And whether he meant to kill me, or only to cripple me, I don't know; but the bullet went through my left knee, at the lower edge of the knee-cap, and the next thing I knew I was sprawling on all-fours on the earth, and the next—and it was in the succeeding second, before even I felt a smart—I was staring up from that position to see the vengeance that fell on my would-be murderer in ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... falling in a perfect shower from the sky. They were of all sizes and colors,—big cats, little cats, black cats, white cats, gray cats, yellow, spotted and brindle cats, and at least a dozen of them fell sprawling into the clock. Among them, to Davy's dismay, was Solomon, with the other mitten drawn over his head and the thumb sticking straight up like a horn. This gave him a very extraordinary appearance, and the other cats evidently regarded him with the gravest distrust as they clustered together ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... lay the old cypress swamps, dark glens of rotting wood and sprawling vines. A spur of this unsavory no-man's land ran close along the road, and looking into it one could almost believe, fancied Val, in the legends told by the early French explorers concerning the giant monsters who were supposed to haunt the swamps and wild lands at the mouth of the Mississippi. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... gentleman's house, Mr. Boswell proposed to make up the breach, on the express condition, however, that they should drink a bottle of wine each between the toasts. But Mr. Tooke would not give his assent unless the liquor should be brandy. By the time a quart had been quaffed Boswell was left sprawling on the floor.' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... fire place; a pail of water was lifted on the table; and divers knives and forks and platters hustled into a chimney cupboard. Little room enough when all was done. At last the woman caught up the sprawling baby and sat down with it opposite the broom, on the other side the fire, in one of the three chairs the place contained. Sam had another. Logan was on a box. The woman's eyes said, "Now I am ready to see ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... yet, stupider men than he are now sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the authors of their own distinction. He was of a fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined to a cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life; and possibly this attitude of mind was the original cause of his misfortunes. Beyond this hint philosophy ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I sat at table with a traitor?" And he thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them, some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord, came hurrying to assist Richard to ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... well to let them have their night's rest. There isn't really anything to be done." Matt rose from the low chair where he had been sprawling, and stretched his stalwart arms abroad. "If the man was going he's gone past recall by this time; and if he isn't gone, there's no immediate cause ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... fell short, for Quincy retreated; then, springing forward, he gave Bob a violent kick on his left knee. As his opponent threw his right leg over to keep his balance he was obliged to lean forward; Quincy caught him by the collar and Bob went sprawling upon the ground. He leaped to ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... and when I reached the trees he was racing madly up it, hand over hand. He had almost reached the lowest branch of the tree from which the creeper depended when the thing parted beneath his weight and he fell sprawling at my feet. ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... into the entreating brown eyes at her elbow, straightway forgave Toady, and released her victim so suddenly that he fell sprawling into a nest of sharp-thorned Mormon pears; but of this she was unaware, for with one swoop she gathered up the now hysterical baby, and stalked off toward the house, saying grimly, "You boys stay right where you are until you are willing to apologize and ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... professional bully, and others to defend it. As the Danites entered, or attempted to enter, Eagle stood in the door and knocked three of them down. As the third fell the Prophet struck Eagle under the ear and brought him sprawling to the ground. He then crossed Eagle's hands and ordered them tied, saying that he could not see his men knocked down while in the line of their duty without ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... she's no lady; she's er nigger; I know her," returned the lad who gave the command. "Search her! tear her clothes from her! All er these nigger women are armed." The boy raised his hand to seize Molly, but was not quick enough. Molly stepped back; a quick raise of her foot sent the boy sprawling into the gutter. This completely demoralized his companions, who broke and ran. A gang of men coming up Third street inspired the boys to renew the attack upon the woman, who was hurrying on her way. "Nigger," cried the boy, raising himself up and scrambling from the gutter into which ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the roar of the breakers, that it was with difficulty that the orders could be heard. In the mean time Mynheer Von Stroom lay upon the deck, kicking, sprawling, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... and moral New England lies back of her group of poets, and is voiced by them,—so America as a whole, our turbulent democracy, our self-glorification, our faith in the future, our huge mass movements, our continental spirit, our sprawling, sublime, and unkempt nature, lie back of Whitman and are implied ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... to solve as we attempted to make our way back. The place was a mad riot of thorny undergrowth, laced and bound with vines that were as strong as wire hawsers. The lianas appeared human to us; they lassoed our legs and flung us sprawling upon our faces whenever we tried to quicken our speed. Thorns of a strange fishhook variety drove their barbed points into us, and each yard of the tortuous path that we cut through the devilish vines was marked by a scrap of our clothing, ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... flung them into the dust and turned away. Kwong ran after him, expostulating, catching him by the coat sleeve. Rivers turned savagely. The wide road was deserted, and in a flash he brought his heavy blackwood stick across Kwong's face with a terrific blow. The coolie fell sprawling in the dust at his old master's feet, and Rivers, furious, kicked him savagely in the stomach, again and again, until the man lay still and ceased writhing. Blood gushed from his mouth, making a puddle in the dust, a puddle which turned black and ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... used to moralise about. And the ground inside it, that was nice turf once, with the rill running down it that perhaps supplied the moat—all stony now, and overgrown, and tangled, with ugly-looking elder-bushes sprawling through the ivy. To a painter it might have proved very attractive; but to me it seemed so dreary, and so sombre, and oppressive, that, although I am not sentimental, as you know, I actually turned away, to put my little visit ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... tenacious hands of Standing tore the weapons he had discovered from their hiding places. Then in a moment Idepski found himself sprawling in the chair he ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... grave that mine hands hollowed, for truly hath it been said that the child of man maketh his own path evil;" and her beautiful voice quivered, and broke in a note as soft as any wood-bird's. Suddenly her eye fell upon the sprawling frame of Billali, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... brother, is it not poverty which has brought you to this mood? Come! let me tell you a little story of my youthful days. There was a ditch close to my house, eight feet wide at the least, which we boys were trying to leap over for a wager. But it was no go. Splash! there you lay sprawling, amidst hisses and roars of laughter, and a relentless shower of snowballs. By the side of my house a hunter's dog was lying chained, a savage beast, which would catch the girls by their petticoats with the quickness of lightning ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Ritterdom, ever since it got its back broken in that Battle of Tannenberg in 1410, and was driven out of West-Preussen with such ignominious kicks, has been lying bedrid, eating its remaining revenues, or sprawling about in helpless efforts to rise again, which require no notice from us. Hopeless of ever recovering West-Preussen, it had quietly paid its homage to Poland for the Eastern part of that Country; quietly for some couple of generations. But, in the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... training saved him. Every time Jan came to his feet, roaring, thrashing his arms like flails, making head-long, bull-like rushes, the Butterfly Man managed to send him sprawling again. Then he himself caught one well-aimed blow, and went staggering; but before slow-moving and raging Jan could follow up his advantage, with a lightning-like quickness the Butterfly Man made a battering ram of his head, caught Jan in the pit of the ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... should like to have seen you!" laughed Hinpoha as she painted Migwan sprawling on the ground. "Haven't you some more stuff I can illustrate? There's such a lot of paint mixed up. Oh, here's another one," she said, turning ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... he cried, when at length Farrington remained sprawling upon the floor. "Get up if you can, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... and leaped for the running-board of the car. Tom switched on the power. Just as the huge hound leaped, and his fore-paws touched the step, the car darted away and the brute was left sprawling. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... insinuated into the steamer by all sorts of coaxing, threatening, and wheedling. Seamen are singing and yeehoing on board; grimy colliers smoking at the liquor-shops along the quay; and as for the bridge-there is a crowd of idlers on that, you may be sure, sprawling over the balustrade for ever and ever, with long ragged coats, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... Myrra stretched forth her hand and, taking the reed pen which Lyga smilingly handed to her, drew it firmly and deliberately through Sachar's sprawling signature. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... strangest of all to Lily was the encounter, in this latter group, of several of her acquaintances. She had supposed, and not without relief, that she was passing, for the moment, completely out of her own circle; but she found that Mr. Stancy, one side of whose sprawling existence overlapped the edge of Mrs. Fisher's world, had drawn several of its brightest ornaments into the circle of the Emporium. To find Ned Silverton among the habitual frequenters of Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room was one of Lily's first astonishments; but ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... horses lay there sprawling in the road, three or four dead men in a trim row at one side of it, and a little back, down the hill. All but one were cavalrymen belonging to the Federal advance. One was a quartermaster. The general commanding the division and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... hill one morning, accompanied by his faithful canine assistant, Ladie. Arrived among the flock, the shepherd pointed out a diseased animal; and making the accustomed signal for the dog to capture it, "poor Mailie" was speedily sprawling on her back, and gently held down by the dog till the arrival of her keeper, who proceeded to clip off a portion of her wool, and apply the healing balsam. During the operation, Ladie continued to gaze on the operator with close ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... homes grumbling. The Government was to them a sacred thing, and they did not fancy having their demands for a better wage scale confused by the talk of anarchists and socialists. Many of the laborers of Bidwell were sons and grandsons of pioneers who had opened up the country where the great sprawling towns were now growing into cities. They or their fathers had fought in the great Civil War. During boyhood they had breathed a reverence for government out of the very air of the towns. The great men of whom the school-books talked ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... sprawling on the ground, and did not bestir himself to do anything. As soon as my hands and mind were free I took him by the scruff of the neck and kicked him behind with a good will. My rage at him for disregarding her state was the savage rage of an Iroquois. The other man ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... she did see The colour of the berries turned, she was uncertain whether It were the tree at which they both agreed to meet together. While in this doubtful stound[4] she stood, she cast her eye aside, And there beweltered in his blood her lover she espied Lie sprawling with his dying limbs; at which she started back, And looked pale as any box; a shuddering through her strack, Even like the sea which suddenly with whissing noise doth move, When with a little blast of wind it is but touched above. But when approaching nearer him she knew it was her love, She beat ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... now, Kiah,' he was saying, 'you'll have me on my nose if you go that pace, man; you and I are more at home on deck than on slippery ground; don't send me sprawling at the very ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... of the Friday a sentry on the outer edge of the camp at Jarwhal Junction had noticed something black lying upon the ground in the open just outside the door of the Agent's big marquee. He ran across the ground and discovered Captain Ballantyne sprawling, face downwards, in the smoking-suit which he had worn at dinner the night before. The sentry shook him gently by the shoulder, but the limpness of the body frightened him. Then he noticed that there was blood upon the ground, and calling loudly ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... throbbing brain was incapable of lucid thought, but it was borne in on her mistily that the world and its occupants had suddenly gone mad. The omen of the blood-red water had justified itself most horribly. The dead carpenter was sprawling over the forecastle windlass. His hand still clutched the brake. The sailor at the wheel had been shot through the throat, and had fallen limply through the open doorway of the chart-room; he lay there, coughing up blood and froth, and gasping ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... headforemost into the ditch! and now, spying Dilsey, who was running with all her might to gain the lumber-pile, he took after her, and catching up with her just as she reached the gin-house, placed his head in the middle of her back, and sent her sprawling on her face. Diddie and Chris had by this time regained their feet, both of them very muddy, and Chris with her face all scratched from the roots and briers in the ditch. Seeing Old Billy occupied with Dilsey, they started in a run for the lumber; but the wily old sheep was on the lookout, ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... as it descended, fell like a blanket round Ismay's head. He stumbled, tripped and fell headlong down the steps, sprawling ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... stub pen at the stationer's and I wrote on the photograph, in large, sprawling letters, "To YOU ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... last much longer. The dark king watched his chance, and bringing all his strength to bear on one blow, sent his adversary sprawling and roaring for mercy right into ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... matter to my satisfaction, I explained my intention to Billy that evening, as we sat together under the veranda discussing the events of the day by the light of a glorious full moon, with Kit sprawling as usual at my feet. My intention was to start next day with Billy for a trip to the wreck, where I proposed to remain until I had constructed the punt, which, I believed, could be done in something less than ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad. The message had been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a tolerably clear impression of its contents on ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Three Stars were lying in the bunks and sprawling on the benches, getting what rest they could in anticipation of many long hours in the saddle, ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... among the bushes and threw themselves on the savage pair; they surrounded them, cast themselves upon them, threw them down, cast a sleeping spell upon them, and dragged them away into the depth of the dark hollow. And they left the naked bodies sprawling ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... is a freakish city. The Sub-Prefect writes madrigals in vain. Castracane, the goatherd, sends Silvestro sprawling, and wins the golden Ippolita for a willing bride. What are we to make of it? ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 'sprawled' in the Newcomes he atones for this in 'Esmond,' if any atonement is needed for sprawling, which is probably only that Thackeray felt that there is nothing so elastic and sprawling as a human person, whether he be ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... assault threw the robber off his feet, and he fell sprawling on the carriage floor, with the Englishman on top of him. In the meantime, the guard and others arrived and the thief was secured and his hands and feet were bound together with his own pugree, and he was ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... laughed aloud, with boyish mischief, and stood back, waiting for the cursing madman to scramble to his feet again. But, as the beach comber leaped up—and before he could get fairly balanced on his legs—another foot-and-palm maneuver sent him sprawling. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... authority—the authority he had come to respect in hospital—and he waited, setting his teeth. Next moment he set them still harder, for Li Ho and the girl picked him up without ceremony and laid him, whitefaced, upon the sprawling sofa. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... said the man, laying a detaining left hand on the near rein, "it's this way it is; ye see—" and at that, with a sudden powerful upward push of the unskilled rider's leg, Lord Durie was hurled from the saddle and lay sprawling on his back on the wet sand, as the horse sprang forward ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... spray, and hurled him to the ground. He fell with so much violence that we feared he must have broken some of his bones, and ran anxiously to his assistance; but fortunately he had fallen on a clump of tangled herbage, in which he lay sprawling ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the urchin roared with tenfold vigor. There were no particular manifestations of joy at this arrival; and it is just possible, although nothing was uttered to that effect, that there did exist a general and cordial wish that young Master Snodgrass were sprawling at the bottom of the deepest well in England. Uncle John, indeed, did utter something about the pug and the child—two such nuisances—people bringing their ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... ascend it, and the space thus left between the mahogany and the floor, was hidden by a valance of white dimity, garnished with wide cotton fringe. Over this spacious place of repose, a patchwork quilt of the "rising sun" pattern displayed its gaudy rays, resembling some sprawling octopus, rather ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... return she hastened out to see anew her home valley as it looked from her grove. So it was with something very close to annoyance that she looked at the sprawling figure of ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... gallop and had turned to call to the others, when suddenly the animal he rode gave a snort of fear and stopped with braced forefeet. Bob, caught off his guard, went over the horse's head with a lurch and fell sprawling on the ground in front. Then he gave a scream, for not two feet away he saw the short, cruel head of a ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in the centre of the room. He was clad only in a pink dressing gown, which covered his night clothes. There were carpet slippers on his bare feet. The doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp which had stood on the table. One glance ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... closer to the ranch buildings. Arthurs leaned his rifle across the window sill and took steady aim, while the girl held her breath with excitement. Then there was a quick flash, that shut the scene momentarily from their eyes; the next moment they saw one of the wolves leap into the air and fall, a sprawling mass, upon the ground, while the other darted with the speed of a greyhound toward the neighbouring bushes. Arthurs followed him with a bullet, but even so fine a marksman could have found him only by ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the big clock at Montreuil, a great way up the valley, slowly striking midnight. And he took it for good omen, as he swiftly passed the orchard, that his old friend the ox trotted down to the corner, and showed his white forehead under a sprawling apple-tree, and gave him a salute, though he scarcely could have known him. By this time the breeze was freshening nicely, and Scudamore, ceasing to row, stepped the mast, and hoisting the brown sail, glided along at a merry pace and with a hopeful ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... hurried forward. They had just driven the German rear-guard out of Chaudun, and said that the fighting was still going on at Soissons. But the only sign I saw of it were two Turcos who had followed the Germans too far. They lay sprawling in the road, and had so lately fallen that their rifles still lay under them. Three miles farther I came upon the advance line of the French army, and for the remainder of the day watched a most remarkable artillery duel, which ended with ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis |
