"Wrenching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and, wrenching her hands out of his, pressed them before her eyes to shut out the sight of the earnest face so near her own. But she could not shut out his voice, and Charles's voice could be ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... a life apart and then his humanity, his weakness, his need had sealed the vow of renunciation in the fires that forged eternally their beings into one. But this, this was the Hand from Outside on which we never reckon and which always comes; the Destiny Thing which Man's Will denies, wrenching the forging asunder. Was it right for him to risk their lives farther in the Desert now; it affected her life now; and that was exactly what his common sense had foreseen: the fighter must fight alone. Love might send forth; but love must not be ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... presented his piece, and desired the foremost of the rioters to stand off. The young Amazon, whom Butler had observed particularly active, sprung upon the soldier, seized his musket, and after a struggle succeeded in wrenching it from him, and throwing him down on the causeway. One or two soldiers, who endeavoured to turn out to the support of their sentinel, were in the same manner seized and disarmed, and the mob without difficulty possessed themselves of the Guard-house, disarming ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... beneath an oak tree which was growing on the boundary line of the district. Cross oaks were planted at the juncture of cross roads, so that persons suffering from ague might peg a lock of their hair into the [18] trunks, and by wrenching themselves away might leave the hair and the malady in the tree together. A strong decoction of oak bark is most usefully applied for ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... a wrenching stop at the very edge of the crowd, swung Nedda through the opening between front and side rails and gave her a ...
— DP • Arthur Dekker Savage
... never reached the grass. Came a blurr of flashing lights, a thunder in my ears, a darkness, a glimmering of dim light slowly dawning, a wrenching, racking pain beyond all describing, and then I heard the voice of one ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Range, by "Simon's Gap." The track from this point to the junction of Warroul and Parallel Creeks with the river (where the camp was pitched) was very winding, from having to avoid the basalt, which was laming some of the cattle, besides wrenching off the heads of the horse-shoe nails: it could not be altogether avoided, and made it past noon before the cattle reached the camp. A native companion, a rock wallaby, and a young red kangaroo were the result of the hunting in the afternoon, which saved the necessity of having to kill a beast: ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... through the apartment, and a ball tore through the top of his boot, and lodged in the wall within two feet of where I was standing. With a spring, quick and sure as the tiger's, the Colonel was on the drunken man. Wrenching away the weapon, he seized the fellow by the necktie, and drawing him up to nearly his full hight, dashed him at one throw to the other side of the room. Then raising the revolver he ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... an arrow; poor fellow, as I dismounted at the gate of the castle, he sunk on his knees, his eyes were covered with a film, he fell on his side, a few gasps inflated his noble chest, and he died. I saw him expire with an anguish, unaccountable even to myself, the spasm was as the wrenching of some limb in agonizing torture, but it was brief as it was intolerable. I forgot him, as I swiftly darted through the open portal, and up the majestic stairs of this castle of victories—heard Adrian's voice—O ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Wrenching with all her fine, young strength she lifted him upon her shoulder; then, kneeling in the vines, she struggled for breath. Then thrusting with her arm she got ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... evening to reconnoitre. They accordingly proceeded to the spot, but the gates being shut, one of them climbed to the top of the wall, where he discovered the very parties, he had before noticed, in the act of wrenching open the coffin. Here they are, said he, hard at it, as I expected. But before he and his friend could get over the wall, the villains effected their escape, leaving behind them a capacious sack and all the implements ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... knife is out," said Lucas, wrenching himself free. He turned again to M. le Comte, and his eyes gleamed as he saw the blood trickling down his sleeve and the sword tremble in ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... grandsire's queen. Thro' this we pass, and mount the tow'r, from whence With unavailing arms the Trojans make defense. From this the trembling king had oft descried The Grecian camp, and saw their navy ride. Beams from its lofty height with swords we hew, Then, wrenching with our hands, th' assault renew; And, where the rafters on the columns meet, We push them headlong with our arms and feet. The lightning flies not swifter than the fall, Nor thunder louder than the ruin'd wall: Down goes the top at once; the Greeks ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... face could never hide a great secret. Paul was on the point of asking what it was when his eye was attracted by a commotion going on behind the door of a cedar linen closet at the end of the hall. There was a sudden wrenching and tearing of cloth, then a great Jovian sized laugh, the door burst open and a huge figure stepped out into the hall where Esther ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... eyes searched every feature, and he deliberately lifted and examined the exquisitely shaped strong, white hands, the dainty nails, and delicately rounded wrists with their violet tracery of veins. It cost her an effort, to abstain from wrenching herself free; but her mother's caution: "So much depends on the impression you make upon father," girded her to submit to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... that offense it is not necessary that the assailant should actually stab with his knife or shoot with his pistol. The assault by Terry was commenced in the court-room, under the eyes of the judges, and was a continuing act, ending only-with the wrenching of the knife from his hands. It was all committed "in the presence of the court," for the Supreme Court has decided in the Savin case that "the jury-room and hallway were parts of the place in which the court ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... not know how hard Atherton found it to govern the professional suspicion which sprung up at the question of money. But he overruled his suspicion by an effort that was another relief to the struggle in which he was wrenching his mind from Miss Kingsbury's outrageous behavior. "What have you got there?" he asked gravely, and not unkindly, and being used to prompt the reluctance of lady clients, he put out his hand for the paper she held. It was the bill of the threatening creditor, for indefinitely ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Scaurus and his tribe, after gazing at the spectacle, sat down to their becaficoes that day. Then he was thrust into prison, and as they hasted to strip him, some tore the clothes off his back, while others in wrenching out his earrings pulled off the tips of his ears with them. And so he was thrust down naked into the Tullianum. 'Hercules, what a cold bath!' he cried, with the wild smile of idiocy, as they cast him in. [Sidenote: Death ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... cried, starting quickly. Up he scrambled, cursing, and wrenching at his revolver. I sprang to smother him, but there was a flurry, a chorus of shouts, men leaped between us, the brakeman and conductor both had arrived, in a jiffy he was being hustled forward, ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... announces that the leaf-clad man has been condemned to death, and cuts off his false head. Then the riders race to the May-tree, which has been set up a little way off. The first man who succeeds in wrenching it from the ground as he gallops past keeps it with all its decorations. The ceremony is observed every second or ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... muttered Vance, wrenching his button from the Cobbler's grasp, and impatiently striding off. But he did not effect his escape so easily, for, close at hand, just at the corner of the lane, a female group, headed by Merle's gaunt housekeeper, had been silently collecting ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... effort he pulled himself together and leaped forward again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... bills, like pincers, are made expressly for the purpose of wrenching the scales from the cones, so that the seeds ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... that the big longshoreman was making as if to rise. Johnnie could still feel the touch of Big Tom's perspiring hand on his forehead, and the pinch of those cruel fingers on his shoulder. Taking a forward step, he gave Barber's shoulder a wrenching jerk, then thrust the longshoreman backward by a spanking blow of the open palm full upon that big, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... who had been standing passively, his right arm loosely grasped by Tom Brangwyn, came down on Brangwyn's instep with the heel of his left foot and hit Brangwyn under the chin with the heel of his left palm. Wrenching his arm free, he started for the door. Sylvie Jacquemont snatched a chair and threw it along the floor; it hit the fleeing man's ankles and brought him down. Half a dozen men piled on top of him, and Brangwyn was yelling to them ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... his eyes, and then opened them. He wished he hadn't come here, and then grew shivery to think that he might have happened not to; and all the while that awful twisting and wrenching at his heart was getting worse ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... however, who was a powerful fellow, grasped the capstan-bar, and getting his knee on the combing was about to deal a blow at Tim which would have felled him to the deck, when one of the English crew, attracted by his cries, sprang to his assistance, and, wrenching the weapon from the Frenchman's hands, struck him dead. Two more only had now to be disposed of; they, still in ignorance of the fate of their companions, sprang up the hatchway, and before they had time to gain their feet were thrown down and ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... to close with me, seizing the rifle, but I was stronger than he, and, wrenching the weapon from his grasp, tossed it aside and made for his throat with my bare hands. I had not dared fire the weapon for fear that its report would bring the larger guard stationed at the farther ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... up in the park and gardens for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at the top. Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of a fall of water. But it was for the glory's sake merely. The boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... legend says, a horseshoe) when the Devil appeared before him. Instantly recognising his enemy, and being aware that with such a foe prompt measures alone are useful, St. Dunstan at once pulled his nose with the tongs, which chanced happily to be red hot. Wrenching himself free, the Devil leaped at one bound from Mayfield to Tunbridge Wells, where, plunging his nose into the spring at the foot of the Pantiles, he "imparted to the water its chalybeate qualities," and thus made the fortune of the town ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Wrenching his hand away he knocked her to the ground, and she lay face downward. But this blow was nothing, purely automatic, like his first blow, not bringing with it that faint sense of something refreshing, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... things that have influenced me, have given my life its direction; and I can see clearly that it was never meant to be your way. I do not know what it will be; but I know yours is different. It would be wrenching mine ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... cried Badenoch, stamping with his foot, and plucking forth his sword; "is the man to exist who thus braves the assembled lords of Scotland?" While speaking, he made a desperate lunge at the regent's breast; Wallace caught the blade in his hand, and wrenching it from his intemperate adversary, broke it into shivers, and cast the pieces at his feet; then, turning resolutely toward the chiefs, who stood appalled, and looking on each other, he said, "I, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... that mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter; early in the morning See thou deliver it to my lord and father. Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee, Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof And do ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... still clinging to their places. The boy picked out one large piece, and, exerting all his strength, tore it away from the wall. He then carried it to the cavern and tossed it upon the burning coals, about ten feet away from the end of the passage. Then he returned for another fragment of rock, and wrenching it free from its place, he threw it ten feet beyond the first one, toward the opposite side of the cave. The boy continued this work until he had made a series of stepping-stones reaching straight across the cavern to the dark passageway beyond, which he hoped would lead him back to safety ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner," is visited by three ghosts in succession—The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Exc'llency, some cankered minds Have been a daily hind'rance in our House. No measure so essential, bill so fair, But they would foul it by some cunning clause, Wrenching the needed statute from its aim By sly injection of their false opinion. But this you cannot charge to us whose hearts Are faithful to our trust; nor yet delay; For, Exc'llency, you hurry on so fast That other men wheeze after, out of breath, And ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... touched suffered. Church steeples fell, crushing beneath their weight the buildings over which they had stood guard. Wrenching warehouses to fragments the tornado passed to the river front, leaving a broad swath of wreckage and dead bodies. The belt of destruction extended from the west side of Seventh Street as far as Ninth and Main Streets, and an equal width across to the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... other than harshly to him, Bill was the pride and joy of his hard life. A blow aimed at Bill struck him with redoubled force. His hatred of Derrick Sterling arose from the fact that the lad had thrashed his boy. Now to tell him that his boy Bill was so badly hurt that he was likely to die was like wrenching from him all that he ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... a doctor that he can save Florentin. He knows that Caffie was killed without a struggle between him and the assassin; consequently without the wrenching off of a button. He will say it and prove it to the judge, and Florentin's innocence is evident. I ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... yield on that question. As the Spanish fleet was evidently preparing to cooperate with that of Napoleon, Pitt resolved to deal the blow which Chatham was not allowed to deliver in 1761. The weak point of Spain was her treasure fleet; there was an inner fitness in wrenching from her the gold which was soon to go ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... some cases, this may be due to the revision of earlier productions by later writers, which has thus brought more primitive conceptions into a degree of conformity with maturer and profounder views; but, even in such cases, the earlier conception often lends itself, without wrenching, to the deeper interpretation and the completer exposition. The Bible is not distinctively an ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... girl, prettily dressed, passed him. She clung charmingly to the arm of a big boy; and to Canby's first glance she was Wanda Malone. Wrenching his eyes from her, he saw Wanda Malone across the street getting into a taxicab, and then he stumbled out of the way of a Wanda Malone who almost walked into him. Wherever there was a graceful gesture or turn of the ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... extending from one side to the other, right across the centre of the back. Beneath it the backbone was thickened to treble its normal size, and perfectly rigid; in fact, it had become a mass of solid bone. At some time or other this shark had been harpooned so severely that, in wrenching himself free, he must have nearly torn his body in two halves, severing the spinal column completely. Yet such a wound as that had been healed by natural process, the bone knit together again with many times the strength it had before—minus, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... of despair seized on the hapless traitor, and wrenching himself free from the coiner's grasp, ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... in number, packed behind the military escort on the plaza before the Capitol. Chief Justice Chase again administered the oath of office, and the President advanced, uncovered, to the front of the platform, and read his re-inaugural address. The wind blew a tempest at times, nearly wrenching the manuscript from his hands. No sooner had he finished reading than the salute from a neighboring light battery was echoed by the guns in the Navy Yard, the Arsenal, and at two or three forts on the Virginia side of the Potomac, which had not yet been dismantled. Before ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... difference how much character a person's got, it's gone when sick-stomach is a-wrenching of 'em." Mrs. Mundy groaned feebly. "I 'ain't had a spell like this since Bettina was a baby. Pig feet did it. When they're fried in batter I'm worse than the thing I'm eating. I et three, and I never can eat more than two. And ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... hand as he had spoken and Atahualpa now asked to see it. The volume was a clasped one and he found it difficult to open. Valverde, probably thinking he could show him to unclasp the volume, stepped nearer to him. The Inca repulsed him with disdain. Wrenching open the covers he glanced rapidly at the book, and perhaps suddenly realizing the full sense of the insult which had been offered to him in the demands {83} of the dogmatic and domineering Dominican, he threw the sacred volume to the ground ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... We arranged terms—not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... was down. Now they came rushing through the jail, calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells and wards; wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the door-posts to get men out; endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and windows where a child could scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without a moment's rest; and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... associations in which they had been educated, which they had often avowed and held dear from their ancestors, which proclaimed their mother country their enemy, and denounced connection with her a crime. Such a renunciation of the past, and wrenching from it, could not otherwise than weaken the foundations of society and the obligation of oaths, as may be seen by a comparison in these respects of the sacredness of laws and oaths, and their administration in America ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... candlesticks, and carrying away everything which promised to be of value. One ragged fellow was in the pulpit, tearing off the crimson velvet and hurling it down among the crowd. Another had upset the reading-desk, and was busily engaged in wrenching off the brazen fastenings. In the centre of the side aisle a small group had a rope round the neck of Mark the Evangelist, and were dragging lustily upon it, until, even as we entered, the statue, after tottering for a few moments, came crashing down upon the marble floor. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been wrested from us by treason and perjury, if with every mile of advance we did not gain a stronghold of principle. We are not straining every nerve, struggling under immense financial burdens, wrenching away tender household ties, sacrificing cheerfully and eagerly private interests, brilliant prospects, and high hopes, only to prove that twenty millions of men are physically stronger than twelve. God forbid! This ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he wanted; but, on the other hand, he would not hesitate to seize upon your tall copy in russia gilt and tooled. Nor would the exemption of an editio princeps from everyday sordid work restrain his sacrilegious hands. If it should contain the thing he desires to see, what is to hinder him from wrenching out the twentieth volume of your Encyclopedie Methodique, or Ersch und Gruber, leaving a vacancy like an extracted front tooth, and carrying it off to his den of Cacus? If you should mention the matter to any vulgar-mannered acquaintance ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the man who forgot that he grappled with the brother of a woman passionately loved, remembered only that he rejoiced to fight to the death the man who had ruined his life. Reinaldo tried to thrust the knife into his back; Estenega suddenly threw his weight on the arm that held it, nearly wrenching it from its socket, snatched the knife, and drove it to the heart ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... water. The new combatant, whose arrival had so effectually changed the aspect of affairs, was the hermit, who followed up his first stroke by another still more decisive. Springing into the pirate craft, wrenching a weapon from the grasp of the chief of the assailants, he drove before him the three remaining men, terror-struck at his sudden and inexplicable appearance, his superhuman size and strength. One by one he swept them overboard; then grasping a huge ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... hundred yards in the rear. Yes—now! His headlights were streaming out on her left as he, too, touched the curve. The right-hand side of her car, the right-hand side of the road were in blackness. She checked violently, almost to a stop, then instantly opened the throttle wide once more, wrenching the wheel over to head the machine for the ravine; and before the car picked up its momentum again, she dropped from the right-hand side, darted to the far edge of the road, and flung herself flat down ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... Clementina. I really hardly know whether the people will take the carpet up or no.' The people, consisting of the cook and housemaid—for the page had, of course, come with the carriage—were at this moment hard at work wrenching up the nails, as Mrs. Val was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... pay great deference and respect to me, yet they did not suffer me to escape without contributing my share to their stock of plunder. One of them came up to me with a familiar air, and with great management diverted my attention, whilst another, wrenching the hanger, which I held carelessly in my hand, from me, ran off with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... me over his shoulder in an extraordinary, profound, familiar manner, and fell upon my feet. The side of his head hit the wheel twice, and the end of what appeared a long cane clattered round and knocked over a little camp-stool. It looked as though after wrenching that thing from somebody ashore he had lost his balance in the effort. The thin smoke had blown away, we were clear of the snag, and looking ahead I could see that in another hundred yards or so I would be free to sheer off, away from ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... the time," said Leslie miserably. "I've nothing to look forward to. Morning will come after morning—and he will not come back—he will never come back. Oh, when I think that I will never see him again I feel as if a great brutal hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them. Once, long ago, I dreamed of love—and I thought it must be beautiful—and NOW—its like THIS. When he went away yesterday morning he was so cold and indifferent. He said 'Good-bye, Mrs. Moore' in the coldest tone in the world—as if we had not even been friends—as ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... soon will, sir," replied Ready, wrenching it open with his axe. "They are a little stained on the outside, but they are jammed so tight that they do not appear to have suffered much. Here are ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... tribulations which I had heard so much of, and whereof I had witnessed so many, made me in a sense but little liable to be moved when told of any new outrage. But the sight of that Highlander wrenching from Sarah Lochrig's finger our wedding-ring did, in its effects and influences, cause a change in my nature as sudden and as wonderful as that which the rod of Moses underwent in being quickened ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... tubes. The robotcab glowed briefly red, then seemed to sag, sink together; then puddled, a slag heap of molten metal, on the glassy floor of the port. A little moan of horror came from the crowd, and Bart felt a sudden, wrenching sickness. It had been like a game, a silly game of cops and robbers, and suddenly it was as serious as melted death lying ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... that, or aught else likely to be of service either to herself or protegee. Before any resolve reaches her the cacique, is by their side; and flinging himself from his horse, grasps both by the wrists, wrenching asunder their joined hands. Then turning upon the Indian girl with a cry of rage—a curse in the Tovas tongue—he strikes her with his shut fist, inflicting a blow which sends her reeling to the earth. Before she can regain her feet he is once more upon his horse, and heading back ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... Lester, wrenching his right arm loose, began to shoot. What happened after that no one ever clearly knew, but the team sprang wildly forward, and Compton's pony reared and fell backward, and the bride and groom were thrown violently to ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... her in astonishment, but her father put his big hand over the gate, and, wrenching the little latch open, strode up to the front ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... minutes before it was over, though the crash was instantaneous. With a horrible crunching and wrenching of timber, the Mayflower went down into a great boiling cauldron; and when she came to the surface again, her deck was as level and clean as a scow's. The mast was off even with the flooring and had gone overboard, carrying sail, men ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a race track on the ranch and many fine horses. After siesta the company mounted fresh steeds and rode off to applaud the feats of the vaqueros, who, not content with climbing the greased pole, wrenching the head of an unfortunate rooster from his buried body as they galloped by, submitting the tail of an oiled pig in full flight to the same indignity, gave when these and other native diversions were exhausted, such exhibitions of riding and racing as have never been seen ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... is much the same; it always goes ill with the mind. True, knowledge is power; but in order to feel at home with it, we must be constitutionally qualified. And if we are not, it is likely to give the soul such a wrenching as to deform it forever. Indeed, how many of us go through life with a fatal spiritual or intellectual twist which could have been avoided in our youth, were we a little less wise. The young philosophes, the products of the University Machine of to-day, who go about with a nosegay of -isms, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... they clinched, Beaufort's stout right arm holding Penny against him and his left fist seeking lodgment against Penny's face. But Penny, squirming, kept his head down and the blows fell harmlessly on his skull. Then, wrenching himself free, Penny stumbled out of the way, pale and dizzy. Beaufort plunged toward him again wildly. Penny stood still then. A feint at the stomach, and Beaufort for an instant dropped his guard. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... gathered round, whereat there was a general uncovering. Martella saluted and with his former dignified tread, walked toward the edge of the plateau, in the direction of the trail leading to the river from which he had come. The most wrenching effort of his life was to restrain himself from breaking into a lope and calling upon his charge to do the same with her horse. He ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the rags that covered her. She whined and whimpered querulously, mouthing inarticulate plaints and prayers as Roger haled her along, with Cnut and Walkyn, fierce and scowling, behind. Having brought her to Beltane, Roger loosed her, and wrenching away her bundle, opened it, and lo! a yellow-gleaming hoard of golden neck-chains, of rings and armlets, of golden spurs and belt-buckles, the which he incontinent scattered at Beltane's feet; whereon the gibbering creature screamed in high-pitched, cracked and ancient voice, and, screeching, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... weakening. His right hand seemed to be caught in a vise which would break and crush it: it was growing tighter and tighter: it was wrenching his arm, was dragging him backwards: it would fracture his shoulder ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... to the spot, and wrenching the tool from Oliver's hand; "I say—don't you meddle any more. The curiosity is mine, you know. I found ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... in wrenching my head towards the ocean, although I felt sure it would swing gradually round again in ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... friend or foe. That he had no fears of disturbance was manifest from the carelessness with which he proceeded, constantly kicking the leaves before him, and when a limb brushed his face, suddenly stopping and spitefully wrenching it off with an expression of impatience. He was in a worse temper than usual, and incensed at something ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... fool.—With that Nic. bounced up with a spring equal to that of one of your nimblest tumblers or rope-dancers, and fell foul upon John Bull, to snatch the cudgel* he had in his hand, that he might thwack Lewis with it: John held it fast so that there was no wrenching it from him. At last Squire South buckled to, to assist his friend Nic.: John hauled on one side, and they two on the other. Sometimes they were like to pull John over, then it went all of a sudden again on John's side, so they went see-sawing up and down, from one end of the room to the ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... the sensation. It is like playing a game of touch with danger. The triumph of escape gives one a delicious moment. That is why many men invent dangers for themselves. It is simply for the pleasure of escaping them. There are boys who enjoy wrenching knockers off doors, not because knockers are an interesting kind of bric—brac, but because there is just a chance of being caught in the act by the police. I once knew a youth who had a drawer filled with knockers. He felt as proud of them as a young Indian ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... wrenching the shaft from his hand despite the streaming blood; "I have saved one shot for you all ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the Captain with the mighty heart; And when the judgment thunders split the house, Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest, He held the ridgepole up, and spikt again The rafters of the Home. He held his place— Held the long purpose like a growing tree— Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down As when a lordly cedar, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... enough to hold him then, and, wrenching himself from her, he stood confronting her with a look more like that of a maniac than any she had ever seen in him before, and which might have frightened one with nerves less strong than Jerrie's. But she was not afraid, and a strange calmness fell upon her, now that she had actually reached ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... dogs were peradventure caught napping. At all events, neither one nor the other uttered a sound. Doctor Unonius, wrenching a lamp from its socket, walked boldly forward at Dapple's bit and, coming to the back entrance by the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of the bundle with the object of replacing it on the cart, but Crass got hold of it as well and they had a tussle for it—a kind of tug of war—reeling and struggling all over the shop. cursing and swearing horribly all the time. Finally, Sawkins—being the better man of the two—succeeded in wrenching the bundle away and put it on the cart again, and then Crass hurriedly put on his coat and said he was going to the office to ask Mr Rushton if he might have the things. Upon hearing this, Sawkins became so infuriated that he lifted the bundle off the cart and, throwing it upon ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... crimes To wreak my vengeance due; but in my grasp My faithless sword is shatter'd, and my spear Hath bootless left my hand, nor reached my foe." Then onward rushing, by the horsehair plume He seiz'd his foeman's helm, and wrenching round Dragg'd by main force amid the well-greav'd Greeks. The broider'd strap, that, pass'd beneath his beard, The helmet held, the warrior's throat compress'd: Then had Atrides dragg'd him from the field, And endless ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... satisfied his sight, to swallow the poison and be buried by her side. He reached Verona at midnight, and found the churchyard in the midst of which was situated the ancient tomb of the Capulets. He had provided a light, and a spade, and wrenching-iron, and was proceeding to break open the monument when he was interrupted by a voice, which by the name of VILE MONTAGUE bade him desist from his unlawful business. It was the young Count Paris, who had come to the tomb of Juliet at that unseasonable time of night to strew ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... correlated complexities, miracles, absurdities, in wrought with the whole theory, inseparable from it. The violence it does to nature, to thought, to love, to morals, its arbitrariness, its mechanical form, the wrenching exegesis by which alone it can be forced from the Bible,7 its glaring partiality and eternal cruelty, are its sufficient refutation and condemnation. If the death of Christ has such wondrous saving efficacy, and nothing else has, what keeps him from ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... fire storm these younkers, O tongue wi' stormy ecstasy My Muse that knows Our deeds and theirs, how when at sea Their navies swooped upon The Medes at Artemision— Gods for their courage, did they strike Wrenching a triumph frae their foes; While at Thermopylae Leonidas' army stood: wild-boars they were like Wild-boars that wi' fierce threat Their terrible tusks whet; The sweat ran streaming down each twisted face, Faen blossoming i' strange petals o' death ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... angry person holding someone by the hair, wrenching his head against the ground, and with one knee on his ribs; his right arm and fist raised on high. His hair must be thrown up, his brow downcast and knit, his teeth clenched and the two corners of his mouth grimly set; his neck swelled and bent forward ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... you, did you?" He began to cry, and as we hurried along over the fields, he sobbed with the wrenching, rending sobs of a man. "I knew you did, and I believe it was God himself that put it into your heart to write me that letter and take off that much of the blame from me. I said to myself that if I ever lived through it, I would try to tell you how much you had done for me. ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... reconciliation. No sooner was the house sunk in slumber than he crawled stealthily upstairs in order to forestall by theft a promised generosity. He opened the door of the bed-chamber in a hushed silence; but the wrenching of the cofferlid awoke the sleeper, and Gilderoy, having cut his mother's throat with an infamous levity, seized whatever money and jewels were in the house, cruelly maltreated his sister, and laughingly burnt the house to the ground, that ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... realised that Ostrog's attention was distracted, that Ostrog's grip had relaxed, and, wrenching his arms free, he struggled to his knees. In another moment he had thrust Ostrog back, and he was on one foot, his hand gripping Ostrog's throat, and Ostrog's hands clutching the silk about his neck. But now men were coming towards them from the dais—men ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... finely-prepared lunch, and, wrapping warmly in shawls and blankets went forth on their hard, laborious way, down the steep path of cragged rocks. Sometimes their feet lighted on a sharp projection, or by a misstep they fell among the stony piles, bruising and wrenching their flesh and bones. But, notwithstanding all the fatigues and hardships of the way, the party were in jubilant spirits. As the prospect narrowed with the descent, they were all taking a last look at the disappearing wonders, and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... flinging herself upon me and soothed her into calm while I found out what had happened. The penknife that I had lost in my struggle with Captain Magnus had fallen at the Scotchman's feet. Wrenching himself free of his all but severed bonds he had seized the knife, slashed through the rope that held him to the tree, and flung himself on Captain Magnus. It was a brief struggle—a fist neatly planted on the ruffian's jaw had ended it, and the captain, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... dream to me, and I will not dwell on it. That night we pass'd at Chippenham—a small market town—and on the morrow went tramping again through worse weather, but always amid the same sights and sounds. There were moments when I thought to go mad, wrenching at my cords till my wrists bled, yet with no hope to escape. But in time, by good luck, my wits grew deaden'd to it all, and I march'd on with the rest to a kind of lugubrious singsong that my brain supplied. For hours I went thus, counting my steps, missing my reckoning, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... discipline relaxed through the sieges and battles, the continual marches, the exposure and the want of a campaign so long and arduous as this. Strange it seemed to them, after going so far, and doing and suffering so much, that they should end the campaign where they had begun it. Yet they had done much: wrenching the larger and richer half of Spain out of the grasp of the French, and changing their possession of the country to a mere ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... valley just beneath. There in the lap of the hills around stood the wretched straw-thatched huts of the peasants belonging to the castle—miserable serfs who, half timid, half fierce, tilled their poor patches of ground, wrenching from the hard soil barely enough to keep body and soul together. Among those vile hovels played the little children like foxes about their dens, their wild, fierce eyes peering out from under a mat ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... contemptuously flinging old Perigord down, he snatched from him an ornamented casket which he was clutching in his hands: it was his master's strong box, which he had rescued at the last moment, and brought away with him from the ship. Wrenching it open the savage drew out the first thing that came to hand: it was the ribbon and order of ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... hurrying with both to the rude spring-house and setting them in cool running water. A moment more and he had his pack and his rifle on one shoulder and was climbing the fence at the wood-pile. There he stopped once more with a sudden thought, and wrenching loose a short axe from the face of a hickory log, staggered under the weight of his weapons up the mountain. The sun was yet an hour high and, on the spur, he leaned his rifle against the big poplar and set to work with his axe on a sapling close by—talking frankly now to the God ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... may you be astonished! Had you lived in our day you must have endured worse martyrdoms than the boiling oil or the wrenching rack! What you suffered was the mere physical pain of torn muscles and scorching flesh, pain that at its utmost could not last long; but your souls were clothed with majesty and power, and were glorious in the light of love, faith, hope, and charity ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... an almost morbid sense of personality and a moral hesitancy which is fatal to self-confidence. The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes, must give rise to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind to pretence or revolt, to ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... eyes, came upon her. It amazed him so much that he, too, sat regarding her in an intentness which took no account of the others. One of Mrs. Grove's hands, half hidden in green tulle, was clenched. She breathed in an audible sigh and, with what appeared to be a wrenching effort, turned from him to ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... there ensued a long pause, during which I heard the mate encouraging the crew to a special effort by shouting: "Heave, boys! heave and raise the dead! break him out! another pawl! heave!" and so on; then there occurred a sudden wrenching jerk, followed by a shout of triumph from the crew, the windlass pawls resumed their clanking at a rapid rate for a few minutes longer when they finally ceased, and I knew that our anchor was a-trip and that we had ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... delirium vanished, except as visionary memorials of a sorrow that was cancelled? Why was it that craziness settled upon this mariner's brain, driving him, as if he were a Cain, or another Wandering Jew, to 'pass like night—from land to land;' and, at uncertain intervals, wrenching him until he made rehearsal of his errors, even at the hard price of 'holding children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner?' [Footnote: The beautiful words of Sir Philip Sidney, in his 'Defense of Poesie.'] That craziness, as ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the agony within rises, breaks up, overwhelms the picture. He lives again through the jars and frets of those few burning days, the growing mistrust of them, the sense of jealous terror and insecurity—and then through the anguish of desertion and loss. He writhes again under the wrenching apart of their half-fused lives—under this intolerable ache of his ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... work of chopping ceased. Then began the ripping whine of saws and the wrenching clutch of cant hooks; loads of clean planks now came clattering up the rough road from the sawmill in the valley below—men cursed over wheels sunk over their hubs in mud—over broken axles and ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... a time, forgot the approaching hour of his revenge in the great catastrophe. The next morning a little comfort was given them in the report of Doctor Charlie that there was no sprain but only a slight wrenching, which, if all went well, would allow him to start the game. But the consolation was scant. What chance had Banks in an Andover game? There would have to ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... another wrenching effort, and there was a change. She hadn't got back into the garden, but the noisy, swirling colors were gone and she had the feeling of reading a rapidly moving microtape now, though she didn't actually ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... a painful story," she said, with some hesitation. "I never thought to stand by and see a De Roberval disarmed. Yet, such was this scoundrel's skill, that after a few passes he succeeded in wrenching my uncle's sword from his hand, and we ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... Dick was too quick for him. Wrenching himself on one side he threw his left arm over the fellow's neck, as he bent down, the right arm under his leg, and whirled him up perfectly helpless, but ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... his bitterest grievance against his wife that she had, in truth, left him nothing!—not even friendship, not even art. In so wrenching herself from him, she had perpetuated in him that excitable and unstable temper it should have been her first object to allay, and had thus injured and maimed his artistic power; while at the same time she had ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... another ship. He told my mother that he had been so unhappy without her that he had got leave to take her and me with him, as I was now big enough to go to sea. My mother was too sensible a woman not to know that she must some day of necessity part from the Little Lady, and though it was like wrenching her very heartstrings, she, without hesitation, agreed to accompany her husband and take me with her. Our kind friends were, I know, very sorry to part with us. The old lady folded her arms round me, and kissed me on both cheeks, and on my forehead, and blessed me, and told me she ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... his elbows well on his knees, he gasped many times, but before the inspiration was complete his strength failed him. No want but that of breath could have forced him to try again; and the second effort was even more terrible than the first. A great upheaval, a great wrenching and rocking seemed to be going on within him; the veins on his forehead were distended, the muscles of his chest laboured, and it seemed as if every minute were going to be his last. But with a supreme effort he managed to catch breath, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... yourself!" growled Swithin, wrenching his arm free. He went straight to his lodgings, and, lying on the hard sofa of his unlighted sitting-room, gave himself up to bitter thoughts. But in spite of all his anger, Rozsi's supply-moving figure, with its ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he had been pitiful toward Goaty Zapp, Mr. Wrenn was able to understand that she was trying to be a kindly big sister to him, and he said "Good night, Istra," and smiled in a lively way and walked out. He got out the smile by wrenching his nerves, for which he paid in agony as he knelt by his bed, acknowledging that Istra would never love him and that therefore he was not to love, would be a fool to love, never would love her—and seeing again her white arms softly shadowed by her ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... German stooped over Chester and cut his bonds. The lad rose to his feet and stretched himself. For a moment he considered the advisability of leaping upon his captor-friend, wrenching his revolver from him, and making his escape. But this plan he immediately put aside as unwise, for his captor still held the weapon ready, and the boy knew that a single false move and the German would fire. Therefore, he did as his ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... a pause in the outcry, and from Hans' mouth came an imitation of a snake's hiss, so perfect that I almost sprung to my feet. The sustained murderous sound ran along the deck, and the wrenching at the bars ceased. The orangoutang was quaking in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "Auf Wiedersehen (Summer)" and the "Palinode (Autumn)," in which the first grief had deepened while losing its acuteness, and the feeling of loneliness had taken largely the place of the first desolation, the wrenching apart ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... a predicament?" asked Phronsie, wrenching her gaze from the lovely vine-clad hills, which she had been viewing with great satisfaction, to look ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... had abused his slave with cruelty, I standing by; and when to my remonstrance—myself feeling the bitter stripes he laid on—he did but ply his thongs the more, I seized the hardened monster by the neck, and wrenching from his grasp the lash, I first plied it upon his own back, and then dragged him to ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... scared in my whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the phenomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which I could testify, even if the rest had been an illusion. I had closed it twice in the night, and the second time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching it with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... who had inflicted the first wound was to remain stationed. Accordingly all the rest of us entered the jungle in single file, our elephants treading down the grass with their great irresistible feet or wrenching it away with their invincible trunks. It was now that the shikaree was feeling the elephant shortage. Had there been seventy-five instead of only twenty-five, he said, all would be well: he could then form a cordon such ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... be true six months from now, if the Executive Committee succeed in wrenching my control from me; but to-day I have the strength. The stockholders have invested because of their faith in me; because of this same faith they will accept my statement that the Companies' future is imperilled,—and the Government itself will help me to accomplish ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... teeth with a vengeful scowl and wrenching a stout branch from a tree, the prince strode over to the house of his bride-to-be. She received him modestly and pleasantly, and her beauty struck him into such an amazement that he could not at first find words to express the charge he wished to make. At last, by turning his ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... over the castle, had come at last upon the barred and bolted door, and with the bloodthirsty howl of ravening beasts, had rushed upon it with their iron bars, while another band began wrenching out the iron fastenings of the windows ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... trouble than did the dreadful and dangerous blow of Clavering's sword. It seemed that when he had fallen suddenly beneath that murderous stroke all his muscles relaxed as though he were dead, and his left ankle bent up under him, wrenching its sinews in such a fashion that for the rest of his life he walked a little lame. Especially was this so in the spring season, though whether because he had received his hurt at that time or owing to the quality of the air none could ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Rose family had even worse times to take care of Dotty. She, too, suffered intensely and even made it worse because she wouldn't stay still. With a sudden jerk she would sit up in bed and then scream with the pain occasioned by wrenching her ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... the face that made her stagger; but almost frantic with terror Regina improved the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of one of the large hands, to tighten her own grasp, and in the renewed struggle succeeded in wrenching away the vial. The next instant, she hurled it against the marble mantlepiece, and saw it ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... consider it expedient to subject the prisoner to a judicial interrogatory preparatory to his trial; and when he had seated himself beside him, ostensibly for this purpose, he succeeded with some difficulty in wrenching the miniature from its setting. But, notwithstanding all his precaution, the desired object was not accomplished without exciting the attention of some individual who hastened to apprise the Cardinal of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... came, and many, by old instinct, slipped their left hands to the hilts of sword and dagger, and felt that each blade was loose in its sheath. As she galloped along, Queen Eleanor's white mare threw up her head sideways with a snort and swerved, almost wrenching the bridle from the Queen's hold, and at the same moment the lusty cheering broke high in the air and died fitfully away. The instinct of fear and the foreknowledge of great evil were present, unseen and terrible, and of the three hundred ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... sudden wrenching crash that sent the Planeteers in a jumbled mass into the front of the boat. It ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... willing to give him up for that—that trash!" sobbing and rubbing her arms like a beaten child. But she had so strong a habit of talking that even in this pain the words would come: "I loved him so. He would have married me! And I must be kept from him by a law of society! It is—it is," rising and wrenching her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... it held me chained to the spot. I was in a state of stupefaction, so that I scarcely noted the broken fragments at my feet. But the intruder noticed them. Wrenching his gaze from the stiletto which Mr. Grey continued to hold out, he pointed to the broken cup ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... as a statue and looking at him with wonderful eyes. Then, as reason returned, a hot flush dyed her face, and wrenching her hands free she struck him ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, dressed only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the light, holding the coronet in his hands. He appeared to be wrenching at it, or bending it with all his strength. At my cry he dropped it from his grasp and turned as pale as death. I snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with three of the beryls ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... can keep the money," he grinned, wrenching from her fingers the plain gold band he had given her mother as a wedding ring, as well as another, bigger, broader, showier, and set with two infinitesimal white ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... of the knobs controlling the mechanism, and Juba had grasped him round the waist and was trying to drag him away. Ingra was resisting with all his strength, and uttering strange noises, whose sense, if they had any, we, of course, did not comprehend. Just as we reached the door, Juba succeeded in wrenching his opponent from his hold, and immediately gave him a fling which sent him clear out of the car, tumbling in a heap at our feet. Juba's eyes were ablaze with a dangerous light, but the moment he encountered Edmund's gaze ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... it seems to me, many things—religion, love, work, seriousness and so on; but what we need most of all, as I believe, is to wash our hands. For five years they have been groping and wrenching in the vitals of other people. They are foul and we are still drunk with the reek. In God's name, let us wash and then we can begin to build up the world again. We see the need of that out in the country, but so far as I can judge by what I read or have seen of London, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... trying to climb to the window, of breaking the glass, wrenching the iron bars from the wall, and falling headlong upon the rocks below, but I was too weak. I made a score of futile plans, each madder than ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... still plunging, he had caught the flying bits of bridle, and was sawing away, right and left, with the energy of despair. Between its terror at being suddenly mounted by some one out of a clear sky, so to say, and the violent wrenching it was getting from Barker's bony little hands, the beast decided to stop at last, and its companion, who was coming in for some of the pulling too, stopped by sympathy, with a series of snorts and plunges. Barker still clung to the broken rein, leaning far over the ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... but it was fastened to the wall. His impatience grew more vehement with every hinderance. He seized an old iron bar which he found in the anteroom, and laboured with all his strength to move the wardrobe; and at last, after much heaving and wrenching and a hundred fruitless efforts, it gave way with a loud cracking as if an iron cramp or chain had snapt. The cabinet now by degrees came forward, and Antonio was at length able to squeeze himself in between it and the wall. He immediately ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... were blurred with rain, and I was trying to strike a match. The first thing I was conscious of was a violent swerve. I looked up, saw a tall, cloaked figure wrenching at the reins with a crooked stick, and over we went. I fell into a bed of mud. It absolutely blinded me. I jumped up, and fancying that the blackguard ran up Northumberland Street I dashed after him. I cannoned against some passer-by and we both ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... outrage;—yet, 'tis true, Not then claimed sovereignty his due; While Albany with feeble hand Held borrowed truncheon of command, The young King, mewed in Stirling tower, Was stranger to respect and power. But then, thy Chieftain's robber life!— Winning mean prey by causeless strife, Wrenching from ruined Lowland swain His herds and harvest reared in vain,— Methinks a soul like thine should scorn The spoils from such ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... on either shore, that it is a great danger. The waters from thousands of swollen streamlets above are pressing behind it; wreckage and refuse are piling up against it; every one knows that it must yield. But there is danger that it may resist the pressure too long and break suddenly, wrenching even the granite quays from their foundations, bringing desolation to a vast population, and leaving, after the subsidence of the flood, a widespread residue of slime, a fertile breeding-bed ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... been anybody to whom she could confide the sad wrenching of her spirit, any one who would have cleared her vision, and taught her to look on "this picture and on this," she might not have been so puzzled between her two Hyperions. But as it was, it was a sorrowful struggle. One had the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... right hand of the screw represent it when shut, the black lines when open. It is opened, as at G H, by a screw below with a nob at the end of it. This instrument is known among surgeons, having been invented to assist them in wrenching open the mouth as in the case of a locked jaw; but it had got into use ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... courage. More intelligent than his predecessor, General Dieskau, who, like Braddock, had fallen through the error of conducting the war in the European fashion, he, nevertheless, had great difficulty in wrenching himself from the military traditions of his whole life. An expedition, in 1756, against Fort Oswego, on the right bank of Lake Ontario, was completely successful; General Webb had no time to relieve the garrison, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... effort, closed upon him promptly, and, with very little ceremony, hauled him off with violence, hurling him to the deck and themselves falling on the top of him and holding him down with their weight. Yet once again he succeeded in wrenching himself free from the men's clutches and, staggering to his feet, made another dart for the ship's side. But he was pounced upon again, and once more they all fell upon the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... same, urged by the lash of the charioteer, were met by the elephant with straightened trunk and tail, who, in the twinkling of an eye, wreathed his proboscis round the neck of the first he encountered, and wrenching him from his harness, whirled him aloft and dashed him to the ground. This I saw was the moment to save the life of the Queen, if it was indeed to be saved. Snatching from a flying soldier his long spear, and knowing well the temper of ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... toward her. "Stop," he said peremptorily, raising himself with a wrenching effort. Something in the stern eye held her. His extended hand pointed toward her as arbitrarily as if, instead of lying helpless at her feet, he could command her to his bidding. "I want to ask you a question. I've told you the truth. I have just one cartridge. If you are going to send your cousin ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... is no longer anything but an instrument of torture which eternally crushes the heart of the mother. It is always the same fibre which vibrates, the tenderest and most sensitive; but instead of an angel caressing it, it is a demon who is wrenching at it. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... represented, and I find that it fits me to a t, and is the most easy and comfortable thing I ever wore. I haven't had a bit of pain since I put it on yesterday morning, and I have done some hard work these two days, purposely twisting and wrenching my body about to see if I would get ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... There was a sudden wrenching twist as if two solid surfaces had slammed them from front and back, and a third ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... the cosmic mechanism, a series of cataclysms occurred. In fact, your planetary system was itself the result of a catastrophe, or of what might have been a catastrophe, had the two great suns collided whose near approach caused the wrenching off of your planets. From this colossal accident, rare, indeed, in the annals of the stars, an endless chain of accidents was born, a chain of which this specimen, this professor, and the species that he represents, is ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... and what do you want?" exclaimed Captain Jack, wrenching himself free, falling back a pace and measuring the new-comer from head to foot with furious glances, while, with burning blushes ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... beast, and if allowed to work his wicked way, Toby would not have had a hope. But today, for some reason known to himself, Druro had an objection to hitting Gay's dog and contented himself with wrenching Weary's jaws apart, a dangerous and not very easy feat to accomplish. Weary, however, came in for several sound kicks and cuffs from other directions, and his mistress was in by no means an angelic frame of mind by the time she ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... there, weeping her very heart out, Jay Gardiner was walking down the street, his brain in a whirl, his emotions wrenching his very soul. ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... that he put on his every-day clothes, and thus arrayed, and without meeting a single villager to realize the importance of his errand, he waded up to the court house, the pelting rain rattling on his old umbrella, the fierce wind almost wrenching ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson |
