"Wedged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... car does actually appear and one buffets aboard and is buried in a brawny human mass. There is a stop, and one wonders fiercely whether a horse is down ahead, and one had better get out at once and run for it. Tightly wedged in the heart of the car, nothing can be seen. It is all very nerve-racking, and I study, for quietness of mind, the familiar advertising card of the white-bearded old man announcing "It is really very remarkable that a cigar of this quality ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... of Oak Creek is choked by a mass of rock, shaped like a keystone, and wedged into the jaws of the defile. An elderly Ute tells this story of it. Acantow, one of the chiefs of his tribe, usually placed his lodge beside the spring that bubbled from a thicket of wild roses in the place where Rosita, Colorado, stands to-day. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... peg aloft, displaying the ring wedged on it. He made the young woman a sweeping bow, his sombrero almost touching the ground ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... marshal Holliday and old Jack Smith, united their forces, and following the vehicle, opened a passage into the very centre of the battle, where they had for some time to sustain the perilous attacks of oaths, and blows, and kicks from both parties, until having fairly wedged themselves between the combatants, they succeeded by threats and entreaties, and seizing a few of the ringleaders on 256both sides, to cause a dispersion, and restore by degrees the peace of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... county of Scotland, fronts the Moray Firth, wedged in between Elgin on the N. and Inverness on the W. and S.; the surface rugged and mountainous in the S. and E., slopes towards the Firth, and is traversed by the rivers Nairn and Findhorn; Loch Loy is the largest of several small lochs; scarcely ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... man! And our great father, waking from his sleep, Has sent him to oar aid. Master of Life, Endue my warriors with double strength! May the wedged helve be faithful to the axe, The arrow fail not, and the flint be firm! That our great vengeance, like the whirlwind fell, May cleave through thickets of our enemies A broad path to our ravaged ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... fast at the end of the bridge," said Roy; and, descending with the men, they crossed the moat and found the bridge completely wedged and fixed in the opening of stone which embraced ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... were upon a south hillside, under a large beech tree, and the ground was thawed on top and frozen beneath. About the first pass I slipped on a root concealed in the mud, and fell on my back, with my shoulders wedged between two projecting roots and my head against the tree. I was utterly powerless. After pommeling me a while, he proposed to let me up if I would say "enough." This I declined to do. Then he would ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... the depth of all true philosophy. Most assuredly right difficult it is for us, while we are yet in the narrow chamber of death, with our faces to the dusky falsifying looking-glass that covers the scant end-side of the blind passage from floor to ceiling,—right difficult for us, so wedged between its walls that we cannot turn round, nor have other escape possible but by walking backward, to understand that all we behold or have any memory of having ever beholden, yea, our very selves as seen by us, are but shadows, and when the forms ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fourteenth chapter of Exodus the Lord addresses Moses at the Red Sea: "Wherefore criest thou unto me?" Moses had not cried unto the Lord. He trembled so he could hardly talk. His faith was at low ebb. He saw the people of Israel wedged between the Sea and the approaching armies of Pharaoh. How were they to escape? Moses did not know what to say. How then could God say that Moses was crying to Him? God heard the groaning heart of Moses and the groans to Him sounded ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... the dish erect, as it stood before; the dwarf, watching his opportunity, while Glumdalclitch was gone to the side-board, mounted the stool that she stood on to take care of me at meals, took me up in both hands, and squeezing my legs together, wedged them into the marrow bone above my waist, where I stuck for some time, and made a very ridiculous figure. I believe it was near a minute before any one knew what was become of me; for I thought it below me to cry out. But, as princes seldom get their meat hot, my legs were not scalded, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... The tightly-wedged mass of spectators watched, open-mouthed and quivering with anticipation, while the attendant, at Meeking's whispered bidding, broke the seals and cut the strings of the package which he had just carried in. Clearly, this was some piece of material evidence—but what? A faint murmur of interest ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... on—to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the table d'hote who had wedged his ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... that he was killed.) The next, an armoured car crowded with the Durban Light Infantry, was carried on twenty yards and thrown over on its side, scattering its occupants in a shower on the ground. The third wedged itself across the track, half on and half off the rails. The rest of the train ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the rooks in the trees, or on the fresh-turned furrows, they will be seen to act in couples. On the ground couples alight near each other, on the trees they perch near each other, and in the air fly side by side. Like soldiers each has his comrade. Wedged in the ranks every man looks like his fellow, and there seems no tie between them but a common discipline. Intimate acquaintance with barrack or camp life would show that every one had his friend. There is also the mess, or companionship of half a dozen, or dozen, or more, and ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... he said, raising both his hands as he advanced slowly to the spot. "Mr. Jones, I implore you to desist!" But Mr. Jones was wedged down upon the counter, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... her path through the tangle of trees, but I could go around, and I did. On a dead spruce wedged in among the living ones I saw the object of her solicitude; a lovely sight it was! Two young bluejays huddled close together on a twig. They were "humped up," with heads drawn down into their shoulders, and breast feathers fluffed out like snowy-white floss silk, completely covering their feet ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... vain to extricate the leg of the dead horse from the wheel, but it was firmly wedged in, and after uniting my strength to his, I found it necessary to take my knife and amputate the leg at the knee-joint. The body was at length removed, and mounting the box, the driver bid us get in, and we were ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... breathing form Wedged up against me, close and warm; The beak that crowned the bistred face Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,— That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,— Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew I started, shuddering, to the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and dug it out. To my cerprise, the missin dish came forth, which had been wedged into the cavity beneath a 75 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... the interior confirmed his worst fears, nothing remained inside but the paddle, which had been wedged under the seats; provisions, guns, and ammunition were ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... big bear struggling in the window. Only the smallness of the window had prevented the bear from getting in unnoticed, and surprising them while they were bracing the door. The window was so small that the bear in trying to get in had almost wedged fast. With hind paws on the ground, fore paws on the window-sill, and shoulders against the log over the window, the big bear was in a position to exert all her enormous strength. Her efforts to get in sprung the logs and gave the cabin the ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... Diego, hopefully. He was wedged in between his mother and the window-sill, and studying earth and sky as ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... so despairingly with himself was a man not far from thirty years of age, but the lines of care were furrowed so deeply on his handsome face, that dismal, lowering morning, the first of October, that he seemed much older. Having wedged himself in between two burly forms that suggested thrift down town and good cheer on the avenue, he appears meagre and shrunken in contrast. He is tall and thin. His face is white and drawn, instead of being ruddy with health's rich, warm blood. There is scarcely anything remaining ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... varnished; a trout stream brawling by; great elms or chestnuts, humming with bees and nested in by song-birds; and the mountains standing round about, as at Jerusalem. Here, mountain and house and the old tools of industry were all alike, rusty and down-falling. The hill was here wedged up, and there poured forth its bowels in a spout of broken mineral; man with his picks and powder, and nature with her own great blasting tools of sun and rain, labouring together at the ruin of that proud mountain. The view up the canyon was a glimpse ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broke up his home and went elsewhere to live, leaving the artist without home or means, and with his little sister to take care of. Without vanity or ambition, but with only the wish to care for his sister and to get food, the marvellous painter took himself to the market place, and there, wedged in between stalls, old clothes, vegetables, all sorts of wares, like a wanderer and a gypsy, he began ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... they're all unfurl'd And glittering in the sun! Triumphant entries Of conquerors, and coronation pomps, In glory scarce exceed. Great gluts of people Retard the unwieldy show; whilst from the casements And houses' tops, ranks behind ranks close wedged Hang bellying o'er. But tell us, why this waste? Why this ado in earthing up a carcase That's fallen into disgrace, and in the nostril 170 Smells horrible?—Ye undertakers, tell us, 'Midst all the gorgeous ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... would she add to the anxieties of Lady Desborough, knowing how much might depend upon her calmness if the chance of rescue offered itself; but she herself began to entertain grave fears for the safety of this house, wedged in, as it appeared to her to be, between masses ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... plunged the blade into the neck of the soldier. The Lanky's bayonet dropped from his hand, and he fell backwards. The haft of the pike striking the ground stopped him for a moment, and then he swung sideways and dropped on to his face; the pike remaining wedged in his spine, the shaft sprang into the air in a manner that was never after quite free of a suggestion of the hideously ludicrous in Jim's mind. Canty stared for a moment at his fallen enemy, and then, uttering a strange Irish ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... sidling up to the sitting birds and giving their partners a peck with their beaks, by way of a hint, barking out some word of explanation at the same time. In another moment, the home-coming penguin had wedged itself into the place of the other, which struggling on to its feet then proceeded outside the thicket, where, being joined by others whose guard had been thus similarly relieved, the fresh group proceeded together, in a hurried, scrambling sort of run, to the beach, whence ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... this, Jose went down and cut a sapling four inches in diameter, growing in a cleft on the rock, and from this cut off two six- foot lengths and brought them up. One end of the thickest of these was driven into the hole and tightly wedged in there, the other end was lashed ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... assured him that she had made a mistake and was sorry. But she did not speak to him again. She said nothing more to Bateese, and when the half-breed deposited him in the midship part of the canoe, facing the bow, she stood back in silence. Then Bateese brought his pack and rifle, and wedged the pack in behind him so that he could sit upright. After that, without pausing to ask permission, he picked up the woman and carried her through the shallow water to the bow, saving her the wetting ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... and dirt were wedged tightly about his legs, and not wishing to run the risk of a broken or twisted ankle, the scout worked with care, all the time wondering if Dick Arbuckle was back, and never once dreaming of the peril the poor lad was encountering. The rain was soaking ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... old-fashioned convenience, capable of containing a gentleman's entire wardrobe and half of a lady's—were brimful of Christmas gifts and "goodies," and parcels stuffed with the same wedged Mam' Chloe in the exact middle of the front seat. A big hair-trunk was strapped upon the rack behind, and a box packed by Cousin Molly Belle was between ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... is in front of the occipital, forming a part of the base of the skull. It is wedged between the bones of the face and those of the cranium, and locks together fourteen different bones. It bears a remarkable resemblance to a bat with extended wings, and forms a series of girders to the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... instant that Billy burst into the room and wedged his way fiercely between elbows, using his old football methods, head down and elbows out, and stood a moment breathless, taking ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... any part of it, and within the grounded ice not more than twelve. Having assured myself that no security or shelter was here to be found, I immediately returned to the former place, which the Hecla was just reaching. The Fury was detained some time by a quantity of loose ice which had wedged itself in, in such a manner as to leave her no room to move outwards; but she arrived about seven o’clock, when both ships were made fast in the best berths we could find, but they were still excluded from their intended place by the quantity of ice ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... gallant fellow disengaging himself from the fork of a branch in which he had been firmly wedged, but still smiling and confident, and his cigarette between his teeth. Then for the first time he removed it, and seating himself easily on the branch with his legs dangling down, he blandly waved aside my anxious queries ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... her officers and men were endeavouring to obtain a little well-earned sleep, she sometimes had an exasperating habit of rolling her rails under and slopping the water over her deck, and then it was that Langdon, her lieutenant in command, wedged in the bunk in his little cabin in the stern, and driven nearly frantic by the irregular thump, thump, crash of the loosely hung rudder swinging from side to side as the ship rolled, rose in his wrath and cursed the day ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... they are!" Polly exclaimed. "Oh, if we could hurry and let them know we're all right!" But they were wedged in so, there was nothing to do but to take their turn and let the passengers in ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... Don Mike murmured. "I had dismounted to tighten my cinch; going down hill the saddle had slid up on my horse's withers. I was tucking in the latigo. When I woke up I was lying on my face, wedged tightly in that little dry ditch; I was ill and dazed and too weak to pull myself out; I was lying with my head down hill and I suppose I lost consciousness again, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... passengers, so there ensued a wild scramble for seats, and it was only by the help of the conductor, whom she had judiciously tipped, that Miss Morley managed to keep her flock together, and settle them in one of the small saloon carriages. Here they were wedged pretty tightly among native Italians, and tourists of various nations, including some voluble Swedes and a company of dapper Japanese gentlemen, who were seeing Europe. After much pushing, crowding, shouting, and gesticulation on the part of both the public and officials, the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... more certain of their intentions, pushed impatiently against him, and presently he found himself, wedged well toward the middle of the long seat, chugging comfortably up the hill. Still half-daunted, he gazed about him. It was all of it charming to be sure, fascinating even; yet, could this festive summering place be the Avalon of his dreams? Was this the quaint village of Spanish times, ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... aid. They drew forth fine shavings and unwrapped layers of paper, neatly secured; slowly the core of the mystery disclosed itself in a temple-like form with a roof of dull black lacquer and dimly gilded inner walls, a thickly swathed figure wedged between them. The gift was, they now perceived, a Chinese Bouddha in his shrine, and, as Gregory and Barker disengaged the figure and laid it upon the ground, amusement, though still of an acrid sort, overcame Gregory's vexation. "A Bouddha, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and shadows. They do not form into a whole; they do not rise into foregrounds and melt into distances; they do not divide into groups; they do not coalesce into unities; they do not combine into persons; but each particular hue and tint stands by itself, wedged in amid a thousand others upon the vast and flat mosaic, having no intelligence, and conveying no story, any more than the wrong side of some rich tapestry. The little babe stretches out his arms and fingers, as if to ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... her, had pushed on ahead. I can not describe the effect produced on me in the clear night air, in the midst of the forest, by that voice of a woman, half-joyous and half-plaintive, coming from that little schoolboy body wedged in between roots and trunks of trees, unable to advance. I took ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... foundering ship to land. Before long, she struck upon a rock. Fortunately, the late stormy winds had subsided, and there was no surf. A swelling wave lifted her from off the rock, and bore her to another; and thus she was borne on from rock to rock, until she remained wedged between two, as firmly as if set upon the stocks. The boats were immediately lowered, and, though the shore was above a mile distant, the whole ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... enough of the outer planking to show that the entire filling of the casing between the stanchions was composed of small boxes. Dragging out one of them with feverish eagerness to the light, the Lascar forced it open. In the rays of the bull's-eye, a wedged mass of discolored coins showed with a lurid glow. The story of the Pontiac ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... of a lamb floated to her. Kate dismounted and made her way toward the sound. A pathetic little huddle of frightened life tried to struggle free at her approach. The slim leg of the lamb had become wedged at the intersection of several rocks in such a way that it could ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... resident in all the Islands, and very generally distributed, being almost as common amongst the wild rocks on the coast as in the inland parts. On the 7th of July, 1878, I found a Wren's nest amongst some of the wildest rocks in the Island; the hinder part of the nest was wedged into a small crevice in the rock very firmly, the nest projecting and apparently only just stuck against the face of the rock. A great deal of material had been used, and the nest, projecting from the face ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... a place called Pena Blanca, which differed in no essential from Gatun. We slept there in small sheds, along with twenty or thirty of our ship's companions wedged tightly together. A dozen other similar sheds adjoined. We were all quarrelsome and disinclined to take much nonsense either from the natives or from each other. Also we needed and wanted food; and we had difficulty in getting it. A ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... indifference vanished instantly. He had to pry the paper out, so closely had it been wedged in beneath the closed knife blade, and it required a moment in which to straighten it out so that the writing was discernable. Even then the marks were so faint, and minute, he could not really decipher them until he made use of a magnifying glass lying ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... writing becomes the height of absurdity when the parenthesis are not even fitted into the frame of the sentence, but wedged in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an impertinent thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it is no less impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless, and hasty ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... nationality, and ran immediately to tell her mother, a childish instinct also of universal distribution. She climbed, as nimbly as her queer little shoes would permit, a flight of narrow steps leading to a balcony; while the twins followed close at her heels, and wedged their way through a forest of Mongolian legs till they reached the front, where they peeped through the spaces of the railings with Spring Blossom, Fairy Foot, Dewy Rose, and other Celestial babies, quite overlooked in the crowd and ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a distinguished friend of the people. The earthquake of applause which succeeded this announcement was almost frightful, and while the scene was at its height, the three friends with great difficulty managed to extricate themselves from the multitude which wedged up the lobbies, and to ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... used sometimes for packing fine earthenware. It was nearly four feet high, and full six long, but very narrow. Two large empty oil-casks lay on the top of it, and above these, again, a vast quantity of straw matting, piled up as high as the floor of the cabin. In every other direction around was wedged as closely as possible, even up to the ceiling, a complete chaos of almost every species of ship-furniture, together with a heterogeneous medley of crates, hampers, barrels, and bales, so that it seemed a matter no less than miraculous that we had discovered any passage at all to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the art gallery which Mrs. Fairford had named she found it even more crowded than Fifth Avenue; and some of the ladies and gentlemen wedged before the pictures had the "look" which signified social consecration. As Undine made her way among them, she was aware of attracting almost as much notice as in the street, and she flung herself into rapt attitudes before the canvases, scribbling notes ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... goddess of gone days, Departed long ago, Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble, Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases, And the inarticulate snow, Leaving at last of her least signs and traces None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places. "She will love well," I said, "If ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... offences with their lives, without, in any degree, the frequency of the dreadful example lessening the perpetration of crime,—"The crowd thickens," exclaimed the 'Squire; and advancing into Smithfield, a new scene opened on the view of the astonished Tallyho. An immense and motley crowd was wedged together in the open space of the market, which was surrounded by booths and shows of every description, while the pavement was rendered nearly impassable by a congregated multitude, attracted by ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... almost more than semi-detached. It had been but lightly wedged between two buttercup stalks. The two eggs in it were at once unseated, and one was broken. Sarah ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... clothed. His rackets and a light pack were on his back and his pockets were stuffed with food and a flask of rum. He was armed with a hatchet. He crouched beside the window of the empty room for several minutes, listening intently and fearfully. At last he wedged the strong blade of his hatchet between the sash of the window and the frame and prised inward, steadily and cautiously. With a shrill protest of frosted spikes the lower part of the sash gave by an inch or two. He devoted another ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... flew, both trying to enter the narrow door of the tavern. Wedged in the doorway, each thought the other holding him. Fighting, cussing, scratching, they were pulled into the big tap room filled with guests. All imagined the two hostlers were fighting and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... now incessant on all sides, but gradually the Mexicans concentrated on the northern wall. They were yelling like so many demons, and their officers urged them forward by threats and sword blows, until the first rank was fairly wedged against the stone wall of the mission. A cannon belched forth, doing fearful havoc, but those in front could not retreat because of those pushing behind them, and in a twinkle one Mexican soldier was piled above another, until the top of the wall was gained, and, as one authority ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... and defence proceeded upon these terms for some time; and the defendant had one base advantage; and used it. Her forehead was wedged tight against Jenny's ribs, and Paul could not see her face. This, and the feminine evasiveness of her replies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... ever before been seen in the building during all its eight years of existence. People were wedged together most uncomfortably upon the seats; they stood packed in the aisles and overflowed the galleries; at the back, in the shadows underneath these galleries, they formed broad, dense masses about the doors, through which it would be hopeless ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... which every day proved to be more imperative. After the Coup d'etat, the Extreme Right, led by the Count de Revel and General Menabrea, adopted the tactics of professing to believe untenable the position of a free State wedged in between the old despotism of Austria and the new one of France. The argument was ingenious and was likely to make converts. It was urgently necessary to form a new political combination which should ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. Men, naked and black, sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up and to rig a ladder outside. They did so, and Mr. Clarkson ascended to the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. Standing at the wheel, steering the drifting ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... grand charge—whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet wedged in the narrow space behind. Now came the English onset. Then a panic. Then a rout. Then a general flight. Dukes, barons, knights of all sorts fled with the rest; also Charles, Louis, John, the three elder ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Square, they surveyed a vast rectangular carpet of upturned faces that made a pattern of pale dots on a coloured and black groundwork. Nearly all the children of Bursley, thousands upon thousands, were massed in the Square, wedged in tight together, so that there seemed not to be an inch of space anywhere between the shuttered shop fronts on the east of the Square and the shuttered shop fronts on the west of the Square. At the bottom of the Square a row of railway lorries were crammed with tiny babes—or ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... in 1870. Mark what followed. Three or four days after that document of thanks a French army was wedged up against the Belgian frontier, every means of escape shut out by a ring of flame from Prussian cannon. There was one way of escape. What was that? Violating the neutrality of Belgium. What did they do? The French on that occasion preferred ruin and humiliation ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... wedged between Saterlee and the side of the buggy. Every now and then Saterlee made a tremendous effort to make himself narrower, but ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... discern nothing save the steps, which seemed to go all the way to the cellar, and were just wide enough to admit of a human body. He then removed his belongings back into the room, shut down the scuttle, and closed the door. As there was no fastening, he wedged a chair between the knob and the floor, in such a manner that it could not be opened from within. He then threw himself upon the bed, wondering what would be the outcome of his unlawful enterprise, and while inhaling ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... struggled through the rear, with such success that her way to the front row was obstructed only by the bodies of two small children. They were firmly wedged, yet not so firmly but that a determined young woman could detach them by exerting adequate pressure. This she did; and having loosened the little creatures from their foot-hold, she partly lifted, partly shoved them behind her and slipped into their places at the barrier. This high-handed ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... characters that stand out conspicuously in the tulip tree—the *bud*, the *trunk*, the persistent *fruit cups* and the wedged *leaf*. ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... work on the spinet several days ago, he said, and upon removing the top had noticed something wedged in under the strings, which upon investigation he found to be the case ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... ingenious arrangement was to give its owner a house that could be approached only by water, the sides of which were composed of logs closely wedged together, which were two feet thick in their thinnest parts, and which could be separated only by a deliberate and laborious use of human hands, or by the slow operation of time. The outer surface of the building was rude and uneven, the logs being of unequal ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the direction of this last sound, Lanyard found the small side door ajar. He opened it, and hesitated a moment, looking out as though questioning the weather; simultaneously his deft fingers wedged the latch back with a ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... that there is something the matter with his house, and in order to brighten it up a bit in honor of his guests, he had purchased flowers,—dozens of them,—the most exquisite pink Killarney roses and red and yellow tulips. The McGurk had wedged them all together as tight as they would fit into a peacock-blue jardiniere, and plumped it down in the center of the table. The thing was as big as a bushel-basket. Betsy and I nearly forgot our manners when we saw that centerpiece; but the doctor seemed so innocently ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... lamp upon the lock and made a little grimace. The catch had been wedged back into the lock so that it could ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... I walked out of my lodging, not knowing what course to take, and by chance steered towards the castle, where there was a great crowd of people, to see the sultan of Egypt. As soon as I came up to them, I wedged in among the crowd, and by chance happened to stand by a cavalier well mounted and handsomely clothed, who had upon the bow of his saddle a bag half open, with a string of green silk hanging out of it, I clapped my hand into the bag, concluding the silk- twist might be the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... mustered in strength for Skeighan. In a country brake it is the privilege of the important men to mount beside the driver, in order to take the air and show themselves off to an admiring world. On the dickey were ex-Provost Connal and Sandy Toddle, and between them the Deacon, tightly wedged. The Deacon was so thin (the bodie) that, though he was wedged closely, he could turn and address himself to Tam Brodie, who was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged in with Mrs. Lester and ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the various faces. I recognized several, and they were apparently a deeply interested group, for, even at that distance, I could plainly note the excitement stamped upon their countenances, and the nervousness with which they moved about seeking clearer view. There were so many closely wedged together as to obstruct my vision of what was occurring, yet I felt no doubt but that they watched a game of cards; a desperate struggle of chance, involving no small sum to account for such intense feeling on the part of mere onlookers. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... more, he threw himself precisely where he did, as he saw the walls giving way, so that not a hair of those children should be injured when the beams came down. My father has told me since, that when they got a lever under the timber and wedged old Clinker out, he gave a kind of cackle; but, in my opinion, he has not drawn a breath from that day to this. And, generally, he is a very taciturn old root, and rarely opens his rind; but latterly he talks a good deal about the earthquake; says he's sure there'll be another awful one ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... asunder and a few stars shone vaguely down on the wild scene. The dim light showed the doomed vessel wedged among the rocks that stuck up, black and threatening, through the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... before them, the mounted soldiers, who were speeding across the field, saw at once the line they were taking, and galloped headlong to intercept them. Paul, in the fury of his hot young blood, dashed forward alone, and fell upon the foremost with so fierce a blow that his axe was wedged in the head-piece of his opponent, so that he was unable to draw it out. The man reeled in his saddle and fell, almost dragging Paul, who still had hold of the axe, with him; and before he could recover himself or draw his sword, he was set ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... soon know what it is," said the trapper, making his way towards it, guided by the noise. About fifty rods distant he found a goat with its leg wedged between two rocks, so as to hold it fast, and preclude the possibility of its escaping. The goat was much emaciated, and had probably been there two or three days. But a few paces distant, was its kid, being about five months old, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... fishers for several minutes about a dead starfish, and they stared in open-eyed amazement, thinking it very strange that a grown-up woman should ask such questions. At last the little boy showed her what she was to do with the lobster. He wedged the claws with two bits of wood, and attached a string whereby she might carry it in her hand, and in silences that were only interrupted by occasional words they picked their ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... scramble to get out of the way of the engines had here resulted in a traffic-jam. Two policemen were moving about, shouting orders for the disentanglement of the street-cars and vehicles which seemed to be inextricably wedged together. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... little after nine o'clock, it was set up in the middle of the river and held in position by a boat, the bows of which were wedged between two of the rungs, while the stern ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... to be home again!" he said huskily. "Your leaning towers of Pisa are all right by way of a change, but deal me the Metropolitan for keeps, an' I've just spotted my old dad grinning at me like a Cheshire cat from the middle of a crowd wedged so tight that it would take a panic to ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... went to the inner side of a great slab that lay wedged against the wall of the chasm, and, stooping there, dragged out rock after rock, cunningly piled so that the waves could not displace them, until a small opening was disclosed behind the leaning slab. It was no more than three feet high, and we had to creep in on our hands and knees, ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... we have now more than five hundred detenus in this single house. How so many have been wedged in I can scarcely conceive, but it seems our keeper has the art of calculating with great nicety the space requisite for a given number of bodies, and their being able to respire freely is not his affair. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... was about to tell thee: when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile. But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... down was a sight that made the old man's heart stand still. A few yards below him, and just at the turn in the river above the village were the "Narrows," where the most careful navigation of logs was necessary to prevent a jam. And there, wedged in the narrow channel, hurled together into fantastic shapes and augmented each moment by the oncoming logs which struck the heap with a resounding boom, was piled a ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... for the entire day has been most trying, leading us through a trackless forest of pines encumbered on all sides by prostrate trunks of trees. The difficulty of urging forward our pack train, making choice of routes, extricating the horses when wedged between the trees, and re-adjusting the packs so that they would not project beyond the sides of the horses, required constant patience and untiring toil, and the struggle between our own docility and the obstacles in our way, ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... a score of feet away from them, and to the sound of exclamations and blows a surge ran through the crowd. A large man, wedged sidewise in the jam, was shoved against Saxon, crushing her closely against Billy, who reached across to the man's shoulder with a massive thrust that was not so slow as usual. An involuntary grunt came from the victim, who turned his head, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... found themselves clinging to the branches of a broken tree which was wedged crossways in the cove, its trunk entirely submerged. It formed a sort of makeshift dam and the boat, caught in its branches, added to ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... such a hunt for it." Elizabeth looked quite hot and tired. "Cedric found it at last wedged between two boulders. I wonder he did not fall into the Pool while he was trying to get ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... invincible moods. They drank till they were in a condition to face death; and then they found that our situation was rather improved than otherwise by the collision. For—so it appeared—we had run full tilt for a perpendicular fissure in a huge block, and into that our bows were firmly wedged, the nature of the impact distributing the shock, and the berg itself carrying us along with it ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... train put itself into movement, and the lifelike iron miracle, fuming, hissing, and screeching, bore off to London its motley convoy of human beings, each passenger's heart a mystery to the other, all bound the same road, all wedged close within the same whirling mechanism; what a separate and distinct world in each! Such is Civilization! How like we are one to the other in the mass! how strangely dissimilar in ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be able to free himself," Darrin explained breathlessly. "His foot was wedged under a cleat ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... twisted, bending this way and that, as apple-trees will. The short, fine grass was like emerald; there were no flowers at all, only green and brown, with the sunlight flickering through the branches overhead. They found the seat, which was curiously wedged into the double trunk of the very ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... top of the stairs wedged in, obstructing the passage, sat Carita and Mary. They fell upon Annabel and Blue Bonnet ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... small house wedged in amongst the numerous strongly-built houses and ecclesiastical buildings of the upper town of Quebec. The house had been deserted by its original occupants upon the first news of the fall of Louisbourg. Many of the inhabitants of Quebec had taken fright at that, and ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the black, visible, ghastly-white and astonished, terrified, perspiring, in a livid glare. One face, a young man's, was very near to him, not twenty inches away. At the time it was but a passing incident of no emotional value, but afterwards it came back to him in his dreams. For this young man, wedged upright in the crowd for a time, had been shot ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... over the cover to a couple of ring-bolts conveniently placed in the deck, and I finished up by backing the companion doors with a couple of stout pieces of timber, which I sawed to the proper length and wedged in between the uprights, rendering it practically impossible for the doors to be forced open by a sea, while, by drawing over the slide, I could at the last moment effectually close all access to the cabin. This completed my labours, with which I was fairly well satisfied, ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... revolutionary outbursts, which stimulate the will, brace the muscles, and blow the obstacle to smithereens. Our revolution of 1789 was one of these outbursts of heroic energy, dragging mankind out of the rut wherein it had become wedged, and compelling a fresh start. But as soon as the effort has been made and the chariot set in motion, mankind has been only too ready to stick fast in the mire again. Long ago, the French revolution brought all that it could bring to Europe. A time comes when ideas which were ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... Gregory the Great that the place was of sufficient size to be governed by a bishop in the sixth century. By the tenth we find the Republic of Amalfi already risen to a position of commanding importance, and holding its own against the rival states between which its territories were wedged; the dukedom of Naples to the west and the principality of Salerno to eastward. Dexterously playing on the greed and prejudices of the various tyrants who ruled Naples and Salerno, and occasionally allying itself with them in order to repel the fierce attacks of their common enemy, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... what Jill called a picnic dinner in Uncle Brian's study. Every one enjoyed it but Clayton, who seemed rather put out by the disorganised state of the house, and who was always getting helplessly wedged in between the escritoire and the table. We would have much rather waited on ourselves, and we wished Mrs. Martin had forgone the usual number of courses. When it was over we all went into the long drawing-room, and Jill played soft ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and are conjectured to be the draughts of heated air which rise in the doldrums, flow high in the air counter to the trades, and gradually sink down till they fan the surface of the ocean where they are found. And they are found where they are found; for they are wedged between the trades and the doldrums, which same shift their territory from day to ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... his face, even at such a moment. It would have provoked a smile had we been going to the bottom. There was no fear of that, however, as I quickly ascertained. We were already hard and fast on the bottom. We had run upon a sunken rock, and were so firmly wedged between its crevices that it seemed likely we should remain there some time. As soon as all was still, I quietly dressed myself and went on deck to take an observation. It was just daylight. We were in the middle of a lake, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne |
