"Misstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough because we shall join him shortly. We never go off on any of our trips without him. He is a great help sometimes when we get into trouble just because he has so many sides. If we fall into a pit through some misstep the Poker comes along and pries us out of it. If we fall into the hands of some horrible creature that wants to hurt us, the Poker talks to that creature as stupid as he knows how, which makes the other so drowsy that ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... adventures, Robin met on a narrow bridge a stranger who refused to make way for him. Irritated by what he considered the man's insolence, Robin seized his quarter-staff, only to find that his antagonist more than matched him in the skilful use of this weapon. Then a misstep suddenly toppled Robin over into the stream, where he might have perished had not some of his men leaped out of the thicket to his rescue. Vexed at being beaten at quarter-staff, Robin now proposed ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... was the roughest and the most perilous they had ever essayed. The ponies were obliged to pick their way over rocks, around sharp, narrow corners, where the slightest misstep would send horse and rider crashing to the rocks hundreds of feet below. But to the credit of the Pony Rider Boys it may be said that not one of them lost his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... drawing up at kitchen gates was not confirmed, and the fact that he stumbled on his way to the doctor who pronounced him blameless was reasonably attributed to a loose stone at the foot of the hill; the misstep resulted in a barked shin, but a little wheel-grease, in a horse of Billy's complexion, easily ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... he looked around, and she smilingly nodded her head. He began picking his way along the ledge, carefully feeling his way, for a misstep or a treacherous support was liable to precipitate him to the fathomless depths below with the inevitable certainty ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale's glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death below him, death before him, and though he could not have known it, death above him. He never faltered—never made a misstep upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then, his heart clamped as in an icy vise, Gale threw forward the Remington, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... little more, a further view showing how dangerous it would be to attempt to enter the shattered engine room, where a misstep or a sudden change of equilibrium ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... level, lit a little candle he had with him, ran along to the big shaft, and saw the ladder reaching down to the next level. Then he bethought himself that his light might be seen, so he blew it out. How could he get down the ladder in the dark? One misstep and—he shuddered at the thought. But he ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... went, mocked at by owls and whippoorwills, crossing streams over log bridges, wading through others when the cold water splashed at a misstep up in his face. At last the blackness turned to grey, in which he could make out the fingers of his hand. Dawn was near. Why, thought the Englishman, did they delay striking so long? If they meant to kill him, ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... not feel the slightest bad result, and was as fresh as ever. That there is an element of danger in this trip cannot be doubted. At times the little trail, on which two mules could not possibly have passed each other, skirts a precipice where the least misstep would hurl the traveler to destruction; and every turn of the zigzag path is so sharp that first the head and then the tail of the mule inevitably projects above the abyss, and wig-wags to the mule below. Moreover, though not a vestige of a parapet consoles the dizzy rider, in several places the ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... which "touch the spinal cord of the universe")—sent all her blood to her heart. Under ordinary circumstances, she surely would not have started at the rustling made by the timid hare in the thicket near by. There was no reason why she should shiver so when a misstep caused her to scratch her face with the thorny twigs of a wild plum-tree. But the effort necessary to the undertaking and the agony of the long waiting had exhausted her nervous force, and she had none left for fortitude. So that when she arrived at Andrew's fence and felt her way along to the ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... merges into long flights of solid stone steps. Near the summit, these steps become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples, quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... a long row, cripples, the blind, the young, the aged, it was a company of mendicants which eccentric painters would have given five years of life to have seen. Except for consumptive coughs, the misstep of a wooden leg of which the clumsy ferule slipped on a cobblestone, and the querulous whimper of a child, half-starved and imperfectly swaddled in a tattered shawl, on a flaccid bosom, the mob were silent in an expectation ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... in their course, was at the front. Frank now quietly moved beyond him, Winchester in hand, and ready for whatever might come. Confident they were close upon the men they sought, he was glad of the misstep that had warned ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... doubt that it was the missing Muller, and it was altogether likely that in the storm he had made a misstep, and had fallen into the ravine ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... long time at her window after he was gone. Her brother had been long away from civilization; he had become infatuated, the girl loved him, he was honourable and in his heart he meant to marry her—that was to her the whole story. She had been mortified by the misstep, but the misstep made, only one thought had occurred to her—to help him all she could. She had been appalled when she first saw the dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness of the tired little face touched her, and she ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... portion of the thigh bone which enters into the socket of the pelvic bone and forms the hip joint. It occurs most commonly in aged people as a result of so slight an accident as tripping on a rug, or in falling on the floor from the standing position, making a misstep, or while attempting to avoid a fall. When the accident has occurred the patient is unable to rise or walk, and suffers pain in the hip joint. When he has been helped to bed it will be seen that the foot ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... diseases, a large part of their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... discouraged him. With a single daring companion—a man who said he could find the way—he crossed the burning floor of the mighty crater of Kilauea (then in almost constant eruption), racing across the burning lava floor, jumping wide and bottomless crevices, when a misstep would ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... he at length found himself close to a marsh, or what he knew would soon become a marsh, for night had set in some hours before, and he fell by a sudden misstep into a thick, clinging mire. In spite of all his efforts, in spite of his desperate struggles, he felt himself sinking gradually in the swampy ooze, and in a few minutes he was ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... which was to take me on board the tug which had the connecting cable on board. In stepping from one to the other of the small boats, the water being very rough and the boats having a good deal of motion, I made a misstep, my right leg being on board the outer boat, and my left leg went down between the two boats scraping the skin from the upper part of the leg near the knee for some two or three inches. It pained me a little, but ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... a great fright. But the water was not deep, and the side of the "cave" kept her from falling entirely down. Hence, a thorough fright and wet feet and dress were the only evil results of her misstep. ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... he was saying as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Florentin had had charge of these papers, and had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of his ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... 19th of October, 1846, the forlorn band moved slowly on their course through those terrible mountains. Sometimes climbing steeps which the foot of white man had never before scaled, sometimes descending yawning caons, where a single misstep would have plunged them into the abyss hundreds of feet below. The winter fairly commenced in October. The snow was piled up by the winds into drifts in some places forty feet deep, through which they had to ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... which flowed from his wounds; yet he was slowly mastering the foaming brutes, who themselves were torn and bleeding and exhausted. Weaker and weaker became the struggles of them all, when a sudden misstep sent Bulan stumbling headforemost against the stem of a tree, where, stunned, he sank unconscious, at the mercy of ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this, where every effort was required to balance ourselves and our luggage, that the mosquitos would make up for lost time with impunity. The river, before reaching Manas, was so swift and deep as to necessitate the use of regular government carts. A team of three horses, on making a misstep, were shifted away from the ford into deep water and carried far down the stream. A caravan of Chinese traveling-vans, loaded with goods from India, were crossing at the time, on their way to the outlying ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... his foot on a rounded stone and set down a little ungracefully in spite of his effort to be fully himself. He saw at once his misstep ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... followed after the pack-horse, and Frank came next. Roderick pricked up his ears, looked over into the gorge, and snorted loudly. He moved very slowly and carefully, and well he might: for a single misstep on his part would have sent both him and his rider to destruction. The path was so narrow that, although Roderick walked on the extreme outer edge, Frank's feet now and then brushed against the rock ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... from him by a misstep into the mud, but he quickly regained the ill-paved sidewalk and continued his course with unbroken cheerfulness. The night was dark, the few and widely scattered street lamps burned dimly, and the city loomed through the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... itself I did not fail to ridicule it to the utmost. Still, in order to do my whole duty in the matter, I hastened to impress old Bill with the importance of his becoming acquainted with the antecedents of his lady-love, and thus saving himself from the possibility of a misstep. But this counsel did no farther good than to bring a clouded brow to my dear old friend, and so I did not persist in it. Indeed, we communed together but little more in any way; for very shortly after he resigned his place as our 'boss,' and left post-haste for the main-land. Here, as was revealed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... would daily crucify her and her innocent child by their cold scorn or utter ignoring of them. They would not allow their daughters to associate with this blameless girl, because of her mother's misstep. ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... moved closer. The water was up to her hips, and no river in the Rockies has a swifter current than the Gunnison. The bottom too is covered with smooth slippery stones and bowlders, so that a misstep might send her plunging down. Deprived of the use of her landing pole, she could make less resistance to the tug of the stream, and the four or five pounds of dynamic energy at the end of her line would give ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... the responsibility thus resting upon his speed and sureness of foot. Then it was that he would go like the wind, through utter darkness, through storm and flood and over an icy earth, without a pause or a misstep. Many a time, after such a struggle as this, has Toby turned his head, as if trying to see why Father Orin was slow in doing his part when the rain, freezing as it fell, had frozen the priest's poor overcoat to the saddle, and his ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried danger beneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell; not that I was given to fear, but rather because my instincts, usually so positive and ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... well get to an understandin'," said the Cap'n, not yet placated. "I ain't used to a dog underfoot, I don't like a dog, and I won't associate with a dog. Next thing I know I'll be makin' a misstep onto him, and he'll have a hunk ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... thorn thicket two cock-pheasants were having a difference, and were enthusiastically settling that difference in the approved method of game-cocks. He lingered to see which might win, but a misstep and a sudden crack of a dry twig startled them, and they withdrew like two stately but indignant old gentlemen who had ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... such places, or that they may soon be exposed so they can be avoided. Reaching the top after a tedious and slippery climb, there was a long view of icy billows, as if the sea had suddenly congealed amid a wild tempestuous storm. Deep chasms obstructed the way on all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... to go first. The rise is easy for a half-mile or so. I can better watch out for you and catch you—if you make a misstep. The stones are loose and mischievous; the path is ridiculously near the edge of things. If one should—now do not get nervous, but if you should go over, just clutch the bushes, the sturdy little clumps, and nothing can ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... change his attitude; but if by any possibility it should, and if in any event whatever he comes to you seeking my address, or me, I depend on you to in no way help him, if it should happen that you could. For this reason I am keeping it out of your power, unless I make some misstep that points to where I am. I don't wish to make any mystery of my location, or to disregard any intention that it is barely possible Leslie could bring Mr. Minturn to, concerning me. I merely wish to be left alone for a time; to work out my own expiation, if there be any; and to test ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... days of incredible toil before he reached the valley towns. The troops showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition not a man was laid up for any length ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of family comfort. That she had mortally sinned awakened no attention, aroused no concern. There was no sympathy expressed for her in her condition, no responsibility felt for her in her downfall or anxiety about her future. Whether she would, from this misstep, have to take to the streets for a living occurred ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... searching wisdom of this remark, was silenced for the moment. In the interval of thought she reflected that she would do well to take counsel of herself alone in proceeding to break this engagement. "You are on the verge of making a terrible misstep, child," said she with a gentleness she had rarely shown even to her favorite grandchild. "I shall think it over, and you will think it over. At least, promise me you will not see Craig for a ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then his ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and her face flushed with the excitement. The wisps of her glorious hair were floating in the wind as she stepped along the bank, steadily, while I stood at her side without touching her, but with a hand ready in case of a slip or a misstep. Frenchy followed us, carrying a big landing-net and a gaff. His face bore a wide grin and he was ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... journey was not done, by any means. The road grew worse still, as if the rain here had been harder. Making a misstep, down slipped Charley's horse from the trail, over the edge of a clay bank, and landed on his side twenty feet below. Charley sprawled on his face in mud ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... Mr. Clay's next misstep was one of precipitation. General Jackson, after a three years' war upon the Bank, was alarmed at the outcry of its friends, and sincerely desired to make peace with it. We know, from the avowals of the men who stood nearest his person ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... boulders, and beyond them the glacier. Once a giant, it is nothing but a baby now, but the ice is still blue and clear, and the crevasses many and deep. And that day it had to be crossed, which was a ticklish task. A misstep or slip might land us at once fairly into the heart of the glacier, there to be preserved in cold storage for the wonderment of future generations. But glaciers were Muir's special pets, his intimate companions, with whom he held sweet communion. Their ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... gazed round him and up and down, in dazed wonder. He had seen many others fall. He had seen just where and just why they missed their footing. And he had been confident that with him no such misstep was possible. He could not believe; a little while, and luck would turn, and up he would go again—higher than before. Many a lawyer—to look no farther than his own profession—had through recklessness or pride or inadvertence got the big men ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... the sharply pitched mountain side, leaping logs and stones, crashing through brush, scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... brown, but still he stepped the same. Young Carrington, who followed, bad hurt his steed by pushing at the very start, and spurred and urged him now to cut across a gulch at which the Pacer shied. Just one misstep and ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and twisted around the mountain, and in places they had to use the greatest care lest a misstep should carry them over a precipice with a drop of hundreds of feet. It was a perilous descent, inasmuch as the path was covered with snow. Moreover, it was necessary that as little noise as possible should be made while they were making their way past the buildings ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... is of Paramount Importance to Girls and Women—Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy—The Place Love Occupies in Woman's ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... purely logical advance along the lines already mapped out for itself, and in part already traversed, will enable men to avoid the pitfalls and reap only the windfalls of life; we shall all see what terrible consequences await on a single misstep, and we shall not make the misstep. Can you still claim that science and the future have nothing to ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... woman is by nature as true to her rightful lord as the needle to the magnetic north,—as faithful to her marriage vows as the stars to their appointed courses. When a wife "goes astray" the chances are as one to infinity that the misstep is her husband's fault. Love is the very life of woman. She can no more exist without it than the vine can climb heavenward without support,—than it can blossom and bear fruit without the warm kiss of the summer sun. Woman's life is a flame that must find ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... benumbed fingers before a fire that was but a mockery. Often it was nearly dark before their work had warmed them again. All of the skidways had to be placed on the edges of the islands themselves, and the logs had to be travoyed over the steep little knolls. A single misstep out on to the plain meant a mired horse. Three times heavy snows obliterated the roads, so that they had to be ploughed out before the men could go to work again. It ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... always fatal, and notwithstanding the lay-idea that a broken back means certain death, patients with well-authenticated cases of vertebral fracture have recovered. Warren records the case of a woman of sixty who, while carrying a clothes-basket, made a misstep and fell 14 feet, the basket of wet clothes striking the right shoulder, chest, and neck. There was fracture of the 4th dorsal vertebra at the transverse processes. By seizing the spinous process it ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... inclination in that direction. I am willing to encounter risks, if there is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and of themselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, of course you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... to conclude that, as usual, I had somehow made a misstep, and sought to conceal my mortification as best I might, by persuading myself and my friend that I had only regarded the matter as a joke all through. Nevertheless, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... suppose you've been climbing a mountain late in the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of it. It is a mountain of big boulders, loose little stones, thorny bushes. The slightest misstep would send pebbles rattling, brush rustling; but you have gone all the way without making that misstep. This is quite a feat. It means that you've known all about every footstep you've taken. That would be business enough ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... than hope, the forlorn lady recollected that her uncle, who had some spiritual supervision over the Roman convents, though he was sure to be more outraged by her misstep than any one else, had (besides the motive of shielding a family name from disgrace) perhaps some remaining affection for his favorite niece. At any rate, if she were to die, she thought it would be a satisfaction to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hesitate, and, knowing that he would obey, I dashed forward into the tunnel. When nearly to its end I made a misstep on the uneven ground and precipitated myself against the wall. A sharp pain shot through my left shoulder, but at the time I was scarcely conscious of it as I picked myself up and leaped forward. The end was ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... hands. In five minutes we were all up, standing, clinging, and balancing on the glassy edges of ice, and hopping and leaping from cake to cake. Cracks, crevices, and jagged holes opened ten, fifteen, and twenty feet sheer down all about us. A single misstep would send ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... a misstep when backing the Natchez out, at Natchez, and fell, breaking his collar bone. Of course Ed Snodgrass gave the news to Leathers when he ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... woods Beatrice had learned to stalk, and the knowledge was of value to her now. With never a misstep she took down a little game trail toward the camp fire. She was within fifty yards of it now—she could make out three dark figures seated in the circle of firelight. Walking softly but upright she pushed within ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... the standing place ran a deeper trench or drain to carry the water away, and this was covered over with a rough board called a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry, make a misstep on one end of the duck-board and down he would go in mud and freezing water to the waist. In these cold, wet garments he must stay all night. The tension ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... fine example of this point and is pertinent to-day because it had no relation to mistaken identity in this humorous scene. Here the best fun of the comedy came from the use of a stepladder by the supposed coachman, who got all tangled up in it. After the first misstep with that stepladder, there was never any time for more than a word here and there. Of course, such a scene depends upon the actor almost entirely, and therefore cannot be indicated in the business by the playwright, but I use it for an example because it is ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... is far more difficult—she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken. She gratified everybody's self-love, and petted their hobbies; serious with the serious, a girl with girls, instinctively a mother with mothers, gay with young wives and disposed to help them, ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... outside his base. A ball caught in this way does not score, but the misstep is not a foul unless with both feet. The outer basemen may put one foot outside their bases when trying to catch the ball. A guard must stay within three feet of the base he guards, and may not step within ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... and was forgiven, we trust," said Mrs. Wynn, gently, thinking of one at home who had wrung her aged heart by a similar misstep. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... come along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep. But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old man's figure, and as I paused in my embarrassment ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... Here there was practically no flooring, and Ward Porton had to jump from one piece of steel work to another, while Dave and Roger, of course, had to do the same. Once those in the rear saw the rascal ahead make a misstep and plunge downward. But he saved himself, and, scrambling to his feet, dashed forward as madly ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... to the underground caverns in which lived the Nome King. There was a dim path, winding between stones and boulders, over which the walking was quite difficult, especially as the path led up hills that were small mountains, and then down steep and abrupt slopes where any misstep might mean a broken leg. Therefore it was the second day of their journey before they climbed halfway up a rugged mountain and found themselves at the entrance of the ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... that he would play in good fortune if the loss in horseflesh did not cost him most of the gains of the undertaking. Even the sturdy mustangs were not bred for traversing the trails of Clearwater. There were steep hills where a single misstep meant death, there were narrow trails and dangerous fords, and here and there were inoffensive-looking pools where the body of a horse may sink out of sight in less time than it takes to tell it. These were not the immense-chested moose or the strong-limbed caribou, natives of the place ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... was back, and her breath was short. This crisis had come upon them swiftly, unexpectedly, unwanted by either. Now it loomed over them in a terrible, because unknown, portent. Each realized that a misstep might mean irreparable consequences, but each felt constrained to go on. The situation must now be developed. Keith, faced with this new problem, lost his heat, and became cool, careful, wary, as when in court his faculties marshalled themselves. Nan, on the other hand, while well ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... places, too, where some huge crag or eminence overhung the road, this was driven to the very verge of the precipice; and the traveller was compelled to wind along the narrow ledge of rock, scarcely wide enough for his single steed, where a misstep would precipitate him hundreds, nay, thousands, of feet into the dreadful abyss! The wild passes of the sierra, practicable for the half-naked Indian, and even for the sure and circumspect mule,—an animal that seems to have been created for ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... feeling rather than the sight; for the black waters of the great river seemed to make the darkness more dense than in the camp above. Deck's lessons in reasonable caution came to his mind; and he had quite as much need of them as on the field of battle. A misstep might precipitate him into the dark waters of ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... of life, and bringing sunshine wherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or what would be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But the strength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to having tragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened by suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff of life," says an English critic, "gives it us simple and direct. There ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... and they crossed it by stepping from root to root, excepting that once, when Dick was looking at a moccasin, he made a misstep and landed in the mud, where he sank to his waist. The woods were narrow, and beyond them was a broad prairie with clumps of trees and pools of water scattered through it. As they walked and waded they crossed the tracks of many animals and birds, to most of which Johnny could give names. ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... passage came to a pause as her fingers touched the ladder, but she realized that a misstep would send her over that precipice of hay into the bay below, which now seemed a gulf of unfathomable depth. Inch by inch, with greater prudence than she had ever exercised, she moved onward in the gloom, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... after all, who inveigled us into making our first political misstep; for, after avoiding the sin of absenteeism, we fell into one almost as black, inasmuch as we evicted a tenant. It is part of Benella's heterogeneous and unusual duty to take a bicycle and scour the country in search of information for us: to find out ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the sergeant major was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... hope of a mitigation of her punishment, and the fear of being sent immediately back to Germany; for De Graun has her well watched; at the slightest misstep he will demand her ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... necessary to face them. But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death. Its crossing, under such conditions, might well be deemed impossible, had not Captain Lee succeeded, borne up by his strong sense of duty, in ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... had not reckoned on the possibility of Kitty seeing that damfool advertisement. Two and two made four; and four and four made eight; so on indefinitely. That is to say, Kitty already had a glimmer of the startling truth. The initial misstep on his part had been made upon her pronouncement of the name Stefani Gregor. He hadn't been able to control his surprise. And yesterday, having frankly admitted that he knew Gregor, all that was needed to complete the circle was that advertisement. Cutty tore his hair, literally. The very door ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... times flows with terrific force. Men attempting to cross the gutters, who make a misstep, are lifted off their feet and are instantly swept down by the current, and in case they should be carried under one of the crossings they are ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... twice she stopped, and blew the whistle and hallooed, and each time the weird silence closed in again like an impenetrable veil. Sometimes she became impatient of her slow progress, but she knew too well the dangers of a misstep to risk the chance of success by any lack of caution. Even in her anxiety and distress of mind, she marked the intelligence with which Sunbeam picked his way, testing the firmness of each spot on which he trod, as if he had ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... pilgrims, upon their shoulders. Then began a triumphal march, which at every step of the ascent threatened to become a funeral march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster—nothing less than an avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me, the missionary guarded my wife, and we ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... opportunity for them to rise to power. To commit a great crime in order to secure his own aggrandizement, and yet to manage the commission of it in such a way as not only to shut himself off from the expected benefit, but to secure that benefit to a hated rival, would have been a very fatal misstep. So the plan of destroying Nero at ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... well aware who had her; for the man gave out his characteristic grunt with every misstep, and there was no one else in the world likely to do her serious ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... A misstep backward, a tumble and a bumped head brought this sport to an end, just as Shannondale was reached, and in her attempts to soothe the little girl, Edith failed to see that the shade was lifted for a single moment, while, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... window, and called out to the people on the square. Then he chanced to think of his beloved doll. He rushed up to it and took it under his arm. But when he tried to leave the room, the smoke blew into his face, benumbing and burning him. He staggered, reached the top of the stairs, made a misstep, fell headlong down the steps, still holding the doll in convulsive embrace, twitched a few times, and then lay ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... hand on the bridle, the other holding the two eagles tied and balanced across the saddle, allowed Keno to pick his own way along the trail. The sagacious animal seemed to know every foot of the path; even in the gloom of night he made no misstep. Sherwood and Tom followed close, the latter ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... task, in which discovery was certain death, but he never faltered. His heart beat steadily and strong. It was an old risk to him, and he had the advantage of great natural aptitude, fortified by long training in a school of practice where a single misstep meant death. ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with the work of the police force increased Dave found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... made a misstep—if she went down in a heap—Betty was pretty sure that she, herself, would be hurt. She retained a tight grip upon the reins. The mare was no velvet-mouthed animal. Betty doubted if she had the strength in her arms ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... seen. Little Golden Daughter was standing at the front of the ship, thinking no evil, when a hand suddenly thrust her into the water. Then Mosu pretended to be frightened, and began to call out: "My wife made a misstep and has fallen into ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... bring an early end. In my dreams I see them, the long lines of naked men, their strong bodies shining with wet and bleeding from many a cut, keeping time in a wild chant as they tug at the taut line; a rope breaks and the toil of hours is lost; one misstep and a life ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... against my cheek, I turned toward the portiere of the library, and as chance would have it, making a misstep when my head was swimming, I went plunging forward into the folds of this curtain. Because of this I found myself sitting flat upon the hardwood floor, gibbering like an idiot at the dim light which showed the bookcases ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... gloomy: the Princess de la Leyen had died from her injuries; General Touzart was in a desperate condition, as well as his wife and daughter, who, in fact, died the same day. Prince Kourakine, the Russian Ambassador, was seriously injured; he had made a misstep on the staircase leading to the garden, and had fallen senseless into the flames, which, fortunately, had been unable to get through his coat of cloth of gold and the decorations which covered him like a cuirass; nevertheless, it was many months before he recovered. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... walked, with the feeling of intimacy and mutual contentment growing stronger at every moment. The ground was full of ruts and inequalities, and ever and anon a misstep or an overbalance would cause them involuntarily to tighten their hold upon each other; involuntarily, but with a secret sensation of pleasure that made them hope there were more rough places farther on. They did their best to keep up a desultory conversation, perhaps, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... make a decisive move unless you are positive you are right. If you are watching a person, and know he has something concealed, arrest him and search his person; otherwise, no matter how strong your suspicions, do not act upon them, as a single misstep of this sort may lose the case, and is certain to put the parties on their guard, and in a few minutes to overthrow the labor ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... the reins on our horses' necks and passed on to the north, the horses nose to nose, and my stirrup leather brushing the giant's knee at every jump of El Mahdi. The huge Cardinal galloped in the moonlight like some splendid machine of bronze, never a misstep, never a false estimate, never the difference of a finger's length in the long, even jumps. It might have been the one-eyed Agib riding his mighty horse of brass, except that no son of a decadent Sultan ever carried the bulk of Orange Jud. And the eccentric ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... hers, there was time and to spare for safe-footing and stable equilibrium—for certitude, in short. No more in her spiritual life than in carrying the hundredweights of grain was there a possibility of a misstep or an overbalancing. The feeling produced in me was uncanny. Here was a human soul that, save for the most glimmering of contacts, was beyond the humanness of me. And the more I learned of Margaret Henan in ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... one would slide, and how much loose shale one would dislodge to rattle down over the cliff and startle the antelope we hoped were there. To move about on a squeaking floor without disturbing a light sleeper is child's play compared with our progress. A misstep would have sent us flying over the cliff, but I did not think of that—my only care was not to startle the shy fleet-footed creatures we were pursuing. I hardly dared to breathe; every muscle and nerve was tense with the ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... had spoken with such authority that Sheriff Larkin hesitated in his intention of landing the bloodhounds. Besides, having learned that one of these girls was a daughter of a member of the powerful lumber company, he feared to make a misstep. ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... self-consciousness of one urged by a great purpose. His head was bent in reflection. His hand held his claw behind him, and his shoulders stooped. He knew his goal, but the way was hard and uncertain, and he realized the peril of a strategic misstep at the outset. Heavily he mounted the steps to the hall, entered, and took a seat in the rear. He sat with his head bowed and his gaze on the floor. He was aware that Judge Van Dorn was speaking; but what the Judge was saying did not interest Grant. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... 'To your health my worthy colleagues! Thus drinks trumpet-blower Rassmann.' Midnight had already passed by, Under tables lay some snoring, But with steady step and upright Started Rassmann from the tavern. On the Rhine with mocking humour He poured forth a roguish tune yet, Then a misstep! Poor, poor Rassmann! Straight he fell into the river, And the Rhine's tremendous whirlpool Thundered foaming and engulfed him, Him the bravest trumpet-blower. Ha! that was a noble blowing! Rassmann, wherefore didst ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room. But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said the philosopher Shuey, "but being born that ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... foul play, and that, after all, they themselves, if the truth were known, did draw the Opera House. Ten years from now there will stand on the scaffold, or behind the prison door, or in the lonely room in which the suicide writes his farewell to wife or parents, men who will say that the first misstep of their life that put them on the wrong road was the ticket they bought in the Crosby ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... anything but sorry for him. You can not live with a man as I did, for ten years, and not regret his misstep." ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... auspicious and distingue, the nuptials of Kiku and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen. In the dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku's self-possessed demeanor was admired by all. After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... he had stopped the cart and half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bag out, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lantern down. He'd gone back quite a bit along the road, and, coming back with it, the light in his eyes, he had made a misstep, and the shaft—the old Granite Hill shaft, you know—it's close to the road. We found him in the sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deep shaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses long enough to hook ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... bounded wildly; he had forgotten how close he must be to the crossing of the Swiftwater. Now the rotting and worm-eaten timbers of the open trestle-work were under his feet; mechanically, he avoided the numerous gaps, where a misstep meant destruction, and so at last gained the farther bank and sank down panting on the short, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to climb the Matterhorn many paths lead up the lower slopes, and a stumble here may cost you only a sprain. And I suppose that several paths lead to the base of the cone. But thence to the summit there is but one path, and a misstep means death. Pardon these quotations and illustrations. They are my only means of at all adequately presenting to you a scientific man's conception of the meaning of the struggle for life. The laws of evolution are written in blood and ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... him as some distant star, that might be worshipped in silence, but not approached; but now, by a series of circumstances that looked like providential interference in his behalf, immense barriers had been removed. Thinking over these matters, he doubly realized the misstep he had taken, and the heart of the lone prisoner was sad in the depths of his ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... valley was strewn with rock fragments! Her valley! The valley of the photographs! She laughed aloud, and urged her horse down the steep descent, heedless of the fact that upon the precarious, loose rock footing of the slope, a misstep would ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... his horses could be led over. The depth was bottomless to the eye, but from far below rose the cavernous growl of rushing water, and Hazel held her breath as each animal stepped gingerly over the narrow bridge. One misstep— ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... but made no reply. Before John could tease him any further, the party reached Four Mile Blaze. Mike tolled off the riders, and warned each one to give strictest attention to the going as one misstep meant a crippled horse or ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... made his exit by the same entrance by which all had come in. He proceeded with great caution, for none knew better than he the danger of a single misstep. He succeeded, after considerable time, in reaching a portion of the valley so shrouded in gloom that he was able to advance without fear ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... along in the black darkness. What were they to do? They could not go back. They could not stay there. They scarcely dared go on. For they did not know the way, and any moment a fresh blast of wind or a misstep might hurl them into the river. But they decided that they must go on, and on they went, stumbling, slipping, sprawling, and falling outright. Now there would be an exclamation from Mackay as he sank to the knees in the mud of a rice-field, now a groan from A Hoa as ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... must have made a misstep, for suddenly Thad saw him stumble and vanish over the side into the boiling waters of ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... would not mix up in it, for she knew what she knew about scandalmongers in her own family, yes, certain persons who had the nerve to accuse her of going astray with Nana and finding an indecent pleasure in watching her take her first misstep. Then Coupeau found out from the proprietress that Nana was being corrupted by that little floozie Leonie, who had given up flower-making to go on the street. Nana was being tempted by the jingle of cash and the lure of adventure on ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves, I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... feet of the ground when I made ever so slight a misstep and brought Peter up short. The next moment he'd caught me up bodily in his right arm, and to steady myself I let my arms slip about his neck. I held on there, tight, even after I knew what I was doing, and let my cheek rest ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... timidly feeling his way through the darkness, dreading every moment that he would take a misstep, that would bring down the anger of the Indian in a more dangerous form than before. He was enveloped in gloom, so that he kept both hands extended in front to ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... deny, or object to this? Is it not a pure statement of the law of Karma? Does it not agree perfectly with the teaching of the Bhagavat-Gita? There is surely no power which sits apart like a judge in court, and fines us or rewards us for this misstep or that merit; it is we who shape, ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... given way and fallen into the yawning depths below. Between these terrible traps the trail was often not over a few feet wide. It was no pleasant thing to contemplate the results of a probable slip or a misstep. The whole country bore the aspect of baffled rage—as if imbued with a demoniac spirit, it had received a crushing stroke from the Almighty hand that blasted ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... vindicated himself in their estimation, he yet lacked that which the ordeal of a battle would give him at home, and more than all, in Rachel's eyes. He heard nothing from or of her, but he consoled himself with the hope that the same means by which she had been so promptly informed of his misstep, would convey to her an intimation of how well he was deserving her. When he gained his laurels he would himself lay them at her feet. Until then he could only hope and strive, cherishing all the while the love for her that daily grew stronger ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... is made by women, for women, surely a misstep by a helplessly "innocent" girl, will not ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... in the picture is in the act of springing upon a timid hare. Although he can measure twenty paces in a jump, I think for once he has made a misstep, and the dear little creature with one more bound will be safe. One very remarkable fact about these animals is this: if there are several together, and one starts over the snow in pursuit of booty, all the others will follow in exactly ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous |
