"Mell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the difficulty in crossing, the rear and front lines and different regiments of the same line mingled together and reached the rebel side of the creek with lines and organizations broken; but all seemed inspired by the right spirit, and charged the rebel works pell-mell in the most determined manner. In this charge our loss was heavy, but our success was rapid and complete. The rebel left in our front was turned and broken, and one or more pieces of artillery captured. No attempt ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... they go pell-mell. Zadkiel is hemmed up in a corner of the cart-shed, and his brother and sister make pretence, to tear him limb from limb. Zadkiel defends himself gallantly, but has to succumb at last, for he is fairly rolled on his back, and in a few minutes ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... And, safe once more within his "cavern-halls," He shakes his clenched fist at the warped plank-walls And mutters his defiance through the cracks At the balked Enemy's retreating backs As the loud horde flees pell-mell down the lane, And—Almon ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... didn't skeer me. I went an' hauled that runt out o' the water an' with him under my right arm an' the two rifles under the left un I started treadin' logs headin' fer the north shore. They quit shootin' but come on a'ter me pell-mell. They got to comin' too fast an' I heard 'em goin' down through the roof o' the bay behind me an' rasslin' with the logs. That put meat on my bones! I could 'a' gone back an' made a mess o' the hull party with the toe o' my boot but I ain't overly fond o' killin'. Never ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... of Kent," said he, "an I buckle to my gear, I will teach thee, sir lazy lover, to mell with thine own matters, maugre ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... she said once futilely. They did not stop to listen. State and Madison has no time for Terrys from Wetona. It goes its way, pell-mell. If it saw Terry at all it saw her only as a prettyish person, in the wrong kind of suit and hat, with a bewildered, resentful look ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... sea coast lay a central rich alluvial region called the "black belt" at first after the color of its soil and later after the color of the majority of its inhabitants. This section was peculiarly well suited to the growth of the cotton plant and here, after the pell-mell of immigration which poured into the southwest with the development of cotton culture began to take on the forms of a fixed social order, arose those large cotton plantations which were the central feature of southern ante-bellum civilization. The "black belt" included ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... dark iron-blue shade; floors and roofs are alike; hearth-stones and threshold-stones, and grave-stones all of the same material. It is curious and depressing. This volcanic region of the Rhine, however, has so many unexpected beauties strewn pell-mell in the midst of stony barrenness that it also bears some likeness to Naples and Ischia, where beauty of color, and even of vegetation, alternate surprisingly with tracts of parched and rocky wilderness pierced with holes whence gas and steam ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... building was put. On the first floor (above the ground-floor) was one room and the kitchen; on the floor above that were two bedrooms. The garret was used to put away articles more choice and delicate than those that lay pell-mell about the shop. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... end be made up of a few well-turned speeches, a few fine books, and a few great plays. As for practicing what is so magisterially set forth, that is the last thing thought of. And if we pass from the world of talent to spheres which the mediocre exploit, there, in a pell-mell of confusion, we see those who think that we are in the world to talk and hear others talk—the great and hopeless rout of babblers, of everything that prates, bawls, and perorates and, after all, finds that there isn't talking ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... saw Jack, who had gained the forecastle, waving his cutlass in triumph. The Spaniards, who had hitherto shown a bold front, on hearing the shout, and seeing that their chance of victory was gone, threw themselves pell-mell down the hatchways among their companions, who had by this time regained their legs. What was bad, they had also kept possession of their arms, and began to fire upon the English. The seamen could easily have shot them, but the cowardly scoundrels ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... came to the fort, till, when only about fifty paces distant, the column wavered. We could see the officers rushing about among their men, and in another instant the whole mass broke into disorder and ran pell-mell in hundreds towards the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... pieces and muskets. Fernando's riflemen had been waiting for this, and, with wild yells, they leaped the redoubts, deployed along the stone fences and houses and picked off the redcoats so rapidly, that they fled pell mell to their own works, glad to escape the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... him at once upon the bank or dam, and distinctly perceived that he took a survey of the gutter, after which he instantly gave with all his force four blows with his tail; and had scarce struck the fourth, but all the beavers threw themselves pell-mell into the water, and came upon the dam: when they were all come thither, one of them muttered and mumbled to the {128} rest (who all stood very attentive) I know not what orders, but which they doubtless understood well, because they instantly ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... settle down upon wages which must appear like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught, some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is recollected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... the savages standing close to the fallen tree, started with an exclamation and dashed off in an opposite direction from the point whence came the alarming sounds. The effect was contagious: the others followed pell-mell, every one plunging forward with the frantic desperation which the bravest man will show in moments ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... —The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! ( Leaps to his feet.) Portuguese Sailor How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they'll go lunging presently. Danish Sailor Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more .. afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with storm-lashed ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... had died, a quantity of eatables of all kinds were stored—putrid pies, mouldy fish, nay, even shell-fish, the stench almost choked me. Maggots and insects swarmed. These comparatively recent presents were put down, pell-mell, among chests of tea, bags of coffee, and packing-cases of every shape. A silver soup tureen on the chimney-piece was full of advices of the arrival of goods consigned to his order at Havre, bales of cotton, hogsheads of sugar, barrels of rum, coffees, ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... external nature." Whether we halt or advance, we discover a landscape ever renewing itself in a thousand fashions. We have palaces and ruins; gardens and solitudes: the horizon lengthens in the distance, or suddenly contracts; huts and stables, columns and triumphal arches, all lie pell-mell, and often so close that we might find room for all on the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... something—anything—and, to keep her fingers busy, pulled open one of the top drawers of the dressing-table. Confusion met her, for it was the untidy drawer beloved of woman; the drawer where ribbons and lace and scent sachets and waist-belts and flowers and face powder lay pell-mell. For a long while the drawer had not had the periodical setting straight which woman grants it, and its contents were aged, dingy and undesirable—camisole-ribbons like boot-strings, lace collars long out of fashion, a rose or two crumpled into flat and withered ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... Colonel Bacon's house. To advise and assist Farrill, Colonel Ludwell and Colonel Bacon himself accompanied the expedition. They decided to steal silently up to the place in the early hours of the morning before dawn, drive in the sentries and "enter pell mell with them into the howse". But their plans miscarried woefully. "The Centrey had no sooner made the challenge ... who comes there? ... but the other answer with their Musquits (which seldom speakes the language of friends) and that in so loud a maner, that it alarmed those in ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... man almost fell; 'Shaitan, Shaitan!' was the cry, as the inhabitants tumbled pell-mell out of the hovel, and Victorine and Punch remained ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the smoke of the gunpowder cleared away, the different points of the struggle could be clearly picked out by reason of the heaps of corpses and dead horses, piled beneath overturned cannon and broken limbers, shattered needle- guns and chassepots, all of which were scattered around pell-mell ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... pell-mell into the city, and passed over the dead bodies, and some not yet dead, hearing them cry under our horses' feet; and they made my heart ache to hear them. And truly I repented I had left Paris to see such a pitiful spectacle. Being come into the city, I entered into a stable, thinking to ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... mind a bit if de head dry, but um so dreffel wet an' nasty. An' you come close here, Mass' George, an' 'mell ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... swiftness of lightning. The habits growing out of continued contact with railroads, and the influence they exert on a portion of the community, are far from agreeable until one is familiar with them. You would cry out in dismay did you see your baggage flung about pell-mell like logs of wood, trunks, chests, traveling-bags, hat-boxes, all in the same mill, and if here and there something goes to pieces no one is astonished; never mind! we go fast,—we gain ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... mounted dragoons, winding through brakes and thickets; forests, impenetrable to the stranger; deep ravines and gloomy caverns,—all combined to form a most desirable landscape, for the convenience of crime. The houses of Sonnino, old, ill-built, flung pell-mell one, upon the other, and almost uninhabitable by human beings, were, in point of fact, little else than depots of pillage and magazines of rapine. The population, alert and vigorous, had for many centuries practised armed robbery and depredation, and gained its livelihood ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... traffic, to be shifted and reloaded onto the ocean vessels in a perfect fever of confusion and delay. Far below us you could see long lines of tiny trucks and wagons waiting hours for a chance to get into the docksheds. New York, he said, in true Yankee style had developed its waterfront pell mell, each railroad and each ship line grabbing sites for its own use, until the port was now so clogged, so tangled and congested that it was able ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... up, took the stick, pushed in the coat, and began waving the stick about in the opening, saying, 'Come out, come out!' as he did so. He was still waving the stick, when suddenly the door of the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew pell-mell down the stairs instantly, Gavrila first of all. Uncle Tail locked ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... a half bad substitute for the old Moy-Mell, the plain of pleasure of the ancient Irish, when once you have the key to its treasures. We have made a new and authoritative survey of its geographical features and compiled a list of its legendary landmarks, which, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... left where Cluny Macpherson and Stewart of Ardshiel were feeling the enemy and driving them back. At last the order came to advance. Donald Roy leaped to his feet, waved his sword and shouted "Claymore!" Next moment we were rushing pell-mell down the hillside through the thick gorse, over hedges, and across ditches. We met the dragoons in full retreat across the moor at right angles toward us, raked them with a cross fire, and coming to close quarters cut them to pieces with the sword. In this ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... sisters had been safely housed in the loft, with Hannibal who had in his fright quite forgotten her, she immediately joined them and had scarcely ascended the ladder when more than twenty of the wolves rushed pell-mell into the cabin. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... rough earthworks and had spoken their minds and taken off their white aprons and gone home, the battle began. Soldiers from the island fort made a sally across our isthmus, were repulsed, and later abandoned their works and fled pell-mell ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... sure, the hall was so narrow it was fortunate that they had no piano, for one never could have been got in whole, the dining room was so small that six people were a tight fit, and the kitchen stairs seemed built for the express purpose of precipitating both servants and china pell-mell into the coalbin. But once get used to these slight blemishes and nothing could be more complete, for good sense and good taste had presided over the furnishing, and the result was highly satisfactory. There were no marble-topped tables, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... every soldier who survived to describe it. With the low roar of a great torrent, several hundred horsemen burst through the curtain of mist, riding at a furious pace for the British guns. The rear screen of Mounted Infantry fell back before this terrific rush, and the two bodies of horsemen came pell-mell down upon the handful of Buffs and the guns. The infantry were ridden into and surrounded by the Boers, who found nothing to stop them from galloping on to the low ridge upon which the guns were ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Castelnau clung on to the heights around Verdun, his centre and left were safely hinged upon a fortress under cover of which he could launch his counter-offensive with all the weight of his now completely mobilised reinforcements. Moreover, the army that had hurried pell-mell from Paris in taxicabs, in carts, in any form of conveyance that the authorities could lay hands upon, was now completely established on the left of the British, and if Von Kluck, lured on by the prize of Paris, pushed on, he would be outnumbered on his ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... Dantzigers. He had effected discipline in his own camp by getting his regiments into shape, by establishing hospitals (which were immediately filled), and by protecting the citizens from the depredations of the starving fugitives who had been poured pell-mell into ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... spoken than, without waiting to hear what the poor innocents within would answer (though that mattered little, for they understood not one word of it), what do the villains but let fly right into the town with their calivers, and then rush in, sword in hand, killing pell-mell all they met, one of which shots, gentlemen, passing through the doorway, and close by me, struck my poor wife to the heart, that she never spoke word more. I, catching up the babe from her breast, tried ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Romans, we shall have ample time and opportunity to discuss the situation and to take all proper steps for the safeguarding of the temples against further damage; and even were we to be confronted by a mass of fallen ruins, scattered pell-mell over the island by the power of the water, I am convinced that every block could be replaced before the flood rose again. The temple of Maharraka was entirely rebuilt ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... been through the fighting, this girl, she had drunk her fill from staved-in wine-casks and slept on the bare ground, pell-mell with the men, out in the public square reddened with the glare of conflagration. They were killing all round her, and nobody had been killed yet for her. She was resolved they should shoot her someone, before the end! Stamping with fury, she ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... there, and the conflict began among friends who should have been united against the enemy. Finally, the two troops, leaving behind them some corpses stifled in the press, or even killed by their companions, passed through the defile pell-mell and were lost sight of in the ravine. But during this struggle Seyton and Arbroath had lost precious time, and the detachment sent by Murray, which had taken the road by Glasgow, had reached the village beforehand; it was now necessary ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... stood dumfounded. And then we dashed after, pell-mell, tumbling over one another in our stampede. In the alley we ran against three or four of the guard answering Lucas's cry. We lost precious seconds disentangling ourselves and shouting that it was a ruse and our prisoner escaped. When ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... to tell you, laddie, when you ran pell-mell in here to call the police. You ought to have made sure before you ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... wasted, yet Mother Barberin had given me a little patch all to myself, in which I had planted ferns and herbs that I had pulled up in the lanes while I was minding the cow. I had planted everything pell mell, one beside the other, in my bit of garden: it was not beautiful, but I loved it. It was mine. I arranged it as I wished, just as I felt at the time, and when I spoke of it, which happened twenty times a day, it was ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... flash of lightning through a butter-firkin. I endeavoured to catch a glimpse of some familiar places as we passed, but the attempt was altogether useless. Harrow-on-the-Hill, as we shot by it, seemed to be driving pell-mell up to town, followed by Boxmoor, Tring, and Aylesbury—I missed Wolverton and Weedon while taking a pinch of snuff—lost Rugby and Coventry before I had done sneezing, and I had scarcely time to say, "God bless us," till I found we had reached ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... pure simian. Just think how it would have entranced the old-time monkeys to foresee such a game! A game where they'd all prance off on captured horses, tearing pell-mell through the woods in gay red coats, attended by yelping packs of servant-dogs. It is excellent sport—but how cats would scorn to hunt ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... approved, but because circumstances prevented an effective combination of the various elements of sincere opposition, he and his friends accepted the result as popular approbation of their past conduct and warrant for its continuance. Things went from bad to worse with a pell-mell rapidity that made good ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... a rainy night," relates a French historian of the Revolution. "The crowd took shelter where they could; some burst open the gates of the great stables, where the regiment of Flanders was stationed, and mixed pell-mell with the soldiers. Others, about four thousand in number, had remained in the Assembly. The men were quiet enough, but the women were impatient at that state of inaction; they talked, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... Betty and even Grace pressed into the opening after Will, the boys standing aside—this last bit of self-control proving that chivalry was not all dead yet. The first temptation had been to run pell-mell after Will, regardless of girls or any other disturbing element ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... recklessly abandoned their homes. It was a wild night in Nashville. The Rebels had two gunboats nearly completed, which were set on fire. The Rebel storehouses were thrown open to the poor people, who rushed pell-mell to help themselves to pork, flour, molasses, and sugar. A great deal was destroyed. After Johnston's army had crossed the river, the beautiful and costly wire suspension bridge which spanned it was cut down. It cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... by the ship's bugler at a quarter to seven, we found it difficult to make our way forward to the nettings. One moment we were toiling up the deck's steep incline; the next, the ship would bury her prow, and we were rushing forward pell mell. The boat seemed to be endowed with diabolical intelligence that night. A man might, perchance, stoop to tie his shoe or examine a freshly stubbed toe, when the ship would seem to divine that she had him ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... he had gone Mrs. Armine undressed, leaving her clothes scattered pell-mell all over the room, and got into her bed. She kept the lamp burning. She was afraid of the dark, and she knew she would not sleep. Although she laughed at Egyptian superstition, as she glanced about the room she was half unconsciously looking for the shadowy ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the streets everywhere steep and narrow, and the houses, pell-mell, rich and poor, large and small huddled together without order. Almost opposite the handsome dwelling, the photograph of which had misled me, stood a little house where I could buy rich, creamy milk. It was sold by a Mademoiselle Rosalie, an ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... all the pomp and certitude of power, and still they come, these men of steel, these war lords and world harnessers. Pell- mell, peers and commoners, princes and maharajahs, Equerries to the King and Yeomen of the Guard. And here the colonials, lithe and hardy men; and here all the breeds of all the world-soldiers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand; from Bermuda, Borneo, Fiji, and ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... the grass. Eventually he permitted a nearer approach, and slowly stooping I was just on the point of stroking his back when, suddenly becoming alarmed, he swung himself into the air and flapped laboriously off to a low hawthorn, twenty or thirty yards away, into which he tumbled pell-mell like a bundle of old ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... believe? It would take a hundred pages, and more, to relate all the different rumours which have circulated to-day, the 4th of April, the second day of the horrible straggle. Let us hastily note down the most persistent of these assertions; later I will put some order into this pell-mell of news. ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the noise of battle; and saw horsemen and footmen pell-mell, tangled in an abattis, from behind which archers and cross-bowmen ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... type before him—and the words jumped back into their places, letters separated from their entanglement and stood like soldiers at spruce attention. A relaxing of the effort—and dismiss! helter-skelter, pell-mell went letter, word, and line. It was all a blur again. Once more he made the necessary exercise of his will and was able to read a line or two; but, if the mistiness were not to come before his eyes, the effort had to be sustained, and that made his head feel ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... fired into the Spaniards' faces. Then Sampson's pikemen charged through and a desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued. Finally the Spaniards broke after Carleill had killed their standard-bearer and Goring had wounded and taken their commander. The enemies ran pell-mell through the town together till the English reformed in the Plaza. Next day Drake moved in to attack the harbor fort; whereupon it was abandoned and the whole ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... the noisy prudery of the Catholics neighing, for the figures are nude, and certain reticences, usually observed at any rate in the female form, are here omitted. Men and women push up the lid of the tomb, stride across the edge, leap up, roll over pell mell, one above another; some ecstatically clasping their hands in prayer, their eyes fixed on heaven; others anxiously looking about them on all sides; others praying with terror, throwing up their arms; others, again, in dejected attitudes, beating their breasts in lamentable self-accusation; ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... began to open upon this multitude, crammed together near the bank, and each anxiously expecting the turn to pass, a shriek of utter terror ran through them, and men, women, horses, and waggons rushed at once, pell-mell, upon the bridges. The larger of these, intended solely for waggons and cannon, ere long broke down, precipitating all that were upon it into the dark and half-frozen stream. The scream that rose at this moment, says one that heard it, "did not leave my ears for weeks; ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... John Hinley's mother cried, "Why my bwoy John is quite my pride! Vor he've a-been so good to-year, An' han't a-mell'd wi' any squabbles, An' han't a-drown'd his wits in beer, An' han't a-been in any hobbles. I never thought he'd turn out bad, He always wer so good a lad; But now I'm sure he's better still, Drough Mrs Bingham, off ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... prayers and imprecations, heedless of Mrs. Haxton's shrill appeal that they should beat off the few assailants then perilously close at hand, they yielded to the blind instinct of self-preservation, and rushed pell-mell for the camels. At once these men of a martial tribe, men who had cheerfully faced the far greater danger of the Hadendowa general attack, became untrammeled savages, each striving like a maniac to secure a mount for himself, and careless whether or not his ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... agony, choked groans and gasps of dying men,—scaling-ladders hurled down with all their rattling freight,—dull mine-explosions, ringing cannon-thunder, as the old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep. It is all there: truly enough there, at least, to madden yet more Elsley's wild angry brain, till he tries to add his shouts to the great battle-cries of land and sea, and finds them as little ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... a hundred. But no; those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russia centre in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned into a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the General was seen clambering up again to clutch the valve-rope. This time he was successful, and the balloon fell like a stone, so that all hearts once more leaped up, and the cheers were hushed. Cavalry rode pell-mell from several directions, to reach the place of descent, and the General's personal staff galloped past me like the wind, to be the first at his debarkation. I followed the throng of soldiery with ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... it, and the young voices broke in pell-mell after her like a joyous crowd, seeing a vine-clad procession, and losing no time in joining for fear of losing step. Raven knew perfectly well the great old hymn was no matter for a passionately remorseful, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... what can in nowise be so clearly defined as by "rough-house." For instance, the turbulent Euclio in Aul. delivers bastings impartially to various dramatis personae and as a climax drives the cooks and music-girl pell-mell out of the house, doubtless accompanied by deafening howling and clatter (415 ff.). Similarly in the Cas. (875 ff.) Chalinus routs Olympio and the lecherous Lysidamus. We may well imagine that such scenes were preceded as well as accompanied by ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... inferior in numbers to the forces of the Canadians, was imprudent enough to leave the city and meet them in the open field. Defeated there, and pursued by the enemy, the latter nearly entered Quebec pell-mell with the English troops, and trenches were opened against the city. A few days later an English squadron came in sight, and the place was relieved. "Thus," says the old English chronicler of the navy, "the enemy saw what it was to be inferior at sea; for, had a French squadron ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the defile, a distance of 700 yards; but the third and rearmost was compelled by the British officers to face about, and, galloping with this force down the ravine, Major Burn-Murdoch drove the Arabs pell-mell out of it. The other two squadrons had now returned, and the whole force dismounted, and, taking up a position among the sandhills near the mouth of the defile, opened fire with their carbines. The repulse of their cavalry seemed to have disheartened the Dervishes, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... hearing of the plight of the colonial force, pushed on in gallant indignation, and in the dusk of the evening made that assault upon the pa which the Colonel had somehow not made during the day. Climbing the hill, the sailors chanced upon a party of natives, whom they chased before them pell-mell. Reaching the stockade at the heels of the fugitives, the bluejackets gave each other "a back" and scrambled over the palisades, hot to win the L10 promised by the Captain to the first man to pull ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... with no less than eighty thousand animals of all kinds. There were twenty-five thousand head of cattle; and horses, mares, sheep, goats, ponies, &c., made up the rest. All with the men, women, and children were driven off, pell- mell, a distance of twenty miles to Busuntpoor, in the Hurhurpoor district, where Beharee Lal's headquarter had been fixed. For three days heavy rain continued to fall. Pregnant women were beaten on by the troops ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... impossible for a rational mind to deny that the best work done in the arts by women is of better quality than the average work done by men. This lets the cat's head out of the bag, and her whole body follows pell-mell. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... long attacks on the centre with cavalry having failed, those left of the squadrons and their infantry-supports fall back pell-mell in broken groups across ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... tried to rush in pell-mell, head-over-heels," added Mickey, after they had stood thus a short time; but they are sneaking along, just as they always do when they're on the thrack of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... slowly, "it's—it's just as though some cosmic jester, all-powerful, had scooped up the fragments of a ruined city and tossed them pell-mell into the core of the Adirondacks! ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Italian girl was trying to slip past on the other side of the street. Someone caught sight of her and with a whoop the Apaches were upon her pell-mell. She began to run, but they hemmed her in. One tugged at her braided hair. Another flipped mud at her dress from the end of a stick. Merrill snatched her slate and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... signal of defeat and victory: the Swedes gave way, the Dutch pressed forward; the former took to their heels, the latter hotly pursued. Some entered with them, pell-mell, through the sally-port; others stormed the bastion, and others scrambled over the curtain. Thus in a little while the fortress of Fort Christina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege of full ten hours, was carried by assault, without the loss of a single man on either ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... of Milan. Then one of the older soldiers, who saw the enemy's plan, shouted, "Turn, men-at-arms, turn!" and the others heard in time, but the Good Knight, thinking only of pursuing his foes, entered pell-mell with them into the city, and followed them to the very palace of the lord Lodovico. As he was wearing the white cross of France, he was soon surrounded on all sides and taken prisoner. Lodovico had heard the cries, and sent for this brave foe, who was disarmed before being taken ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... of the town. "Yo Peho! Yo Peho!" wailed the half-crazed natives as they leaped high in the air, and encouraged by the presence of the English, they broke through the thickets at the town's end and forced the enemy to fly, while the now terrified Spanish scurried pell mell down the coast. Several of Drake's followers were wounded, and one Maroon was run through with a pike, but his courage was so great that he revenged his own death ere he died, by slaying a Spaniard ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... conoidal bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann to the antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense columns which had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, driving the stolid Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into the ravine pell-mell—how, at many periods of the siege of Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to cripple the defence than did the mortars and battering-guns—we need not recount. These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged the Russians to cover ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... station there was a wild rush for seats. The excited Teutons grabbed at handles—in fact at anything protruding from the carriages—in a desperate endeavour to be first on the footboard. Many were carried struggling and kicking along the platform. Women were bowled over pell-mell and their shrieks and cries mingled with the hoarse, exuberant howls of the war-fever stricken maniacs already tasting the smell ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... which seemed to have been brought together from the four quarters of the globe. Stuffed birds from Africa, porcelain monsters from China, silver ornaments and utensils from India and Peru, mosaic work from Italy, and bronzes from France, were all heaped together pell-mell with the coarse deal boxes and dingy leather cases which served to pack them for traveling. The little man apologized, with a cheerful and simpering conceit, for his litter of curiosities, his dressing-gown, and his delicate ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Berinthia saw boats from the vessels in the harbor, gathering at Long Wharf. Drums were beating, troops marching. Abraham Duncan came with the information that four or five thousand men were to assault the works and drive the provincials pell-mell across the marshes to Roxbury. At any rate, that was the plan. He was sure it would be a bloody battle. Possibly, while General Howe was engaged at Dorchester Heights, Mr. Washington ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... and the water ran out as it came in, without refreshing or doing him any good! How it could have happened was quite a mystery to me, till I returned with him to the town-gate. There I saw, that when I rushed in pell-mell with the flying enemy, they had dropped the portcullis (a heavy falling door, with sharp spikes at the bottom, let down suddenly to prevent the entrance of an enemy into a fortified town) unperceived ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... John, "and you, Jane Mell, take this rebellious girl of mine to the chamber in the prisoners' tower, whence I think she'll find it hard to fly to sanctuary. There lock her fast, feeding her with the bread and water of affliction to tame her proud spirit, and suffering none to go near her save this woman, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... upset in the dining car, men, furniture, bride, bridegroom and witnesses. Not one kept his equilibrium. It is an indescribable pell-mell, with cries of terror and prolonged groans. But I hasten to point out that there was nothing serious, for the stoppage was not ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... one of the most singular of his characteristics. He hardly seems to have known at all what he was about. He wrote feverishly, desperately, under the impulsion of irresistible genius. His conceptions crowded upon him in vivid, serried multitudes—the wildest visions of fantasy mixed pell-mell with the most vital realizations of fact. It was not for him to distinguish; his concern was simply, somehow or other, to get them all out: good, bad, or indifferent, what did it matter? The things were in his brain; and they ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... while they are running down to the corral pell-mell to get on their horses for a gallop across the prairie, we will leave them ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... from the house was so hasty that he left his watch, which he did not recover. He coolly walked off to a less exposed position and devoted himself to restoring order. One regiment, as soon as the shells began to fly, rushed pell-mell to the rear, none of the men standing upon the order ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... And out they came pell-mell, His old companions. "Max, where have you been? Not drink with us? Indeed you serve us well! How many months is it since we have seen You here? Jan, Jan, you slow, old doddering goat! Here's Mynheer ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... the landmark? What,—the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!) Was that my point of turning? I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... equal in number to the invaders, and, without reflecting how little numerical superiority avails in war against experience and tactics, they required to be led against the foe. They were so, and were defeated. The conquerors and conquered entered the city pell-mell; and Edward, enraged at the citizens for shooting upon his troops from the windows, issued orders that the inhabitants should be put to the sword, and the town burned. The mandate, however, was not executed: Sir ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... two hours and a half, the Griquas, finding their ammunition failing, determined, at great risk, to charge the whole body. They did so, and the Mantatees gave way, and fled in a westerly direction; but they were intercepted by the Griquas, and another charge being made, the whole was pell-mell ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... morocco. Homer, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, have been taken from their shelf and shut up in a case of grand marqueterie work, an asylum worthier of them than of me. The wooden table still held its ground, protected by a vast pile of pamphlets and papers heaped pell-mell upon it; they seemed as if they would long protect it from its doom. Yet one day that too was mastered by fate, and in spite of my idleness pamphlets and papers went to arrange themselves in the shelves of a costly ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... hissed, then shot balefully through the Erebus arches, desperate as the lost souls of the harlots, who, every night, took the same plunge. Meantime, here and there, like awaiting hearses, the coal-scows drifted along, poled broadside, pell-mell ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... her jewel box, and was throwing everything of value that she possessed pell mell into ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... the wall, stood a strong-built countryman, flicking with a worn-out hunting-whip the top-boot that adorned his right foot; his left being thrust into an old slipper. Horses, dogs, and drink had brought him there, pell-mell. There was a rusty spur on the solitary boot, which he occasionally jerked into the empty air, at the same time giving the boot a smart blow, and muttering some of the sounds by which a sportsman encourages his horse. He was riding, in imagination, some desperate steeplechase ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... which he was to work with such vigour and popularity. He turned his attention to abuses in Church and State, which he lashed with caustic satire, conveyed in short doggerel rhyming lines peculiar to himself, in which jokes, slang, invectives, and Latin quotations rush out pell-mell. His best works in this line are Why come ye not to Court? and Colin Clout, both directed against the clergy, and the former against Wolsey in particular. Piqued at his inconstancy (for S. had previously courted him) the Cardinal ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... was a big man and stout. There was nothing about him to tell them whether he was friend or foe, of the hills or a stranger. Without waiting to see who he was or what he did, the two dove for their saddles and started their horses pell-mell ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... sense of vital connection with this suburb than with the murky and roaring street in which he sat at business. By force of habit he continued to read, but only books from the circulating library, thrown upon his table pell-mell—novels, popular science, travels, biographies; each as it came to hand. The intellectual disease of the time took hold upon him: he lost the power of mental concentration, yielded to the indolent pleasure of desultory page-skimming. There remained in him but one sign of grace: the qualms ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... hard as drawing a swollen cork out of a soda-water bottle. Finally, with a sort of noble rebound of effort, the exhausted instructor is to put a vast deal of information back into the girl before the student claps her book together and rushes pell-mell to the next classroom, there to be similarly uncorked, if the teacher has learned the art and her mental ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and desires, Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. But stay! no age was e'er degenerate, Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, For in our likeness still we shape our fate. 90 Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... within wheels, dear JOHNNY! As to missionaries, well, They are troublesome—and useful; but to put things all pell-mell On account of priests and parsons, and of quite an alien creed, That's scarce "diplomatic," JOHNNY; it is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... my jewel, are you there?" exclaimed Dick, as he distinguished the Irishman. "Come, I have one friend among them whom I may welcome. So, they see me now. Off they come, pell-mell. Back, Bess, back!—slowly, wench, slowly—there—stand!" ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Hayes, the noted Texas Ranger, was raised. Hungerford was the beau-ideal of a soldier, as he was already the hero of three wars, and one of the best tacticians of his time. This command drove the Indians pell-mell for three miles to Mud Lake, killing and wounding them at every jump. Colonel Hungerford and Jack Hayes received, and were entitled, to great praise, for at the close of the war terms were made which have kept the Indians peaceable ever since. Jack ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... commander? When from the captain, the section leader, the squad leader? At what time, in short, if such a thing did take place, was there but a disordered impulse, whether to the front or to the rear carrying along pell-mell with it both the leaders ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... desert: Lo you there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points aglow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the serpents, heaped pell-mell For Devil's roll-call and some fete in Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... You deals with this 'ere shop—the tobacco department. I've often seen you when you've a-been agoin' in. Sometimes you has the Pell Mell off o' this man here." He jerked his head a trifle to the left, where a younger man was standing armed with a sheaf of whiter papers. In that gesture were years of envy, heart-burning, and sense of wrong. 'That's my paper,' it seemed to say, 'by all ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sprang into sight from nowhere, and ran pell-mell to the two cannon. Galen Albret, reappearing from the factory, began to issue orders. Two men set about hoisting on the tall flag-staff the blood-red banner of the Company. Speculation, excited and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... my man! oh, Johnny Dods, think if that be like a Christian, and ane o' the heroes o' Boddel Brigg, to entertain a stranger, an' then bind him in a web wi' his head down, an' mell him to death! oh, Johnny Dods, think what you are about! Slack a pin, an' let the good ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... heavenly woman vanished. Just behind where she had stood, and not twelve yards from them, there was a huge chasm in the mountain, its jagged precipitous sides clothed with thorny bushes; the men now cried out that she had made her escape that way, and down after her they rushed, pell-mell. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... this dumb idol. A headless trunk tumbled on the floor; but with that there came a shriek, so wild, woeful, and appalling, that the cowardly attendants fled. The torch-bearer threw down the light, and the whole of the domestics, with dismal outcries, rushed pell-mell through the narrow passage; fearful, inconceivable horror urging their flight. The dame was left alone, but what she saw or heard was never divulged; an altered woman she looked when she came forth, like one of the old still portraits that had slipped down from its frame ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... in it, had, as early as the month of May, been converted into an hospital, which, ever since the beginning of October, was crowded with sick. It could hold no more; the sick and prisoners were therefore intermingled, and lay down pell-mell among the graves. What had hitherto been spared was now completely destroyed. In this case, indeed, dire necessity pleaded a sufficient excuse. Who could find fault with Distress and Despair if they resorted to the only means that could afford them the slightest alleviation? ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... enthusiastic pioneer. At the date of the President's message she had already provided by law for the machinery of a convention, though no delegates had been elected. Nevertheless, her Legislature at once plunged pell-mell into the task of making laws for the new condition of independent sovereignty which by common consent the convention was in a few days to declare. Questions of army and navy, postal communication, and foreign diplomacy, for the moment eclipsed the baser ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... on the floor a ball of wool which had rolled out of Lady Grosville's work-table, escaped in an ecstasy of mischief from his mistress's arm and flew upon the ball. Kitty rushed after him; the wool first unrolled, then caught; the table overturned and all its contents were flung pell-mell in the path of Lady Grosville, who, on the arm of the amused and astonished minister, was waiting in restrained fury ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their commander borne along bleeding and a captive. Furious at the sight, they sallied forth to the rescue, but were repulsed by a superior force, and driven back to the great portal of the church. The enemy entered pell mell with them, fighting from aisle to aisle, from altar to altar, and in the courts and cloisters of the convent. The greater part of the cavaliers died bravely, sword in hand; the rest were disabled with wounds and made prisoners. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... language, style, doctrines, customs, events. The Mesha inscription furnishes facts bearing on Moabite handwriting and language, the belief in the god Chemosh, the practices belonging to his cult, the war between the Moabites and Israel. Thus the facts reach us pell-mell, without distinction of nature. This mixture of heterogeneous facts is one of the characteristics which differentiate history from the other sciences. The sciences of direct observation choose the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... after her as she withdrew, and was almost inclined to believe that she possessed the right side of the argument. Malice did not allow him to think so long. The moment the door closed on her, both the sisters fell on him pell-mell; and the prejudiced illiberality of the one, supported by the ready falsehoods of the other, soon dislodged all favorable impressions from the mind of Somerset, and filled ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... raised. The Emperor walked on and said nothing, though many times when he passed by the most mutilated, he put his hand over his eyes to avoid the sight. This calm lasted only a short while; for there was a place on the battlefield where French and Russians had fallen pell-mell, almost all of whom were wounded more or less grievously. And when the Emperor heard their cries, he became enraged, and shouted at those who had charge of removing the wounded, much irritated by the slowness with which this was done. It was difficult ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... corner of the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be known as a "mason's mell." ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... searchingly, that his glance deeply entered into my heart. 'Well, Fritz,' he said, ' try to become a good man, a good man par excellence. Great things are in store for you. I am at the end of my career, and my task is about accomplished. I am afraid that things will go pell- mell when I am dead. A portentous fermentation is going on everywhere, and the sovereigns, especially the King of France, instead of calming it and extirpating the causes that have produced it, unfortunately are deluded enough to ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of his—something calculated to win approval. For the Father suddenly reached out and took Johnnie into his arms, and gave him a bearish hug, and laughed, and wiped the green eyes (which were brimming), and laughed again, finally falling into a coughing fit that sent Johnnie pell-mell for a cup of water and made Cis wait in concern ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... There were shops selling strange sweetmeats. Smoke enshrouded huts where seamen were cooking. There were merchants selling monkeys, parrots, rope, sailcloth and fantastic collections of bric-a-brac where, heaped up pell-mell, were old culverins, great gilded lanterns, old blocks and tackle, old rusting anchors, old rigging, old megaphones, old telescopes, dating from the time of ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... occasioned, pierced through our ranks, and rendered them completely disordered and disheartened. The other troops of the right, who continued to resist with great difficulty the attacks of the Prussians, and who had been in want of ammunition above an hour, seeing some of our squadrons pell mell, and some of the guards running away, thought all was lost, and quitted their position. This contagious movement was communicated in an instant to the left; and the whole army, after having so valiantly carried the enemy's strongest posts, abandoned them with as much eagerness, as they had ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... cried out, as I had received authority to do so, "In the name of the King, open to us!" They obeyed an order thus given; we entered pell-mell, and in the greatest haste, men and mules, into the kitchen, which was on the ground-floor; and we hurried to extinguish the lights, in order not to awaken the suspicions of the bandits who were seeking for us. Indeed, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... applied to the narrow fissure, and after a short time the stone moved and was raised. A staircase with high, steep steps, sinking into darkness, awaited the impatient travellers, who rushed down pell-mell. A sloping gallery painted on both walls with figures and hieroglyphs came next, then at the end of the gallery some more steps leading to a short corridor, a sort of vestibule to a hall in the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... print and picture, as if something extraordinary had happened? The smoke of battle had not cleared away after the victory of reform in the fall of 1894, before the citizens' committee and all the little sub-committees rushed pell-mell to the photographer's to get themselves on record as the men who did it. The spectacle might have inspired in the humorist the advice to get two sets made, while they were about it, one to serve by and by as an exhibit of the men who didn't; ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Running pell-mell down the alley the mob gave a shout of exaltation as Everest slowed his pace and turned to face them. They stopped cold, however, as a number of quick shots rang out and bullets whistled and zipped around them. Everest turned in his ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... came near, being pressed into that most disgusting and painful service. This general burying was truly horrible: large square holes were dug about six feet deep, and thirty or forty fine young fellows stripped to their skins were thrown into each, pell mell, and then covered over in so slovenly a manner, that sometimes a hand or foot peeped through the earth. One of these holes was preparing as I passed, and the followers of the army were stripping the bodies before throwing them into it, whilst some ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... Mealy Jones, pell mell, hat in hand, breathless, bringing war's alarms. "Fellers, fellers," screamed Mealy, half a block away, "it's a-comin' here! It's goin' to be here in two weeks. The man's puttin' up the boards now, and you can get a ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White |
