"Swerving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with such wild delight that the horses, swerving to the right, plowed up two rows of corn for several rods before they could be brought ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... is then made and the necessary ceremonies performed to the end that its purpose shall be fulfilled. In the presence of many persons, the afflicted man lying on his mat, the blian dances in the room holding the prahu on his hands, the left at the bow, and swerving it to left and to right; he sings at the same time but there is no other music. On three consecutive nights this performance is continued for about an hour, near the door, with an eye to the ship's departure, and although it does not ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... have nothing to do with it—nothing. Between my niece and me—tout est fini." She darted from him, swerving again like a bird on the wing. "I don't know you. You come here with what may be no more than a cock-and-bull story, to get inside ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... seemingly conscious of its responsibilities and its high destiny, put its best foot foremost and behaved in general like a mule that knew the name of its great-grandfather. It went through Knype in admirable style, not swerving at the steam-cars nor exciting itself about the railway bridge. A photographer who stood at his door manoeuvring a large camera startled it momentarily, until it remembered that it had seen a camera before. The Countess, who wondered ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... in my direction! With the desperation of a doomed man I strode out to meet him. He rushed furiously on—swerving slightly to avoid my reach, and stretching out his arm to ward off my grasp. I flung myself wildly in his path. There was a heavy thud, and the earth seemed to jump up and strike me. The next moment I was ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... lightning caused Isabel to seize her husband's arm, and to implore him, "O don't go by the boat!" On this, Basil had the incredible weakness to yield; and bade the driver take them to the Worcester Depot. It was the first swerving from the ideal in their wedding journey, but it was by no means the last; though it must be confessed that it was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... obedience to the husband constitute the highest duty of the wife. Through thy instruction, O chief of the Nagas, I have learnt this well. I, therefore, that am well conversant with my duty, and that have thee for my husband—thee that art devoted to righteousness,—O, why shall I, swerving from the path of duty, tread along the path of disobedience and sin? During thy absence from home, the adorations to the deities have not fallen off in any respect. I have also, without the slightest negligence, attended to the duties of hospitality ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... they grave or learned? Why, so didst thou.—Seem they religious? Why, so didst thou; or are they spare in diet, Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger, Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, Garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, Not working with the eye without the ear, And but with purged judgment trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... strengthened by my father's remonstrances, and some months of constantly renewed endeavors not always successful, and sometimes accompanied by weariness, discouragement, and tears—began for me, my teacher never swerving from his rule, not even when, despairing of making myself understood, I used a French word or expression. On such occasions he invariably shook his head and said: "I do not understand French; speak English," at the same time helping me out of my difficulty as much ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... little town's Mayor. A born horsewoman, she had watched with breathless admiration the onrush of the loose-rein riders—the graceful swaying of their bodies, and the flapping of soft hat brims, as their horses approached with a thunder of pounding hoofs. Her eyes had sparkled at the reckless swerving of the horses when it seemed that the next moment the back-surging crowd would be trampled into the ground. She had wondered at the precision with which the Texan's loop fell; and had joined heartily in the laughter that greeted the ludicrous and red-faced indignation with which a fat ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... his arms about his neck, and intertwined, black armour mixed with white, they swayed to and fro, while the frightened horse beneath rushed this way and that till, swerving suddenly, together they fell upon the sand, and for ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... motions are co-linked, And from the old ever arise the new In fixed order, and primordial seeds Produce not by their swerving some new start Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate, That cause succeed not cause from everlasting, Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands, Whence is it wrested from the fates,—this will Whereby we step right forward ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... jelly, and crushed my body against the side of the hold. A fraction of a second later and it would have been her skull and her body instead of mine; but she just managed to roll practically clear until she got caught by the swerving side of the crate. I hope you'll understand what a heroic thing she did. She faced what seemed to be certain death for me; and it is thanks to Liosha that I'm able to tell you that I'm alive. And she, God bless ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... of the commandment is love, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned; (6)from which some swerving turned aside to idle prattling; (7)desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. (8)But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; (9)knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... increased their speed as if they had been held in before and darted between the two Blues. As the twelve horses were nose to nose the outer Blue pulled sharply inward in a way which appeared certain to pocket Palus and wreck his team and chariot, but even more certain to wreck the swerving Blue. What Palus did I was too far off to see, but the roar of delight from the front rows, which spread north, south and west till it sounded like surf in a tempest, advertised that he had done something superlatively adequate. Certainly ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... legend 'Resurgam—I will rise again!' It was the corpse of Mark Wylder, which had lain buried here undiscovered for many months. A horrible odour loaded the air. Perhaps it was this smell of carrion, from which horses sometimes recoil with a special terror, that caused the swerving and rearing which had ended so fatally. At that moment we heard a voice calling, and raising our eyes, saw Uncle Lorne looking down from the rock with ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... how to cling to it, while there was a hope that he might struggle through. And now that he was again in the field he wheeled his horse to a greater distance, striking him with his whip, and once more pushed him at the fence. The gallant beast went at it bravely, slightly swerving from the fatal spot to which Peregrine had endeavoured once more to guide him, leaped with a full spring from the unworn turf, and, barely touching the bank, landed himself and his master lightly within ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... cried Bartley. "Get out of this!" He advanced a pace or two toward Morrison who stood his ground without swerving. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... necessarily showed himself a jealous God to all who, straying from the path of direct worship of Jehovah, had recourse to other deities, whether idols or evil spirits, the gods of the neighbouring heathen. The swerving from their allegiance to the true Divinity, to the extent of praying to senseless stocks and stones which could return them no answer, was, by the Jewish law, an act of rebellion to their own Lord God, and as such most fit to be punished ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... is said, "If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome." (St. Matt., vi., 22.) The eye is the intention contemplating the end in view. Whoever has placed a good end before him, and regards it steadily with a well-ordered love, never swerving in his affection from the way that reason would have him love, must needs take towards his end those means, and those only, which are in themselves reasonable and just: as it is written: "Thou shalt follow justly after that which is just." (Deut. xvi., 20.) Thus I am building a church to ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... reduced speed, they observed somewhat to their left a good-sized collection of dwellings in an opening among the mangroves, evidently a town. Swerving in that direction they were soon circling above the place at an altitude of about five hundred feet, hoping that it might prove to be Kuka, their ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... shrillness of a soul raw and too sensitive about herself. His strength as a poet may have been his weakness as a man—may have made him, from a human point of view, an unlikely instrument for the work he had to do and the force with which he must drive—painfully swerving at times from his task, and at others rushing in passion before the power he hated but ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... final test arrives When once more he tees and drives. Joy! As soon as he has hit he Sees it toddling down the pretty, Never swerving left or right Till it waddles out of sight, Plodding through a bunker and Braying like a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... past the age of fifty. Nevertheless he had a shrewd mother-wit, tact in dealing with men, aptitude to take advantage of events. He had directness of purpose, firmness of will, and always knew his own mind. From the beginning of his political career unto its end, he conscientiously and without swerving pursued a single aim. This was to rob the exchequer by every possible mode and at every instant of his life. Never was a more masterly financier in this respect. With a single eye to his own interests, he preserved a magnificent unity in all his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... deed. It will not avail merely to wait as so many do, "until Blucher comes up," but they must struggle on and persevere in the mean time, as Wellington did. The good purpose once formed must be carried out with alacrity and without swerving. In most conditions of life, drudgery and toil are to be cheerfully endured as the best and most wholesome discipline. "In life," said Ary Scheffer, "nothing bears fruit except by labour of mind or body. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... shewed you the Law, I will also shew you how God takes swerving therefrom. A false Ballance is not good; a false Ballance is an abomination to the Lord. {107d} Some have just Weights but false Ballances, and by vertue of those false Ballances, by their just Weights, they deceive the Countrey: {107e} ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... lane, and at the bottom, in a valley, two ponds, one in enclosed grounds, the other in a meadow opposite. Standing there a minute to see if there was a martin among the birds with which the pond in the grounds is thickly covered, something came shooting straight towards me, and swerving only a yard or two to pass me, a kingfisher went by. His blue wings, his ruddy front, the white streak beside his neck, and long bill, were all visible for a moment; then he was away straight over the meadow, the directness of his course enabling it to be followed for some time ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... soothed his ears in which his mother's sobs and reproaches murmured insistently and the dark frail quivering bodies wheeling and fluttering and swerving round an airy temple of the tenuous sky soothed his eyes which still saw the image ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... ended to-day. He knew that he would not open his mind to consider the question again. His full piercing eyes were stern and determined. Purposefully he had set his feet into the path he meant to follow without swerving. In a moment of hesitation and uncertainty the supreme argument had come to him; if for no other reason, he must ruin Shandon to save his own ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... suddenly found himself dodging a thicket of small spruce trees. He escaped them by swerving quickly, but he went too far to the left. Other small trees confronted him; his body brushed sharply against the branches, and then looming before him was an old monarch of the forest that somehow had escaped when the slide had scarred the mountain-side. Its gnarled branches, standing ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... rise at a gallop and bore down obliquely on the mass—very confidently at first: but at closer quarters it lost heart and started off to harass the right flank of the solid mass, that paid it little attention and held on its way without swerving. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... when it chanced that a mule turned sulky, as we know they will not seldom do, and stood stock still; wherefore a muleteer took a stick and fell a beating the mule therewith, albeit at first with no great vigour, to urge the mule forward. The mule, however, swerving, now to this, now to the other side of the bridge, and sometimes facing about, utterly refused to go forward. Whereat the muleteer, wroth beyond measure, fell a belabouring him with the stick now on the head, now on the flanks, and anon on the croup, never so lustily, but all to no purpose. Which ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... explanation of the law applicable to each case as my ability would allow, and then leave the jury to find according to their honest belief. No duty more arduous has ever since been imposed upon me, and I performed it in my honest conscience, without swerving from what I believed, and believe still, to be my ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-road. Amber heard a rush of hoofs behind him, and then slowly the gauze-wrapped figure of ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... Then, swerving round, they fell on the Portuguese infantry in the second line, whom they dispersed as easily as ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... bring, new prayers uplift, And love without a name. Fond children, ye desire To please each other well; Another round, a higher, Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair, And selfish preference forbear; And in right deserving, And without a swerving Each from your proper state, Weave roses for ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the horse brought him to the point where Nan had changed to the stage wagon. Without a break in her long stride, Lady Jane took the hint of her swerving rider, put her nose into the wind, and headed north. De Spain, alive to the difficulties of his venture, set his hat lower and bent forward to follow the wagon along the sand. With the first of the ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... the river, transforming dingy wharf and factory into fairy palace and phantom battlement, it seems to me that my friend died fitly and well, in the midst of Realities, recking little that the love he thought secure had passed irrevocably from him, but never swerving in fidelity to his mistress or ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... sunlight, and Mavis, child of shadows, riding bareheaded together under the brilliant moon, were the twin spirits of the night, and that moon dimmed the eyes of both only as she dimmed the stars. He saw Mavis swerving at every stop and every gallop to Gray's side, and always he found Marjorie somewhere near him. And only John Burnham understood it all, and he wondered and smiled, and with the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... the shimmering band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... doubt, if they will go To seek that holy man to God so dear, But he on Olivier will health bestow; Having his virtue proved by signs more clear. This counsel pleases good Orlando so, That for the holy place he bids him steer; Who never swerving from his course, espies The lonely rock, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... nothing could be done; the mare had taken her determined long, continuous stride, the road was a straight, steady descent all the way back to the village, Chu Chu had the bit between her teeth, and there was no prospect of swerving her. We could only follow hopelessly, idiotically, furiously, until Chu Chu dashed triumphantly into the Saltellos' courtyard, carrying the half-fainting Consuelo back to the arms of her assembled and ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... easily, now and then lifting a foot high to avoid rock or exposed root, or swerving sharply around obstacles too high to step over. Al very seldom travelled along the beaten trails, though there was nothing to deter him now save an inherent tendency toward secretiveness of his motives, destinations and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... of Tarutino first it flits; Thence swerving, strikes at old Jaroslawitz; The which, accurst by slaughtering swords, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... that there is something higher than joy or pain. Miss Hosmer has evidently believed nothing of the legends to the effect that she did swerve afterward, else she could not have put that noble soul in her heroine's mouth. Or did she believe the swerving, she must have felt that Aurelian had the right, after all pain and wrong, to come and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... shore received this tribute to their comrade with shouts, throwing their hats in the air and giving three lusty cheers for the "Silver Foxes and the Elks" as the launch, swerving out into midstream, bent her ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... it the car was swerving into the drive of the Villa Firenze, whose door stood wide open, framing the butler's precise, black-clad figure. At sight of him ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... French literatures has been for the last 150 years a history of successive reactions. The classical school was followed by the romantics, the romantics by the realists; each was a protest and a reaction against its predecessor. These swerving movements must have a cause. Now there are no reactions in literature unless there is some excess to provoke them. The existence of a reaction is a symptom of disease, and not only would it never take place apart from disease, but there is always a chance ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... back!" yelled the man on horseback. "Go back! I have them!" He was right. Cameron's sudden appearance gave the final and necessary touch to the swerving movement. Across the mouth of the funnel with its yawning deadly cut-bank, and down the side coulee, carrying part of the fence with them, the herd crashed onward, with the black horse hanging on their flank still biting and kicking with a ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... yet!' said I, hastily swerving aside from this too presumptuous greeting. 'Remember my guardians. You will not easily obtain my aunt's consent. Don't you see ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the performance of such evolutions, executed these charges as methodically as though they were still on their parade-ground at Thebes; if the disposition of the ground were at all favourable, not a single chariot would break the line, and the columns would sweep across the field without swerving or falling into disorder. The charioteer had the reins tied round his body, and could, by throwing his weight either to the right or the left, or by slackening or increasing the pressure through a backward or forward motion, turn, pull up, or ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to think, The eyelid scarce had time to wink, While on the king, like flash of flame, Spurred to full speed, the war-horse came! The partridge may the falcon mock, If that slight palfrey stand the shock; But, swerving from the knight's career, Just as they met, Bruce shunned the spear; Onward the baffled warrior bore His course—but soon his course was o'er! High in his stirrups stood the king, And gave his battle-axe ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... stopped his car; and one immediately to the rear, swerving out to escape collision, shot past, its driver cursing him freely; while a sergent de ville scowled darkly and ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... virtuous women than their mother. There was a worthy alderman at Oxford in my time who was entertained at a public dinner on his retirement from civic office. In replying to the toast of his health, he said it had always been his anxious endeavour to administer justice without swerving to "partiality on the one hand or impartiality on the other." Surely he must have been near akin to the moralist who always tried to tread "the narrow path which lay between right and wrong;" or, perchance, to the newly-elected mayor ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... wind slewed round, and began to blow with undiminished violence from the northeast. Plunging and swerving, and sometimes threatened with a complete somersault, the aero hurried away in its crazy flight, while its unfortunate inmates clung to one another, and held on by any object within reach, in the endeavor to keep from being ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... details—the two mule-drawn wagons moving slowly along the trail in the early morning; the band of hostile Indians suddenly swooping out from some obscure hiding place in the bluffs; the discovery of their presence; the desperate effort at escape; the swerving from the open trail in vain hope of reaching the river and finding protection underneath its banks; the frightened mules galloping wildly, lashed into frenzy by the man on horseback; the pounding of the ponies' hoofs, punctuated by the exultant yells of the pursuers. Again ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... on board at her waist; but Dick kept the engine going full speed and sat at the tiller with his eyes fixed upon the compass. It was not easy to steer by, because the lurching boat was short and the card span in erratic jerks when she began to yaw about, swerving off her course as ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... orange, red, and saffron, curiously chequered at the corners, and cantled with devices in contrasted tints. A little land-breeze carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their deep colours till they reached the port. Then, slightly swerving eastward on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea and scattered, like beautiful bright-plumaged birds, who from a streamlet float into a lake, and find their way at large ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... "'Tis ever thus: in vain we sue To woman, and her favour woo. A lover's humble words impel Her wayward spirit to rebel. The love of thee that fills my soul Still keeps my anger in control, As charioteers with bit and rein The swerving of the steed restrain. The love that rules me bids me spare Thy forfeit life, O thou most fair. For this, O Sita, have I borne The keen reproach, the bitter scorn, And the fond love thou boastest yet For that poor wandering anchoret; Else had the words which thou hast said ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... persuasively, rising from his chair at the table. "Now that this little business is all settled there's no need for another word. I haven't much opinion of words myself, anyhow. They're apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that's what I say." "What do you mean?" repeated Christopher, without swerving from his steady gaze. Tom Spade glanced in at the open door, and, catching Fletcher's eye, hurriedly retreated. A small boy with a greasy face came in and gathered up the glasses with a clanking noise. "What do you mean, you coward?" ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... which follow one upon the other, and each one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all come to pass in what appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point do we conceive of any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or left of a determined course, but invest each one of them with so much of the divine attributes as that with it there shall be no variableness, neither shadow ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... adhere to his chosen line, never swerving to right or left. People might die on one side of him from water on the brain and on the other side from water on the palate, not a prescription could they get out of Big Bill Petticoat unless they could put up unmistakable symptoms ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... it were a vision of the night, the whole landscape before Skag became dotted with specks; all moving. All moving in the same direction, almost toward him. As the numbers increased, he saw that they ran straight; there was no swerving. In spite of what Roderick Deal had told him, his mind demanded the reassurance of his ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... gets after him he will not be able to remember his alphabet!" What we should have done in the last extremity will never be known. A shot from the Major's revolver seemed to alter the bear's original plan of operations, and, swerving suddenly to one side, he crashed through the bushes ten feet from the muzzles of our empty rifles, and disappeared in the forest. A careful examination of the leaves and grass failed to reveal any signs ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... of a holy conversation they perceived Thy presence in her heart. For she had been the wife of one man, had requited her parents, had govemed her house piously, was well reported of for good works, had brought up children, so often travailing in birth of them, as she saw them swerving from Thee. Lastly, of all of us Thy servants, O Lord (whom on occasion of Thy own gift Thou sufferest to speak), us, who before her sleeping in Thee lived united together, having received the grace of Thy baptism, did she so take care ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... he exclaimed, swerving the plane in a long, ascending spiral. All the art, the knack of flight came back to him, at the touch of the wheel, as readily as swimming to an expert in the water. Fear? The thought no more occurred to him than to you, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... cabman seemed to be regaining some control over his horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they swept round into the Edgware Road. And here there occurred what seemed to the allies a providential stoppage. Traffic of every kind was swerving to right or left or stopping, for down the long road was coming the unmistakable roar announcing the fire-engine, which in a few seconds went by like a brazen thunderbolt. But quick as it went by, Sunday had bounded out of his cab, sprung at the fire-engine, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... miseries of the grand tour, the son and heir of Philip Yordas. Duncan was large and crooked of thought—as every true Yordas must be—and finding a mind in advance of his own by several years of such sallyings, and not yet even swerving toward the turning goal of corpulence, the young man perceived that he had hit upon ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... she spoke, her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed through men and carriage as if they had been ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... ground between was already occupied by the Arabs; these as the cavalry advanced threw themselves down among the tufted hillocks and mounds which covered the whole plain. The horses in their course leaped the hillocks, swerving at the sight of the dark figures ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... of our politicians were now to be severely tried. The power of party discipline and the tempting bait of the spoils were to be employed as never before in swerving men from their convictions. The South, of course, was a perfect unit, and fully resolved upon the spread of slavery over our Territories. It had always been the absolute master of the Northern Democracy, and had no dream of anything less than the supremacy of its own will. Its favorite candidate ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... bending low in the saddle, keen eyes alert for branches, vaulting the white—blanketed logs, and swerving as we split to pass the pines. The mist from the melting snow moistened our faces, and the rushing air cooled them with fresh, soft sensation. There were moments when we rode abreast and others when we sailed single file, with white ground receding, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... sat on top of the wallow, if they had let him. Amos Chapman tried to conceal his broken ankle; not a man there gave out a sign of wounds, to the enemy. While Billy Dixon dug with his knife and tin cup, the four others hastened hither-thither, serving the carbines. The Indians circled closer, swerving in and out, firing. It looked like a combat to the death. But the earth had been dug out and piled up, and just before sunset the Indians suddenly wheeled ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... from the Copah stable, with the flash and crash of the pistol-shot to madden it, took the bit between its teeth and bolted—safely through the shallows of the stream crossing and up to the level of the railroad yard beyond, but swerving aside at the first of the car shadows to fling its rider out of the saddle. Ford gathered himself quickly and rolled under a car. His right arm had no feeling in it, whether from the shot or the fall he ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... could you see to what extent the liner was rolling. The arc seemed to be considerable then, but slowly described. But the roll made little difference to the promenaders below. Sometimes they walked a short distance on the edges of their boots, leaning over as they did so, and swerving from the straight, as though they had turned giddy. The shadows formed by the weak sunlight moved slowly out of ambush across the white deck, but often moved indecisively, as though uncertain of a need to go; and then slowly went into hiding again. The sea whirling and leaping ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... toward the enemy cruiser at top speed, swerving in a great arc as the sun pulled at them. The enemy's big boat was out of the ship, its ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... enthusiastic sportsman, farmer, and motorist. Single, white, an ardent Republican, a staunch admirer of Mr. Charles Chaplin, an accomplished listener to the violin, a Latin versifier, a connoisseur of roses, a fancier of fox-terriers, a lover of shad-roe and bacon, and a never-swerving champion of woman's suffrage. First short story, "After Many Years," Harper's Magazine, 1910. Author of "Oh, Mary, Be Careful!" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... troopers and of the swift fire now blazing at them from the pit, the two mounted warriors lashed their ponies to mad gallop and bore down straight for their imperilled brother, crouching behind the stricken "pinto." Never swerving, never halting, hardly checking speed, but bending low over and behind their chargers' necks, the two young braves swept onward and with wild whoop of triumph, challenge and hatred, gathered up and slung behind the rider of the heavier ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... determined, in early life, by Quentin Durward. The shock of the discovery that Scott's Lewis the Eleventh was inconsistent with the original in Commynes made him resolve that his object thenceforth should be above all things to follow, without swerving, and in stern subordination and surrender, the lead of his authorities. He decided effectually to repress the poet, the patriot, the religious or political partisan, to sustain no cause, to banish himself from his books, and to write nothing ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... insecurity. An unusual strength of character would be required to lead the way in living worthily under such difficult circumstances as have been created, a great self-restraint to walk without swerving or losing the track, without the controlling machinery of university rules and traditions, without experience, at the most adventurous age of life, and except in preparation for professional work ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... was the river Medway, from whose depths the castle once rose steeply. Now the debris and perhaps also a slight swerving of the river from its old course have left a rough margin, over which it would not be difficult to make an ascent. Rochester Bridge, too, is here, and the "windy hills" in the distance; and again, on the other hand, Chatham, and beyond, the Thames, with the sunset tingeing the many-colored ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... went thus abreast so as to converse freely, but when proceeding under kites they kept in single file, so as to give scope for swerving, in the event of sudden change of wind, and to prevent the risk of ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... stepping to the ground, but he was white, and the blood was oozing slowly from his nose. As the brute arose, Dan was in the saddle. With two or three tremendous bounds, the horse flung himself into the air like a high-vaulting acrobat, landing so near the fence that Dan, swerving far to the left, was unseated, and sprawled low in the dust while the squealing broncho went down the track bucking and ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... precaution in the suddenness of his exaltation, allowed his head to come in violent contact with the ceiling; which stunning him, and causing him, in his attempt to recover himself, to suddenly draw up his reins, had the effect of swerving his horse from his balance, and brought the pair down amidst the symbols of the late revel. While they lay stretched on the floor, surrounded by the ruins of the table and the fragments of glass, both bleeding and bruised, the landlord made his appearance; and after removing the astonished quadruped ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... wet horse slowed down, satisfied with his wild run, Lucy realized that she was up on the slope only a few miles from home. Suddenly she thought she saw something dark stir behind a sage-bush just ahead. Before she could move a hand at the bridle Sage King leaped with a frantic snort. It was a swerving, nimble, tremendous bound. He went high. Lucy was unseated, but somehow clung on, and came down with him, finding the saddle. And it seemed, while in the air, she saw a long, snaky, whipping loop of rope shoot out and close just where Sage King's ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... through lack of time, they showed no proper judgment, discriminating nothing between non-combatants and their master's foes. They charged first into the group about M. Beaucaire, and broke and routed it utterly. Two of them leaped to the young man's side, while the other four, swerving, scarce losing the momentum of their onset, bore on upon the gentlemen near the coach, who went down beneath the fierceness of ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... the pasture, he suddenly had to jump aside with considerable sprightliness. A brace of horsemen came swerving through the gateway from the highroad and tore down upon him as though the Day of Judgment galloped behind. They were abreast, ten feet apart, but the oddest thing was a lariat that dangled between them, from saddle-horn ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... French officer in front of their line, whom he disarmed by a clever sword trick which he had learned from a master of arms in the French service. A French soldier missed Claverhouse's head by a hair's-breadth, while he, swerving, struck down another on his right. Carlton had disappeared, Hales had been wounded, but in the end escaped with his life. Collier and Claverhouse were now in the open space behind the first line of the French cavalry, and they ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... expression: For it was life her eyes were drinking 540 From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, —Life's pure fire received without shrinking, Into the heart and breast whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving —Life, that filling her, passed redundant 545 Into her very hair, back swerving Over each shoulder, loose and abundant, As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving; And the very tresses shared in the pleasure, Moving to the mystic measure, 550 Bounding as the bosom bounded. I stopped short, more and ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... account of them. Do your duty step by step. Speak out the plain truth as to all that the authorities of Bethlehem have any right to know; and do not fear any harm through my subsequent private revelations to you. In these directions of the Lord there is no countenance of the slightest swerving from the truth by Samuel; nor is there an authorized concealment of any fact that those to whom Samuel was sent had any ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... thy potence swerving, 'Tis that thou lead'st us by a path unknown, Our seeming deviations all subserving The perfect ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... So swerving to the left, and taking a course at right angles to their late one, they rode slowly and silently till a bluff rose from the prairie, a short distance ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... they fled in towards land, swerving wide to keep away from what was happening there. On their way, they met sledges with hunters setting out; they threw down their gear, and urged the others to return to their own place at once, lest they also should be slain ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... think what to do, Phelipson had gone on; but not to the door of the house. Swerving to the left, he passed round to the east angle, where, as Tupcombe knew, were situated Betty's apartments. Dismounting, he left the horse tethered to a hanging bough, and walked on to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the hill; nothing but the wildest pace could save them, and the man felt that the wolf would inevitably spring upon them before they could get to the bottom. Both shouted wildly as they pursued their impetuous career, the sledge swerving frightfully from one side of the road to the other, and threatening every moment to turn over. The man then drew his thick bunda (sheep-skin) over his head; he looked behind and saw the fierce, panting ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... struck the mark given him with the first he fitted to the string. But, if chance had brought the head of the boy before the shaft, no doubt the penalty of the son would have recoiled to the peril of the father, and the swerving of the shaft that struck the boy would have linked them both in common ruin. I am in doubt, then, whether to admire most the courage of the father or the temper of the son, of whom the one by skill in his art avoided being the slayer of his child, while the ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... forked here—it might have been either way—by swerving a little. And the police looked wise and took notes and reporters photographed the spot and before night a crowd had gathered about it, peering hopefully at the pavement where Alcibiades had lain, and pointing with eager fingers to bits of peel—orange and banana—scattered ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... Pulpit young men have in them, until their habits have fretted him out, was directing Lord Fleetwood's meditations upon the errors of the general man, as a cover for lateral references to his hitherto erratic career: not much worse than a swerving from the right line, which now seemed the desirable road for him, and had previously seemed so stale, so repulsive. He was, of course, only half-conscious of his pulpitizing; he fancied the serious vein of his thoughts attributable to a tumbled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... burst into tears. They insisted on accompanying the deposed monarch to the station, the popular band playing "The Dead March in Saul." But the King remained calm, and marched on without swerving. At the station he took his seat silently in the Royal Balloon, a whistle was heard, and the ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... trusts to the instincts rather than to an actual understanding of conditions. With her, it was not a question of her own capacity and strength, but a belief in the fidelity of the engine that carried her forward. It had not occurred to her that the task of guiding that heavy, swerving thing through the unbroken road was something beyond her powers of endurance. She often had driven it a hundred miles and more without resting, or without losing zest in the enterprise: then why ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... overhead: but the clouds thicken on the horizon; they look leaden; they threaten rain. It certainly will rain: the air feels like rain, or snow. By noon it begins to snow, and you hear the desolate cry of the phoebe- bird. It is a fine snow, gentle at first; but it soon drives in swerving lines, for the wind is from the southwest, from the west, from the northeast, from the zenith (one of the ordinary winds of New England), from all points of the compass. The fine snow becomes rain; it becomes large snow; it melts as it falls; it freezes ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... were wooing wealth, or gaily swerving 5 To pleasure's secret haunts, and some apart Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving, To you I gave my whole ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... dripping wet, drenched to the skin with the recent shower, and stumbling every now and then as their feet became entangled in the long matted grass; now swerving to the right to avoid a clump of bush, then to the left for the same purpose; but ever keeping one particular star, low down on the horizon, as nearly straight ahead as possible. Though the rest of the party felt themselves utterly ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... recrimination between the neutral and the belligerents. The vessels of the latter were admitted, under certain limitations as to number, into the neutral port, where they lay nearly side by side, jealously watching each other, and taking note of every swerving, real or presumed, from an exact and even balance. Each sailed from the neutral port to carry on war, but it is obvious that the shelter of such a port was far more useful to the belligerent who ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan |
