"Blocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instructed the C.O. to report to him by telephone at 2.50. At that hour there was not the slightest diminution apparent in the spray of bullets which was lashing our front. At least one machine-gun was pelting, at very close range, the barricade blocking the northern end of the stretch of F12 held by us—the very barricade behind which one of our patrols was waiting to slip out into the open. Others were ripping up our sandbags here and there along ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Passford had read two lines of the document in his hands, a noise as of a scuffle was heard in the passage way to the ward room. Mr. Baskirk was sent to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and he threw the door wide open. Dave was there, blocking the passage way, and Pink Mulgrum was trying to force his way towards the cabin door. The steward declared that no one must go to the cabin; it was the order of the captain himself. Mulgrum found it convenient not to hear on this occasion. The moment Baskirk ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... pony or mule and his feet dangling in front of the wheel, which plays on to them a continuous stream of dirt and dust. In windy weather one must crawl inside and sit on the floor tailor fashion, there being no seat, and then let down the curtain, thus effectually blocking all view but keeping out most of the dust, which, flying in blinding clouds, would quickly reduce one to a state of absolute filth, filling the clothes, hair, ears and mouth and guttering down from the nose and ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... narrow, and rugged valley surrounded by lofty mountains. Through this valley runs the Rio Frio (or Cold River) in a deep channel worn between high, precipitous banks. On each side of the stream rise two vast rocks, nearly perpendicular, within a stone's throw of each other, blocking up the gorge of the valley. On the summits of these rocks stood the two formidable castles, Cambil and Albahar, fortified with battlements and towers of great height and thickness. They were connected ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... right, too!" he broke out harshly, blocking the way to force her to listen to him. "You think you've bluffed me, don't you?—what? Let me tell you: some fine day this duck whose name isn't Gavitt will turn up here—to see you; then I'll nab him. If you find out where he is, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... of the cone flowed past the doors and windows of the adjacent houses, blocking them as it had previously blocked the Dinkmans', but their inhabitants, forewarned, had gone. More than mere desertion was implied in their going; there was an implicit surrender, abandonment to the invader. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... South from enlightening the Negroes, but to keep away from them what they considered undesirable instructors. The southerners regarded the abolitionists as foes in the field, industriously scattering the seeds of insurrection which could then be prevented only by blocking every avenue through which they could operate upon the minds of the slaves. A writer of this period expressed it thus: "It became necessary to check or turn aside the stream which instead of flowing healthfully upon the Negro is polluted and ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... well-proportioned entablature from the same beautiful order. Mr. Elmes, in his critical observations on this terrace, thinks the attic story "too irregular to accompany so chaste a composition as the Ionic, to which it forms a crown;" he likewise objects to the cornice and blocking-course, as being "also too small in proportion for the majesty of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... the Camisards at last reached the bridge at Rosni; but there, too, the Royalists were found blocking the road, and crowding the heights on either side. Cavalier, to avoid recognition, threw off his uniform, and assumed the guise of a simple Camisard. Again he sought to force his way through the masses of the enemy. His ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... passengers were very few. Occasionally there were northeast gales, with shrieking winds, driving gusts of sleet and hail and a surf along the ocean side that bellowed and roared and tore the sandy beach into new shapes, washing away shoals and building others, blocking the mouth of the little inlet where the fish boats anchored and opening a new channel a hundred yards farther down. Twice there were wrecks, one of a fishing schooner, the crew of which were fortunate ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... movement,—like a flock of birds on the wing,—a fleet of ships can, without disabling loss, pass by guns before which they could not lie. Hence arises the necessity of arresting or delaying their progress by blocking channels, which in modern practice is done by lines of torpedoes. The mere moral effect of the latter is a deterrent to a dash past,—by which, if successful, a fleet reaches the rear of the defences, and appears immediately before the city, which ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... the road between Maracay and New Valencia. The fears which the inhabitants of the shores had so long entertained were reversed. Those who had explained the diminution of the lake by the supposition of subterranean channels were suspected of blocking them up, to ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... mill-site. He was the first man in this county, and he had been shrewd enough to hog all the water-front real estate and hold onto it. I remember he called himself a progressive citizen, and when I asked him why he was so assiduously blocking the wheels of progress, he replied that the railroad would build in from the south some day, but that when it did, its builders would have to be assured of terminal facilities on Humboldt Bay. 'By holding intact ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... is great. Then the hideous Georgian "three-decker" reared its monstrous form, blocking out the sight of the sanctuary; immense pews like cattle-pens filled the nave. The woodwork was high and panelled, sometimes richly carved, as at Whalley Church, Lancashire, where some pews have posts at the corners ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... outside column on each side of the gateway are formed in an angular direction, so as to exhibit two complete faces to view. The two side gateways, in their elevations, present two insulated Ionic columns, flanked by antae. All these entrances are finished by a blocking, the sides of the central one being decorated with a beautiful frieze, representing a naval and military triumphal procession, which our artist has copied and represented in distinct engravings. This frieze was designed by Mr. Henning, jun., son ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... caused by the immense crowd blocking the court, only pushed aside by archers on horseback, who separated the people. The marquise now went out, and the doctor, lest the sight of the people should completely distract her, put a crucifix in her hand, bidding her fix her gaze upon ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... state of locomotion in the neighbourhood of which does not readily permit of the passage of wheeled vehicles, a hansom running the risk of being squashed into the semblance of a pancake against the heavy drays blocking the narrow streets and ways, should it adventure ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... was, we began to have doubts about the thing working, and had a suspicion that the twinkle in Dan McDonald's eye meant that he had been playing it on us. The landlord said he should have to have two shillings more, and that we were blocking up the thoroughfare, and we fumbled around and found it and paid him, and went out, probably the most disgusted excursionist that ever was. Dan, who had watched the whole business, slapped us on the shoulder, and said, "How did it work?" Though not particularly hungry, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... down all the brave old trees at Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued from Hounslow-heath: nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine, for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace's timber will, I trust, not annoy us long. There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the wings, grimly impassive, stood a private soldier of the old Franz Josef, blocking the door to her dressing room. For a moment gold dress and dark blue-gray uniform confronted each other. Then ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... led the way into her parlour, where Penelope had never been before. It held all the treasures she was most proud of, and the window was full of geraniums, fuchsias, and hanging baskets of 'Mothers of Thousands,' blocking out most of the light. While Penelope was selecting a flower Mrs. Bennett ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... smiling a little. "We are blocking the gangway. I am staying at the Grand. If you are at liberty you might dine with me. By the way, how are you, ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... crowd edging the walk a man stepped. It was Adam Holcomb. He stood directly in front of Pasquale and his bride, blocking the way. There was a strange light in his eyes. It was as if he looked from the present far into the future, as if somehow he were a god, an Olympian who held in his ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... with the rival left end at his heels. Hogan and Jack were pounding on behind, and they stopped Cressy from blocking the Putnam Hall captain. Over the line came Dale, to drop flat an ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... one impulse, the whole line closed in with a run upon the gates of the inclosure. The mules, impelled by the sudden rush, dashed forward pell-mell, blocking up the entrance. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... she was nerving herself, It came at last. The curtain slid aside again, and the same huge negro she had seen before entered. He came towards her, and her breath hissed in suddenly between her set teeth, but before he reached her the Arab woman intercepted him, blocking his way, and with wild eyes and passionate gestures poured out a stream of low, frenzied words. The Nubian turned on her impatiently and thrust her roughly out of his way, and, coming to Diana, put out his hand as if to grasp her arm, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... dozen times called "the necessary first step to a complete redistribution" than in and for itself. Redistribution is, however, if possible, of even more tremendous difficulty than importance. It offers a greater hold than any other subject to the arts of blocking and delay.' [Footnote: October ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... foolish play but you," he answered the sheriff calmly. "You may not know it, but you're blocking my scene and the light's going. If you've got any business with me or my company, get it over and then get out so we aim make this ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... that followed were days of anxious questioning. The men brought back stories of the great crowds that surged through the streets blocking the traffic in front of the newspaper offices reading the bulletins, while the bands played patriotic airs; of the misguided German who shouted, "Hoch der Kaiser!" and narrowly escaped the fury of ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... expected in 2002. Nonetheless, increases in foreign oil investment and oil production kept growth at 3% in 2002. The government lacks the strength to implement the market-oriented reforms urged by the IMF, such as modernization of the banking system; to curb inflation by blocking excessive wage demands; and to resolve regional disputes over the distribution of earnings from the oil industry. When the uncertainties in the global economy are added in, estimates of Nigeria's prospects for 2003 must have ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... a short distance from the hotel to where Essie lived, over Fourth Street to Cherry; and almost immediately he turned by the three story brick dwelling at the corner and was at her door. The servant, in an untidy white jacket, stood stupidly blocking the narrow hall, until Jasper Penny with an angry impatience waved him aside. There were other silk hats and coats, and a woman's fringed wrap, on the stand where he left his stick and outer garments; and from above came ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and me without as much as a look my way. So of course I dropped it. What do you think? I fell back. I would have gone up on board at once and left them on the quay to come up or stay there till next week, only they were blocking the way. I couldn't very well shove them on one side. Devil only knows what was up between them. There she was, pale as death, talking to him very fast. He got as red as a turkey-cock—dash me if he didn't. A bad-tempered old bloke, I can tell you. And a bad lot, too. Never mind. I couldn't hear ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... marauded every sacred and secret corner of her mind and soul. They came with whips to scourge her. Nothing was private to her inner self now. Everything was arrayed against her. All life doubled backwards on her, blocking ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exist in the East, in the Middle West, in the Far West, and in the South. Those who represent such areas in every part of the country do their constituents ill service by blocking efforts to raise their incomes, their property values and, therefore, their whole scale of living. In the long run, the profits from Child labor, low pay and overwork enure not to the locality or region where they exist but to the absentee owners who have sent ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... shoved out the stern across stream, the prow being still tethered; and catching on to a stake, we had the satisfaction not only of feeling ourselves in an unassailable position, but of knowing that we were effectually blocking the river for any presumptuous wayfarer who wanted to go either up stream ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... and they would all go to Europe in his yacht. But she knew now that the woman Leslie had sent his flowers to had loomed large in Dick's past, and she both hated and feared her. Not content with having given her, Nina, some bad hours, she saw the woman now possibly blocking her ambitions ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on the western side of the Camel estuary, below the sandbank known as the Doom Bar (probably dune-bar). The gates of the river-mouth are the Stepper Point, with its white day-mark, and Pentire Point; the Doom Bar lies well within these, almost blocking the passage, which, with vessels of any draught, must be made on the Stepper side. The name Doom Bar is, of course, provocative of legend, and an appropriate one has been found. It is said that Padstow had once a safe and commodious harbour, whose mouth was haunted ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... glanced about her, hoping to catch sight of those whom she sought. She did not look in vain, for almost immediately the giant, Curling Smoke, uncurled his tall form from a deep chasm in the cliff close by and towered high above her, blocking ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... youngster do? He shoves his little arm in the crevice on the inner side, where already the water is trickling through, thus blocking the leak. All night long he stands there, one small, half-frozen Dutch boy holding back the entire North Atlantic. Not until centuries later, when Judge Alton B. Parker runs for president against Colonel Roosevelt and is defeated practically ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb
... Lentulus, in no very affable tone; "the heat and din of the city will drive me mad! And I have had no end of troublesome business. The senators are all fools or slaves of Caesar. That treacherous rascal, Curio, is blocking all our efforts. Even Pompeius is half-hearted in the cause. It wouldn't take much to make him go back to Caesar, and then where would ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... a Tale of Woe calculated to pulp a Heart of Stone. In blocking out the Affidavit, her sympathetic Attorney made Pencil Notes ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... coachman being told to take the carriage to a quiet nook further on, and return in half-an-hour. Mrs. Belmaine and her carriage some years before had accidentally got jammed crosswise in Cheapside through the clumsiness of the man in turning up a side street, blocking that great artery of the civilized world for the space of a minute and a half, when they were pounced upon by half-a-dozen policemen and forced to back ignominiously up a little slit between the houses where they did not mean to go, amid the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... that we are not buried is no proof that we are alive. Go along the street in almost any town and see the dead ones. There they are decorating the hitching-racks and festooning the storeboxes. There they are blocking traffic at the postoffice and depot. There they are in the hotel warming the chairs and making the guests stand up. There they are—rows of retired farmers who have quit work and moved to town to block improvements and die. But they will never ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... when Marie should send it down to them. The Washington guard threw the ball toward the massed group in the center of the floor. As a tiger leaps to its prey, Sahwah, with a mighty spring, jumped high in the air and caught the ball over the heads of the blocking guards. Before the Mechanicals had recovered from their surprise she sent it whirling toward the distant basket. It rolled around the rim, hesitated for one breathless instant and then dropped neatly through the netting. It was a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... large size. That shown in Fig. 14 is 8-1/4 inches long, 4 inches wide, and seven-eighths of an inch thick. The blade is broad at the edge, rounded in outline, and well polished. The upper end terminates in a rather sharp point that shows the rough flaked surface of the original blocking out. The middle portion exhibits an evenly picked surface. The rock is a dark slaty looking tufa, the surface of which displays ring or rosette-like markings, reminding one of the polished surface of a section of fossil ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... Nicky-Nan meanly slipped back to his den, closed the door, and dragged two chairs against it. Then he took a worn tea-tray and propped it against the window, blocking the broken panes. It seemed to him that the world had suddenly grown full of eyes, peering upon him from ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... would pass the gate which leads home, to the rest which remaineth for the people of God, you must not overload yourselves with this world's gear. You must not fill up your thoughts with your business, and drag that burden with you to the very edge of the Churchyard mould. You are just blocking up the way to eternal life with your bales of goods, your manufactures, your business books. Some of you are blocking God's highway with the waggons of worldly commerce, others with the gay chariot of frivolous pleasure. Here is a woman trying to walk in the narrow way. She ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... the powerful horses straining and panting under the heavy load. Perched on the top of the load, under a wide-spread umbrella, and fanning himself with his straw hat, was Van Dorn, his face irradiated by a broad smile as he caught sight of Houston. Two of the men walked beside the team, blocking the wheels with rocks, as the horses were occasionally stopped to rest. As they came within speaking distance, Van Dorn sang ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... carriage on this section. Even at the present time the tariff is 8-1/2d. per ton per mile, as against a rate of about 3d. with which the other two lines are favoured. Notwithstanding this, however, and the obstructions placed in the way by obnoxious regulations and deliberate blocking of the line with loaded trucks at Vereeniging, and also the blocking of Johannesburg stations by non-delivery of goods—measures which resulted sometimes in a delay of months in delivery, and sometimes in the destruction or loss of the goods—the Southern line more than held its own. The ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... things that have happened in the history of the past and it has happened over and over again is this blocking and hindering of human advance, until by and by the tide, the growing current, becomes too strong to be held back any more; and it has swept away all barriers and devastated society, politically, socially, religiously, morally, ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... in the sitting-room rang two minutes before Susan Grant entered the room to find her mistress dead. This was some time after the closing of the door overheard by Thomas; therefore the assassin could not have escaped that way. Moreover, by this time the policeman was standing blocking the pathway to the station. Again, the alarm was given immediately by the other servants, who rushed to the sitting-room on hearing Susan's scream, and the policeman at once searched the house. No one ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... through the door into the other half of this level. Shambles. Smashed machinery every which way, blocking the door, blocking everything. No way ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... drove rapidly from the station to the Temple, and found a traveling carriage already before him, and blocking up the narrow Temple Lane. Two ladies got out of it, and were asking their way of the porters; the major looked by chance at the panel of the carriage, and saw the worn-out crest of the eagle looking at the sun, and the motto, "nec tenui ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... up a bit. The road is pretty narrow, and they didn't seem to know how to get past the frightful-looking creature that was blocking their way of a sudden, with a big green thing ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... or team. The game is played on a level field, at each end of which are goal posts through which the team having the ball in its possession attempts to force or "rush" it, while their opponents by various means, such as tackling, shoving or blocking, strive to prevent the ball from being successfully forced behind the goal line or from being kicked over the crossbar between the goal-posts. A football field is 330 feet long by 160 feet wide. It is usually marked ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... chair and gazed up at the ceiling, again collecting his data in his mind. He had dictated before to Miss Kennard and knew how Mern wanted his names and his facts. "Subject, the spring drives on the Noda water. Object, hanging up or blocking the independent drive of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... ahead of her; she stopped and looked around. Down the end of the street she saw them again scattered in a thin chain, blocking the entrance to the square, which was empty. Farther down were more gray figures slowly moving against the people. She wanted to go back; but uncalculatingly went forward again, and came to a narrow, empty by-street into which she turned. She stopped again. She sighed painfully, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... I know he could have kept close to me if he had chosen, and I saw the whole place at low water when we left those sands on the second day. Look at the chart again. Here's the Hohenhrn bank that I showed you as blocking the road. [See Chart A] It's in two pieces—first the west and then the east. You see the Telte channel dividing into two branches and curving round it. Both branches are broad and deep, as channels go in those waters. Now, in sailing in I was nowhere near either of them. When I last saw Dollmann ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... left ventricle. Further, in this foramen ovale, from that part which regards the pulmonary vein, there is a thin tough membrane, larger than the opening, extended like an operculum or cover; this membrane in the adult blocking up the foramen, and adhering on all sides, finally closes it up, and almost obliterates every trace of it. In the foetus, however, this membrane is so contrived that falling loosely upon itself, it permits a ready access to the lungs and heart, yielding a ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... dapper fellow in a chauffeur's uniform confronted us on the sidewalk. He stood as stiff and straight as a soldier. He didn't say a word. He just looked at Mr. Hervey. Mr. Hervey stopped because the man was blocking the sidewalk. I looked into the chauffeur's eyes. They seemed utterly dead. I shivered. I'd have sworn the man had no soul, now that I look back at it. Suddenly he lashed out with his fist, striking Mr. Hervey on the jaw. Mr. Hervey started to fall. The man caught him under the arms ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... that Potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stop us. The duty man over us gazed down, his huge head and shoulders blocking the small signal room window. Brotow called up in Martian, telling him to let us come. He scowled, but when we reached the trap in the room floor grid, we found him ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... and divided by the twisting streets; but the whole brigade pressed forward on a broad front. Behind followed the rest of the army—battalion after battalion, brigade after brigade—until all, swallowed up by the maze of mud houses, were filling the open spaces and blocking and choking the streets and alleys with solid masses of armed men, who marched or pushed their way ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... your pardon,' she exclaimed instinctively, and the stranger turning sharply—for she had been looking in the forward direction—almost at the same moment made the same apology, adding quickly, when she heard Jacinth's English voice, 'I should not be blocking up the'——But her sentence was never completed. 'Oh, can it be you? Jacinth—Jacinth Mildmay? Is Frances here? Oh, how delightful.—Camilla,' as an older girl came across the road in her direction, 'Camilla, just fancy—this is Jacinth. I can scarcely believe it,' and before Jacinth had had ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... doorway, that must have been one of his jobs, engineered by him, and carried out by his own men," Dave told himself, swiftly. "Most of the men in the crowd must have been his own men, too, posted to take the money again, under pretense that a fight with sailors had started. So I've been the means of blocking another profitable enterprise for that fellow, Cosetta. By and by the scoundrel will feel a deep ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... be wagons with their tongues pointing to the landing. A center train with other parallel trains extended back in the rear, gradually covering a wider range the farther back from the river it went. Several hundred wagons were thus closely interlocked, completely blocking the approach ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... tolerate our lenient behaviour to the native races. Should they by any chance cease to be the subjects of England, they will, I believe, become her open enemies. This of itself would be comparatively unimportant, were it not for the fact that, in the event of the blocking of the Suez Canal, it would be, to say the least, inconvenient that the Cape should be in the hands of a ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... again Hamil, wandering in circles, looked across the wilderness of women's hats at Shiela Cardross, but a dozen men surrounded her, and among them he noticed the graceful figure of Malcourt directly in front of her, blocking any signal ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... her path did not immediately descend. It led her levelly to an almost circular green space; then it became enclosed again and soft to the feet with grass; and just ahead of her, blocking her way, she saw two figures, those of a woman and a man. Their backs were towards her, but there was no mistaking Aunt Rose's back. It was straight without being stiff, her dress fell with a unique perfection and the little hat and grey floating ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... and I do not think I ever enjoyed more refreshing slumber. It was broad daylight when I awoke. I got up and went to the mouth of the cavern; the snow fell as thickly and fast as ever, but as it did not appear to be blocking up our cavern, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... still ten miles behind the suspect car and following on video monitor. The air still crackled with commands as St. Louis and Washington Control maneuvered other cars into position as the pursuit went westward past other units blocking ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... fast," answered the prefect, blocking up the doorway as some boys tried to escape; "what are you chaps doing in here? I thought you'd ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... he came at last, a huge form, half-blocking the door; and Rimrock noticed the change. Perhaps his sudden popularity had made him unduly sensitive—he felt instinctively ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... He first cut off the provision ships, and plundering all the merchants, made himself master of the supplies of corn; then bringing his navy to the seaport towns, he took them, and at last, becoming master of Ostia by treachery, he pillaged that town, and slew a multitude of the inhabitants, and, blocking up the river, took from the enemy all hopes of supply by the sea; then marched with his army toward the city, and posted himself ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the quaint group of choristers Hogarth had so admirably sketched, headed by the Sexton Mortefee, grimacing dreadfully as he leads on his terrible band to discord. A square, ugly church enough, with the great Devonshire pew—a small parlour with the roof off—half blocking up the chancel: a thing to be forgiven then, for the lovely Duchess sat there, and the sight of her angel head was surely enough to give new zest to the congregation's prayers and praises. A church such as Hogarth often drew, with its 'three-decker' arrangement of ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the camp, they had constantly to remain on the rampart; that many had been wounded by the immense number of arrows and all kinds of missiles; that the engines were of great service in withstanding them; that Fabius, at their departure, leaving only two gates open, was blocking up the rest, and was adding breast-works to the ramparts, and was preparing himself for a similar casualty on the following day. Caesar, after receiving this information, reached the camp before sunrise owing to the very great zeal ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... woods, which we must be willing to meet and tolerate for the love within us. Tick-seeds, beggar-needles, mud, mosquitos, rain, heat, hawks, and snakes haunt all our paths, hindering us sometimes, though never really blocking the way. ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... Maitre Francois, and saying "There is nothing so dear and precious as time," rejoice in this one long, golden day in Angers. I am writing after our second dejeuner. We have all spent the morning in the most strenuous sightseeing, going to the cathedral first, which is quite near, its apse blocking the street on which the Cheval Blanc stands. From the west front of the cathedral, which is very narrow in proportion to its height, the ground suddenly descends to the river, a long, broad flight of steps taking the place of a street. There are, on the facade, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... sent to the Spanish West Indies, under Rear-Admiral Hosier, for the purpose of blocking up the galleons or seizing them should they venture out. On the first arrival of the squadron its appearance struck terror along the whole coast, and several Spanish ships were captured. Conceiving that it was his duty to blockade Porto ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... bleating and bellowing of the animals and the trampling of their hoofs upon the rocks grew fainter in the distance, and the golden nimbus that overhung them was lost to sight among the thick pines, while down in the road beneath the tide of vehicles and pedestrians was flowing still as strong as ever, blocking the passage of the troops, and as they drew near Belfort the men had to be brought to a halt again and again, so irresistible was the force of that torrent ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Barbara out of the car like a parcel and almost hugged her. And there they stood holding on to each other's hands and smiling into each other's faces and saying how well they looked, regardless of the fact that they were blocking the way for Doria, who remained in the car, I had to move them on with the reminder that they had the whole week-end for their effusions. Adrian helped Doria to alight, and to Doria then, for the first time, was presented Jaffery Chayne. Jaffery blinked at her oddly as he held her little gloved ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... life is change; nothing continues in the same way for any length of time; happiness must become unhappiness, and will be succeeded again by the joy it had displaced. The past also must be reckoned with; it is seldom as far behind us as we could wish: it is more often in front, blocking the way, and the future trips over it just when we think that the road is clear and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... of that, and now I want to tell you about the steep rocks I am climbing these days," and then follows the application to the big "Hill Difficulty" that was blocking up her ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the road lay empty, but directly in front of him, blocking the way, was a restless, pirouetting pony, and seated upon the pony, unmoved either by his gyrations or by the appearance of a stranger in her path, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... saw also. For a moment he hesitated, then wheeled round to run across the courtyard. Too late, for as he came the flames burst through the main roof of the house, and the timber front of it, blazing furiously, fell outwards, blocking the doorway, so that the place became a furnace into which ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... fire for all the people I really cared for, that sitting altogether round the fire seemed quite as sensible as sulking by one's self in a corner the other end of the room, that the fire made a cheerful and convenient focus for family and friends. They pointed out to me how a stove, blocking up the centre of the room, with a dingy looking fluepipe wandering round the ceiling, would enable us to sit ranged round the walls, like patients in a hospital waiting-room, and use up ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... and stood facing her, blocking the view over the river and the checkered slopes. "Perhaps I might ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... as might be, to meet it, and her colour, for the first time, perceptibly heightened. She looked, for the minute, as her companion had looked—as if twenty protests, blocking each other's way, had surged up within her. But when Charlotte had to make a selection, her selection was always the most effective possible. It was happy now, above all, for being made not in anger but in sorrow. "You give me ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... had by this time been consumed and all hands placed on short allowance, it being impossible to go out hunting again as yet, or to penetrate up the valley to the rabbit warren, on account of the snow blocking the way and rendering the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... her as strange that a taxi, with its flag up for hire, should be standing opposite the bank door, blocking the way for arriving vehicles; or that, having persistently refused many irate would-be hirers, and patiently listened to the asperity of their remarks, the driver should have opened the door and held it back as she walked straight across the pavement, got in, and, without hesitating gave the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... at first, I was flying at a shocking velocity, while something, tongue in cheek, seemed to whisper me: 'There must be other trains blocking the lines, at stations, in yards, and everywhere—it is a maniac's ride, a ride of death, and Flying Dutchman's frenzy: remember your dark five-deep brigade of passengers, who rock and bump together, and will suffer in a collision.' But with mulish stubbornness ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... claimant, so long as by the allied help he controlled the sea. The same year Minorca, with its valuable harbor, Port Mahon, was also taken, and from that time for fifty years remained in English hands. Blocking Cadiz and Cartagena by the possession of Gibraltar, and facing Toulon with Port Mahon, Great Britain was now as strongly based in the Mediterranean as either France or Spain; while, with Portugal as an ally, she controlled the two stations ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the cross-passages between that in which the fan was placed and the mouths of the tunnels should be blocked tight. There was some difficulty in keeping this blocking tight, owing to the force of the blasting blowing out the bulkheads. The fan, however, did good service when it and the bulkheads were in good order. The compressed air discharged from the drills kept the headings ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... products of the manufacturing industry. To the north of the town is the monument of the Kirk-lar, or "forty heroes," who fell defending Daghestan against the Arabs in 728; and to the south lies the seaward extremity of the Caucasian wall (50 m. long), otherwise known as Alexander's wall, blocking the narrow pass of the Iron Gate or Caspian Gates (Portae Albanae or Portae Caspiae). This, when entire, had a height of 29 ft. and a thickness of about 10 ft., and with its iron gates and numerous watch-towers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... repellent than Venus or Psyche. Then again, there are so many large women. They are common. They obstruct the public highway. They tower forth in theatre-stalls, and nod jewelled tiaras from the elevation of opera- boxes, blocking out the view of the stage. They are more often assertive than lovable. Therefore let me not cling to an illusion which will not bear analysis. For Miss Vancourt is not a tall woman,—nor for that matter is she short,—she is indescribable, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... fantastic rows along the naked branches, glittering like jewels in the sunshine, or rattling in the northern blast; when the ground was covered deep with snow, and the wind "driving o'er the fields," whirled into huge drifts, blocking up the doors and paths ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... not to be standing here, blocking the way!" John admitted to himself. "I wonder is London always like this, rough and ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... see its entire length, and it was empty. In thinking of nothing but Miss Forbes, he had forgotten the chaperon. He was impressed with the fact that the immediate presence of a chaperon was desirable. Directly in front of the car, blocking its advance, were two barrels, with a two-inch plank sagging heavily between them. Beyond that the main street of Fairport lay ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... reached the recess before Pan-at-lee's cave and here he halted and turned to give battle to Ta-den. Unslinging his club which had hung down his back from a thong about his neck he stood upon the level floor of the entrance-way effectually blocking Ta-den's ascent. From all directions the warriors of Kor-ul-ja were swarming toward the interlopers. Tarzan, who had reached a point on the same level with Ta-den but a little to the latter's left, saw that nothing short of a miracle could save them. Just ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the minimum spacing of trains, it was imperative to make the blocks as short as consistent with safety, in order not to cut down the carrying capacity of the railway. This led to a study of the special problem presented by subway signaling and a development of a blocking system upon lines which it is believed are distinctly in advance of anything ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... exit. Most kinds of Meliponae are in this way masons as well as workers in wax, and pollen-gatherers. One little species (undescribed) not more than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid substance, outside the entrance to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated. The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of pigmy bees are always stationed, apparently ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... so, do you want it proved?" Drawing back the curtains very quietly Tristan stood a moment blocking the doorway before motioning to La Mothe to follow him. He knew his master, and wished to make certain that the stage picture was set before ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... a case of pregnancy complicated with both uterine fibroids and measles. Other cases of a similar nature to the foregoing are too numerous to mention. Figure 13, taken from Spiegelberg, shows a large fibroid blocking the pelvis ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the stuff from the back sled into the others, and go on, even if we were a bit crowded. But with the front sled blocking this narrow road, I don't see how ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... for things varying all the way from serious crime down to small offenses. It cost more to be a highway robber, burglar, gun-man or murderer, for instance, than merely to keep a saloon open after the legal time for closing. A man had to pay more for running a big gambling-house, than simply for blocking the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... and a long grey fence. It was while she was so looking that the car behind shot suddenly past and ahead, and she saw its tail lights moving away with a pang of hopelessness. Then, before she realised what had happened, the big car ahead slowed and swung sideways, blocking the road, and the cab came to a jerky stop that flung her against the window. She saw two figures in the dim light of the taxi's head lamps, heard somebody speak, and the door ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... obstacles. But it was very laborious, and the intervals between successive breakdowns grew ominously shorter and shorter. And the last time the trick didn't work, though we had all heaved and heaved till we were very near exhaustion. We were fairly stuck now, half blocking the road. Great excitement, as was only natural, developed ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... of the National Guard, newly equipped, a big, full-blooded fellow, with a red beard, the husband of a fashionable dressmaker, who every evening at the beer-house, after his sixth glass of beer would show, with matches, an infallible plan for blocking Paris and crushing the Prussian army like pepper, and was foolish enough to insist ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... easier to realize, had I taken more than one stroke!" he answered irritably, still blocking the way on his great horse, still twisting at his mustache point, still looking down at her through eyes that blazed a dozen accumulated centuries' store of lawless ambition. He was proud of that back-handed swipe of his that would cleave ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... many robots around, they've probably got signals that we couldn't understand, anyway. If we meet anybody it'll mean a battle. Hold it!" Peering through walls with his spy-ray, Costigan had seen two men approaching, blocking an intersecting corridor into which they must turn. "Two of 'em, a man and a robot—the robot's on your side. We'll wait here, right at the corner—when they round it, take 'em!" And Costigan put away his goggles in readiness ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... had no overcoat—and was weak from a long illness. During that hour he nearly perished. He was obliged to run hard to keep his blood moving at all—and then he came back to the station house and found a crowd blocking the street before the door! This was in the month of January, 1904, when the country was on the verge of "hard times," and the newspapers were reporting the shutting down of factories every day—it was estimated that a million and a half men were thrown out of work ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... dead, but feeling through every nerve and fibre an exquisite sense of peace—a rest he had not known since his boyhood—a relief he scarcely knew from what. He felt that he was smiling, and yet his pillow was wet with the tears that glittered still on his lashes. The sand blocking up his doorway, he leaped lightly from his window. A few clouds were still sailing slowly in the heavens, the trailing plumes of a great benediction that lay on sea and shore. He scarcely recognized ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... great loss, etc.—the reporter may begin his story with an account of the crowd present or the blockade of traffic. Such a beginning should always be used only as a last resort when a fire has no other interesting phase, for crowds always gather at fires and only a very serious blocking of traffic is worth ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... already noticed that the messengers from the yachts were killing time by teasing the flustered young woman; it was good-humored badinage, but it was effectively blocking progress at that ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... contrived a couple of peep-holes—one in the door-end and one in the left-hand long wall; the former commanding the gate by which I had entered, the latter a portion of the street by which I had reached the gate. The blocking of all windows on three sides had an obvious significance: les hommes were not supposed to see anything which went on in the world without; les hommes might, however, look their fill on a little washing-shed, on a corner of what seemed to be another wing ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... out that the losses are not so great as represented. At least there may be no loss personal to yourself, my dear, and I trust that such will prove to be the fact. Therefore take heart. It is getting late. The snow continues falling and the roads must be blocking up. Return home and endeavour to maintain your soul in peace. To-morrow, you will come to early mass, when I trust that we shall have better ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... Hal made out another body of troops blocking the road. He reduced the speed of the car and spoke ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... American Party Armed Neutrality As Everywhere Else, Nothing Can Be Done As I Would Not Be a Slave, So I Would Not Be a Master. Asking Cabinet Opinions on Fort Sumter Attempt to Form and Coalition Cabinet Bankruptcy Blocking "Compromise" on Slavery Issue Bull Run Defeat Capital and Labor Cease to Call Slavery Wrong, and Join Them in Calling it Right Coercion Colonization Communication with Vice-president Compensated Emancipation Condolence over Failure of Ft. Sumter Relief Conservatism Constitution Alludes to ...
— Widger's Quotations from Abraham Lincoln's Writings • David Widger
... What do you take me for?" Anstey had come to the doorway, but stayed there, blocking the passage. Prescott stepped to the fireplace and stooped as though to look under the loose bricks. Dodge, in a panic, got there before him and ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... no easy matter for the men in the smoker to free themselves. In turning over, a number of the seats in the car had become loosened, falling on many, and blocking up both ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... Then we draw near the fire and I take my endless mending, and we talk or read aloud. Both are very intelligent, and Mr. Buchan has very extended information and a good deal of insight into character. Of course our circumstances, the likelihood of release, the prospects of snow blocking us in and of our supplies holding out, the sick calves, "Jim's" mood, the possible intentions of a man whose footprints we have found and traced for three miles, are all topics that often recur, and few of which ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the palisades cut for the new corrals, and then we can turn our attention to getting out the rock for the chapel. We have a quarry of nice soft stone all opened up, and I'll put a dozen vaqueros to blocking out the rock in a few days. We always have a big stock of zacahuiste grass on hand for thatching jacals, plenty of limestone to burn for the lime, sand in abundance, and all we lack is the masons. You'll have to send them out from the Mission, but ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... of Pisani, and despatched fourteen great galleys to crush Corbaro, who had with him but four vessels. Pisani at once sailed to his assistance, with ten more ships, and the passage was now so narrow that the Genoese did not venture to attack, and Corbaro completed the operation of blocking up the Brondolo passage. The next day the Canal of Lombardy was similarly blocked; and thus, on the fourth day after leaving Venice, Pisani had accomplished his object, and had shut out the Genoese galleys ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... the offense for the other firm to secure the issuance of this interesting document, so it was at once evident that the whole affair had been pre-arranged by the up-river firm for the purpose of blocking off Thorpe's drive. After serving the injunction, the official ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... ambition in that direction and to take up the study of theology. At this writing he is a popular preacher, who will always believe it was a most providential thing for our country that turned him aside from blocking the entrance of George Dewey to the Naval ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... through the doorway, and, to an extent, through the hole in the cave's top, as did also the rains, but the light was by no means perfect. The doorway, for obvious reasons, was narrow and there was a huge rock, long ago rolled inside with much travail, which could on occasion be utilized in blocking the narrow passage. Barely room to squeeze by this obstruction existed at the doorway. The sneaking but dangerous hyena had a keen scent and was full of curiosity. The monster bear of the time was ever hungry ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... water rose up right into the town of Skjagen, the sand could not suck it all in, one had to wade through it or go by boat. The storms threw vessel after vessel on the fatal reefs; there were snow-storm and sand-storms; the sand flew up to the houses, blocking the entrances, so that people had to creep up through the chimneys; that was nothing at all remarkable here. It was pleasant and cheerful indoors, where peat fuel and fragments of wood from the wrecks blazed and crackled upon the hearth. Merchant Bronne read ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... immediately did: he threw open King's House to the wounded, and set the surgeons to work, thereby checking bitter criticism and blocking the movement rising against him. For it was well known he had rejected all warnings, had persisted in his view that trust in the Maroons and fair treatment of themselves and the slaves were all that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nevertheless. But two roads offered: Suzanne wanted to take the one leading to the pass, on the left; Marthe, the one on the right, through the woods. They exchanged sharp words, blocking each other's way. ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... together in readiness for Peter. Then she turned, somewhat stiff after her long journey, and found the door already swinging open and a man's broad shoulders blocking the opening. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... says: "The colon being the part of the bowel involved in obstruction due to fecal accumulation, it may be further assumed that the blocking of the gut will most usually concern its lower or terminal parts. Accumulation of feces is most common in the rectum and sigmoid flexure, and then in the cecum. Masses of feces may block the colon at any point, and more particularly at the flexures ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... when a bend of the river shewed us the island and picturesque fort of Bukkur, apparently blocking up all further progress; the left bank being studded with the white bungalows of Sukkur, half-hidden in clumps of date-trees; while the right was clothed to the water's edge with the bright green foliage of the gardens ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... north side prevented Hancock from accomplishing the programme laid out for him. Its impracticability was demonstrated early on the 27th, and Hancock's soldierly instincts told him this the moment he unexpectedly discovered Kershaw blocking the New Market and Charles City roads. To Hancock the temptation to assault Kershaw's position was strong indeed, but if he carried it there would still remain the dubious problem of holding the line necessary for my safe return, so ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... life than with Redemption as a transaction between God and man; St. Paul and the Old Testament rather than the gospels were its inspiration. Moreover, the material was viewed not as penetrated by and revealing the spiritual, but as sheer impediment blocking out the vision of spiritual things. Hence the extremer Puritans were completely out of touch with the sensuous poetry of Christmas, a festival which, as we shall see, they actually suppressed when ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... Sulphurously he began cursing at the trickle of smoke under the motor frame. It was nothing—a child could have put it out with a bucket of sand. But upon it fell Tedge and the engineer, stamping, shouting, shoving oil-soaked waste upon it, and covertly blocking off the astounded black deckman when he rushed ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... she couldn't. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't see why we shouldn't trust her as if she were one of ourselves; a nice, jolly little woman, with no harm in her. What motive could she possibly have for blocking ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... little trouble with the door-fastenings, that often perplex us in a like case, blocking egress with mysterious mechanisms. Housebreakers were rare in St. Sennans. He had more fear his footsteps would be audible; but it seemed not, and he walked away towards the cliff ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... so lost in talk by rustic streams? And yet as he watched, uncertain whether to advance from the cover or to choose some other path to the house, he soon came to doubt the truth of this first conjecture. The man stood, tall and square, blocking the entrance to the bridge, and throwing out his hands as he spoke in a wild eager fashion, while the deep tones of his stormy voice rose at times into accents of menace and of anger. She stood fearlessly in front of him, still ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for me to believe that we were arrested because we were obstructing traffic or blocking ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... acquired sufficient skill, to the laying out of the American bond; then the building of square piers of different sizes; then the building of square and pigeon hole corners, then the laying out of brick footings. The second year included rowlock and bonded segmental arches; blocking, toothing, and corbeling; building and bonding of vaulted walls; polygonal and circular walls, piers and chimneys; fire-places and flues. The third year advanced a man to the nice points of the trade such as the foreign bonds—Flemish, ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... to grow from day to day there could be but one outcome. And at last when Rusty came home late one afternoon with a plump insect in his bill he found Chippy, Jr., blocking the doorway. His head peered through the round opening. And his face wore a ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and I was master, and I would be obeyed; but it seemed that I was wrong. My proud hirelings never left off their dispute till somehow the ox-carts and mule-teams were jammed together, and a thoroughfare found for us. Then it was explained that those peasants were always blocking that square in that way and that I had, however unwillingly, been discharging the duty of a public-spirited citizen in compelling them to give way. I did not care for that; I prized far more the quiet with which they ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... on a heel, P. Sybarite met a second onset made more dangerous by the cooler calculations of a more sophisticated antagonist. Nevertheless, deftly blocking a rain of blows, he closed in as if eager to escape punishment, and planted a lifted knee in the large of the detective's stomach so neatly that he, too, collapsed like a punctured presidential boom and lay ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... wooden door to pay the gangsters, there was a slight grating noise, which followed a double click. A bar of wood automatically slid down into position behind the door, blocking a possible opening from the front of the cellar. The lights suddenly were darkened. The sound of shuffling feet would have indicated to a listener that the owner of the nervous hand was retreating to the rear of the darkened den. A noise resembling that of the turn of ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... complain of you and have you bound over to keep the peace. She said if I did that she would refuse to testify against you. She said she would rather"—here a slight bitterness came into his voice and, for an instant, he had a foolish satisfaction in reminding Tira of her unfriendliness in blocking him—"she would rather have me considered out of my mind than let ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... that I must have been spared only for a harder fate, and the figure of Stacy Shunk peering at me through the top of his hat, uttering his ominous warning, rose before my startled eyes. I should have run, but my retreat was barred, the girl blocking the way over the shelving beach. I took a backward step and for an instant the Prophet Pound's star was in the ascendant, for the foot touched the water. So great was my dread of the Professor that had I been ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... to reason with his passion. He had just been battering his pride and persistence up against men whose manner of refusal showed that they remembered what Fletcher Fogg had said regarding the prospects of successful floating of the Conomo. There stood the ponderous pirate, blocking Mayo's way on the sidewalk, just as he had blocked the young man's prospects in life in the Montana affair—just as he had closed avenues of credit. Mayo bumped against him and crowded him back across the sidewalk to the hotel's granite ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... descending the Vale of York. The overflow of the lake by this route, south of Malton, must have worn a channel down to a lower level than 130 feet O.D. before the ice retreated from the seaward end of the Vale, otherwise the escape would have taken place over the low hills blocking the valley in that direction and the normal course of the drainage of the country would have been resumed. The southern overflow evidently dug its way through the hills fast enough to maintain that outlet, and at the present time the narrow gorge at Kirkham Abbey is only 50 feet above sea level, ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... washes and decks out the dirty or careless child, but no one can ask her to wash and deck out a goblin with a heart like hell. No one can kill the fatted calf for Mephistopheles. The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... the following terms: "kickoff," "tackling," "end run," "line buck," "interference," "blocking," "holding," "off side," "punt," "drop kick," "forward pass," "fair catch," "downs," "scrimmage," "touchdown," "touchback," "safety," "goal from touchdown," ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... interior would be entirely marred by such a change. Firstly, the organ would have to be chopped into two and stowed away in the triforium, unless these enthusiasts would prefer to revert to an organ-gallery blocking up one of the transepts. Secondly, the stalls would have to be mutilated and rearranged. Certainly, the cathedral would resemble a parish church in some respects, but at a tremendous cost. There would be ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... little value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the stream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots, often blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the whole country round; and as soon as it forces its way through its former ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... attempt would be futile, and would expose the blocking force itself to serious risks. There are two interpretations available here. I follow that of Chang Yu. The other is indicated in Ts'ao Kung's brief note: "Draw closer together"—i.e., see that a portion of your own ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... encounter, as a drunkard to his bottle. First Perion killed Ruggiero of the Lamberti and after that Perion raged as a wolf harrying sheep. Six other stalwart men he cut down, like a dumb maniac among tapestries. His horse was slain and lay blocking the road, making a barrier behind which Perion fought. Then Perion encountered Giacomo di Forio, and while the two contended Gulio the Red very warily cast his sword like a spear so that it penetrated Perion's left shoulder ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... phrases, and these phrases are declared to be objects of reverence but not of intelligence, it is on the way to become a useless encumbrance; the rubbish of the past; blocking the road. Theology then retires into the position it occupies in the Church of Rome at present, an unmeaning frostwork of dogma, out of all relation to the actual history of ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... was standing before her and blocking the way. It was Agatha Jones in a mock seal-skin coat and big black hat surmounted by black feathers, and with Charlie Wilkes (with his diminutive cap pushed back from his oily fringe and pimpled forehead) ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the left-hand side, was spinning away through Chatham, and down the straight road to Canterbury. They slowed up going through Sittingbourne and Faversham, which were already in the hands of the Allied forces, thanks to John Castellan's precautions in blocking all railroads to Dover, and the German flag was saluted by the garrisons, much to Lord Kitchener's quietly-expressed displeasure, but he knew they were playing for a big stake, and so he just touched his cap, as they swung through the ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... down at his master's whistle and now stood broadside-on in the middle of the road, blocking the way. The girl pulled up her horse with a jerk and, half-turning her head to her attendant, she called. The ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn and harbouring the birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits and blocking out the sun. These and such like blots on a gentleman-farmer's agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... my last question I saw the infernal Thing blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain extent ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... partners and the whole table is blocked; leaving one lady and one gentleman on either side of the block, staring alone at their plates. At this point the hostess has to come to the rescue by attracting the blocking lady's attention and saying, "Sally, you cannot talk to Professor Bugge any longer! Mr. Smith has been trying his ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... lessened, the blocking action of the fatigue products in the body be-comes greater and morbid somnolence sets in. There is a high tolerance of carbohydrates which are promptly stored as fat. I am surprised, Doctor Haynes, that you ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve |
