"Narrow escape" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Emily, the thing's done; the bills of sale are already signed, and in Haley's hands; and you must be thankful it is no worse. That man has had it in his power to ruin us all,—and now he is fairly off. If you knew the man as I do, you'd think that we had had a narrow escape." ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he concealed his resentment. In crossing over to Malacca he fell in with a large junk, or country vessel, which he engaged and attempted to board, but the enemy, setting fire to a quantity of inflammable oleaginous matter, he was deterred from his design, with a narrow escape of the destruction of his own ship. The junk was then battered from a distance until forty of her men were killed, when Alboquerque, admiring the bravery of the crew, proposed to them that, if they would strike and acknowledge themselves vassals of Portugal, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... much put about by that narrow escape. Squalls were common on this coast, and it was the business of one aspiring to be a fisherman to take things ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... and philosophy. The melancholy is intensified by the ponderous style, which suggests a man weary of a heavy burden. The air seems to be filled with what Johnson once called 'inspissated gloom.' 'Rasselas,' one may say, has a narrow escape of being a great book, though it is ill calculated for the hasty readers of to-day. Indeed, the defects are serious enough. The class of writing to which it belongs demands a certain dramatic picturesqueness to point the moral effectively. Not only ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... impassable gorges of the arid country just beyond the fertile basin that was bounded by the hills to the east of him. He had crossed that parched and desolate country of the dead himself and he knew from his own experience and the narrow escape he had had from succumbing to its relentless cruelty no lesser man could hope to win his way to safety from any considerable distance within its borders. Vividly he recalled the bleached bones of the long-dead warrior in the bottom of the precipitous gorge ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was not difficult. They had thought they might find broken glass on top, but there was nothing of the sort. Once inside, however, they speedily discovered why that precaution was not taken—and also that they had had a remarkably narrow escape. For scarcely had they dropped to the ground and taken shelter when they saw a figure, carrying a gun, approaching. It was a man making the rounds of the wall. While they watched he met another man, also armed, and turned to retrace ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... occurred at Whitwick Colliery, Leicestershire, in 1893, when two lads were killed, whilst a third was rescued after a very narrow escape. The lads, it is stated, were working with naked lights, when a sudden fall of coal released a quantity of gas, and an immediate explosion was the natural result. Accidents had been so rare at this pit that it was regarded as particularly ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... that is what I can't tell—no, not I; but I knows this, that the child has had a narrow escape of his precious life, and I'd never trust him again with that there Sedley—no, not ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... father, huskily, as she took his hand and kissed it; "I have had a narrow escape; another instant and it would have been all over with ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... The narrow escape restored a trace of his good humor, and he was shrewd enough to divert her mind before the incident made an impression. He reached out and ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... last," replied Harry, shaking Lawless warmly by the hand; "but I've had a narrow escape of losing my life, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the Boyne, the king had a narrow escape, a cannonball from the walls striking the ground at his foot as he was passing through a gap in ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... left either side as they took slight offence, or were disappointed in their greedy expectations, and joined the other. Well! Warwick's brother soon beat the Lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken, were beheaded without a moment's loss of time. The deposed King had a narrow escape; three of his servants were taken, and one of them bore his cap of estate, which was set with pearls and embroidered with two golden crowns. However, the head to which the cap belonged, got safely into Lancashire, and lay pretty quietly ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the houses from which a shot had been fired, an innocent Englishman, who, being elderly and deaf, knew nothing of what had happened, came downstairs unsuspectingly on to the pavement into the middle of the crowd, and had a very narrow escape for his life. Some ingenious self-constituted detective called out "That's the man," and the crowd, having long waited in vain for somebody, were only too glad to have a victim thus extemporized to their hands, and if a few of the cooler and more ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... question by some. It evidently was not to perpetuate his father's name, though from the beginning of generations this has been a sufficient argument for calling son after father; on that ground John Baptist had a narrow escape from being called Zacharias. That however could not influence the decision in Abraham Lockwood's case, because his father's name was William. Perhaps it was that the child indicated a patriarchal spirit, and conducted himself ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... but his chain was too short. Then I knew I had no mission for taming panthers. From the first I had feared that he would kill some child, and it was impossible to prevent them trooping to see him. After my own narrow escape I protested so strongly against keeping him, that my husband consented to sell him to a menagerie; but those which came were supplied with panthers, and, although he was a splendid specimen, full nine feet long, no ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... narrow escape and showed them the automatic writing, the message from Penelope's mother, not the evil message; whereupon Christopher, in amazement, gave the corroborative testimony of his battlefield experience. The ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... he said, about taking the carriage into the town. He reminded them of the recent uproar of the people, and their narrow escape, and warned them that if they were recognized they might ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... case, as he was sitting in front of Government House, which was at that very moment undergoing a vigorous bombardment. When I pointed this out to him, he confessed that he had noticed it himself, but did not think much of it. He was in excellent spirits, and told me a funny story about the narrow escape of his mother-in-law. I am now off to see how the other side are progressing. If the Post Office people tell you they can't send my telegrams to you, refuse ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... experience that he deserved none, struck off his head at one blow. Then informing the intended victim, who stood near gazing with astonishment, of the wicked arts of the accursed Bharam, and of his own narrow escape from almost certain destruction, he advised the young man to remount his camel, and return to the spot where he had disembarked from the vessel, which would safely convey him back to his own country. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... there were bumbling about inside like bees disturbed at night, while two more were crushed flat, and a third had all its side torn out. Oddly enough, however, nobody was hurt, though several people had a narrow escape ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... a narrow escape," said Carter, shaking his head at them, "and what puts such wicked mischief into your heads, I don't know. But it's not for me to be reprovin' ye. March into the house now, and tell your Grandma about it, and ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... terrible to have a fire start in our timber," he went on. "We should lose all that we have put into the venture so far—and that would mean a good deal to us all. As it stands now, we have had a narrow escape. Did you go up where you could obtain a view ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape. It is an old remark, that boys who shine at school do not make the greatest figure when they grow up and come out into the world. The things, in fact, which a boy is set to learn at school, and on which his success depends, are things which ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... upon Miss Kathleen Pierce. Not that Miss Pierce was of a misgiving temperament: she had too calm and superb a conviction of her own incontrovertible privilege in every department of life for that. But Esme Elliot had given her a hint of her narrow escape from the "Clarion," and she was angry. To the Pierce type of disposition, anger is a spur. Kathleen's large green car increased its accustomed twenty-miles-an-hour pace, from which the police of the business section thoughtfully averted their faces, to something nearer twenty-five. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... don't make any squeal at the house about my narrow escape; for I knew Martha only meant it for the best. Next day Mr. Ellins don't show up at the office at all, and that evenin' Martha is better posted on his condition than I am. She's been busy on the wire again, this ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... should make him feverish. However, in that very moment when she was off guard, the communication had been made by his valet, only too proud to have something to tell, and with the pleasing addition that Miss Mohun had had a narrow escape. Whereupon ensued an urgent message to Miss Mohun to come and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Prince, and soon afterwards became the receiver of his revenues in Wales. When the Queen fled to her own country, Richard followed with a large sum of money, collected by virtue of his office; and he had a narrow escape for his life, being chased by a troop of English lancers as far as Paris itself, where he lay concealed for a week in the belfry of the Minorites' Church. When his pupil came to the throne many lucrative offices ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... killed a great number of those who had come out of Troyes, and captured many others, and saved their man, as you have heard, but he said that never in all his life had he had such a narrow escape as ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... on shore and see the waves of the ocean foaming against each other, foretells your narrow escape from injury ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... sat in the middle of the dear Old Briar-patch making faces and laughing at Reddy Fox. Of course that wasn't a nice thing to do, not a bit nice. But Peter had just had a narrow escape, a very narrow escape, for Reddy Fox had sprung out from behind a bush as Peter came down the Lone Little Path, and had so nearly caught Peter that he had actually pulled some fur out of Peter's coat. Now Peter was safe in the dear Old Briar-patch. He was a little out of breath, because ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... letters continue to be as full of information and interest as ever, though he is a married man. Tell Sophy that the subject of electricity and electro-magnetism is every day affording new facts, and all the philosophers on the Continent are busy about it. Sir Humphry Davy had a narrow escape of breaking his neck by a fall down stairs, but he is not hurt, tout an contraire. I had a letter, written in very good English, the other day from M. de Stael; he is now in London, and tells me the French and the ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... "A narrow escape!" said the doctor, as we breathed freely once more. "Go on, Gyp. Let's get to earth; ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... buried my share of the plunder four or five inches deep in a corner of the hospital yard. As to Thompson, there wasn't any reason why suspicion should fall upon him. Soon after I got back to my regiment I got ill again and was left in a hospital at Cuenca, and had a narrow escape of it this morning." ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... "We have had a narrow escape!" exclaimed the tall Cointet, when he was once more in the Place du Murier. "An hour later the glitter of the silver would have thrown a new light on the deed of partnership. Our man would have fought shy ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Portrait of Jackson. Jackson's Presence of Mind. Jackson's Narrow Escape. Jackson and the Acorns. Jackson as Judge. Jackson and the Indian Prisoners. The Battle of New Orleans. Jackson ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... oblige me by letting me have a third volume of "Wilberforce"? The fact is, that in reading that work, my neighbour, Mr. Alexander, fell fast asleep from exhaustion, and, setting himself on fire, burnt the volume and his bed, to the narrow escape of the whole Terrace. Since that book has been published, premiums of fire assurance are up, and not having already insured my No. 2, now that the fire has broken out near my own door, no office will touch my house nor any others in the Terrace until it is ascertained that Mr. Alexander ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... upon my curious adventure on that night when I met Olinto, and of my narrow escape from the hands of my unknown enemies. I wondered if that ingenious and dastardly attempt upon my life had really any connection with that strange incident at Leghorn. As day succeeded day, my mind became filled ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... Icelandic experiences, for, to use one of his own phrases, the power of the hills was upon him. With Mr. Lock he visited the concession, and on his way passed through a village where there was a fair, and where he had a very narrow escape. A little more, we are told, and a hideous, snuffy, old Icelandic woman would have kissed him. In respect to the survey, the mass of workable material was enormous. There was no lack of sulphur, and the speculation promised to be a remunerative ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... thought would produce money. He didn't make out very well in the revolution business, so I understood. The revolutionary party was beaten, or they lost their shipment of arms, or something like that. At any rate, Dixwell Hardley had a narrow escape with his life when a ship went down, and from then on I've been trying to get him to ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... to follow the retreating O.C., while the yearlings in the tent stood in dazed silence. They were still panting over the narrow escape from a scrape that might have cost them their places on the roll ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... Napoleon as the only sovereign who has really threatened our independence, and all but effected the subjugation of the Continent, we can scarcely conceive the terror with which a century and a half ago they, with reason, inspired all Europe, or the narrow escape which the continental states, at least, then made from being all reduced to the condition of provinces of France. The forces of that monarchy, at all times formidable to its neighbours, from the warlike spirit of its inhabitants, and their rapacious disposition, conspicuous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... right and left, even those that were made of plate-glass. The hailstones were on an average the size of walnuts, and some very much larger. Two trees were struck by lightning within thirty yards of me. I had a narrow escape, for these large trees were shattered, and the fragments dispersed by the hurricane; it was an awful moment, and I shall never forget it as ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... life, under the hands of the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and dimple-dipping small-pox. The second is PHILIP CODD, Esq., formerly of Kensington, and now of Rumsted Court, near Maidstone, in Kent, who has a son that had a very narrow escape under the real small-pox, about four years ago, and who also had been cow-poxed by Jenner himself. This last-mentioned gentleman I have known, and most sincerely respected, from the time of our both being about eighteen years of age. When the young gentleman, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... of wireless telegraphy in relation to disasters at sea was proved in a remarkable way yesterday morning. While the Channel was enveloped in a dense fog, which had lasted throughout the greater part of the night, the East Goodwin Lightship had a very narrow escape from sinking at her moorings by being run into by the steamship R. F. Matthews, 1,964 tons gross burden, of London, outward bound from the Thames. The East Goodwin Lightship is one of four such vessels marking the Goodwin ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... a concert was instantly granted, and she was on the point of leaving, when he asked her whether she had heard of President Steyn's narrow escape. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... competing for any distinction at the University, comforting myself with the thought that I could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree. The day before the examination began I fell ill; and when at last I recovered, after a narrow escape from death, I turned my back upon Oxford, and went down alone to visit the old place where I had been born, feeble in health and profoundly disgusted and discouraged. I was twenty-one years of age, master of myself and of my fortune; but so deeply ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... been drowned, although he had had an exceedingly narrow escape. It was not the rigging which so endangered his life. As he rose toward the surface his head struck the pole with which the negro was accustomed to push his boat around in the shallow water, and the blow was so stunning that he did no more than instinctively cling to the object which ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... once roused, once bursting free, they were bound to crush him and everything they came in contact with; and I am greatly mistaken if, in this man's life, there had not been some such outbreak; if it was not owing to the lessons of experience, to a narrow escape from ruin, that he now kept himself so tightly in hand. What especially struck me in him was the combination of a sort of inborn natural ferocity, with an equally inborn generosity—a combination I have never ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... to deny that we have had a narrow escape!" remarked the colonel, looking out of the window at some twenty servants of the Patel, who were ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... is indeed a narrow escape that you have had," the Countess said. "I was not feeling very well, so I sent my maid to ask you to come to my room. She said you had already gone, so I took the liberty of coming ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... narrow escape from an accident when the turn had been made in the preceding lap had made the crew of each boat more cautious. At all events neither tried to cut in very far upon the other and even on the home stretch in the second lap neither ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... a narrow escape," the woman presently exclaims in peculiarly hoarse tones. "And the danger is not over yet! Listen!" To Liso's terror an inferno of howls and whines sounds from the yard outside, and she sees, gleaming in at her through the window-panes, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... then Colonel Goring, commanding a regiment in the Low Countries, was, at the siege of Breda, September, 1637, severely wounded in the leg, and had a narrow escape of losing it. Sir William Boswell, the English ambassador at the Hague, writes to Bramhall, then Bishop of Derry, and afterwards Archbishop ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... English general was suddenly struck down by the enemy, half of his army were killed or wounded, and the rest put to flight. Washington had two horses shot under him, and four bullets went through his coat. It was a narrow escape for the young man. One of those who fought in the battle said, "I expected every moment to see him fall"—but he was ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... took me and many other men with him. One of our first duties was to carry off the English garrison and privateers and merchantmen from Corsica, which had declared for the French. We soon afterwards fought several actions with the enemy, and then war broke out between England and Spain, and we had a narrow escape from an overwhelming force of Spanish ships. We had just sailed from Gibraltar, when two Spanish line-of-battle ships followed us. We were keeping pretty well ahead when a man fell overboard. To let ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... a narrow escape!" he said, panting for breath. "Now, how am I ever going to get out again! Carlo will pounce on me if I stick my nose out. I guess the best thing I can do is to sleep in here, and in the morning go out when Edith calls me. She'll keep ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... power!' That no innocent person should incur blame, Coleridge went directly afterwards to the Proctor, who told him that he saw him clap his hands, but fixed on this person, who he knew had not the power. 'You have had,' said he, 'a narrow escape.'"—"Life of S. T. C"., i, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... recent agitation. Now that the excitement was over, Grace felt her anger rising. Eleanor's thirst for glory and revenge had been the means of losing Grace the part that she had so eagerly looked forward to playing, not to mention the narrow escape Anne had run. Still, on the whole, Grace felt glad that so far no ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... deprive them,—"it is very true that had not the Morcerfs hesitated, my daughter would have married Monsieur Albert. The general depended much on it; he even came to force M. Danglars. We have had a narrow escape." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was broken. She brushed herself, she picked bits of furze from her dress. She held each away from her and let it drop in a silly, vacant way, all the while running the phrases over in her mind: 'He threw me down and ill-treated me; my frock is ruined, what a state it is in! I had a narrow escape of being murdered. I will tell them that... that will explain ... I had a narrow escape of being murdered.' But presently she grew conscious that these thoughts were fictitious thoughts, and that there was ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... nobody will do me so great an injustice as to suppose that I hesitated for one instant about the way of finding that out. Of course I started off directly to inquire if Lady Malkinshaw had had another narrow escape ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... acting it was as fine as Talma's in his famous part of Leicester, which was played throughout with touches of this kind. Dinah felt his heart beating through his coat; it was throbbing with satisfaction, for the journalist had had a narrow escape from the hulks of justice; but it also beat with a very natural fire at seeing Dinah rejuvenescent and restored ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... his teens, with soft, womanly eyes, light hair, and a face that made me sure he must be the living image of his mother, had had a narrow escape. After being wounded he had been taken prisoner to a farmhouse. Nobody there had done anything for him, and at length, after many hours, watching his opportunity, he had crept into the darkness and got back to the British trenches by crawling ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... that Cawthorne was occupied by the famous 9th legion after they had left Scotland, owing to the similarity of construction between the most westerly camp at Cawthorne and the one at Dealgin Ross in Strathern, where the 9th legion were supposed to have had their narrow escape from defeat by the Caledonians during Agricola's sixth campaign. But this also is ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... refused to have his leg amputated, when the surgeon had pointed out the necessity of the operation; and that it was now said that it was too late to have the operation performed, and that there was little or no chance of his recovery. They asked me many questions relative to the narrow escape of Bramble, and ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... SQUEAK. A narrow escape, a chance: he had a squeak for his life. To squeak; to confess, peach, or turn stag. They squeak beef upon us; they cry ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... fact it would not be fair to him to risk taking them after dark, when you know his enemies are after them. You have had a narrow escape this afternoon, you are ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... but on the voyage was captured by a Dutch man-of-war, which was driven by stress of weather to St. Ives in Cornwall. Bale was arrested on suspicion of treason, but soon released. At Dover he had another narrow escape, but he eventually made his way to Holland and thence to Frankfort and Basel. During his exile he devoted himself to writing. After his return, on the accession of Elizabeth, he received (1560) a prebendal stall at Canterbury. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... and she went to bed with a feverish chill. Just at that moment, my aunt, who is of a very cheerful disposition, came in, laughing, to tell us that during the storm the Pierrot who had made us laugh so much had had a narrow escape of being drowned. 'Ah! the poor Pierrot!' I exclaimed, 'tell us all about him, dear aunt. I am very glad he was saved. Who is he? Do you know?' 'Oh! yes,' she answered, 'everything is known, for he was taken home by our gondoliers. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Barriere Blanche dragged them back to their house, where an order to arrest Mme. d'Albany arrived two days later, that very 20th August which had originally been fixed for their departure. The thought of this narrow escape turned the recollection of that scene at the Barriere Blanche into a perfect nightmare, which focussed, so to speak, all the frenzied horror conceived by Alfieri for the French Revolution, for ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... unsatisfactory justification, and told her that she would lay up trouble for herself by thus encouraging insubordination. He little thought that the laugh in her eyes was at his complacent ignorance of his own son's narrow escape. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the reply. "But I think he will come around all right presently. But he has had a narrow escape. One inch higher up and the bullet would have pierced his heart. He must be taken to the hospital. He ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... the boys related their narrow escape to the others, and all agreed it would be well to keep a sharp lookout ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... of you may be aware, I have this day had a narrow escape from death. Separated from you in the battle, and attended only by my standard-bearer, I was surrounded by the Saracens. I should doubtless have cleft my way through the infidel dogs, but a foul peasant stabbed my ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... is lost, prince, and I am conveying you back to the city. You have had a rough fall and a narrow escape of your life, and can do no more fighting even if fighting were of any ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... a camping or other out-of-doors trip in which the characters have some narrow escape and which ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... through the bush, spear in hand, had a narrow escape, for two guns were presented at him, and but for the energetic action of Don and Jem in striking them up, he must have ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... shore sixteen or eighteen miles, returned, announcing three fathoms of water, and neither bars nor reefs. On the 16th of October they gave their canvas to the breeze, and sailed out of Stage Harbor, which they had named Port Fortune, [55] an appellation probably suggested by their narrow escape in entering and by the bloody tragedy to which we have just referred. Having gone eighteen or twenty miles, they sighted the island of Martha's Vineyard lying low in the distance before them, which they called La Soupconneuse, the suspicious one, as they had several times been in doubt ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... the suspicion entertained by the owner and his elephant trainer had been breathed about the show. Nearly a week had passed since Phil's narrow escape from death; yet, despite all the efforts of Kennedy or the shrewd observation of his employer, they were no nearer a solution of the mystery than before. The days passed, and with them the anger of James ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... shoulders, and rushed him in the direction of the dimly-looming house, throwing one of his own long legs into the air every now and again. The boys ran after. When they reached the house its master was extended on a settee in the living-room, and Hill was telling the tale of their narrow escape to the frightened household. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... indeed very weak, and had had a narrow escape. For some time his companions worked over him before he opened his ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... have gone queer with us if Peggy had not come in with the rake. How d'yee feel, old girl; for you've had a narrow escape too. I wonder we were not too heavy for you, and so pulled you in to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... assured, was not permanently altered: but the same informant—an eye-witness on whom I can fully depend—shared the popular opinion that it had opened, sucked in sea-water, and spouted it out again. If so, the good folks of George Town are quite right in holding that they had a very narrow escape of utter destruction. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... exchanging presents with the Redcross Knight, he bids farewell to Una and her companions. These pursue their journey and soon meet a young knight, Sir Trevisan, fleeing from Despair. Sir Trevisan tells of his narrow escape from this old man, and unwillingly conducts the Redcross Knight back to his cave. The Knight enters and is almost persuaded to take his own life. He is saved by the timely interposition of Una. This is the most powerful canto of ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... Spaniards to announce his own speedy arrival. The Indians of Tumbez repaid this great favour with the blackest ingratitude, as immediately on their arrival, they sacrificed these three Spaniards to their abominable idols. Hernando de Soto made a narrow escape from meeting with the same fate: He was embarked on one of these floats, with a single servant, along with some of the Indians, and had already entered the river of Tumbez, when he was seen by Diego de Aguero and Roderick Lozan, who had already landed, and who made him stop ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... traced along the promontory. Hann had with him Taylor as geologist, and Dr. Tate as botanist, the latter being a survivor of the melancholy Maria expedition to New Guinea. Apparently his ardour for exploration had not been cooled by the narrow escape ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... of that in another fortnight's time. You need absolute quiet, for were you to move, before your wound is fairly healed, inflammation might set in, and that would throw you back for a very long time. You have had a very narrow escape, and you are fortunate, indeed, to have got off with only ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... bank. Once out in the current my raft flew swiftly under the gloomy archway, and I found myself in total darkness, carried smoothly forward by the rapid river. On I went as it seemed to me for many nights and days. Once the channel became so small that I had a narrow escape of being crushed against the rocky roof, and after that I took the precaution of lying flat upon my precious bales. Though I only ate what was absolutely necessary to keep myself alive, the inevitable moment came ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... rapid account of what I said was a narrow escape from death at those rock-holes we had just left. I may say in passing, that what I have recorded as my travels and explorations in Australia in these volumes, are probably not half of what I have really performed, only I divide ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... chair, threw her apron over her head, and cried aloud, partly at the loss of her husband's mate, partly at the thought of the narrow escape he had ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... ensued. The flower of the Austrian chivalry perished on the field of Morgarten, beneath the halberts, arrows, and iron-headed clubs of the shepherds. Leopold, himself, though he succeeded in gaining the shattered remnant of his forces, had a narrow escape, while the Swiss, animated by victory, hastened to Unterwalden, where they defeated another body of Austrians. In this instance Count Otho had as narrow an escape ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... listen a minute," said Billie, her eyes shining with excitement, "I'll tell you what a narrow escape we had." ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... Marquis de Louvois caused him to be created "Antiquary to the King," Louis le Grand, and charged him with collecting coins and medals for the royal cabinet. As he was about to leave Smyrna, he had a narrow escape from the earthquake and subsequent fire which destroyed some fifteen thousand of the inhabitants: he was buried in the ruins; but, his kitchen being cold as becomes a philosopher's, he was dug ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... almost as dark as night, the rain ceased for a moment, and there was silence; and then there shot in upon us a blast of fire and a bolt of thunder, so near and so overwhelming that I verily believe it was a narrow escape from death. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... undoubtedly. They are very fond of dogs, and will dash under the waggons sometimes after one. Rough'un has had a narrow escape. We must look out, for the ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... alone, and quite privately, the king came, and was shut up with Mrs. Delany for an hour. It is out of rule for any of the family to be seen till in mourning, but he knew she was anxious for an account of the queen. I had a very narrow escape of being surprised by him, which would have vexed me, as he only meant to see ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... said he, "that I had the power."—That no innocent person should incur blame, Coleridge went directly afterwards to the Proctor, who told him that he saw him clap his hands, but fixed on this person who he knew had not the power. "You have had," said he, "a narrow escape." ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... surrendered, and turned out to be a vessel the pirate had plundered only a few days previously. This infuriated Spriggs and his crew, who showed their disappointment by half murdering the captain. After a narrow escape from being captured by a French man-of-war near the Island of St. Kitts, Spriggs sailed north to the Summer Isles, or Bermudas. Taking a ship coming from Rhode Island, they found her cargo to consist of horses. Several of the pirates mounted these and galloped up and down the deck ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... so startled the horses none of the occupants of the carry-all knew. The driver knew that they had had a narrow escape from being hurled down an embankment. It was a bad place for horses to take fright. He had managed, however, to pick the team up by the reins and set them down in the middle of the road, where they remained but a few seconds before they were ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... was a narrow escape!" he ejaculated, as he brushed the water from his face. "I was afraid I was ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... daily and hourly, Aunt Faith. It was a narrow escape, and no one can appreciate how great was the danger but myself. If I had gone astray I might, indeed, have come back to Him at last, but through what trials, what bitter suffering! Now, I feel that my feet ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... should not wonder. But, in the meantime, I treasure up my lace very much. I daren't even trust the washing of it to my maid" (the little charity school-girl I have named before, but who sounded well as "my maid"). "I always wash it myself. And once it had a narrow escape. Of course, your ladyship knows that such lace must never be starched or ironed. Some people wash it in sugar and water, and some in coffee, to make it the right yellow colour; but I myself have a very good receipt for washing it in milk, which stiffens it enough, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
