"Swoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before a horse jumps it slows, sidles, gathers itself together, goes up like a monster wave, and pitches down on the further side. Hedges and sky swoop in a semicircle. Then as if your own body ran into the horse's body and it was your own forelegs grown with his that sprang, rushing through the air you go, the ground resilient, bodies a mass of muscles, yet you have command ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... cover of darkness they snatch nervous mouthfuls of grain in the fields,—and hence their gray colour and their large, watchful eyes; but on the other hand, the baby owls in their hollow tree would starve if the parents were never able to swoop down in the darkness and surprise a mouse now and then,—hence the gray plumage and great eyes of the ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... question of how we rate the brotherhood, what per cent we will take. My neighbor at table in my London boarding-house meant that, though he put it in a way all his own. He was a benevolent enough crank, but no friend of preaching. Being a crank, he condemned preachers with one fell swoop:— ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... gas attack sounds. One backward fling of the head and the steel helmet falls off, for there is no time to lift it off. A dive into the bag carried on the chest and the respirator is grasped and with one skilful swoop it is drawn over the face. Your nose is pinched shut by a clamp, your teeth grip the rubber mouthpiece, and, like a diver, you must now get your one safe stream of pure air through the respirator. You ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... and creeping vines, showing that even here, in these lofty and deserted regions, Nature has her poetic moods. Birds almost entirely disappear at these altitudes, preferring the more genial atmosphere of the plains, though now and again an eagle, with broad spread pinions, is seen to swoop gracefully from the top of some lonely pine, and sail with unmoving wings far away across the depth of the valley until hidden by the windings of the gorge. Even the presence of this proud and kingly bird but serves to emphasize the loneliness of ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... white arc of his wings, against a sky so dark that it must symbolise the obscure discourse of those who write in prose. You are left quite doubtful whether he will strike the rocky terrace in the foreground with his slender, silver hooves, or will swoop down into the valley below, or will soar to heaven and out of sight. You are left by the painter in a pleasant uncertainty, but Hippocrene may break out anywhere, and of the vivacious courser himself all that we can be sure of is that we ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... invasion of their hunting ground by the English. The French-Indians incited by the French settlers in the Mississippi Valley who wanted the wealth of fur-bearing animals for themselves, began to swoop down on the settlements of the English-speaking people along the frontier, massacring them by ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... together an' swoop down with them on the murderin' convicts. He found out from signs, that I couldn't make nothin' of, that his tribe had divided into two parties, one going towards a hunting-ground called Big Cypress, an' ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... piteously bleak in winter, but most lovely when spring comes to clothe it. The volcanic nature of the soil in these parts gives a softer tint than usual to the coloring. The miles upon miles of open gray-green country, treeless, hedgeless, houseless, swoop toward one another with the strangest sinuosities and rifts and knobs of volcanic earth, till at last they sink in faint mists, only to rise again in pink and blue distances, so far off, so pale and aerial, that they can scarcely be distinguished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... and alongside my road runs a bit of civilization in the shape of the splendid iron poles of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Half a dozen times this afternoon I become the imaginary enemy of a couple of cavalrymen travelling in the same direction as myself; they swoop down upon me from the rear at a charging gallop, valiantly whooping and brandishing their Martini-Henrys; when they arrive within a few yards of my rear wheel they swerve off on either side and rein their fiery ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... fire, he made a swoop for the fellow, and managed to give him a tremendous blow that toppled him over ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... given up a secret in thinking how well worth while it had been, since Ellen was such a dear, young, loving thing. She found consolation in this frost-polished morning: the pale, bright sky in which the light stood naked, her abandoned veil of clouds floating above the horizon; the swoop and dance over the marshes of the dazzling specks that were seagulls; the fur of rime that the dead leaves on the hedgerow wore, and the fine jewellery-work of the glistening grass tufts in its shadow. The world had neglected nothing ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... entirely depending on the wind, but, like steamers, impelled by unseen powers within them. Alas! that power was not the force of innocent steam, but the arms of Christian rowers chained to the oar. Sure as the pounce of a hawk upon a partridge was the swoop of the corsairs upon the French vessel. A signal to surrender followed, but the captain boldly refused, and armed his crew, bidding them stand to their guns. But the fight was too unequal, the brave little ship was disabled, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her plate a wing-bone from his own, and Aunt Abigail, with one deft swoop, contributed the neck from the platter. As fast as she could, Elizabeth Ann fed these to Shep, who woofed them down at top speed, the bones crunching loudly under his strong, white teeth. How he did enjoy it! It did your heart ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... cornices like a terrier shaking water from its hair. Grinding his teeth, cursing, he wrenched at the window, tore at the clasp, then turned in desperation and saw the door, loosed by a sudden throe, swing open. Through reeling dust clouds Pancha darted for it, her flight like the swoop of a bird, and he followed, running crazily along the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... tonnage as the one that preceded her. No flag is flying and I cannot guess her nationality. She continues steaming at full speed in an effort to pass the zone of danger before other engines can be launched. But how can she escape them since they will swoop back ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... off the manuscript influenza came down upon me with a swoop. I went to bed and am there still, with no chance of quitting it in a hurry. My wife is in the same case; item one of the maids. The house is a hospital, and by great good fortune we ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... occasioned by the sudden flight of the dove, which, escaping from her hold, soared aloft. Jennet followed the course of its silver wings, as they cleaved the blue sky, and then all at once saw a large hawk, which apparently had been hovering about, swoop down upon it, and bear it off. Some white feathers fell down near the little girl, and she picked up one of them and put ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the soft buzz of a high-powered car, and presently two lights appeared at the further end. They came towards her swiftly, almost silently. It was like the swoop of an immense bird. And then in the strong glare shed forth by the hall-lamps she saw the huge body of an ambulance-car, and a Red Cross flared symbolic in ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... you," as Pip's means of paying his debts are lightened and made easy by his method of simply adding them up with a margin. "The time comes," says Herbert, "when you see your opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it, and you make your capital, and then there you are! When you have once made your capital you have nothing to do but employ it." In like manner Pip tells us "Suppose your debts to be one hundred and sixty four pounds four and two-pence, I would say, leave a margin and put them down ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for a stick to throw at it; but when I turned again, the creature was just disappearing into the water. It is their habit to lie quite still, and catch animals that come near them. Whether or not it was waiting until I came within the swoop of its mighty tail I know not, but I had the feeling that I had escaped a great danger. It was curious that it should have been so bold only a few days after Mr. Hollenbeck had been down shooting ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... my books!' exclaimed Biffen, with a genuine groan. 'And all my notes! At one fell swoop! If I didn't laugh, old friend, I should sit down and cry; indeed I should. All my classics, with years of scribbling in the margins! How am I to buy ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the nag, loosen her bridle bit, and follow into the meeting-house—a lofty building unplastered at the roof, whose open eaves and shingles give place in summer to nests of wasps, and in the winter to audacious birds, some of which swoop screaming to the pulpit, and beat the window panes in futile flight. Two uncarpeted aisles lead respectively to the men's side and the women's side—for, far be it from us, primitive Methodists, to improve upon the discipline of Wesley—and midway of each aisle, in square areas, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... increase the anarchy, these 'foreigners,' and to learn the American twang and method of spitting. And there is the peril of politics. Upon these scattered exotic communities, ignorant of the problems of their adopted land, ignorant even of its language, swoop the agents of political parties, with their one effectual argument—bad whisky. This baptism is the immigrants' only organised welcome into their new liberties. Occasionally some Church raises a thin protest. But the 'Anglo-Saxon' continues to take up his burden; and the floods from Europe ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... and hearing his hail, the gulls gather, and swoop around his head in continuous screaming. In larger numbers, and with cries more stridulent, as his comrades come forth out of the cave, one after another—yawning, and ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... swoop like a Falcon: A rumbling waggon now trundles thee off: O My King! Hast thou in truth then forsaken thy wife and thy children and the Diet of thy People? O My King! Circling in pride like an Eagle whilom Thou didst lead us, O My King! But now Thou ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... hung about with a couple of hundred pictures presented by his admiring painter guests from time to time. The viands are bountiful and splendidly garnished and the consommations au premier choix. Then there are the occupants of "les petits menages" to swoop down on your table for crumbs,—pigeons only,—and in cages a score or more of canary-birds, and, as a sort of contrast, dogs and cats and fowls of ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... and brought the Pauillac up at a sharp tilt. Banking, he advanced the spark a notch; the engine shrilled a half-tone higher, and with increased speed the aero lifted them bravely in a long and rising swoop. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... like a live thing under the terrific strain. At each downward swoop, before the upswing began, there was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... colloquial remarks delivered in his ordinary voice? The man who expected to get attention should claim it by the strident shrillness of his tones, should be able to bend his two knees in eloquent unison, and send one clenched hand with a driving swoop into the palm of the other—and repeat as often as necessary. Abner questioned as well his mental powers, his quality of brain-fibre, his breadth of view. The feeble creature rested in no degree upon the great, broad, fundamental principles—principles ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... then said, 'Ye children, I myself saw the mighty hawk, that best of birds, swoop down and fly away with the mouse from the hole. And while he was flying away swiftly, I followed him behind and pronounced blessing on him for his having taken away the mouse from the hole. I said unto him. 'O king of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... maiden of the two strove to "cut across lots" when she came near the south-eastern corner, whereat, facing north, stood the big house of the commanding officer; but Mrs. Miller was too experienced a hand, and bore down upon the pair in sudden swoop from her piazza to the front gate, and they had to ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... various kinds were soaring in the air, some quite steadily and others darting angrily from side to side. One went up with a swoop, to come down with a bang on the rocks, thus knocking itself into ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... those Imperialists were fairly up the glen and out of sight and the Dutch were plodding their way in. Then I'd launch the Highlanders, sword in hand, down the slope of that hill, and cut off the rear-guard, and take the baggage at a swoop, and in half an hour the army would be disabled and the third part of it ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... continuously tracking we came up with the beasts. There were four of them altogether, and right wild and vicious-looking brutes they were. They marched close together in a band, and never parted company. The moment I and my men tried to separate and head them off, the leader would swoop down upon us with open mouth, and the result of this appalling apparition was that my black assistants fled precipitately. Alone I followed the camels for several days in the hope of being able ultimately to drive them into some ravine, where I thought I might possibly bring them into a state ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the first sudden swoop of the tempest arrived. The tall elms writhed as though taken with St. Vitus's dance. The hens began to screech and run to cover. Thunder muttered in ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... the great Kemble had been bound to do so. Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, a pale, woebegone Norseman with long flaxen hair, wearing a strange garb never associated with the part upon the English stage (if ever seen there at all) and making a piratical swoop upon the whole fleet of little theatrical prescriptions without meaning, or, like Dr. Johnson's celebrated friend, with only one idea in them, and that a wrong one, never could have achieved its extraordinary success but for its animation by one pervading purpose, to which ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... maintained a discreet silence. Instead of the usual sky-larking, care-free crowd that infested the cozy quarters of the happy-go-lucky Hicks, every collegian present, except the ever-cheerful youth, seemed to have lost his best friend and his last dollar at one fell swoop! ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... this point, lighted on the hand. It was better to fall by desperate councils than to continue as he was; and with one tremulous swoop he pounced on the gloved fingers and drew them to himself. One overt step, it had appeared to him, would dissolve the spell of his embarrassment; in act, he found it otherwise: he found himself no less incapable of speech or further progress; and with the ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... "Oh, no! The creek takes a great swoop, below Crofield, and the road's a short cut. There'll be some ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... dissatisfactions, sittings and contempts,—threatened now and then to swoop down upon the family life and comfort with ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the edge of the town—the long, straight road to the south, and the road-trail that led west into the silence. There were no tracks in it now but the flat hoof-prints of burros and the wire-twined wheel-marks of desert buckboards; even the road was half obliterated by the swoop of the winds which had torn up the hard-packed dirt, yet the going was good and as the racer purred on Virginia settled back in ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... this field in a night or so,—the moon is 'most full now, and the nights are light,—and I've got to be able to signal him just how to find the powder magazine and the other munitions. Then he can swoop right over there and drop one of his little souvenirs where it will do the most good and fly away home. I advise you to keep away from that section of ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... young chickens; but the hens called their broods together under their wings, and the cocks put themselves in order of battle, so that the kite was disappointed. At length one chicken, not minding its mother, but straggling heedlessly to a distance, was descried by the kite, who made a sudden swoop, and seized it in his talons. The chicken cried out, and the cocks and hens all screamed, when Ralph, the farmer's son, who saw the attack, snatched up a loaded gun, and just as the kite was flying off with his prey, fired and brought him dead to the ground, along ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of God! We come! We come! In swoop for fierce flesh, like a bird of prey, In scent of the blood of the brave to-day, By the splendor of God! We come! We come! Sword in hand, for the Love of God! Since blood is holy and royal wine, Advance! Drink health to ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... country. "Without some provision of this kind," said Mr. Julian, "rebel speculators now hovering over the whole of that region, and hunting up the best portion of it, and the holders of Agricultural College scrip can come down upon it at one fell swoop and cheat the actual settler, whether white or black, out of his rights, or even the possibility of a home in that region, driving the whole of them to some of our Western Territories or ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... then, the scene below was illuminated by the flash and roar of hostile artillery. A shell exploded with a deafening report so near their Bleriot that it was evident that the firer had sighted them during Lafe's last lower swoop. ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... with sleep, I had a curious sense of being whirled at a terrific speed into some subterranean suck of waters. There was nothing to do but wait. We struck rocks and went rolling, shipping buckets of water at every dip. Then there was a long sickening swoop through utter blackness. It ended abruptly with a thud that knocked ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... to "invite" the Stable. The Stable having been duly invited, its eight occupants come in, and each finds a place on a palliasse. It is a warm, still night. The great doors of the Coach-house stand wide open. The stars are out thick by this time. Little black bats flit and swoop about in the darkness. If you keep very still you can just hear the gentle "hshshsh, hshshsh" of the sea. The candle flickers as the night gives a little sigh. A few Cubs are rolling about on their straw beds. "Shut up, all!" commands an imperious ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... She thought he matched his surroundings as he disappeared at a trot round the corner of the church. Then from behind her came the hoot of a motor-horn, and she glanced back to see a closed car that glittered at every angle swoop through the open gates and swerve round to the churchyard. She wanted to stop and see its occupants alight, but decorum prompted her to pass on, and she entered the church, which smelt of the mould of centuries, and ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... with every fiery detail through her brain. He had marked her down for himself, long, long ago, and whatever Dr. Jim might say, he had never abandoned the pursuit. He meant to capture her at last. She might flee, but he was following, tireless, fleet, determined. Presently he would swoop like an eagle upon his prey, and she would be utterly at his mercy. He had beaten Grange, and there was no ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... of his and her line, had arrived in beggar's guise, a wretched idiot, a recipient of charity—all of which details the general gave out for greater effect! He was anxious to steal her interest at the first swoop, so as to distract her thoughts ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... as near Oxford, it flows silently onwards with scarcely a dimple on its unruffled surface. Over its still waters the gnats rise and fall in their ceaseless dance. The swift-winged dragon-flies, blue, green, and red, swoop upon them like so many falcons on their prey; or, in the earlier year, the mayflies flutter above the stream, leaving their shed skins, like ghostly images of themselves, sticking on every tree trunk near ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... like flying at his throat, as though all the truth lived in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to tear ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... insurgents had converted the terrace of the Tuileries, developed their plan of action with great circumspection; two strong columns were sent out to right and left that, skirting the ramparts, should first seize Montmartre and the Observatory and then, wheeling inward, swoop down on the central quarters, surrounding them and capturing all they contained, as a shoal of fish is captured in the meshes of a gigantic net. About two o'clock Maurice heard that the tricolor was floating over Montmartre: the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... time and labour would lie waste, instead of providing a considerable part of the food of the household in summer and autumn. "But there was never no sense in them ladies like missus, no more in their sparing than in their spending." At one fell swoop she dismissed her own maid, the cook, and the parlour-maid, retaining only a young table-maid to "do" for ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... no scruples arising from conscious unfitness. Agnes might well have thought it better he should marry the cottar's than the farmer's daughter! Anyhow she was resolved to keep an eye on the young woman so long as Cosmo was within her swoop. He was chivalrous and credulous, and who could tell what Elsie might not dare! Her refusal to be his wife did not deprive her of antecedent rights. And there she was, gathering behind Cosmo, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and never have to work hard or git a beatin'. Then come de cradlers of de wheat, de threshers, and de millers of de corn and de wheat, and de feeders of de cotton gin. De lowest class was de common field niggers. A house nigger man might swoop down and mate wid a field hand's good lookin' daughter, now and then, for pure love of her, but you never see a house gal lower herself by marryin' and matin' wid a common field-hand nigger. Dat offend de white folks, 'specially ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... dashed Swoop of the Vulture business," he grumbled, as he paced before his tent, ever and anon pausing to sweep the city below him with his glasses. "I should like to find the fellow who started the idea! Making me look a fool! Still, it's just as bad ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... recollect them, and for which men so often have been and still are impleaded in Court Christian—these particulars, I say, being recapitulated and set forth in terrible array, by the rector, excited in the whole parish so much dread of the rapacious vulture, who was coming with such a swoop upon them, that high and low, young and old, rich and poor, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... it vigorously that her wild pets might get all the little pieces of food that fell. Not a bird came down as long as she remained in the yard, but as soon as she had tripped back to the house and the door closed upon her brown curls, I could see a drove of hungry snowbirds swoop from the trees, and in a minute every crumb would be picked up. I am sure they must have loved dear little Polly, for many a choice bit did they get through ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... of the families of the habitans after this swoop of your foragers?" asked the Seigneur de Beauce, a country gentleman who retained a few honorable ideas floating on top of the wine he ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... afford to dream. He once remarked confidentially to a friend, "I veel make ze millions and millions by ze great enterprizes in America, and zen I veel go home to France, and veel capture my comrades in ze French armee, an veel plot and plan, and directly zey veel put me in command, and zen I veel swoop down on ze government, and first zing you know I veel mount the zrone." One time his agent at Medora, his ranch on the Northern Pacific, wrote him at New York about the loss of three thousand head of sheep, the letter going into all the details of the affair. The Marquis ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... helped. Some of the seed, sown broadcast, of course falls there, and lies where it falls, having no power to penetrate the hard surface. As in our own English cornfields, a flock of bold, hungry birds watch the sower; and, as soon as his back is turned, they are down with a swift-winged swoop, and away goes the exposed grain. So there is an end of it; and the path is as bare as ever, five minutes after it has been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... whole country, and gradually destroying the red men; and would call forth all their supernatural powers, and blast them with fire and plague, unless they were taken by surprise, and annihilated at one fell swoop. All the superstitious fears of the ignorant natives were thus aroused, and if there were any in the assembly who were too well acquainted with the white men to credit all that Coubitant asserted, they ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Shepherd, if it be his, as Izaak Walton without suspicion assumes, and, if it did not compel comparison with Marlowe's more exquisite melody, would assure his place among the poets of the age. He was able to barb a fierce sarcasm with courtly grace. How his fancy could swoop down and strike, and pierce as it flashed, may be felt in each ringing stanza of ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Yorkshire forests. I have sure spies on the Saxon's motions—To-night they sleep in the convent of Saint Wittol, or Withold, or whatever they call that churl of a Saxon Saint at Burton-on-Trent. Next day's march brings them within our reach, and, falcon-ways, we swoop on them at once. Presently after I will appear in mine own shape, play the courteous knight, rescue the unfortunate and afflicted fair one from the hands of the rude ravishers, conduct her to Front-de-Boeuf's Castle, or to Normandy, if it should be necessary, and produce ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... dreaded. Its flat bottom enabled them to beach the vessel on any fitting coast; and a step on shore at once transformed the boatmen into a war-band. From the first the daring of the English race broke out in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirates' swoop, in the fierceness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar. "Foes are they," sang a Roman poet of the time, "fierce beyond other foes and cunning as they are fierce; the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... taking up the hat of the unfortunate Elijah with a certain hesitation, as if he feared it had already lost its dramatic intensity as a witness, disappeared into the storm and darkness again. A lurking gust of wind lying in ambush somewhere seemed to swoop down on him as if to prevent further indecision and whirl him away in the direction of the justice's house; and Mr. Harkutt shut the door, bolted it, and walked aimlessly ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... sharper. He could hear Gino coming in on tiptoe. He even knew what was passing in his mind, how now he was at fault, now he was hopeful, now he was wondering whether after all the victim had not escaped down the stairs. There was a quick swoop above him, and then a low growl like a dog's. Gino had broken his ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... continued to let his men be taken. At last he had only one man left, but he had so managed the moves that, without my father being aware of it, this last man was in a position to take all the men my father had left in one single swoop,—and there were a good many, for M. de Balzac had taken only six up to that move. From that time onward my father regarded him as one of the keenest minds that had ever lived." (Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Touraine, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... earliest daffodils, When, before sunrise, the cold clear hours Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils,— Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, Perch'd on a spray by a rivulet-side, "Swallows, O Swallows, come back again To swoop and herald the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows, And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes, Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel. Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle, Down the hillside hounding, they glided away o'er the meadow. Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters, Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow Brings from the shore of the sea to restore ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the moon, the nip in the air, the little wind that came so gently, yet with such sinister stealth, all portended one thing,—that the great northern winter was lurking just beyond the mountains, ready to swoop forth. Of course there would be likely time in plenty for a dash into Clearwater; yet the little breath of fall was almost gone. Far away, rising and falling faint as a cobweb in the air, a coyote sang to the rising moon,—a strange, sobbing song of pain and sadness and fear that only the woodsman, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... the buildings. They only came when an animal was killed for meat, and would then hang about, keeping a sharp eye on the proceedings and watching their chance. This would come when the carcass was dressed and lights and other portions thrown to the dogs; then the carancho would swoop down like a kite, and snatching up the meat with his beak would rise to a height of twenty or thirty yards in the air, and dropping his prize would deftly catch it again in his claws and soar away to feed on it at leisure. I was never tired of admiring this feat of the carancho, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... you not to expect plain sailing?" she continued with a knowing look; "and Ada Irvine is a perfect hurricane. She will swoop down on you at every opportunity, and bluster and blow; but let her ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... to make out the diverse branching of it in any maps I can lay hand on: but we may remember easily, and usefully, that it is all north of the Maine,—that it rests on the Drachenfels at one end, and tosses itself away to the morning light with a concave swoop, up to the Hartz, (Brocken summit, 3700 feet above sea, nothing higher): with one notable interval for Weser ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... the bay Call to the distant flight Of ducks, that swoop from out the realms of space, Seeking a ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren
... bring men in at Ostend or Zeebrugge to reinforce you in a hard south-eastward push. There is no limit to what could be done by the extreme left-handed push and swoop along the Dutch frontier.... In a few hours I could have fifty 12-in. guns and seventy 6-in. firing on the enemy's right and rear. It is difficult for submarines to attack because ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... seeking their food were heard, and the cat feared one of them might find her and kill her. A mother tiger perhaps would snatch her, and take her to her hungry cubs, hidden away in the deep forest, or a bird of prey might swoop down on her and grip her in his terrible claws. Again and again she entreated the mouse to be quick, promising that, if only he would set her at liberty, she would never, never, never forget it or do any harm ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... and Patty danced away again. "Who gets me, I think, will have to swoop down in an aeroplane, and grabble me all up and ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... chivyings from herring-gulls; one nip from a crab who ought to have been dead; two winkles under big stones that took half-an-hour to shift; one dead pigmy shrew—length two inches—with a hole in its skull, no brains, and a horrible smell; nearly his life removed by the swoop of a kestrel falcon and the javelin-stab of a heron's beak; and twenty minutes' hard cleaning to remove the mud-stains that were not properly off—to his nice liking—yet. And, to add to that, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... entrusted to Montcalm, whose word was solemnly pledged for their protection and safe conduct. How was the pledge redeemed? No sooner were the British deprived of their arms than the Indian allies of the French were permitted to swoop down upon the defenceless prisoners and execute upon them their savage will. The sick and wounded were scalped, slain, and barbarously mutilated before the eyes of the Marshal of France, who had guaranteed that not a hair of their heads should fall. Nay, more; a score of the prisoners were ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... it? Why is it? Like a snow-flurry, With swish of wings, And a swoop and a scurry, Comes a whole flock of them Now in a hurry! Busy and merry The little things, very; Watch them, and see How blithe they can be With their "Chick-a-dee-dee, Chick-a-dee-dee!" Each one such a bit ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... that birds, flies, rabbits, and other ground game may carry the disease from one plant to another and from one crop to another. This is insufficient to account for the sudden onset and the wide extent of potato "epidemics," which usually attack whole districts at "one fell swoop." Some of those best qualified to judge believe that the spores are carried through the air, and I am myself inclined to trust in the opinion expressed by Mr. William Carruthers, F.R.S., before the select committee ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... droop under the extreme heat. It imbues them with a listless torpor. Carrion itself would scarce tempt them from their perch. Five minutes have elapsed; and not one moves from the tree—neither to swoop to the earth, nor soar aloft in the air! I no longer wish them to tarry. The suspense is terrible to endure—the more so from the ominous stillness that reigns around. Since the last angry challenge, not a word has been exchanged between my adversary ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... do you suppose she will sign a lease to empower you to wipe her off the face of the earth—abolish her and her pretty island at one fell swoop?" ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay there in the thicket. And he was right; but when he saw the thing he covered his eyes with both ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... "No, I'd swoop along over the forests up here until I picked out all the camps of the Indians and Tories. I'd pick out the Butlers and Braxton Wyatt and Coleman, and see what mischief they were planning. Then I'd fly away to the East and look down at ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Xenophon, and would not see his old friend, Caesar, neglected without an effort to defend him; so he confiscated the gum-pot, and effectually stopped the stamp business by whisking away at one fell swoop all that lay ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... against that menace—to gain (by inspiration from the titular genius of commerce and craft so conspicuous in that famed art representation[6] exhibited in his Bourse) a dazzling prize for his nation by one fell swoop and, so to say, with folded arms, just by pitting against the English his almost forgotten and long-neglected clan, the Boer nation, inciting them to usurp Great Britain in South Africa, Holland sharing the spoils. See here the master mind exulting in the conception, gestation, and birth of ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... with verdigris as thick as a diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day; while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formed triangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, were cleared away at one swoop. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... altitude they follow the attacking infantrymen and flash back wireless reports of the engagement. Only through them can communication be maintained when, under the barrier fire, wires from the front lines are cut. Sometimes it falls to our lot to guard these machines from Germans eager to swoop down on their backs. Sailing about high above a busy flock of them makes one feel like an old mother hen protecting ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... upon the man, whom he could have crushed with one swoop of his hands. The consternation of his first broken ideal possessed his heart. With a deadly pallor upon his face, he hurried up the clanging street, and the coarse laughter of brutes tingled in his ears. He swallowed ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... laying his hand on the arm of his companion, and speaking with the gravity of a judge, "whin ye swoop yer gaze on thim playthings out there, bear in mind that there's our breakfast, as me grandmither obsarved whin the dinner table upsit and ivery thing rolled ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... you fellows where you can all have a chance at them," said Mr. Choate with a smile. "It would be interesting to have a motion-picture record of the thoughts which flash through the mind of the average inland fisherman the first time he feels the tiger-like swoop of a five-foot barrancuda, the fierce yank of a hundred-pound amber-jack, or the sullen surge of a big grouper on his line; for even when armed with the heaviest rod, and a line as big around as a silver dollar, he is pretty sure to ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... voulez qu'en vrai dieu de la machine, "You will have me as theatre-god, then, "J'arrive pour te denouement? "Swoop in, and produce the catastrophe? "Qu'aux Anglais, aux Pandours, a ce peuple insolent, "J'aille donner la discipline?— "Tame to sobriety those English, those Pandours, and obstreperous people? "Mais examinez mieux ma ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... next instant he sees the heron. Away he darts, while knights and ladies rein in their horses and watch. Up, and up, he goes until he passes the heron and still he flies higher. Next instant he turns and, with a terrible swoop downwards, pounces upon the heron and ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... at what he termed the insolence of a handful of outlaws, and the cowardice of his picked troops, who had flaunted their banners and gone forth as if to assured victory, and had then fled like some gay-plumed bird before the swoop of the eagle. Not only the oppressed inhabitants of Jerusalem and its environs had cause to tremble at the rage of the tyrant, but his own Syrian officers and the obsequious courtiers who stood in his presence. And none ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... collision of the star with a star-cloudlet, or nebula, traversing space in one direction while the star swept onwards in another. A planet could not very well come into final conflict with its sun at one fell swoop. It would gradually draw nearer and nearer, not by the narrowing of its path, but by the change of the path's shape. The path would, in fact, become more and more eccentric; until, at length, at its point of nearest approach, the planet would graze its primary, exciting an intense heat where it ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... sublime! Swoop o'er the Land to-day— So the mist of wrong and crime, The breath of our Evil Time Be swept, as by ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... also transformed herself into an otter-bitch, and chased him under the water until he was fain to turn himself into a bird of the air; she, as a hawk, followed him, and gave him no rest in the sky. And just as she was about to swoop upon him, and he was in fear of death, he espied a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of a barn, and he dropped among the wheat and buried himself into one of the grains. Then she transformed herself into a high-crested black hen, and went to the wheat ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... no time to lose. Every hour for us meant so much more of that precious pay-dirt that lay under the frozen surface. The Winter leapt on us with a swoop, a harsh, unconciliating Winter, that made out-door work an unmitigated hardship. But there was the hope of fortune nerving and bracing us, till we lost in it all thought of self. Nothing short of desperate sickness, death even, would drive us from our ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... and swoop On the air, or loop Through the trees, and then go soaring, O: To group with a troop On the gusty poop While the wind behind is roaring, O: I skim and swim By a cloud's red rim And up to the azure flooring, O: And my wide wings drip As I slip, slip, slip Down through the rain-drops, Back where ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... the desolate landscape it sailed, growing more and more distinct as it drew nearer. It circled, turning first to the right and then to the left, rising and descending, as if responding willingly to the touch of its unseen pilot, until with a majestic swoop it hovered like a great bird exactly over the cradle, ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney |
