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More "Jerking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resolutely set himself. It was only by jumping that he was able to get a grip over the top of the wall; yet when this grip was gained he could get no farther on his way to deliverance, and so he hung dangling there, his face to the wall, jerking his short fat legs about spasmodically, and wasting in most piercing yells what little there was ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... dark with it. I immediately turned my right eye downward and I looked! I distinctly saw a lady's hand reached out toward my robe in the darkness, and this hand took hold of it and jerked it lightly just like this." The "Reverend Swami" here illustrated, by slightly jerking his coat downward. It was very amusing to hear him, in great seriousness, relate this in his low and measured accents ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... her. They were here, there, everywhere, with lariats flying, horses plunging back, jerking calves and yearlings to the grass. They were cruel to their mounts, cruel to their cattle. Madeline winced as the great silver rowels of the spurs went plowing into the flanks of their horses. She saw these spurs stained with blood, ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... a delight to her. In their small rumpled pajamas they came into her room every morning, dewy from sleep, full of delicious plans for the day. Jim was a masterful baby whose continually jerking head was sure to bump his mother if she attempted too much hugging, but dark-eyed, grave little Derry was "cuddly"; he would rest his shining head contentedly for minutes together on his mother's breast, and when she lifted him from his crib late at night for a last kiss, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... ask if you found anything up there," said Bill, jerking his thumb toward the road over which he had just ridden. It was quite plain that ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... gathering, they now encamped on the margin of the river, where they remained all the next day, sheltering themselves as well as they could from the rain and snow—a sharp foretaste of the impending winter. During their encampment, they employed themselves in jerking a part of the elk for future supply. In cutting up the carcass, they found that the animal had been wounded by hunters, about a week previously, an arrow head and a musket ball remaining in the wounds. In the wilderness, every trivial circumstance is a matter of anxious speculation. The Snake Indians ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... been London ways vor uppard of vivdeen year, tu my zurtain knowledge," said the old road-mender, jerking his empty pewter upwards in the direction of the terrace, where Sir Timothy's solid dark form could be discerned pacing up and down before his ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... Jim," said the porter to the cabman, as the latter was just jerking his reins for a start. "Here, catch hold of this bag; it was on the top of this gent's carriage: no one else owns to it, so it must be his'n. The gent's forgotten ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... twining, And rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And flowing and going, And running and stunning, And foaming and roaming, And dinning and spinning, And dropping and hopping, And working and jerking, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And moaning and groaning, And glittering and frittering, And gathering and feathering, And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And hurrying and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... man makes in speaking should have some fitting relation to what he is at the moment saying. These movements will then be varied. When certain repeated actions, without this proper relation, are acquired, they are called mannerisms. They have no meaning, and are obtrusive and annoying. Repeated jerking or bobbing of the head, for a supposed emphasis; regularly turning the head from side to side, for addressing all the audience; nervous shaking of the head, as of one greatly in earnest; repeated, meaningless punching or pounding of the air, always in the same way; ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... interrupted my companion in a savage undertone, jerking me along by the arm. "It's only a rebate on the seats!" And without allowing me a chance to set myself right he ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... great excitement and exhilaration— to LILY.] Yes, yes, I won't keep you and— [winking at her and jerking his head in FARNCOMBE'S direction] from your tete-a-tete. [Patting her face gleefully.] Ha, ha, ha, ha! [Taking her hand, his own quivering.] Lil, Uncle Lal you call me, but I've always felt more like a parent towards you— acted as ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... poor young lady, m'lady," she said, jerking her thumb backwards towards the cottage. "I wish her mother'd come back. She do keep callin' for her, ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... around among them, jerking straps, and tapping shoulders and buttocks straight on the floor padding with ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... the bottom. Johnnie knew this was going too fast. She debated the possibility of slackening the speed a bit as they struck the highway, such as it was. Uncle Pros, yet gasping, was trying to help Gray into the seat; but with his hampering manacles and the jerking of the car, the younger man was still on his knees, when the chase burst through the bushes, scarcely more than three ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... touch with the whip is given to remind a horse that he has to clear a big ditch on the landing side, or when riding at timber, it should be used on the off flank by a turn of the wrist, but without jerking the reins. The whip, as I have before remarked, should be employed as an aid and not as a means of inflicting pain. A lady should not bustle her horse at his fences, except perhaps at water, for every horse has his own pace at which he prefers to jump, and the clever sort will always manage to put ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... proceed to her lodgings at once, there boldly to avow what had taken place and ask her to discharge the debt; but this his pride would not allow him to do. As he came to the corner of a street, he got a tap on the elbow from the bailiff, who, with a jerking motion of his thumb and a wink, said in a confidential tone to Tom, "Down this street, sir— that's the way ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the barest conventionalities had passed between them. Nothing else had seemed possible. Their solitude had been ruthlessly destroyed; the outside world had thrust itself upon them without warning, jerking them back to the self-consciousness of suddenly ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... and as they joined her Felix found that his time was up. He was taken back to the drawing-room, where he found himself in presence of the lady he had seen, and of a much younger smaller person, with a slight cast in her eye, and a peculiar jerking manner such as he could well believe would frighten away a young girl's confidence. When he made his request for free correspondence from his little sisters, there was no demur; only Miss Fulmort said, half vexed, 'It ought to have been mentioned before; she did not know why the children had ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hand toward the staircase—the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom, while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the imminent figure of Fate jerking wildly at the wrong strings, and mixing things up in her ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... cried the Marquis, jerking away; but I could see he was not now unpleased altogether that a man new from the wide world and its ways should behold how much he was thought of by ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... don't know's that's—That is, right's right and wrong's wrong. I've seen bullfights down yonder—" jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the vague direction of Buenos Ayres, "and every time my sympathy's been with the bull. Not that I loved the critter for his own sake, but because all Greaserdom was out to down him. From what I hear, this Phoebe Dawes—for all her pesky down-East ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... bees, ye say? Air they loose too?" screamed Bridget, jerking off her sunbonnet and tearing down her hair. "Is it bees as well as cows in me hid, an' ye standin' laffin loike ter kill yersilf at the very idee of me ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... She debated, jerking the book into the nearest empty chair, where Mr. Cashmore quickly pounced on it. "Wasn't it for that you brought it me?" she demanded. Yet before he could answer she again challenged her child. "Have you ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... fearther knowed un—" "How dare you stand looking at me?" said Sarah. "It's my room as well as yourn," said Martha, for that was her name; and nothing further was said then. But Martha's eyes fixed on me as I sat naked up to my waist with my prick wet, rigid, red, throbbing, and all but involuntarily jerking out its sperm. I was in that state of lust, that I could have fucking anything in the shape of a cunt, and scarcely knew in the confusion of the moment, where I was, and what it was all about. Sarah saw my state, and began pulling ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Indian women, trotting across the square, their black hair plaited with dirty red ribbon, a piece of woollen cloth wrapped about them, and a little mahogany baby hanging behind, its face upturned to the sky, and its head going jerking along, somehow without its neck being dislocated. The most resigned expression on earth is that of an Indian baby. All the groups we had seen promenading the streets the day before were here collected by hundreds; the women of the shopkeeper class, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... under way, Tamoszius Kuszleika has risen in his excitement; a minute or two more and you see that he is beginning to edge over toward the tables. His nostrils are dilated and his breath comes fast—his demons are driving him. He nods and shakes his head at his companions, jerking at them with his violin, until at last the long form of the second violinist also rises up. In the end all three of them begin advancing, step by step, upon the banqueters, Valentinavyczia, he cellist, bumping along with his instrument between notes. Finally all three are gathered at the foot ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the sloth-bear, jerking his head in the direction of the cart; and the children, highly delighted at the prospect of ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... Hysteria and catalepsy may assume characters resembling those of tetanus, but there is little difficulty in distinguishing between these diseases. Lastly, in the tetany of children, or that following operations on the thyreoid gland, the spasms are of a jerking character, affect chiefly the hands and fingers, and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... the tug of the cable as it tightened in response to the starting of the windlass, but before the balloon had descended a hundred feet the storm was upon them. A mighty blast roared about the frail balloon, jerking it here and there in such a violent manner that the boys were nearly thrown out. The captive balloon tore madly at its moorings, and seemed like some wild thing struggling ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... close-reefed, when we went down and hoisted away at the halyards. In the mean time, the jib had been furled and the staysail set, and the ship under her reduced sail had got more upright, and was under management; but the two top-gallant-sails were still hanging in the buntlines, and slatting and jerking as though they would take the masts out of her. We gave a look aloft, and knew that our work was not done yet; and, sure enough, no sooner did the mate see that we were on deck than— "Lay aloft there, four of you, and furl the top-gallant-sails!'' This called me again, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "Don't you see? He," jerking his finger toward the Colonel, "wants us to waste as much time as possible, while my lady slips through our fingers and gets farther and farther ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... stopped prancing in order to point his long forefinger at the Tenor's chest—"boat you are an actor born, my froind! You was the Prince of Devotion himself jus' now. You do that part as if you feel him too! Why"—jerking his head towards the cathedral with a gesture which signified that if he had not seen the thing himself he never could have believed it—"why, you loose yourself in there kompletely!" Then he asked the Tenor to sing again, which the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... wouldn't touch it for an earldom!" exclaimed the affected puppy, jerking it on the table. "It might affect me with the hypochondriacs. Pray, Phemy, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... She had literally marked for him the brightest patches of my prose, and if I was a little amused Vereker himself may well have been. He showed how much he was when before us all Lady Jane wanted to read something aloud. I liked at any rate the way he defeated her purpose by jerking the paper affectionately out of her clutch. He'd take it upstairs with him and look at it on going to dress. He did this half an hour later—I saw it in his hand when he repaired to his room. That was the moment at which, thinking to give her pleasure, I mentioned to ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... said, jerking the free thumb at Maitland, "'ll go up and hunt him out. Begin at th' top floor an' work down. That's th' way, huh? 'Nd," to the policeman, "yeh stay here an' hold up anybody 't tries tuh leave th' buildin'. There ain't no other ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... from below. Instinctively we crouched as flat as we could, ready for a prompt plunge into the thicket beside us. Each knock and throb seemed to vibrate through our bodies. Louder grew this throbbing and beating, and that irregular vibration increased until the whole moon world seemed to be jerking ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... owner's condition was pitiful. By his eyes that were glittering with wild, unnatural light, by the gray, twitching features, the grotesque gestures, the trembling, jerking limbs, the Interpreter knew that the last flickering gleam of reason had gone out. The hour toward which the man himself had looked with such dread had come. Adam ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... squats by the hearth," he answered, masking his own voice with hoarseness and jerking his thumb towards the settle. The girl's eyes followed the signal and saw for the first time the huddled figure on the bench. "I thank you," she said simply, and moved away into the background, her eyes fixed on the crouching ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the sky; the great bird, as though he were conscious that he held briefly centre stage, folded his wings and dropped like a falling stone; a ground squirrel shrilled its terror through the still afternoon and went racing with jerking tail toward safety; the great bird saw the frantic animal scuttle down a hole and unfolded its wings; again it balanced briefly, close to the ground; then in a ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... fall]. We stuck ten yards from the camp, and nine hours later found us little more than half a mile on. I have never seen a sledge sink so. I have never pulled so hard, or so nearly crushed my inside into my backbone by the everlasting jerking with all my strength on the canvas band round my unfortunate tummy. We were all in the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, without anything particular happening. It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry "that the brig was amongst the breakers." I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale had increased, yet ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... all the world like a cross between a theatrical Aminadab Sleek and Sir John Falstaff, with the stuffing omitted. When our hostess caught sight of me in this new garb, she rubbed her hands together in great glee, and, springing to her feet, gave vent to a perfect storm of laughter—jerking out ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... violently jerked it back and forth. I soon began to masturbate not only every time that I defecated, but also at night just before I went to sleep, and sometimes early in the morning. On the whole I preferred the jerking just described. I always brought about ejaculation after perhaps ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... greatly wronged him. It might be a meek woman with a baby, or a bold, red-faced drover, a delicately-gloved or horny hand that reached him the change, but it was all the same. He knitted his brows, pursed up his mouth, and dealt with all in a quick, jerking way, as if he could not bear the sight of them, and wanted to be rid of them as soon as possible. Still these seem just the peculiarities that find favor with railroad corporations, and the man would probably ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... too agreeable," he began tentatively, jerking his thumb toward the buzzing group. "How about it, Sandy? Was they that petulant ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... captors suddenly hurled him across the length of the blanket with no gentle force. Instantly the cadets holding the blankets straightened up, jerking it taut. Up into the air a couple of feet bounded Jack. As his body came down the cadets holding the blanket gave it a still harder jerk. This time Jack shot up into the air at least four feet. It was the same old blanket-tossing, long ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... forth, and every few minutes would plunge forward almost spasmodically, throwing one foot back in a way leading you to expect that he would the next moment precipitate himself headlong down upon the desks of the students. Twirling his pen, occasional spitting, jerking his foot backward, taken with his dress, gave him a most eccentric appearance in the lecture room. Meeting him upon the street, with his sister, you never would have suspected that such a strange looking being ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... now that he was gone, flinging up her head and jerking her shoulders back with an angry determination to conquer the fear that made her ashamed. Natural curiosity had been struggling with her other emotions, and she gave way to it now to try and turn ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... between these two extremes; the fact being that the personal and social causes of poverty act and react upon each other, changing places as cause and as effect, until they form a tangle that no hasty, impatient jerking can unravel. The charity worker and the settlement worker have need of each other: neither one can afford to ignore the experience of the other. Friendly visitors and all who are trying to improve conditions in poor homes should welcome the experience of ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... his head on mine, and began to shake and to cry in a strange muffled, groaning voice, till I, for very fright, stood quite still, and only begged him to tell me what he had heard. And then, with his hand jerking, as if some one else moved it against his will, he gave me a wicked newspaper to read, calling our Frederick a "traitor of the blackest dye," "a base, ungrateful disgrace to his profession." Oh! I cannot tell ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... however, is not the correct idea. The inhalation is continuous, the entire chest cavity from the lower diaphragm to the highest point of the chest in the region of the collar-bone being expanded with a uniform movement. Avoid a jerking series of inhalations, and strive to attain a steady, continuous action. Practice will soon overcome the tendency to divide the inhalation into three movements, and will result in a uniform continuous breath. You will be able to complete ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... room until I come back," he called to me, and jerking the pole from one of the boys, propelled the raft with amazing speed down ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... prepared by his military secretary, and to carry out the plans he had conceived. On the theatre of the world's history, from this time forth, Washington is to be presented, like Mr. Punch on the ledge of his show-box, squeaking and jerking as the strings are pulled from below by the hand of his boy-aide-de-camp. He writes letters to Congress, to all and singular the American Generals, to the British Generals, to the Governors of States, and to all whom it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... so, unless it is to think once in a while, that there is some one in the world with feelings, besides yourself," answered Bea, jerking her unruly sewing, and getting crosser than ever as she ran her needle ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the railway coach," says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling, as much as to say, "There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature, that she be! and so I told Miss Martha." Thus differently had the news which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they had not gone round by the road. This was a short distance for herself, but it proved a long one now that she had Mrs Leigh with her. A slip, a stop, a slide, another stop—it was a very slow progress indeed. As they went jerking along the flowers fell off Lilac's dress one by one and left a white track behind her. She had taken off her crown and held it in her hand; its blossoms were drooping already, and its leaves folded up and limp. How short a time ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... some flesh on her bones. She was a dark chestnut with a white star on the forehead, a little white on her fore feet, and white below the hocks on the hind legs; she had a soft eye, and a peculiar twist in jerking ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... to say, his allowance and all that. The money you're good enough to give him. He was rather hoping that you might see your way to jerking up the ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... life, get rid of worry. There are no greater enemies of harmony than little anxieties and petty cares. Do not flies aggravate a nervous horse more than his work? Do not little naggings, constantly touching him with the whip, or jerking at the reins, fret and worry him much more than the labor of drawing ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... simultaneously. My usual luck did not desert me on this occasion, for his bullet missed me, while mine struck him in the breast. He reeled and fell, but before he had fairly touched the ground I was upon him, knife in hand, and had driven the keen-edged weapon to its hilt in his heart. Jerking his war-bonnet off, I scientifically scalped him in ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... position again, and the bucketful of salt water soused down over the gunner and his gun, putting out his linstock and wetting his priming. A shower of balls from the marines piped through the air or rapped up against the planks, but the boat was tossing and jerking in the short choppy waves and to aim was impossible. In vain the men tugged and strained at their oars while the gunner worked like a maniac to relight his linstock and to replace his priming. The boat had lost its weigh, while the brigantine was ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shall like riding better than being horse all the time with that old wooden bit in my mouth, and you jerking my arms off," said poor Betty, who was tired of being horse ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... his thumbs in the arms of his coat, and jerking his head and shutting his eyes in confidence with the opposite ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... helmsmen could barely turn the wheel. Madden could feel the jerking of the cable even through the great mass of pitching iron. Then the wheel clamped viselike. The dock's headlight and the intermittent glow of the tug teetered, swung out of line, crossed each other, like dancing fires. In a sort of panic, the two strained at ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... detailed account of the night spent with the maiden. Roar on roar rose the boisterous chorus: "Blow the man down, bullies, blow him right down!" The big patched, dirty sails went jerking and flapping up toward the stars, which from here were so faint they could barely be seen. And the ship moved out on ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... person on the canvas of Mongolian events! Formerly a mechanician, afterwards a gendarme, he had gained quick promotion under the Czar's regime. He was always nervously jerking and wriggling his body and talking ceaselessly, making most unattractive sounds in his throat and sputtering with saliva all over his lips, his whole face often contracted with spasms. He was mad and Baron Ungern twice appointed ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... running-boards loaded with canvas-covered suitcases. Three goggled, sunburned women in ugly khaki suits were disconsolately drinking soda water from bottles without straws, and a goggled, red-faced, angry-looking man was jerking impatiently at the hood of the machine. Lorraine and her suitcase apparently excited no interest whatever ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... they were trying to cut a figure of eight on nothing or were essaying in some manner to sweep their tails out of way. Their whole existence, however, is a dance. Whether they pick their food from the rocks or in a field of cows, the alert head and jerking tail are never still, but are nervously ready for flight almost before the hint of danger. And they have usually with them as nervous companions the rock-pipits, charming little tight-skinned, low-crowned birds that hurry off wavily through the air, reiterating their solitary ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... kept jerking his head around to stare frankly at her led her along the string piece ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... sofa—at the end—and watch by her," said Del, in quick, jerking tones. Her eyes were ablaze, her breath came in gusts. Without waiting to see where he went with his burden, she rushed down the broad steps and through the crowd, pushing them this way and that. She faced Arden Wilmot—not a lady, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... passenger in a dead sleeper? He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and waited for her to look his way—since she must be looking for the porter—but the head did not move. The curtains swayed with the jerking of the car, but the woman in Eleven looked intently into the dark stateroom. What did it mean? ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... "That's Madame Loret, over there; she's giving her son a fine education; that's Madame Hutin, a poor little woman who's dreadfully neglected by her husband; that's Mademoiselle Cecile, the butcher's daughter, a girl that no one will marry because she's scrofulous." In this way she could have continued jerking out biographical scraps for days together, deriving extraordinary amusement from the most trivial, uninteresting incidents. However, as soon as eight o'clock struck, she only had eyes for the frosted "cabinet" window on which appeared the black shadows of the coterie of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... threw his noose. The distance was less than ten feet, and the loop spread, quick and true, over the head of the Japanese. But, swift though the action was, the Japanese had an instant to prepare himself. His right arm shot up. As Orme, jerking at the rope, tried to tighten the noose, the hand of the Japanese pushed it over his head and it slid over the side into the water. In a few seconds the swift boat had disappeared ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... to her lover. He's a man of life and limb. Youpish! a hunchback, that all the world laughs at, a worm—" he turned towards the door laughing hideously, his evil face gloating. "You've not got a stick or stone. She"—jerking a finger towards the house—"she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The helpless, jerking limbs, the broad, rolling body, and the mixture of expletives and frantic apologies poured forth by the prostrate knight turned the Queen's first ready alarm to irrepressible laughter, in which the bystanders joined to their great relief. Droop alone was grave, for he ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... was neatly dressed, the one who—" The driver suddenly paused: some vivid remembrance passed through his brain, and, abruptly jerking the rains, he brought ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... harness. There was nothing for it but to pull up, and for Aveline to climb laboriously from the trap, and release the much-knotted piece of string. Rendered more careful by this catastrophe, Raymonde wielded her whip with caution, and gave what encouragement she could by jerking the reins vigorously, and occasionally ejaculating an energetic "Go on, Dandy!" The pony, however, was a cunning little creature, and, knowing perfectly well that he was in amateur hands, took full advantage of the situation. Under ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... gravel of the soul's highway,—now and then jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment, but still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating and jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground reverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of thought or passion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of erection. And, for his true use of translating men, It still hath been a work of as much palm, In clearest judgments, as to invent or make, His sharpness,—-that is most excusable; As being forced out of a suffering virtue, Oppressed with the license of the time:—- And howsoever fools or jerking pedants, Players, or suchlike buffoon barking wits, May with their beggarly and barren trash Tickle base vulgar ears, in their despite; This, like Jove's thunder, shall their pride control, "The honest satire hath the ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... your stroke at the beginning, Then let legs with vigour work: Little hope has he of winning, Who his "stretcher" loves to shirk. Let your rigid arms extended Be as straight as pokers two; And until the stroke is ended, Pull it, without jerking, through! ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... and Larry were trying for a chance at each other with revolvers, while Morgan backed the Irishman slowly toward the library. Stoddard had seized one of the unknown deputies with both hands by the collar and gave his captive a tremendous swing, jerking him high in the air and driving him against another invader with a blow that knocked both fellows spinning into ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... before I pulled up the refractory Venetian blind—the right rope so eager to rise, the left so indifferent to its improvement—an instant's dread. I was afraid "they" would be hopping about even this early in the morning, hopping, hopping—the jerking gait of the mutilated—the little broken waves of a sea of "horizon blue." But they must have been just getting their faces washed at the Salon, where once we went to see pictures and now find compositions more dire than ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... and corporals of companies, sounding the orgies with cornets, in a furious manner went round the army, skipping, capering, bounding, jerking, farting, flying out at heels, kicking and prancing like mad, encouraging their companions to fight bravely; and all the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... heaven!" exclaimed his Lordship, jerking his imprisoned legs pettishly, "if I didn't happen to be sitting trussed up here, and we had a couple of pair of muffles, why we might have had a friendly 'go' just to take each other's ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... by jerking his head to indicate the entrance to the back room, and strolled away. Babbitt melodramatically crept into an apartment containing four round tables, eleven chairs, a brewery calendar, and a smell. He waited. Thrice ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... worked the bolt of his rifle, jerking out the empty case and pushing a fresh cartridge into the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... taken; then another stone is attached and the operation repeated. If a bite is felt the line is slacked away freely, and this goes on until about 500 fathoms are overboard. When, by the lively and continuous jerking of the line, the fisherman concludes that he has a good number of fish on the hooks, he will haul aboard and then prepare ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... in a corner, you may put it down to robbery; for you won't find anything in their pockets, I'll wager. But you find a good-looking fellow with a ha'porth of rat poison inside of him that he didn't put there himself, or a young woman stabbed that's as handsome as that one"—jerking his head toward the door—"and you won't go far wrong if you put ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... all her tenderness and absurdity, with her most earnest air of gravity and absorption in the adventure, pushed the pram. In the pram, tilted backward, with his little pink legs upturned, Baby fondled, deliciously, his own toes. He was jerking himself up and down and making for the benefit of all whom it might concern his ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... he comes near to produce the same effect by his unequalled power of alternating them. His wit is seldom hard, never dry, for it is moistened by the constant juxtaposition of sentiment. His tenderness is none the less genuine that he is perpetually jerking it away—an equally favourite fashion with Carlyle,—as if he could not trust himself to be serious for fear of becoming sentimental; and, in recollection of his frequent exhibitions of unaffected hysteria, we ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... there," said Mrs. Fillmore, jerking her thumb at the door. "Didn't you know? That's right, I suppose you didn't. They moved in after you had beaten it for England. Elsa wanted to be near you, and she was tickled to death when she found there was an apartment to be had right across from you. Now, that ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... phrases, the exact significance of imagery;[1119] he strides on impetuously athwart a pell-mell of incongruities, incoherencies, Italianisms, and barbarisms, undoubtedly stumbling along through awkwardness and inexperience, but also through excess of ardor and of heat;[1120] his jerking, eruptive thought, overcharged with passion, indicates the depth and temperature of its source. Already, at the Academy, the professor of belles-lettres[1121] notes down that "in the strange and incorrect grandeur of his amplifications he seems to see granite fused in a volcano." ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... my mind then it was time to shoot the German, whatever the crimes of the Greek might be; but Coutlass had not grown slower of wit from loss of blood. As he dodged he rolled sidewise and seized my rifle, jerking it from my hand. He jerked too quickly. The German saw the move and kicked it, sending it spinning several yards away. We all made a sudden scramble for it, Schillingschen leading, when the German turned as suddenly as one of the great apes he so resembled, tripped Will by the heel, wrenched ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... where he will find the young lady who lives there?" said she archly, jerking her head and a broom handle ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... thousand," said I to myself, "only one in a thousand; but I'll take it!" And I stepped from the tent. This time the wakeful dog let out a mouthful of quick barkings. Jerking off my boots—I had not yet taken to the native custom of moccasins—I dodged across the roadway into the exaggerated shadow of some Indian camp truckery. Here I fell flat to the ground so that no ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... what she is talking about!" he said, jerking certain boxes out of their places on the shelves, and then banging them back again, seeming to suppose that he was by this process putting his department in order for closing. "Little bit of a dressed-up doll! They will tear her into ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... pinch of snuff. The "consequences" of one gentleman sneezing are the following: he jerks the arm of the lady next him, the result being that she pours her cup of scalding hot tea over the knees of her neighbour, a testy old gentleman, who in his fright and pain raises his arms, jerking off with his cane the wig of a person standing at the back of his chair, who in the attempt to save his wig upsets his own cup and saucer upon the pate of his antagonist Another guest, with his mouth full of tea, witnessing this absurd contretemps is unable ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... hands in his own; and from time to time, in spite of the priest's command, she turned away her face and tried to thrust him off by jerking her arms. He opened his nostrils the better to breathe in the perfume which exhaled from her person. It was a fresh, indefinable emanation, which nevertheless made him dizzy, like the smoke from a perfuming-pan. ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... face the chaffing look went, like a candle-flame blown out; and a coppery flush spread over it. For some seconds he did not speak, then, jerking his head towards the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... reel. I hooked that fellow hard. He was heavy, and he did not come up or take off any length of line. Settling down slowly, he descended three or four hundred feet, or so it seemed, and began to plug, very much like an albacore, only much heavier. He fooled around down there for ten minutes, with me jerking at him all the time to irritate him, before he showed any sign of rising. At last I worried him into a fighting mood, and up he came, so fast that I did not even try to take up the slack, and he shot ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... more to be said." (Hums, haws, and examines his nails,—filbert-nails, not a speck on them. Then suddenly, and jerking up his head) "That 'Capitalist'! it has been on my conscience, nephew, ever since; and, somehow or other, since I have abandoned the cause of my fellow-creatures, I think I have cared more ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Maggie had collided. She saw that he was young, thick-set and restless. She noticed even then his eyes, bright and laughing as though he were immensely amused. His mouth opened and closed again, his eyes were never still, and he made fierce dumb protests with his body, jerking it forward pulling it back, as a rider strives to restrain an unruly horse. Maggie was able to notice these things, because during the first moments her Aunt Anne entirely held the stage. She advanced to the fireplace with her halting movement, embraced the little lady by the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the leaves a long while, he selected and read aloud a passage from Carlyle, one of his very worst; abrupt, nervous, jerking, and at the same time windy, long-drawn-out, and parenthetical; a period filling a ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... perilous expedition," continued Leslie, in a bantering tone, but his voice sinking lower, almost without his being aware of the fact, and jerking off his boots meanwhile on the sidewalk. "If I never come back, comfort my bereaved wife and children. If I break my neck, see me comfortably buried, without a coroner's ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... stirring of the air back of his head. He turned sharply, jerking up the gun, felt twin needles drive into ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... with the jerking and thumping peculiar to hansoms, made a circle and drew up at the curb. But even then a moment of irresolution intervened, and she sat staring through the little side window at the sign, T. Gerald Shorter, Real Estate, in neat gold letters over ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to the vault and jerking the combination, he said that would be satisfactory. I was then permitted to ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... to see how little musical talent is exhibited by these little ones, whose natures are drawn from the land of music. We have repeatedly seen them sawing away patiently at a violin, or jerking the strings of a harp, but could detect no semblance of melody in the noise they made. Not a few of the little ones endeavor to make up in dancing what they lack in musical skill. Their parents or proprietors ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... shouted Drysdale, jerking himself in a sitting posture, and upsetting Jack, who went trotting about the room, and snuffing at Schloss's legs; "do you mean to say, Schloss, you were going to make me ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... this beautiful Warbler are Orange-throated Warbler and Hemlock Warbler. Some one has suggested that it should be called the Torch Bird, for "half a dozen of them as they flash about in the pines, raising their wings and jerking their tails, make the darkest shadows seem breaking into ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... companions. Don Gaspar shouted and leaped from his saddle; but before the warning had reached the others, a riata from the hand of one of the men had fallen with deadly accuracy around Yank's arms and body, jerking him violently from the saddle. The thrower whirled his horse to drag his victim, Don Gaspar fired, and by great good luck shot the animal through the brain. It fell in a heap, pinning its rider beneath it. In the meantime Barry had leaped to the ground, and from ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the secretary, jerking his thumb toward an inner door. In his private office, Sturgeon sat on the edge of the table dangling one leg and dreamily surveying the wall. As Coleman entered he looked up quickly. "Rufus," he cried, " you're just ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... man trotted off to deliver his message, jerking his arms and cracking his fingers with a real delight. It was not often that he got the chance of swearing at his brothers under the protection of Prince ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... barren and parched. The earth seemed to lie fainting and awaiting the rain. The horses trotted with extended necks and open mouths, their coats wet with sweat. The driver—an Andalusian, with a face like a Moorish pirate—kept encouraging them with word and rein, jerking and whipping only when they seemed likely to fall from sheer fatigue and sun-weariness. At last the sun began to set in a glow like that of a great furnace, and the reflection lay over the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... strapped upon me and the instructions I had already read in their printed form at least sixty times were repeated verbally, so much to my confusion that when I was finally in the air I do not know to this day whether I counted six, sixty, six hundred, or six thousand before jerking the ripcord. Whatever the number, it was evidently not too far wrong, for although I received a marrowexploding shock, the parachute ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... lady enters—two old ladies—three old ladies, emerging from the doorway one after another with jerking and mechanical salutations, which we return as best we can, fully conscious of our inferiority in this particular style. Then come persons of intermediate age—then quite young ones, a dozen at least, friends, neighbors, the whole quarter, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... jerking the rope and thrusting out a tripping foot, Gray made a catlike shift of balance and ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... butt of a Martini in the small of your back hurts a great deal, and rotten, rain-soaked khaki tears easily when two men are jerking at ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... across the wide hall, we had a room opposite; and next to ours, Lilly and the children were all sleeping soundly. I ran the blockade of the hall in my nightgown, and had a splendid romp with the girls after rolling Sophie out of bed, and jerking Nettie up. Mother and Mrs. Brunot cried, "Order," laughing, but they came in for their share of the sport, until an admiring crowd of females at the door told us by their amused faces they were enjoying it, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... to his shoulder, adjusted his aim, and fired. The long rolling crack of the big weapon filled the night. Again and again he fired, the butt jerking into the flesh of his shoulder, the smell of ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan
... the Italian, and of course nobody suspected that I was talking to him in Arabic. It was a tongue unknown to them all and they chose to consider it Italian. Moreover, one Ashton Hanks, a member of the Chicago board of trade, at the hotel for the season, had said to the menagerie, jerking his thumb interrogatively at me, as I was busied in the background with the camel, 'Italiano? Italiano?' To which Baldissano replied, 'Si, signor,' meaning 'yes,' thinking of course that Hanks meant him. 'Boss? Padrone?' said Hanks again, and again ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... up, from the opposite direction, yet another car, jerking to a standstill at the door. It caught the girl's notice; her vague thought was that it was William, come a little early. But she saw at once that this was a strange vehicle, a hired one by the look of it, and consciousness dreamed out of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Rissala," said Halley, jerking his captive's wrist. "That is foolish talk, Kurruk Shah. The dead are dead. Hold still, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... the progress down the street of a very simple style of water-cart. A butt of water, with a leathern pipe issuing from it, is drawn on a low cart by a donkey. A bare-legged fellow ties a string to the end of the leathern pipe, and follows jerking it to and fro, this side and that side—of course with many loud vociferations—and so continues to distribute the contents of his butt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... girl, jerking her head toward the opposite side of the hall. "Everything's in a mess, but you won't mind. You'll have to put up with that sort of things if we're ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... my eye fell upon a faint streak of light, which glimmered through a crack in the door behind my rocking-chair, near the foot of my bed. From the same direction, also, came the sound of a nervous, unequal, jerking tread, which fully explained a portion of the mystery. It was pretty evident, first, that I had a neighbor; secondly, that he spoke English; and thirdly, that he was either a somnambulist ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... so?" cried the good woman, bustling forward and jerking her spectacles down astride her nose, the better to see the unexpected guests. "Snowed up—a whole train load, did you say? I declare! Sit down, do. I won't haf to put any extry plates on the supper table, for I did ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... the ladies!" cried Stephens, and the angry, over-strained men relapsed into a gloomy silence, pacing up and down, and jerking viciously at their moustaches. It is a very catching thing, ill-temper, for even Stephens began to be angry at their anger, and to scowl at them as they passed him. Here they were at a crisis in their fate, with the shadow of ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... discharged sailor salutes promptly, and with as much respect as if all were on the quarterdeck of the Crusader. But with much more demonstration; for their well-timed appearance draws from him an exclamation of joy. Jerking off his straw hat, and giving a twitch to one of his brow-locks, he bobs his head several times in succession, with a simultaneous back-scrape of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... losing patience, he gave up trying to seize the vessel, and bending over the well, he began to drink. His long beard had fallen into the water, and when he had slaked his thirst and attempted to rise, he found himself held fast by it. After vainly pulling and jerking for some time, he looked down into the water and saw a hideous face grinning at him. Its eyes were green and shining, its teeth showed from ear to ear, and it held him by the beard with two bony claws. In horror, the king tried to extricate himself, but a terrible voice ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... is jerking him off L.) Thatsh what I am, and I'll defend my title against all comers. (Exit ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... second in command here, and he made a striking contrast to the stern and motionless Kentuckian who sat beside him and who was his chief. There was no uneasy play of Johnston's hands, no shrugging of the shoulders, no jerking of the head. He sat silent, his features a mask, while ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... surely die, and earnestly prayed all the rest of the night that he might be relieved, and get well. Towards morning most violent vomiting came on, which continued for thirty hours, or more. He was not able to walk for three days, and during that time I nursed him, finished jerking the meat, and built a raft of some partly rotten logs, which I found in the vicinity, on which we floated across the river, on the fourth day after our arrival here. I also looked to the welfare of the mule, and prepared some bags in which to carry our jerk. Manley, I am sure that ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... the new helmsman?" laughed another, jerking his head aft to direct attention to Sibylla, who still ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... day this diary was cried over—before it was put away in the jewel drawer. Truly women are strange—one can never tell how a thing will present itself to them. Honest Jem Agar, nibbling his penholder and jerking these lucid observations out of his military brain by mere force of discipline, never suspected the heart that was in it all—that minute particle of himself that lay in the blot in the corner carefully absorbed by ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... a nursery, did we feel that the result was agreeable to you. But we have not done so. We have been strongly tempted to think, that after waiting from week to week, you have never arrived at anything interesting. We could not bear this jerking of our conscience, which was no sooner ended ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... very nearly occurred. The props were readjusted, all but the main support removed, and that unhinged; the Sheriff waved his handkerchief, and with the dead thump of the trap-lids against their cushions, and the heavy jerking of the noose knot against the victim's throat, the young murderer hung dangling in the air, not a limb quivering, and only a convulsive movement of the shoulders, to indicate the struggle which life maintained when giving up its ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... along, block after block, without encountering a single soul. I had been so engrossed with the dark, muttering pulsation in front, that I failed to attend to the sounds from behind, until the boy, jerking my hand, bade me listen to the drum. I heard it then plainly, as soon as he spoke, and the approaching tramp of disciplined feet was soon after distinctly audible. I turned and looked. The Fifth Regiment was marching down the middle of North ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... when another shot struck the maintop-mast. The Moors attempted in haste to slide down the stays and shrouds, but scarcely had they begun their descent when the mast bent over to leeward, and down it came with a crash, jerking off many of them into the sea. There in vain they struggled for life; the combatants flew on, leaving them to their fate. Still the brig had her mainsail set, and with the gale there was blowing, that was sufficient after-canvas for her to carry with advantage. She ceased firing. "Hurrah! ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... on the canvas of Mongolian events! Formerly a mechanician, afterwards a gendarme, he had gained quick promotion under the Czar's regime. He was always nervously jerking and wriggling his body and talking ceaselessly, making most unattractive sounds in his throat and sputtering with saliva all over his lips, his whole face often contracted with spasms. He was mad and Baron Ungern twice appointed a commission of surgeons ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... horseback emerge from the chaparral just behind his companions. Don Gaspar shouted and leaped from his saddle; but before the warning had reached the others, a riata from the hand of one of the men had fallen with deadly accuracy around Yank's arms and body, jerking him violently from the saddle. The thrower whirled his horse to drag his victim, Don Gaspar fired, and by great good luck shot the animal through the brain. It fell in a heap, pinning its rider beneath it. In the meantime Barry had leaped to the ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... Broderson's. During a flurry in the Chicago wheat pits in the August of that year, which had affected even the San Francisco market, Harran and Magnus had sat up nearly half of one night watching the strip of white tape jerking unsteadily from the reel. At such moments they no longer felt their individuality. The ranch became merely the part of an enormous whole, a unit in the vast agglomeration of wheat land the whole world round, feeling the effects of causes thousands of miles distant—a drought on the prairies ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... those careful turns to keep his unsteadiness under control. If Boyd was out there, he must be brought back—now! Hands closed on Drew's shoulders, jerking him back so that he collided with another body, and was ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... of the bush-rope just above the torch and passed the other end around the trunk of the tree, holding one end in each hand. Jerking it up the tree a little above his head he set his foot against the trunk, and leaning back began walking up it. It was wonderful to see the skill with which he took advantage of the slightest irregularities of the bark or ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... his arm in the dark lane, burst out in activity, and he turned on his assailant, gripped him by the throat before Parrawhite could move, and after choking and shaking him until his teeth rattled and his breath came in jerking sobs, flung him violently against the masses of stone by which they had ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... saying that she had found it possible immediately to join her at her home. Shelby had assented to this plan, and directly set about escorting her to her destination. No dread of Ludlow prompted this vigilance. He discerned that that glamour had forever waned. The woman's jerking nerves made him fear a collapse. Stripped of shams for once, she had ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... to think," said Foster, jerking his thumb towards where Quisante leant over Japhet's shoulder, almost caressing him, and ingeniously justifying the statistics of an electioneering placard. May's eyes followed the direction of ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... suddenly, jerking into his hand a small roll. "I took it! I did it! Me, me!—not hur! I shall be hanged, I shall be burnt in hell, if anybody knows I took it! Out of his pocket, as he leaned against ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... relation to what he is at the moment saying. These movements will then be varied. When certain repeated actions, without this proper relation, are acquired, they are called mannerisms. They have no meaning, and are obtrusive and annoying. Repeated jerking or bobbing of the head, for a supposed emphasis; regularly turning the head from side to side, for addressing all the audience; nervous shaking of the head, as of one greatly in earnest; repeated, meaningless punching or pounding of the ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the general gave his directions and the black nodded and strode to a portiere, jerking it down, which he ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... with his doleful hubbub, but succeeded in jerking out between his big sobs, "I haven't got any father ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... stiff arm movement to the throat. Then the end came. Mr. McGowan brought forward his head and shoulders with his usual lightning-like swiftness in order to draw a lead before the other was prepared for it, and at the same time he accompanied the movement with a quick jerking back of his left hand as though suddenly changing his mind. The city man did the rest. He halted. Mr. McGowan stepped to the left just as the other delivered his spent blow, and with the added weight of his moving body landed his right glove against the stranger's ear. This was quickly ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... revolver. Yellow Handkerchief and his gang sprang toward me. It was now or never. Putting all my strength into a sudden effort, I swung George's body forward to meet them. Then I pulled back with equal suddenness, ripping the revolver out of his fingers and jerking him off his feet. He fell against Yellow Handkerchief's knees, who stumbled over him, and the pair wallowed in the bailing hole where the cockpit floor was torn open. The next instant I was covering them with my revolver, ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... in the double form; first, of limbs which will not move when their owner desires to move them; and, second, limbs moving in excessive jerks when they are not desired to do so. These cases are often combined, the limbs being rigid at one time and jerking violently at another. There is no wasting or unhealthy appearance. We have found this condition caused by excessive walking, running, and standing, combined with exposure to frequent wettings. The result ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... she said aloud, to herself. She moved nearer to the clock, watching the stiff, jerking revolution of the second hand around its ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the head, and I looked then with a feeling of awe at the black face before me, with the eyes so close that there was just a gleam of the white eyeballs visible; but as I gazed, I fancied I saw a jerking motion in the throat, and I whispered to my ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... which he was carrying in a bladder, fastened the rag about the hook, laid it on a log directly in the path of the approaching foxes, and, going to the end of the line, lay down out of sight to watch what would happen. When the foxes drew near, one of them seized the bait, and the Eskimo, jerking the line, caught the fox by the tongue. In that way the native caught six foxes before he returned to the post; but then, as everyone in the Far North knows, white ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the eastern twilight, it has its own peculiar forms, and the naturalist marks with interest the small, but strong, Hesperiidoe,[1] hurrying, by abrupt and jerking flights, to the scented blossoms of the champac or the sweet night-blowing moon-flower; and, when darkness gathers around, we can hear, though hardly distinguish amid the gloom, the humming of the powerful wings of innumerable hawk moths, which hover with ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... affect ale. But, O Will! your cavalier—not to speak of my keeping never a serving wench honest for a month, and I have daughters now grown—your best cavalier would ever pull out a long embroidered purse, with one gold piece in it, regarding which he would briskly swing it round, and jerking it together, replace in his doublet, saying between his hiccups, "Prithee, sweet Spigot!" or it may he, "Jolly Master Gurton! chalk it up; when the king hath his own again, I will repay thee;" or ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... thrilling pause, with a gush of twittering commotion and stiffened wings preternaturally extended over the back and flattened together into a single rigid fin, drops—a feathered black bolt from the blue—almost to the ground, swoops up to a resting-place, and with bowing head and jerking tail gloats ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... little scape-grace in the steeple was evidently exerting himself to the utmost. Every now and then one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke. There he sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his back. In his teeth the villain held the bell-rope, which he kept jerking about with his head, raising such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it. On his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the nincompoop! of playing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... near, and as they joined her Felix found that his time was up. He was taken back to the drawing-room, where he found himself in presence of the lady he had seen, and of a much younger smaller person, with a slight cast in her eye, and a peculiar jerking manner such as he could well believe would frighten away a young girl's confidence. When he made his request for free correspondence from his little sisters, there was no demur; only Miss Fulmort said, half vexed, 'It ought to have been mentioned before; she did not know why the children ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But the harder the boy pulled the faster the horse moved. And it could move. Vaughan had never had such an uncomfortable few minutes in his life. Every part of the horse seemed to be moving by itself, and jerking him in all directions. He couldn't possibly sit in the saddle. He let the stirrups take all his weight and just hung ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... words; a racking cough shook him from head to foot; he staggered back and dropped upon her overturned chair, his arms beating the table in front of him, his head jerking spasmodically backward and forward as he ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... absorbed in dodging Josef, but Johnny gathered from her gestures that the man was still coming and that he was making for the cabin. He was wondering what she meant by suddenly sinking to the ground in shrill laughter, when he heard a step behind him. He whirled, startled, his hand jerking back toward the gun ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... companion in a savage undertone, jerking me along by the arm. "It's only a rebate on the seats!" And without allowing me a chance to set myself right ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Phillis, jerking herself from the room, "but how's the disgrace to be kep' ef everybody ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... into Tembarom's hall bedroom opened on to Hutchinson's. They both heard some one inside the room knock at it. Hutchinson turned and listened, jerking his ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had been made a party to a secret without her wish—and the drunken Mr. Beale, that youthful profligate, had really forced this confidence upon her. Only, and this she recalled with a start which sent her chin jerking upward (she was in the bus at the time and the conductor, thinking she was signalling him to stop, pulled the bell), only Mr. Beale was surprisingly sober and masterful for one so weak ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... and the gallop into a race. I am quite sure those horses never went at such a pace in their lives before. Fred seemed unconscious of the run we were making of it, unconscious of everything, urging his poor beast whenever it flagged, and fretting its mouth by alternately jerking and loosening the reins, until had it been anything but a livery hack it would have been frantic. Conversation was impossible, and I had nothing to sustain me during the ride but the satisfaction of feeling that I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Punjab, sharing a ramshackle bungalow with Lance and two of his brother officers; good fellows, both, in their diametrically opposite fashions; but superfluous—from Roy's point of view. When he wanted a quiet 'confab' with Lance, one or both were sure to come strolling in and hang round, jerking out aimless remarks. When he wanted a still quieter 'confab' with his maturing novel, their voices and footsteps echoed too clearly in the verandahs and the scantily furnished rooms. But did he venture to grumble at these minor drawbacks, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a log-rollin' ner a house-raisin' in our neck of the woods thet Jeb Hawkins ain't sent fer. I kin h'ist a barrel with the best of 'em, and shake up Ole Dan Tucker ez peart ez the next one. Now how about yer scholards? This here horspittle is full of 'em. Pale-faced, spindly-legged, nerve-jerking young fellows thet has spent ther fust twenty years gittin' larnin', an' ther next twenty gittin' over hit. Me an' Sal will keep to ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... catalepsy may assume characters resembling those of tetanus, but there is little difficulty in distinguishing between these diseases. Lastly, in the tetany of children, or that following operations on the thyreoid gland, the spasms are of a jerking character, affect chiefly the hands and fingers, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... military cloak, and a glazed hat, endeavouring to back a nondescript double-bodied carriage (with lofty mail box-seats and red wheels), close to the pavement. "Who-ay, who-ay," said he, "who-ay, who-ay, horse!" at the same time jerking at his mouth. As the Yorkshireman made his exit, a pair eyes of gleamed through the small aperture between the high cloak collar and the flipe of the glazed hat, which he instantly recognised to belong to Jorrocks. "Why, what the deuce is this ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... and anchored head to sea, he felt sure that the light canoe would ride over anything like a cork bottle. The motion of the boat rapidly increased, but she herself rode lightly over the waves. As these increased the jerking of the boat behind at her rope became more and more violent, and the canoe quivered from end ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... straddled over him, still mending his pace as the beast crept forward, till he came to his fore-feet; then throwing the great log before his mouth, he, by the cord in his hand, bobbed it against the creature's nose, till he gaped wide enough to have taken in the muletto; then of a sudden, jerking the wood between his jaws with all his force by the cord, he gagged the beast, with his jaws wide open up to his throat, so that he could neither make use of his teeth nor shut his mouth; he then threw one, end of the cord upon the ground, just before ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... thick, warm skins for robes or blankets. The emigrants shot thousands of buffalo cows and calves, and what meat could not be eaten at once was cut into long strips and hung in the sun or over the fire to dry. This was called "jerking" the meat. On jerked buffalo or venison and flour pancakes many emigrants lived all the way across. Game was so plenty and so easy to shoot, that by stopping a few days, a good stock of meat could be laid in while the oxen were resting. ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... the Renaissance, was trudging along in the furrow beside the plough and pricking the sides of the oxen with a long, light stick, the end of which was armed with a dull goad. The proud beasts quivered under the child's small hand, and made the yokes and the straps about their foreheads groan, jerking the plough violently forward. When the ploughshare struck a root, the driver shouted in a resonant voice, calling each beast by his name, but rather to soothe than to excite them; for the oxen, annoyed by ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... had beds on the parlor floor; across the wide hall, we had a room opposite; and next to ours, Lilly and the children were all sleeping soundly. I ran the blockade of the hall in my nightgown, and had a splendid romp with the girls after rolling Sophie out of bed, and jerking Nettie up. Mother and Mrs. Brunot cried, "Order," laughing, but they came in for their share of the sport, until an admiring crowd of females at the door told us by their amused faces they were enjoying it, too; so I ran the gauntlet again, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... of poles is set in movement is tied to the upper end of a tall sapling, one end of which is thrust deeply into the mud of the floor of the river. The current then keeps the sapling and with it the system of bamboos swaying and jerking to and fro. The Kayans admit that they have learnt this last "dodge" from the Klemantans. The watcher remains in the hut all day long, while his companions are at work in the field; he varies the monotony of his task by shouting and beating with a pair of mallets on a hollow ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... service of danger, as the ship rolled gunwale under. Those who performed the duty were slung in ropes, that they might not be washed away; and hardly was it completed, when a heavy roll, assisted by a jerking heave from a sea which struck her on the chesstree, sent the foremast over the starboard cathead. Thus was the Circassian dismasted in ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... deliciously scented sambac (Jasminum Sambac). But the most curious instance is that of the telegraph-plant, or Desmodium gyrans, each complete leaf of which consists of a large terminal leaflet and two little lateral ones. These latter keep up, [664] night and day, an irregular jerking movement, which has been compared to the movements of a semaphore. Desmodium is a papilionaceous plant and closely allied to the genus Hedysarum, which has pinnate leaves with numerous pairs ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... glad to see approaching, at last, a human figure. It came shambling through the snow, with bent head and swaying, jerking gait, looked up suddenly and sheered off, flitting uncertainly onward, in the dim light, like a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... two he unhitched," Dextry remarked, jerking his head towards the object in the street. "Must have been a new gun an' pulled hard—throwed ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... I wouldn't touch it for an earldom!" exclaimed the affected puppy, jerking it on the table. "It might affect me with the hypochondriacs. Pray, Phemy, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... on a handkerchief pulled from a rear pocket. He was the only unconstrained person in the room; he hardly looked surprised; his glance was merely inquiring. Edwards apparently couldn't stand it. He jumped up and began his characteristic pacing of one end of the constricted place, jerking ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... papoose usually had a bit of fat pork tied to the end of a string fastened to its wrist, and with these sources of nourishment the infants occupied themselves pleasantly while the sermon was in progress. Frequently the pork slipped down the throat of the papoose, but the struggle of the child and the jerking of its hands in the strangulation that followed pulled the piece safely out again. As I faced the congregation I also faced the papooses, to whom the indifferent backs of their mothers were presented; it seemed to me there was never a time when some papoose was not choking, ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... she said, only half-reassured, jerking a nod towards Hartnoll. "As for his dirk, I never took it, but I know the boy as did. He lives the way we're going, and close down by the water; and if you spring a couple o' tanners maybe I'll make him give ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a jangle of meaningless noises had never been heard by human ears. There were spluttering and bubbling, jerking and rasping, whistling and screaming. There were the rustling of leaves, the croaking of frogs, the hissing of steam, and the flapping of birds' wings. There were clicks from telegraph wires, scraps of talk from other telephones, and curious ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... dumb and astounded at this capricious girl. She saw his mystification instantly. "It is for the old Cat!" she whispered, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the sleeping ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... would not give up. The muscles of his arm bulged, his neck sinews stood out and his eyes glared red and wrathful in the effort he was making to be his own master. But slowly, with jerking movements, impelled by that inexorable force, his hand moved across the desk, sought to stay itself upon book or inkwell, then, at last completely overmastered, took pen and wrote—wrote the words sent down to it by that dominating power that had taken possession ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... readiness to receive them, I shall show what may be done in such an emergency. Take any old hive, box, cask, or measure, and hive the bees in it, placing them with suitable protection against the sun, where their new hive is to stand; when this is ready, they may, by a quick jerking motion, be easily shaken out on a sheet, and hived in it, just as though they were shaken from the hiving basket. If they are to remain in the temporary hive over the second day, they ought to be shaken out ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... she cried, planting herself in front of Nance, and jerking her hands up and down in her excitement and the exaspeiation of receiving no response. "Do you hear me—you? Or are you gone crazy for love of your murderer?"—and she made as though to lay wild ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... so large nor so rough as they might have been, across her middle and watching her son while the machine pushed about under his palm, and he bent his wan eyes upon one of the oval-framed photographs on the wall, as if rapt in a supernal vision. The boy stared drowsily at the planchette, jerking this way and that, and making abrupt starts and stops. At last the young man lifted his palm from it, and put it aside to study the hieroglyphics it had left on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in the next two weeks, Colin found himself again fast to a tuna, but was unable to land any of the three. His first he lost by jerking too quickly at the strike. The second walked away with his entire six hundred feet of line at the first rush, and probably was a fish beyond the rod and reel capacity, and the third broke the line suddenly in some unexplained way, possibly, the boatman said, because the tuna had been ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Thus exhorted, Haxall jerking his cap jauntily on one side of his head, throwing an additional quantity of impudence into his face, and placing his hands on the hips, so that the elbows stuck out on ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... raised the stick much higher, but when he signaled to the dog by jerking on his collar that it was time for him to jump, the dog jumped over ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... eyes gazed off towards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, without anything particular happening. It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry "that the brig was amongst the breakers." I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale had increased, yet the prize had not ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... it, and then creeping back upon the senses again, was this trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady and quiet beneath one's feet, but quivered and jarred. It was a confusing, unsteady place, and enough to send anyone's thoughts jerking into odd zigzags. And for three months, while the big strike of the engineers was in progress, Holroyd, who was a blackleg, and Azuma-zi, who was a mere black, were never out of the stir and eddy ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... body was vibrating, traversed by a jerking and a trembling; he got up and approached the window, opening ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... be the case," said Glenn, "if you were to dream about the same thing from sun-down till sun-up. And I believe the fish was running in your head last night before I went to bed, for you were then snoring and jerking your arms about." ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... a heavier cloud shut off the moonlight, and still holding the rope steadily enough to prevent its sudden jerking in premature signal, she came close to Bas Rowlett and ordered in clipped syllables of contempt, "Turn round! I aims ter sot ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the world!" exclaimed Jack, jerking off his cap, as though he was about to fling it toward the clouds, but he restrained himself and the cheer which could not be locked between his lips was so impeded in its escape that it reached no ears on the other ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... by the cherry-tree," said Myles, jerking his head in that direction. "An I may go get it, I will trouble ye no more." As he spoke he made a motion to ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... reel was simply a piece of stick with the line wound round it. His brother pitched it to him with one hand while the desperate jerking of the other—indeed of his whole body—told at once of the size and the impatience of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... a pen, and essay to sign the loathsome paper; thrice did he clinch his teeth, and make a horrible countenance, as though a dose of rhubarb-senna, and ipecacuanha, had been offered to his lips. At length, dashing it from him, he seized his brass-hilted sword, and jerking it from the scabbard, swore by St. Nicholas to sooner die than yield ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And flowing and going, And running and stunning, And foaming and roaming, And dinning and spinning, And dropping and hopping, And working and jerking, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... would make noises like swiftly torn canvas, or like a steam siren in a hurry. It would climb up to the heavens and come banging down to hell. And every thing with queer, tormenting motions, gliding and writhing, wriggling, jerking, jumping. Peter would never have known what to make of such music, if he had not had it here made visible before his eyes, in the behavior of the half-naked goddesses and the black-coated gods on this dancing floor. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... grotesquely got up, and are amusingly described by Mr Baker. "Each man had about a dozen huge ostrich feathers in his helmet, a leopard or monkey-skin hung from his shoulders, while a large iron bell was strapped to his loins like a woman's bustle. This he rang during the dance, by jerking the hinder part of his body in the most absurd manner. All the time a hubbub was kept up by the shouting of the crowd, the blowing of horns, and the beating of seven nogaras, or drums, all of different notes, while each dancer also blew an antelope's horn suspended round ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... isn't milking-time!" said Daisy, lifting her brows with a little surprise; "they're all out in the field." She considered Anna thoughtfully for a moment, and then added, jerking her head towards the next gate, "Won't you come and sit on that gate? I often sit on that gate. ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... came the jar of sheet-blocks and the rat-tat-tat of the reef-points against the canvas. In the cabin they could feel the Willi-Waw heel, swing into the wind, and right. David Grief still hesitated. From for'ard came the jerking rattle of headsail halyards through the sheaves. The little vessel heeled, and through the cabin walls came the gurgle and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... request; he will not live long enough to have many more pleasures." So she untied the Jackal's legs and held him by a rope, that he might drink from the puddle. But quick as possible, he gave a jump and a twist and a pull, and, jerking the rope out of her hand, escaped once ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... one foot on the ground, the other on the stool, both hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile whipping, writhing, jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and instep, coiling round her leg.... And in the fraction of a second the thought flashed through her mind: "If its head is under my foot, or too close to my foot for its fangs to ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... their haunches, supported by their huge tails, chiseling indefatigably. Cutting two deep grooves, one about six or eight inches, perhaps, above the other, they would then wrench off the chips by main force with their teeth and forepaws, jerking their powerful necks with a kind of furious impatience. As he noted how they made the cut deeper and lower on one side than the other, that the tree might fall as they wished, he was so delighted that he came dangerously near vowing he would never trap a beaver again. ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... mind then it was time to shoot the German, whatever the crimes of the Greek might be; but Coutlass had not grown slower of wit from loss of blood. As he dodged he rolled sidewise and seized my rifle, jerking it from my hand. He jerked too quickly. The German saw the move and kicked it, sending it spinning several yards away. We all made a sudden scramble for it, Schillingschen leading, when the German turned as suddenly as one of the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... me, eyeless and cryptic. The shifting colors crawled over the plastic globe. Then it began to roll forward on the three supporting tentacles with a queer, swift gliding motion. I stepped back, jerking out my ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... seen her under conditions which promised little of such development. She came on at Swan's side, leaning forward a little, as light and sure in the saddle as any cowboy on the range. They bore down toward the sheep-wagon as if they had no intention of halting, jerking their horses up in Indian fashion a few feet from where Mackenzie and Joan stood. The animals slid on stiff legs, hoofs plowing the soft ground, raising a cloud of dust ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... time she reached the latter she glanced at the glass and tried the effect of a smile, while Georges sat nervously on a sofa, trembling at the thought of the coming scene. As she walked up and down she kept jerking out ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... these creatures to each other. Usually a couple of the little burrowing Geositta are also present. They are lively creatures, running with great rapidity about the mound and bare space that surrounds it, suddenly stopping and jerking their tails in a slow deliberate manner, and occasionally uttering their cry, a trill, or series of quick short clear notes, resembling somewhat the shrill excessive laughter of a child. Among the grave, stationary ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly. He then, in cant terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled, but which would be quite unintelligible ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... crashing of heavy feet in the bushes checked him; but it was too late to heed it now—too late to reach for his holster. For all around them swarmed the men in sea-grey, jerking the donkey off his forelegs, blocking the little wheels with great, dirty fists, seizing Burley from behind and dragging him violently ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... the soul's highway,—now and then jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment, but still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating and jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground reverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of thought or ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... tried to dispel the feeling of uneasiness which he, too, had begun to suffer from. Prefects, generals, deputies, people in dress-coats and uniforms, were standing about on the platform in imposing groups, their faces solemn, their mouths pursed, their bodies swaying and jerking in the knowing way of public functionaries who feel people are looking at them. And you can imagine how noses were flattened against the windows to see all this hierarchical swelldom. There was Monpavon, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... true Andrea Ferrara tucked in a leathern belt, and a commodore's cocked hat on one side of his head. He was remarkable for always jerking up his breeches when he gave out his orders, and his voice sounded not unlike the brattling of a tin trumpet, owing to the number of hard north-westers which he had swallowed in the course of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... was jerking people out of their silences. Blank, silent faces around her suddenly opened and dropped masks. Bodies drifting carelessly up and down ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... quite close to Dian. We were all standing, and as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but it was a short-lived smile for on the instant the Sly One's hand fell upon the girl's bare arm, jerking her ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... He," jerking his finger toward the Colonel, "wants us to waste as much time as possible, while my lady slips through our fingers and gets farther and farther on ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... over the town in the hollow! How the lights seemed to wink and quiver in its fury, lights in the harbour, lights in bedroom windows high up! And rolling dark waves before it, it raced over the Atlantic, jerking the stars above the ships this ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... considerable degree a leading quality of his race—somnolency. Many an hour could the family of Washington see the canoe fastened to a stake, with the old fisherman bent nearly double enjoying a nap, which was only disturbed by the jerking of the white perch caught on his hook. But, as we just said, the domestic duties of Mount Vernon were governed by clock time, and the slumbers of fisher Jack might occasion inconvenience, for the cook required the fish at a certain hour, so that they might be served smoking hot precisely ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... her very own at first sight. As no one at Gray Oaks denied Miss Lou anything at all, to her he belonged from that instant. Of Miss Lou, Pasha approved thoroughly. She knew that bridle-reins were for gentle guidance, not for sawing or jerking, and that a riding-crop was of no use whatever save to unlatch a gate or to cut at an unruly hound. She knew how to rise on the stirrup when Pasha lifted himself in his stride, and how to settle close to the pig-skin when his hoofs hit the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... on a perilous expedition," continued Leslie, in a bantering tone, but his voice sinking lower, almost without his being aware of the fact, and jerking off his boots meanwhile on the sidewalk. "If I never come back, comfort my bereaved wife and children. If I break my neck, see me comfortably buried, without ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... forward, and reached his inn without further trouble. He sent for Gil Perez, who whisked off for the surgeon; by the time he brought one in Manvers was feverish, and so remained until the morning, tossing and jerking through the fervent night, with his arm stiff ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... several weeks, and the frequent soakings in the cold water had done little good to our joints. None of us was fit for walking. I kept back a limp until the Englishman ahead of me began to step with a little jerking of the knees; and then with an almost vicious delight, I gave over and limped. I never knew before the great luxury of limping. We covered the distance in something ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... cheered itself hoarse, in a frenzy of frantic delight. Now whether Charley was enthused by the applause, or whether the situation reminded him of some festive horseplay of his youth, one cannot tell. At any rate, what little life was left in Charley's blood asserted itself. Quickly jerking the rope of the halter from the astonished hand of Dimple Perkins, Charley turned briskly round, and trotted out of the yard and into the road, while Nickey, who had found himself suddenly astride Charley's back, made frantic ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... a mile away and look like a covey of swift birds, but it is still a fine sight. I became very fastidious as to which moment of it was the finest, whether when the horse rose in profile, or when his aerial hoof touched the ground (with the effect of half jerking his rider's head half off), or when he showed a flying heel in perspective; and I do not know to this hour which I prefer. But I suppose I was becoming gradually spoiled by my pleasure, for as time went on I noticed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... watched the formation of these pits, and will try to describe the process. The insect begins describing a small circle on the surface of the sand by jerking himself backwards and flinging the sand away with his flat head and closed forceps, which form a kind of shovel. Each circle is smaller than the last, until the pit is like an inverted cone, and the ant-lion lies buried at ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... na that heavy neither," exclaimed the girl, nervously jerking back the bag, and following her conductor into the house and ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... of perfect loneliness is given by the unbroken surface of the all-revealing snow. There appears nothing living except a downy woodpecker, whirling round and round upon a young beech-stem, and a few sparrows, plump with grass-seed and hurrying with jerking flight down the sunny glade. But the trees furnish society enough. What a congress of ermined kings is this circle of hemlocks, which stand, white in their soft raiment, around the dais of this woodland pond! Are they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... cried. "They've found Eustace, found him with a bullet through him, lying in the water at the ford in the range. He's over there now," he added, jerking his head towards ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... returns to her horse; and, jerking a little wallet from the saddle, along, with a suspended gourd, again advances ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the writer was riding on a train, when the engine, for some reason or other, began to slow up, jerking, puffing, almost groaning, until it finally came to a full stop. The groaning continued. A little girl of about three called to her mother, "Too-too sick, too-too sick," and when finally the train started on again, the ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... except Kate. She shoots out of her corner, knowing instantly what has happened. The kitten is jerking slightly now, and bright, bright blood is coming out of its mouth. With one violent, merciful stroke Kate finishes it. She picks the limp body up and wraps it neatly in a paper towel and places it in ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... of the men as they held on to the line, their arms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself. We quickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and hauled it on deck with much difficulty. The scene that followed was very horrible, for there was no killing ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... me. It was now or never. Putting all my strength into a sudden effort, I swung George's body forward to meet them. Then I pulled back with equal suddenness, ripping the revolver out of his fingers and jerking him off his feet. He fell against Yellow Handkerchief's knees, who stumbled over him, and the pair wallowed in the bailing hole where the cockpit floor was torn open. The next instant I was covering them with my revolver, and the wild shrimp-catchers were cowering ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... the jug down from the wall, and went into the cellar, jerking the lid up and down on her way, to pass away the time. As soon as she got downstairs she drew a stool and placed it before the cask, in order that she might not have to stoop, for she thought stooping might in some way injure her back and ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... start, rubbed his eyes and looked at the sun, then at the pile of fish beside him. The continued jerking of the line at his leg seemed to bring him out of his drowsiness. With a broad grin he began pulling in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... once now and then a yellow butterfly. From the copse on the warmer days comes occasionally the deep hollow bass of the wood pigeon. On the very topmost branch of an elm a magpie has perched; now he looks this way, and then turns that, bowing in the oddest manner, and jerking his long tail up and down. Then two of them flutter across the field—feebly, as if they had barely strength to reach the trees in the opposite hedge. Extending their wings they float slowly, and every now and then the body undulates along its entire length. Rooks are building—they fly and ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... end of the Kittlewake," thought Curlie. "You take care of her," he shouted in Joe's ear, at the same time jerking his thumb at Gladys. The next second he disappeared ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... screaming and cursing, jerking their arms above their heads, rolling back their lips from their yellow teeth, were apparently so many lunatics whose frenzy was not to be stayed. But undisciplined natures whose excesses spring from lack of self control are all the more ready ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... It's na that heavy neither," exclaimed the girl, nervously jerking back the bag, and following her conductor into the house and ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the words, jerking his meagre body upright with a slight, fierce movement, and stood in front ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... too, had begun to suffer from. Prefects, generals, deputies, people in dress-coats and uniforms, were standing about on the platform in imposing groups, their faces solemn, their mouths pursed, their bodies swaying and jerking in the knowing way of public functionaries who feel people are looking at them. And you can imagine how noses were flattened against the windows to see all this hierarchical swelldom. There was Monpavon, his shirt-front bulging like ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... now, and jerking Nugget to an upright position, he turned and ran out of the tent. He gained the shore and looked ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... recrossed the stream, and soon could be seen pushing out into the midst of it, poling an old punt up stream. Anchoring presently in a small cove where the water was deep and cool, he sat in silent watchfulness, occasionally jerking out a perch bass, sometimes a pickerel, but for the most part so still he might have been the occupant of a "painted boat upon a painted" stream. Yet all the time the soft influences of the hour and place were ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... arch scrutineer? Call the roll to-day, would he answer—Here! When the Blixum's fellows to quarters mustered How he'd lurch along the lane of gun-crews clustered, Testy as touchwood, to pry and to peer. Jerking his sword underneath larboard arm, He ground his worn grinders to keep himself calm. Composed in his nerves, from the fidgets set free, Tell, Sweet Wrinkles, alive now is he, In Paradise a parlor ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... conflict between Denis's personal vanity and superstition; but on this occasion superstition prevailed: he even felt his spirits considerably elevated by the incident, mounted the mare, and after jerking himself once or twice in the saddle, to be certain that all was right, he touched her with the spur, and set out to be examined by the Bishop, exclaiming as he went, "Let his lordship take care that I don't ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... lady, that you would have permitted me to bring him up to act as a kind of clerk," said Mr. Horner, jerking out his ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... spoken with a quietude which was terrible, on account of the passion raging beneath. But now he sprang to his feet, strode across, and, pulling a ragged shirt-cuff down from under his coat-sleeve, shook it in his son's eyes—poverty. He went to one of the rotting doors and jerking it open without turning the knob, rattled it on its loose hinges—poverty. He turned to the window, and with one gesture depicted ruined outhouses and ruined barn, now hidden under the snow, and beautiful in the Sunday evening light—poverty. ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... vain to dodge it, but his horse was traveling too fast. Then, as darkness again closed down on poor Nort he had a vision of the Greaser, covered with blood, shouting and wildly jerking his arms and legs, being pulled from the saddle to the ground, his gun going off harmlessly as ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... our catch, you know," Steve replied, jerking his thumb to where the little pile of mussels lay, ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... length of line. Settling down slowly, he descended three or four hundred feet, or so it seemed, and began to plug, very much like an albacore, only much heavier. He fooled around down there for ten minutes, with me jerking at him all the time to irritate him, before he showed any sign of rising. At last I worried him into a fighting mood, and up he came, so fast that I did not even try to take up the slack, and he shot straight up. This jump, like that of a kingfish, was wonderful. But it was so quick that the ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... chattered to us all. It was his way, and after a very brief experience of it one trained oneself to regard it as an inevitable background, like the jerking and smoke of the train, the dust, the shrill Russian voices in the next compartment, the blowing of paper to and fro in the corridor. I very quickly discovered that he was intensely conscious of Nikitin, who ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... my 'pinion's jist this: yonder's the mainland there" (pointing to the eastward, where, about ten miles distant, the rocks and trees were seen distorted and faintly looming through a tremulous haze), "an' there's our canoes there" (jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the large canoes, whose torn sides and damaged ribs, as they lay exposed on the sand, bore sad testimony to the violence of the previous night's storm), "and there's the little ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Capt. G. (Jerking his head over his shoulder.) She doesn't seem to thrive in this God-forsaken country, and there's The Butcha to be considered and all ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... like to be friends. But I—I'd hate you with a perfectly murderous hatred if you were always on the watch, always suspecting me, if you taunted me as you did a while ago. I'm just as much a savage at heart as you are, Jack Fyfe. I could gladly have killed you when you were jerking ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... from falling as fast and as hard as he otherwise would have done, because being spread out so flat that way, the air held him up a little. And then there was his tail, that funny little tail he is so fond of jerking when he scolds. This helped him too. It helped him keep his balance and keep from turning ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... staircase—the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom, while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the imminent figure of Fate jerking wildly at the wrong strings, and mixing things up in her usual ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... exclaimed, jerking him back. He was for dashing on Laplante with a cudgel. "He's playing the trapper game with ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... one hand is placed on the body at about the middle of the last rib, while the other hand is placed over the heart behind the left elbow, it will be easily demonstrated that there is no connection between the thumping or jerking of the diaphragm and the beating of the heart. In fact, when the animal is affected with spasms of the diaphragm the beating of the heart is usually much weaker and less perceptible than natural. Thumps is produced by causes similar to those that produce congestion of the lungs and dilatation ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... looking up the well, suddenly sprang at Dalla, knocking her flat, and at the same time jerking out his pistol. Before he could raise it, a shot banged from above and he fell on his face. Dirzed, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax, all drew their pistols, but whoever had fired the shot had vanished. There was an ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... lie fainting and awaiting the rain. The horses trotted with extended necks and open mouths, their coats wet with sweat. The driver—an Andalusian, with a face like a Moorish pirate—kept encouraging them with word and rein, jerking and whipping only when they seemed likely to fall from sheer fatigue and sun-weariness. At last the sun began to set in a glow like that of a great furnace, and the reflection lay over the land in ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... with his right hand he held his line. Suddenly that hand received an amazing tug. Peegwish unintentionally scattered the firebrand, dropped his pipe from his lips, and uttered a shout, while with both hands he held on to the jerking line. ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... how little musical talent is exhibited by these little ones, whose natures are drawn from the land of music. We have repeatedly seen them sawing away patiently at a violin, or jerking the strings of a harp, but could detect no semblance of melody in the noise they made. Not a few of the little ones endeavor to make up in dancing what they lack in musical skill. Their parents or proprietors are harsh and stern with them, and ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... of the road, will you?" cried Fletcher, half rising from his seat and jerking at the reins until the horses reared. "Drive your brutes into the bushes ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... says the Wanderjahre is "wise." It must be presumed so; and yet one is not satisfied. I was perfectly so with my manner of interpreting the Lehrjahre; but this sequel keeps jerking my clue, and threatens to break it. I do not know our Goethe yet. I have changed my opinion about his religious views many times. Sometimes I am tempted to think that it is only his wonderful knowledge of human nature which has excited ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... table and then stood beside him, crying pitifully, jerking out little sentences—"I can't bear it.... I don't know what to do.... I can't ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... look like a covey of swift birds, but it is still a fine sight. I became very fastidious as to which moment of it was the finest, whether when the horse rose in profile, or when his aerial hoof touched the ground (with the effect of half jerking his rider's head half off), or when he showed a flying heel in perspective; and I do not know to this hour which I prefer. But I suppose I was becoming gradually spoiled by my pleasure, for as time went on I noticed that I was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and perched balancing upon an arm of her chair. Idly she put out her hand, stroking the bright feathers. From somewhere else, startling the man when he saw it gliding by him on its soft pads, a big puma, ran forward, threw up its head, snarling, its tail jerking back and forth restlessly. Zoraida spoke quietly; the monster cat crept close to her chair and lay down before her, stretched out to five feet of graceful length. Zoraida set one foot lightly upon the tawny back. The big cat lay motionless, its eyes ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... upon his experience. Major Mac-Nicol, ludicrous in a bottle-green coat with abrupt tails and an English beaver hat of an ancient pattern, jinked here and there among the people, tip-toeing, round shouldered, with eyes peering and alarmed, jerking his head across his shoulder at intervals to see that no musket barrel threatened, and at times, for a moment or two, he would hang upon the outskirts of Young Islay's levee, with a hand behind an ear to listen ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... a rumpus ag'in," he said, jerking his head toward the skipper's room. "'Count of her. Reckon he can stay there till after we've buried Simms. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... hold of the boat No. 7, which used to be the Mercy Robin, and were jerking the timber shores out, one of the men stooping under her stern beheld something white and gleaming. He put his hand down to it, and, lo! it was a child, in imminent peril of a deadly crush, as the boat came heeling over. "Hold hard!" cried the man, not in ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... easy matter when you are on a slope to start off smoothly without jerking the patients within; and I held my breath as I declutched and took off the brake, accelerating gently the meanwhile. Thank heaven! We were moving slowly forward and there had been no jerk. They were all bad cases and an occasional groan would escape their lips in spite ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... pathetic spectacle as he stood there facing them, jerking his head nervously in the interval of silence and staring amazement that followed. There was no joking about it and they knew it. It was not in ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... when interested, sat absolutely still, but receptive and alert, instead of jerking and fidgeting as he had done over Michael's fiasco in the Chopin prelude, and at the end he jumped ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And flowing and going, And running and stunning, And foaming and roaming, And dinning and spinning, And dropping and hopping, And working and jerking, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And moaning and groaning, And glittering and frittering, And gathering and feathering, And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And hurrying and skurrying, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... clear-headed enough. I even went to the miners' lavatory and, jerking down the metal mirror, scrutinized my own reflection and reassured myself of the closeness of the resemblance. My purpose framed in my mind as I did this. Clearly I was in German quarters and was likely to remain there. Sooner or later there must be ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... all passed in idleness, as they replenished their stores by jerking the meat of both bear and deer. At the end of two weeks the hunter began to talk of departure, and he and Will walked toward the western end of the valley, where the creek issued in a narrow pass, the only road ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... of support, uttering leisurely words of consolation, while he quietly slipped one hand down the Major's arm, until his broad, perceptive finger-tips could feel the faint pulse jerking under ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... we spent on that train, bumping, stopping, jerking ahead, and sometimes sliding back. At three stations we stopped long enough to make some tea, but were unable to wash, so when we arrived at B—, where we were to embark for Blighty, we were as black as Turcos and, with ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... declared, as the struggles of the man nearly pitched both of them out of the saddle. "Just give me a hand, Bud; for, I reckon, we'll have to lower him to the ground until he gets his right senses back or quits this twitching and jerking. I am afraid he will start the wound to ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... are taken; then another stone is attached and the operation repeated. If a bite is felt the line is slacked away freely, and this goes on until about 500 fathoms are overboard. When, by the lively and continuous jerking of the line, the fisherman concludes that he has a good number of fish on the hooks, he will haul aboard and then ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... been doing all the dickering with the Honorable David. They quarrelled at first; I'd bet every dollar I've got on that. But I more than half-believe they've patched it up now, and I believe it was Mr. McVickar's quick swiping of Evan—jerking him out from under his father's thumb the way he did—that brought on ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... appear so easy to extricate him from his unpleasant predicament; for the resemblance between his situation, and that of jack-in-the-box, went no further. There was no jerking machinery by which the ex-guardsman could be jumped out of his box; and, since his head was full three feet below the crust of the snow, how he was to be raised to the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... body in. Lay the head over, with the affected ear up, and pour in some warm oil or soap suds. This will float the thing up, unless it be a vegetable such as a grain of corn or a bean. Turning the affected ear down and then jumping, jerking the head, or pounding it ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... more freely now that he was gone, flinging up her head and jerking her shoulders back with an angry determination to conquer the fear that made her ashamed. Natural curiosity had been struggling with her other emotions, and she gave way to it now to try and turn ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... opportunity of comparing the skill of the different nationalities. All admitted that none glided about so easily and gracefully as the Americans. They seemed to move without the least effort, while the English, the French, and the Germans labored in their dancing, bobbing up and down, jumping and jerking, out of breath and red in the face in five minutes. One great pleasure we had in Toulouse was the music of the military band in the public gardens, where, for half a cent, we could have a chair and enjoy pure air and sweet music for ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... You know perfectly well that the moment you get on the other side, if you do, you'll be jerking the cross off your collar and bullying some wretched soldier ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... shone eerily overhead. He bent his stiffened, jerking neck till he could look—till he could see, with eyes that were filled with flashing fires of their own, other ripping blue flashes from the ends of outstanding wires, and above him a thousand feet, the belly of a ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... we received the account of the island, having informed us that there were some Indians on shore under his command employed in jerking beef, and that there was a bark at anchor to take it on board, we were desirous, if possible, to prevent the Indians from escaping, who doubtless would have given the Governor of Guam intelligence of our arrival, ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... him restrained her from offering any resistance. She stood in silence, her heart jerking on again with wild palpitations. The grip of his hands was horribly close; she almost thought he was going to shake her. But his eyes under their bristling brows held her even more securely. Under their look she ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... tendencies to act vary in complexity from the withdrawing of a hand from a hot stove or the jerking of the knee when touched in a particular spot to startlingly involved trains of action to be found in the behavior of certain of the lower animals. Bergson cites the case of a species of wasp which with a skill, unconscious ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... hunched in his saddle. He glanced over his shoulder, and Stonor saw that a sickly yellow tint had crept under his skin. He looked at Stonor's failing horse. Suddenly he clapped heels to his own beast, and, jerking the animal's head round, circled Stonor and attempted to regain the trail behind him. He evidently counted on the fact that the policeman ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... good service, and he went through a preliminary drill, consisting of placing it inside his waistcoat, a couple of buttons being left carelessly unfastened; next thrusting his hand within, in an indifferent manner, then instantly jerking out and pointing the weapon at an imaginary foe in front of him. This maneuver he repeated scores of times, narrowly escaping the firing of the weapon, until he satisfied himself that he could ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... Reverse the exercise, jerking the shoulders backward in similar manner while inhaling. Alternate the movements, forcing the shoulders first ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... and the whole of the family were congregated in the little back parlour, when young Jerry started up at the well-known sound of a customer at the shop-door, at which he arrived with a hop, step, and jump; and, jerking it open, beheld a little old gentleman wrapped ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... herd of elephants: my mule, though the bravest of our beasts, was in a state of terror all the way. The little grey honey-bird [9] tempted us to wander with all his art: now he sat upon the nearest tree chirping his invitation to a feast, then he preceded us with short jerking flights to point out the path. My people, however, despite the fondness for honey inherent in the Somali palate [10], would not follow him, deciding that on, this occasion his motives for inviting us were not ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... his noose. The distance was less than ten feet, and the loop spread, quick and true, over the head of the Japanese. But, swift though the action was, the Japanese had an instant to prepare himself. His right arm shot up. As Orme, jerking at the rope, tried to tighten the noose, the hand of the Japanese pushed it over his head and it slid over the side into the water. In a few seconds the swift boat ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... less mossy place in the woods, I am amused with the golden-crowned thrush,—which, however, is no thrush at all, but a warbler. He walks on the ground ahead of me with such an easy, gliding motion, and with such an unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking his head like a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now slackening his pace, that I pause to observe him. I sit down, he pauses to observe me, and extends his pretty ramblings on all sides, apparently very much engrossed with his own affairs, but never ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... temples. Jack's hair and mustache were well sprinkled with gray, and his crown was bald. He fingered a paper-weight on the table nervously. A history of dissipation was written legibly in his eyes and he had a disconcerting way of jerking his head. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the men observed him curiously as he shouldered his way out of the circle. He went to his gold medal cot, and jerking off one of the fine, heavy army blankets, spread it on the floor. Then he rummaged amongst the clothing in his locker, and taking out a pair of extra shoes, a flannel shirt, and a white stable suit, rolled them into his blanket. Throwing the bundle thus ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... suddenly disturbed by the report of a gun, swept to leeward by the impetuosity of the gale, which hurled it with violence against the door and front windows of his cottage, for some moments causing them to vibrate with the concussion. Forster started up, dropping his book upon the hearth, and jerking the table with his elbow, so as to dash out the larger proportion of the contents of his tumbler. The sooty coronal of the wick also fell with the shock, and the candle, relieved from its burden, poured ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Because the first was on the chin on account of her jerking her head back. And the second one she didn't help me none. But the third time she helped me a little. And the ones after that ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... woolly lamb-like dog, who certainly possessed a larger amount of courage than would reasonably have been imagined from his attenuated appearance, at once darted after the rabbits, who, jerking their short tails in the funniest way possible and throwing up their hind-legs as if they were going to turn somersaults and come down on the other side, darted off down the glade, making for the holes of ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... testing the functions of the joint, and if this is done gently and without jerking, it does not cause pain. The child should lie on his back, either on his nurse's knee or on a table; and to reassure him the movements should be first practised on the sound limb. On slowly flexing the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... been furled and the staysail set, and the ship under her reduced sail had got more upright, and was under management; but the two top-gallant-sails were still hanging in the buntlines, and slatting and jerking as though they would take the masts out of her. We gave a look aloft, and knew that our work was not done yet; and, sure enough, no sooner did the mate see that we were on deck than— "Lay aloft there, four of you, and furl the top-gallant-sails!'' This called me again, and two ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... rickety automobile and halt in the dust-white road, as he cast a sharply scrutinizing glance upon the atom of a girl who sat beside him. She was a dejected, dusty, little figure, drooping under the jolt of the jerking car and the bright rays of hills-land sunshine. She was young—in years; young, too, in looks, as Kurt saw when she raised her eyes which were soft and almond-shaped; but old, he assumed, in much that she ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... was still coming and that he was making for the cabin. He was wondering what she meant by suddenly sinking to the ground in shrill laughter, when he heard a step behind him. He whirled, startled, his hand jerking back toward the gun ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... evaded the full force of the blow, but the tall wooden vessel scraped along her side, starting several of her armour plates, carrying away port-hole covers and davits, dragging two anchors from her bows, smashing gun-muzzles and jerking four light guns into the sea. But the "Kaiser" herself suffered from the close fire of the "Re di Portogallo's" heavy guns and the shock of collision. Her stem and bowsprit were carried away, the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... the outer hall, the sound of padding feet. The four in the master room froze into immobility. Two Mercutian guards stumbled panting into the room. They came to a jerking halt, threw themselves prone upon the floor, ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... a far-off look at the opposite wall. Then a shadowy smile stole over his face, and he went on. His companions' heads had drooped slowly forward, and their eyes were heavy with sleep. Grey was fighting against the drowsiness by jerking his head sharply upwards, but his eyes would close in spite ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... away to pay off my taxi, the driver of which was very cantankerous and abusive over his fare. As I came back to Professor Summerlee, he was having a furious altercation with the men who had carried down the oxygen, his little white goat's beard jerking with indignation. One of the fellows called him, I remember, "a silly old bleached cockatoo," which so enraged his chauffeur that he bounded out of his seat to take the part of his insulted master, and it was all we could do to prevent a riot ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ancient party; "never 'eard yer comin'. Been flyin' by wireless, 'ave yer? Got an observer, I see," he added, jerking his grizzled chin at the dragoman. "Strike me, it's the good old dyes o' the Gryte ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... end, and Prickles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically that time. He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the melee like—well, like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his head, and a noise like a pair of expiring bellows; and ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... kiss had certainly appeared to impute suppressed insight, or penetration, or sly-pussness, or something of that sort to her young friend. But with an implied claim to rights of insight, on her own account, from seniority. Sally is froissee at this, but not beyond jerking the topic into a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... cargo for the S. R. & N. he was accosted by a tall, nervous man with shifting eyes and twitching lips. It was hard to recognize in this pitiable shaken creature the once resplendent Gordon, who had bent the whole northland to his ends. Some tantalizing demons inside the man's frame were jerking at his sinews. Fear was in his roving glance; he stammered; he plucked at the little captain's sleeve like a frightened woman. The open-hearted Irishman ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... the stick much higher, but when he signaled to the dog by jerking on his collar that it was time for him to jump, the dog ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... of Vincennes? In the Park of Vincennes; and onward, they say, in the Park of Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, the assassinated deputy; and still onward to the Heights of Ecouen and farther, he has scaffolding set up, has posts driven in; wooden arms with elbow-joints are jerking and fugling in the air, in the most rapid mysterious manner! Citoyens ran up, suspicious. Yes, O Citoyens, we are signaling; it is a device, this, worthy of the Republic; a thing for what we will call far-writing without the aid of ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... i got a fishhook in my leg today. me and Fatty Melcher was a fishing when we got our lines tangled, i hollered first cut, but i dident have enny nife and Fatty woodent let me have his nife. So we got jerking our lines kinder mad like and all of a suddin the hook got into my leg. gosh you bet it hurt. me and Fatty got the hook out but it bled some. the worst of it was there was a wirm on the hook and when we got the hook out they wasent enny wirm there. Fatty says people ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... the square a narrow street sets off, jerking this way and that as if uncertain what point to make for. Here lurks the post-office, which had once the reputation of being as crooked in its ways as ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... sympathy from the police, Brisley," he declared. "That one's almost as bad as him," jerking his thumb in the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... reached through the bars and grabbed the captain by his shirt collar, jerking him against the bars. "It's a lie! A conspiracy! Maybe you think I'm nuts. But I'm not!" He commenced pummeling the captain with his free fist. Then he thought of something better. He snatched the captain's gun from his holster and ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... stepped directly in front of the radiator and at the warning of the horn made no effort to seek safety. He swaggered along with insolent manner at snail's pace, so that the driver, with a muttered imprecation, brought the car to a jerking halt, and even then almost grazed with his fender the frayed ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... and back. Hysteria and catalepsy may assume characters resembling those of tetanus, but there is little difficulty in distinguishing between these diseases. Lastly, in the tetany of children, or that following operations on the thyreoid gland, the spasms are of a jerking character, affect chiefly the hands and fingers, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... already flown toward the front door. Jerking it open she ran out on the steps. As she did so, she caught sight of McPherson coming away from a professional call at ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... something—since I went in there," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "I do not think ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... usual, and, strange to say, it was addled white. The other three were hard-set. The parents get very much excited when their young are approached, and, as long as the intruder is in the vicinity, keep up an incessant volley of their harsh grating cries, at the same time stretching out their necks and jerking about their tails violently." ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... questioned the Sheriff, drawling as usual, but at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards a placard on ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
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