"Pell-mell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forebodings had warned me of the true object and centre of alarm. There was nothing now but uproar, above, beneath, and around us; footsteps stumbling pell-mell up the public staircase, eager shouts and heavy thumps at the door, the whiz and dash of water from the engines, and the crash of furniture thrown upon the pavement. At once, the truth flashed upon my friend. ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... announce this to M. de Joyeuse. Accordingly, on the 20th of July, the army put itself in movement. The march was made in the utmost confusion. Everything was in disorder; the infantry and cavalry were huddled together pell-mell; no commands could be acted upon, and indeed the whole army was so disorganised that it could have been easily beaten by a handful of men. In effect, the enemy at last tried to take advantage of our confusion, by sending a few troops to harass us. But it was too late; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... laughter. The ice was broken in good earnest. "Three cheers for Ben Hay! Three cheers and a tiger for Jack Darcy!" and amid all this hubbub the men and women, the boys and girls, rushed in pell-mell. A gladder crew one never saw. To decide when others doubt, to go forward boldly when others hesitate, to stand up for the principle of right when others have traduced and blackened it, to take the first step, is to be as heroic as the "six hundred" ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... close on half-past nine and the moon full up on the stormy sky when a couple of riders detached themselves out of the surging mass of horses and men that were flying pell-mell towards Genappe, and slightly checking their horses, put them to a slower gallop and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... at it as if they enjoyed the task, forcing their restive horses through the thickets, and roughly handling more than one who ventured to question their authority. Yet the work was over in less time than it takes to tell, the discomfited regulators driven pell-mell down the hill and back into the town, the eager cavalrymen halting only at the command of the bugle. Brant, confident of his first sergeant in such emergency, merely paused long enough to watch the men deploy, and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the village officers. Bart had made a jump towards Dale Wacker, but the latter had faded into the vortex of pell-mell fugitives rushing away downhill ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... with exquisite care—but now, everything was in the greatest disorder.... The drawers of her chest of drawers were piled one on top of the other in a corner of the room; their contents were thrown down in heaps a little way off; books had been cast pell-mell on a sofa; a great wicker trunk, wherein Elizabeth had packed numerous papers belonging to her brother, was overturned on the floor, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... you get life served up to you rather pell-mell, lots of it, take-it-as-it-comes," admitted Marise, "but for a gross nature like mine, once you've had that, you're lost. You know you'd starve to death on the delicate slice of toasted bread served on old china. You give up and fairly enjoy wallowing ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... alas! both the young and the aged, like horses by their hair, while their vestments are rent about their persons. And the emptied city cries aloud, while its booty is wasted amid confused clamors.... And the cries of children at the breast all bloody resound, and there is rapine, sister of pell-mell confusion ... And young female slaves have new sorrows ... so that they hope for life's gloomy close to come, a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the laws enforced now against gambling, betting, swearing or any other form of innocent amusement.... Why! two wenches were whipped at the post by the public hangman only last week, because forsooth they were betting on the winner amongst themselves, whilst watching a bout of pell-mell.... And you know that John Howthill stood in the pillory for two hours and had both his hands bored through with a hot iron for allowing gambling inside his coffeehouse. ... And so, mistress, you will perceive that I am speaking but in ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... the Prince turned his back and fled as fast as his legs would carry him, while all the rest of us followed pell-mell. At the end of the hall is a large iron door, used for protection in case ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... slope of a neve, with extended arms and clutching hands, seeking the broken rope which held this string of lives, and only served to drag them down to death in the gulf where the mass was to fall pell-mell, with ropes, axes, veils, and all the gay outfit of Alpine ascension, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... struggled with their feet in the air, piling up and overturning their riders; no power to retreat; the whole column was nothing but a projectile. The force acquired to crush the English crusht the French. The inexorable ravine could not yield until it was filled; riders and horses rolled in together pell-mell, grinding each other, making common flesh in this dreadful gulf, and when this grave was full of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of the Dubois' brigade sank ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... 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 health; and, waving ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... crooked, yird or nane, [earth] They roar an' cry a' throu'ther; [pell-mell] The very wee things toddlin' rin— [run] Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther; [over, shoulder] An' gif the custock's sweet or sour, [if, pith] Wi' joctelegs they taste them; [pocket-knives] Syne coziely, aboon the door, [Then, above] Wi' cannie care they've plac'd them [cautious] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... South Carolina was the 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, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... his absence, while Taxiles assailed Murena on the left. But Sulla hastened back, too, after leaving Hortensius to support Murena, and, when he appeared, the right wing drove back Archelaus to the Cephissus. Murena was equally triumphant on the left wing, and the barbarians fled pell-mell to the Cephissus, only 10,000 of them reaching Chalcis in Euboea. [Sidenote: Sulla's falsehood about the battle.] Appian says the Romans lost only thirteen men, while Plutarch, on the authority of Sulla's Memoirs, says that they lost four. This ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... twenty-four hours in cattle cars, exposed most of the time to a drenching rain, they were disembarked and tramped another twelve miles to Greensboro. Here the mass of weary, wet, and hopeless patriots were about to be driven, pell-mell, like a herd of cattle, into a train of filthy cars, when young Glazier thought he espied a chance of evading his captors. He waited until it appeared to him that the guard was sufficiently occupied with other duties to overlook his whereabouts, and then slipped behind a log, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Taking one hundred of his own men, and one hundred under Inspector Folk, of Brooklyn, who had been early ordered over, and been doing good service in the city, he marched down Broadway, and was just entering the Park, when the frightened crowd came rushing pell-mell across it. Immediately forming "company front," he swept the Park like a storm, clearing everything before him. Order being restored, Folk returned with his force to Brooklyn, where things began to wear a threatening aspect, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... week ago it was a short street indeed which did not boast at least one Red Cross Hospital; now most of them are deserted, for the fashionable women who followed the fashion in joining hospitals have now again followed the fashion and fled, pell-mell. ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... downward, indeed, and even sheer into the cross fire of Driscoll's six-shooters and the one howitzer. But it was headlong flight. At the trench they did not stop to grapple, but fought their way through and fled on down the hill, on across the grassy plain, nor paused until they had crowded pell-mell into the main Imperialist army drawn up ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... on, he began to sketch the outlines of his favourite pieces. Every now and then plunging into recitation, jumping from French into patois, and from patois into French, and sometimes spluttering them out, mixed up pell-mell together. Hardly pausing to take breath, he rushed about the shop as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and drawers, piles of old newspapers and reviews, pointing out a passage here in which the estimate of the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... surely no, it can't be? Yes, by jove, there are boats pulling after us with all the might the rowers can command. We lie to, the proas come nearer. Hurrah! the clothes, some wholly washed, some half-washed, and some not washed at all. Piles of fair white linen are bundled up the gangway pell-mell, Malay washerwomen bundled out ditto, and for payment, the revolving screws settle that ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... 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 ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... to save His Highness going about by the Passage des Panoramas, had made them open the corridor which led from the porter's lodge to the entrance hall of the theater. Along this narrow alley little women were racing pell-mell, for they were delighted to escape from the men who were waiting for them in the other passage. They went jostling and elbowing along, casting apprehensive glances behind them and only breathing freely when ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... imperative in the voices of both men—something that breathed of danger—the three women hastened from the room. Jane's candle flared and went out in the draught from the suddenly opened door, and in the smothering darkness they stumbled pell-mell down the stairs. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... I was trying to tell you, laddie, when you ran pell-mell in here to call the police. You ought to have made sure before you gave ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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 ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... ensemble,—to borrow one of the most picturesque terms of the art of painting; all is discord, even the external decoration. The cabajoutis is to Parisian architecture what the capharnaum is to the apartment,—a poke-hole, where the most heterogeneous articles are flung pell-mell. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... humane human beings of this period? Or are you one of your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions in gymnastics—for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all of one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas. Pour them out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to catch you somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with your ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the following note: "Passionate friendships among girls, from the most innocent to the most elaborate excursions in the direction of Lesbos, are extremely common in theaters, both among actresses and, even more, among chorus-and ballet-girls. Here the pell-mell of the dressing-rooms, the wait of perhaps two hours between the performances, during which all the girls are cooped up, in a state of inaction and of excitement, in a few crowded dressing-rooms, afford every opportunity for the growth of this particular kind of sentiment. In most of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... through the desert: Lo you, there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell 30 For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No hope could ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... impossible to tear Celia from the tender circling of that arm, it wreaked its vengeance upon the tumbleweeds, broke them fiercely from their stems, and sent them pell-mell over the prairie before the tall blue cart, about it, at the sides of it, a fantastic ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... demons, magic, witchcraft, and uncanny things generally, does he find. Hence, while any one superstitious practice may be antique, there is small probability for assuming a contemporaneous origin of the hymns of the two collections. The many verses cited, apparently pell-mell, from the Rig Veda, might, it is true, revert to a version older than that in which they are found in the Rig Veda, but there is nothing to show that they were not taken from the Rig Veda, and re-dressed in a form that rendered them in many cases more intelligible; so that often ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the adjoining room creaked. Beth blushed scarlet, and dropped the bundle into the trunk. Then as no one came, she threw the other articles pell-mell on top of the bundle, and scampered guiltily to the other end of the room. Not an instant too soon to escape immediate detection, for Mrs. Davenport reentered the room, followed by a girl of thirteen. This was Marian, Beth's sister. The two girls were totally ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... a flock of wild turkeys, upward of forty in number, and their subdued color of gray flecked with white, and graceful, sleek build, showed them to be hens. There was not a gobbler in the flock. They began to run pell-mell out into the grass, until only their heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... than an hour after their landing, the whole tribe would have rushed pell-mell to the boats, cursing the folly which led them to this devil-haunted island. But it serves no good purpose to say what might have been. As it was the Dyaks, silent now and moving with the utmost caution, passed the well, and were about to approach ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... liberty; whereupon, as if the devil drove her, forthwith the brute had gone off in search of her old young enemy the kitten, at the hotel of the princess. She beat up the kitten's quarters again; and again she drove in the enemy pell-mell into her camp in the kitchen. The young mistress of the kitten, out of her wits at seeing her darling's danger, had set down a pail of milk, in which she was washing a Brussels' veil and a quantity of Mechlin lace belonging to the princess—and hurried her kitten into a closet. In a moment ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Napoli had been taken by force, and that Johannizza had caused all the people that were therein to be put to death, they fell in to such terror that they were utterly confounded and foredone. As God suffers misadventures to fall upon men, so the Venetians rushed to their ships, helter-skelter, pell-mell, and in such sort that they almost drowned one another; and the mounted sergeants, who came from France and Flanders, and other countries, went flying ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... fell; thus they reached their boat with some hundred yards to spare, and I saw their frantic struggles to launch it as I staggered after them; but ere I could reach them they had it afloat and tumbled aboard pell-mell. Then came I, panting curses, and plunged into the sea, wading after them up to my middle and so near that, aiming a blow at one of them, I cut a great chip from the gunwale, but, reeling from the blow of an oar, sank to my knees, and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... made their way to the wharf with all possible speed. In the meantime, Colonel Wood had gone out to the transport in a steam-launch and gotten the vessel to come up to the wharf. On board went the Rough Riders pell-mell, and not a minute ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... Corsican ponies. 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
... butt of the rifle. Three more. No answer. Pancracio disobeys orders. He fires, smashing the lock. The door opens. Behind, a confusion of skirts and children's bare legs rushing to and fro, pell-mell. ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... to fling the whole pack forward, pell-mell, crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull down the prey. Buck's marvellous quickness and agility stood him in good stead. Pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping and gashing, he was everywhere at once, presenting a front which was apparently unbroken so swiftly did he whirl ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... 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 same style ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... Trianon; and from early in the morning the road from Paris to Trianon was covered with an immense number of carriages and people on foot, the same sentiment attracting the court, the citizens, the people, to the delightful place at which the fete was held. All ranks were mingled, all went pell-mell; and I have never seen a crowd more singularly variegated, or which presented a more striking picture of all conditions of society. Ordinarily the multitude at fetes of this kind is composed of little ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to be allowed the luxury of a gallop, set off pell-mell, and Winifred followed at a gait which soon brought her, flushed and out of breath, before the unpainted house where the Davitt family made their abode. It was not characterized by great order or tidiness. Clothes-lines, hung with underwear of ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... All started, pell-mell, at this challenge, but they tried in vain to catch the bright-eyed, laughing creature who, with golden hair streaming in the sunlight, cast back many a sparkling glance of triumph as ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... depositors, and confidence is stampeded like a herd of cattle. The timid and suspicious old farmer catches the wild note of alarm, and deserting his plow and sleepy steers in the field, he mounts his mule, and urging him on with pounding heels, rushes pell-mell to the bank, and with bulging eyes, demands his money. The excitement spreads like fire. The blacksmith leaves his anvil, the carpenter his bench, and the tailor his goose. The tanner deserts his hide, and the shoemaker ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... reconciliation took place between those two branches of the O'Hallaghan and O'Callaghan families, in consequence of John's heroism and Rose's soft persuasion, and that there was, also, every perspective of the two factions being penultimately amalgamated. For nearly a century they had been pell-mell at it, whenever and wherever they could meet. Their forefathers, who had been engaged in the lawsuit about the island which I have mentioned, wore dead and petrified in their graves; and the little peninsula in the glen was gradationally worn away by the river, till nothing remained but a ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... rebels had quite as evidently calculated upon his doing so if allowed to reach it; and on the issue of the struggle in that neighborhood was to depend the question whether the Union forces were to be driven pell-mell into the James River, surrender or hold their own and repulse their assailants. Sudden attacks and attempts at surprise were naturally expected by the rear-guard at any moment; and against these usual and unusual precautions had been ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... time to answer this poser for along the road came the ambulance, pell-mell. Surely, the boys thought, Artie could not have spoken of Blythe's identity over the 'phone, yet following the ambulance came the touring car of Bridgeboro's police department with the chief in it, the policeman chauffeur, a couple of other men, and county detective Ferrett. A couple of ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... immediate foreground—at his feet, indeed—there was the river, the narrow Aco, peacock-green, a dark file of poplars on either bank, rushing pell-mell away from the quiet waters of the lake. Then, just across the river, at his left, stretched the smooth lawns of the park of Ventirose, with glimpses of the many-pinnacled castle through the trees; and, beyond, undulating country, flourishing, friendly, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... 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 old maid, whom I generally found solitarily reading ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... crashed rifles, Maxims, and guns. The New Zealanders were startled. Before they had recovered from their surprise, Fearless ordered the "Charge!" Like deerhounds, his men rose up and dashed pell-mell into the panic-stricken host. There was a shock, a wavering, and then a pell-mell rush to the rear. The Australians had won. ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... over the stone wall and straight across the bed of tiger-lilies sped Pee-wee, using his own particular mode of scout pace, patent not applied for. Across the side porch and into the kitchen he went, pell-mell, shouting in a voice ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in the open fireplace the fagots were blazing and snapping. Hanging above them, the great iron pot threw forth a circle of noisy steam around the loosely fitted lid, while the potatoes within were in a high state of commotion—little ones tumbling pell-mell over big ones, and big ones rocking dolefully backward and forward in the boiling water as though they felt sure their ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... cross-legged on the table in the centre of the room was the pedlar, a little, dark, beetle-browed man, and at his side were his wares, his pack flung open, and cloths of green and gold and blue and red flung pell-mell at his side. Leaning against the table, her hands on her hips, was the girl, dark like her father, tall and flat-chested, with a mass of black hair flung back from her forehead. No one knew from ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... barrier and the fires like a yelling flood. But now, finding all opposition so suddenly withdrawn, the flood divided upon the massive, thrusting figure of Ook-ootsk as upon a black rock in mid-stream. It united again behind him, surging pell-mell for the Cave-mouths, where in the crush the weaker and lighter were savagely torn and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his head, and ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... with their axes; but the troops, mad with long waiting and fretted by the galling fire of the foe, would not wait, and, pushing them aside, clambering, boosting, and tumbling went over the obstruction. Not pausing to form in the ditch, they scrambled up the parapet and went surging over the crest, pell-mell, upon the British. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... that boats might be floated down by this route, affording him an opportunity to make a bridge. But on learning that it had a much higher elevation than the Tigris, he did not do it, fearing that the water might rush pell-mell down hill and render the Euphrates unnavigable. So he conveyed the boats across by means of hauling engines at the point where the space between the rivers is the least—the whole stream of the Euphrates empties into a swamp and from there somehow joins the Tigris—then ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... say who was first, for Henri, Adolphe, and nearly a dozen others, galloped across the bridge together, and the whole troop followed them pell-mell into the town. The two cannons were soon taken; the irresolute blues, who, with only half a heart, had attempted to defend themselves, were driven from their positions, and Henri at once found ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... of all these characteristic types, moving about in a pell-mell fashion, making a constantly changing mosaic of vivid hues, there are the inhabitants of the innumerable valleys around Tarbes itself, each of them with its own peculiarities of costume, manners, speech, which make them easily distinguishable one ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... housetop, 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
... 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
... of coming, got sidetracked by the train of thought that descended upon him when he was actually face to face with his decision. All sorts of memories came rushing pell-mell through his brain. The cold and hungry ones were the most insistent, but ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... was a great babble of voices, some shrieks, and more confusion, and the guests ran pell-mell down the great stairs and out the castle door. To Peter's dismay, Aunt Jane was not among them. So into the castle he rushed again, calling at the top of his voice, "Aunt Jane! Aunt Jane!" He ran through the brilliantly lit and deserted ballroom; he saw himself running in the great mirrors ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... the board, and then he gave a regular Indian war-whoop, and threw himself right across the middle of the board, and shook it with all his might, so that it jiggled awfully right up and down. Before we had time to scream or to paralize our danger, over we all went, pell-mell, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, down, down, down into the foaming water! What do you think of that, Clytie? Every single one of us—dogs, Jane, carriage, and all! 'Twas worse, a thousand-fole, than when we lost Lucille. Fan sat right down on the pebbles at ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lists he led; With solemn march and stately pace, But far more grave and solemn face; Grave as the Emperor of Pegu 155 Or Spanish potentate Don Diego. This leader was of knowledge great, Either for charge or for retreat. He knew when to fall on pell-mell; To fall back and retreat as well. 160 So lawyers, lest the bear defendant, And plaintiff dog, should make an end on't, Do stave and tail with writs of error, Reverse of judgment, and demurrer, To let them breathe ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... have no alarm-bell of any kind. The glare of a conflagration is usually the first warning conveyed to the firemen, when instantly a score of engines are turned out, horses, that are always kept ready harnessed, are fastened to the shafts, and away they go, pell-mell, through the streets, every vehicle, to the Lord Mayor's or Prime Minister's carriage, being compelled to draw aside and give them room to pass. On this occasion their services were not required, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Not a head in white and black On a single fishing smack, 130 In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. Go to Paris: rank on rank. Search, the heroes flung pell-mell On the Louvre, deg. face and flank! deg.135 You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel. So, for better and for worse, Herve Riel, accept my verse! In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... out of the mob amid a volley of execrations, which were replied to by angry oaths and threats of the cavaliers as they galloped across the Place d'Armes and rode pell-mell into the gateway of the Chateau of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... But think the nation all turned Picts again. Faith, as you manage matters, 'tis not fit You should suspect yourselves of too much wit: Drive not the jest too far, but spare this piece; And, for this once, be not more wise than Greece. See twice! do not pell-mell to damning fall, Like true-born Britons, who ne'er think at all: Pray be advised; and though at Mons[1] you won, On pointed cannon do not always run. With some respect to ancient wit proceed; You take the four first councils for your creed. But, when you lay tradition ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... 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 Birmingham. Whereupon I began to calculate the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... field of Cueto's cane was burned, and his laborers reported seeing Esteban and some negroes riding into the wood. The overseer took horse within the hour and rode pell-mell to Matanzas. In the city at this time was a certain Colonel Cobo, in command of Spanish Volunteers, those execrable convict troops from the Isle of Pines whose atrocities had already marked them as wolves rather than men, and to him ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... came out pell-mell, Then slew he Carl Ege, the fierce and fell:— He slew the great, he slew the small; He slew till his foes were slaughter'd all. Look out, look ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... bay by the daring maiden. After her 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 ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... 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 toward James Towne. ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... simple things, but mostly made expressly for him, of oxidised silver, with his initials in plain block letters; and each object has a neat sole leather case of its own, so that they can be thrown pell-mell into a bag and jumbled up together without being scratched. But Lushington takes them out of their cases and disposes them on the table with mathematical precision, smoking vigorously all the time. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... interest. On the twenty-eighth day of the month, at five in the morning, a body of Swedes attacked the Prussian troops posted in the suburbs of Anclam, on the other side of the Peene, and drove them into the city, which they entered pell-mell. General Manteuffel, being alarmed, endeavoured to rally the troops; but was wounded and taken, with about two hundred men, and three pieces of cannon. The victors, having achieved this exploit, returned to their own quarters. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... in his studio jesting, boxing, fencing—and interested himself in the mechanics I have described. His drawing, his engine-building, his literary studies and recreations were all mixed, jumbled, plunging him pell-mell, as it were, on to distinction. In the first six months of his studio life he had learned to fence, and often dropped his brush to put on the mask and assume the foils with one of ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... is 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
... 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 to run: but when I saw the town full of them, and their dogs ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... drawers a bit of white linen untidily protruded. Her mother! The upper part was filled with sliding trays, each having a raised edge to keep the contents from falling out. These trays were heaped pell-mell with her mother's personal belongings—small garments, odd indeterminate trifles, a muff, a bundle of whalebone, veils, bags, and especially cardboard boxes. Quantities of various cardboard boxes! Her mother kept everything, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Temple so fast that one boy fell and about six fell on top of him just as American boys do pouring out of school. I even saw one lad whack another one on the back of his little bald head and a scuffle ensued. They laughed, fought, tumbled pell-mell, got up again grinning, winked and laughed back at the good natured Americans for all the ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... applauded him; in his old age you hooted and mocked him, because his genius for raillery had gone. Cratinus[69] again was like a torrent of glory rushing across the plain, uprooting oak, plane tree and rivals and bearing them pell-mell in its wake. The only songs at the banquet were, 'Doro, shod with lying tales' and 'Adepts of the Lyric Muse';[70] so great was his renown. Look at him now! he drivels, his lyre has neither strings nor keys, his voice quivers, but you have no pity for him, and you let him wander ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the morning, when the bell rang for the boys to come in from their recess, Newman and many of the others pushed in at the doorway, pell-mell, as usual. Before they were fairly inside the room the new master, calm and smiling, stood before them. One of his long arms shot out; he collared Newman and, with a trip of the foot, flung him ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... to 'howlings in that day.' The defenceless, surprised crowd, huddled together in the dimly lighted shrine, were massacred to a man. The innermost sanctuary was then wrecked, corpses and statues thrown pell-mell into the outer courts or beyond the precincts, fires lit to burn the abominations, and busy hands, always more ready for pillage and destruction than for good work, pulled down the temple, the ruins of which were turned to base uses. The writer, picturing the wild scene, sums up with a touch ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... duty to be dismounted, for the sake of keeping Mr. Malthus with many others in countenance. For at this point, Phaedrus, more than at any other almost, there is a sad confusion of lords and gentlemen that I could name thrown out of the saddle pell-mell upon their mother earth. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of mane! Part are upon us, with edges of pain; Part burst, riderless, over the plain, Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the slain. See, by the living God! see those foot Charging down hill—hot, hurried, and mute! They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell! Horses roll in a human hell; Horse and man they climb one another— Which is the beast, and which is the brother? Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks With the tread of torn-out cheeks, Drinking each other's bloody breath— Here's ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... I mounted the mule and came hither, in haste, to tell you." When my master's wife and daughters heard this, they shrieked aloud and tore their clothes and buffeted their faces, whilst the neighbours came round them. Then my mistress overturned the furniture of the house, pell-mell, tore down the shelves, broke up the casements and the lattices and smeared the walls with mud and indigo. Presently she said to me, "Out on thee, O Kafour! Come and help me tear down these cupboards and break up these vessels and porcelain!" So I went to her and helped her break up ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... most distinguished offerings, will give a fair idea of this pell-mell of regal and fantastic luxury. Throughout, even on the ceilings, it was panelled in oak, picked out, here and there, by dead-gold lines. These panels were framed in relief with figures of children playing with fantastic animals, among ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... stick on the run, hoping to escape but preparing for the reaction of fight if cornered. "What shall I do—what shall I do? finds no conscious answer if the emotion is overwhelming or the instinctive flight a pell-mell affair; but ordinarily memories of other experiences or of teaching come into the mind and some effort is made to meet the ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Winchester in his left hand, drew his revolver with his right, and within thirty yards started his horse into a run, yelling like an Indian and firing his pistol in the air. As he swept by, two or three figures dashed pell-mell indoors, and he ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... that organized defense was the last thing they reckoned on, nine more Kurds came galloping down the track pell-mell toward the place where they had heard the solitary rifle-shot, doubtless supposing their own man had come upon the quarry. We fired too fast, for the Armenians were not drilled men, but we dropped two horses and five Kurds, and the remaining four fled, with the riderless animals stampeding ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the Coding Officer tumbled pell-mell up the ladder and handed a piece of folded paper to the Captain, saluted, turned on his heel and descended the ladder again. The Captain unfolded the signal and read with knitted brows. Then he turned quickly to ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... follows directly behind, listening to his guide who points out the objects and places of interest. And thus, through the alleys and by-ways, through the nooks and labyrinths of these underground temple-ruins, we get to the rear, where the ramparts and mounds crumble to a mighty heap, rising pell-mell to the ceiling. Here, one is likely to get a glimpse into such enchanted worlds as the name of a Dickens or a Balzac might suggest. Here, too, is Shakespeare in lamentable state; there is Carlyle in rags, still crying, as it were, against the filth and beastliness of this underworld. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... and violent storm arose, the sea became turbulent and there was much seasickness. No one could stand upright in the cabins, everything was tossed about pell-mell and sailors fell overboard and could not be saved; yet the fleet by the evening of the 9th was sailing with calmer weather through the dangerous region of the Scilly Islands, where, over a mass of rocks ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... the strife. The remnants wound Their Rhineward way pell-mell; And thus did Leipzig City sound An ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... if I only had written them down! Pell-mell they came down the sequestered avenues of my mind, this merry throng. With bacchanal song and shout they came, and eye hath not since beheld confusion ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... Spanish Embassador's at York House, and there did hear a little masse: and so to White Hall; and there the King being gone to Chapel, I to walk all the morning in the Park, where I met Mr. Wren; and he and I walked together in the Pell-Mell, it being most summer weather that ever was seen: and here talking of several things: of the corruption of the Court, and how unfit it is for ingenious men, and himself particularly, to live in it, where a man cannot live but he must spend, and cannot ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Christians, being persuaded that the fighting force would never return, rose en masse and put every Turkish soul to death. The massacre was characterised by a terrible ferocity; the bodies of the dead were hideously mutilated and were all hurled pell-mell into the well at the Turkish end of the village, and all the houses of that quarter were looted and burned down. Contrary to the expectations of the victors, the Turkish residents returned triumphant. They took their revenge; they put the Christians to the sword, fired the Christian houses, and ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... their friends, took the offensive, swept before them the mutineers who had made their way into the battery, and, joining the irregulars, drove the mutineers, astounded and panic-stricken at the fierceness of the assault, pell-mell ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... know that an engagement had really commenced. It would be difficult to describe the scene as I found it. About twenty boats were jammed together, forming one confused mass; some bottom up; the bows or sterns of others only visible; mixed up, pell-mell, with huge rafts; and among which were nearly all our advanced little division. Headless trunks, as well as heads without bodies, were lying about in all directions; parties were engaged hand to hand, spearing and krissing each other; others were striving to swim for their lives; ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... turned off shore, and as she swung round, the larboard quarter boat was completely smashed between the ship's side and the rock. Nothing could exceed the alarm that prevailed on board for a few minutes after the sudden crash. The decks were covered with spars and rigging, lying pell-mell upon the bodies of those who had been injured by their fall. The man at the helm had been killed at his post, and the wheel itself was shivered to atoms; whilst the darkness of the night, and the roar of the breakers against the cliff, added to the horrors of a catastrophe of which the suddenness ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... another, and presently Paul Lizard was seen scrambling along the beach, and followed by the captain and a soldier, and a regular onslaught on the seals was commenced. The seamen could restrain themselves no longer, and down they rushed pell-mell to assist their friends; the only weapons, however, which they possessed were some pieces of the wreck. The seals were rushing towards the water, tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape; a few old bulls, ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... the crowd, the Ammidons heard, had been knocked down and injured in the pell-mell of the rush. Gerrit's countenance showed his contempt of what he held to be a characteristically ludicrous farce. After all, his wishes in regard to the Nautilus had been easy of execution, the ship was now his; he was already contracting for a cargo. He had been to see Mr. Broadrick, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... two before hurling themselves directly upon the Northern flank. He saw the flash of sabers, the jets of white smoke from rifle or pistol, and then the Northern line was cut through. But new regiments came up, threw themselves upon the cavalry, and all were mingled in a wild pell-mell among the thickets and through the forests. Clouds of smoke, thick and black, settled down, and horse and foot, saber and gun were hidden ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... of the night before. A small trunk on the coachman's seat was a sufficient indication that he was going to the station. The train for Paris left in twelve minutes, time enough for me to pack my things pell-mell into my valise and hurriedly to pay my bill. The same carriage which was to have taken me to the Chateau de Proby carried me to the station at full speed, and when the train left I was seated in an empty compartment opposite the famous writer, who was saying to me, "You, too, deserting ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... crisis was reached at the cleansing of the Temple. The moral greatness, the tremendous impressiveness, of the personality of Jesus were never more clearly demonstrated than on this occasion. There was no earthly reason why dove-sellers, money-changers, priests, and Temple officials should be driven pell-mell out of precincts they had come to look upon as their own, except that they were overawed by the stern majesty of this wonderful Galilean. For a brief hour Jesus was master of the situation; the next day He was arrested. The thing had to be done secretly and quickly, ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... encouragement and pace of marching; the first man that was slain with the ordnance being very near unto himself; and thereupon hasted all that he might, to keep them from the recharging of the ordnance. And notwithstanding their ambuscados, we marched or rather ran so roundly into them, as pell-mell we entered the gates, and gave them more care every man to save himself by flight, than reason to stand any longer to their broken fight. We forthwith repaired to the market-place, but to be more truly understood, a place of very spacious square ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... threw away this battle at Axminster. He could have cut Albemarle's troops to pieces had he chosen to do so. They made a pretty bold front till we were within gunfire of them, when they all scattered off to the town pell-mell. While they were in the town, we could have cut them off from the Chard road, which would have penned them in while we worked round to seize the bridges. After that, one brisk assault would have made the whole batch of them ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... never learned how to spell, but he does not know the true meaning, connections, and relations of words, the propriety or impropriety of phrases, the exact significance of imagery;[1119] he strides on impetuously athwart a pell-mell of incongruities, incoherencies, Italianisms, and barbarisms, undoubtedly stumbling along through awkwardness and inexperience, but also through excess of ardor and of heat;[1120] his jerking, eruptive thought, overcharged with passion, indicates the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... is! What a panorama of passions! What a pell-mell of men and women! It was said of Trollope that he increased the number of our acquaintances without adding to our visiting list; but after the Comedie Humaine one begins to believe that the only real people are the people who have never existed. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... by the enemy.— Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge: Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe: Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell; If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.— What shall I say more than I have inferr'd? Remember whom you are to cope withal;— A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, A scum of Britagnes, and base lackey peasants, Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... of manners, and of sentiments: the crowd, the cries, the wit, and the comfits with which they inundate without distinction the carriages as they pass along, confound every mortal together and set the nation pell-mell, as if ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... quiet for a time; then there arose a tumult of cries, oaths, and yells. The captain gave the order, and pell-mell down the rift we clambered, some dropping their muskets in their hurried descent, one of which exploded in its fall. The bo's'n had found the beach and our boat guarded by six pirates, who were asleep. Four of these they succeeded in throttling. We pushed the boat ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... found his actions characteristic of his tribe. He literally makes hay while the summer shines. He is the only harvester I ever saw who works on the run. He dashed at top speed, without stopping for breath, bit off a mouthful of grass and again ran pell-mell for his growing stack. He scampered down its side, then leaped from an adjacent rock to its top, laden with his bundle of hay. Evidently he found the alpine summer short and felt it necessary to step lively. Altitude, that convenient scapegoat of tenderfeet, did not seem to ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... conniving, A long account 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 ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... corn. Thraw, a twist. Thraw, to twist; to turn; to thwart. Thraws, throes. Threap, maintain, argue. Threesome, trio. Thretteen, thirteen. Thretty, thirty. Thrissle, thistle. Thristed, thirsted. Through, mak to through make good. Throu'ther (through other), pell-mell. Thummart, polecat. Thy lane, alone. Tight, girt, prepared. Till, to. Till't, to it. Timmer, timber, material. Tine, to lose; to be lost. Tinkler, tinker. Tint, lost Tippence, twopence. Tip, v. toop. Tirl, to strip. Tirl, to knock for entrance. Tither, the other. Tittlin, whispering. Tocher, dowry. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... perceiving 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
... an obstinate resistance. The garrison had made a sally from the town to support them; and this detachment was driven back with such precipitation, that the French officer on command in that quarter, fearing the English would enter pell-mell with the fugitives, ordered the bridge to be drawn up, leaving his own men to the fury of a victorious enemy. Six hundred were killed, two hundred taken prisoners, including many officers, and a great number were drowned in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... But there was no orderly retreat after Little Shikara had heard the two reports of the rifle. At first there were only the shouts of the beaters, singularly high-pitched, much running back and forth in the shadows, and then a pell-mell scurry to the shelter of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... a severe cold kept me in bed. Three or four of the little rascals found an entrance and came pell-mell into the house. One located a cookie and the others chased him into my room with it. For half an hour they fought and raced back and fourth over my bed while I kept safely hidden under the covers, head and all. During a lull I took a ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... schools, houses, stables, are all of one 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 are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... costumes of green and gold, each with his bow in one hand and his arrows in his belt. But the calmest had his equanimity disturbed by the consciousness that the main body of his comrades, all noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland, were running pell-mell behind, in a desperate effort to form into rank and march in due order. One eager confused glance, one long-drawn breath, one vehement heart-throb for her who was the centre of all, and the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... first raises its head, until the animal, again assured of its safety, gives a skip or two and goes on feeding; again the native advances, and this scene is repeated many times until the whistling spear penetrates the devoted animal; then the wood rings with shouts; women and children all join pell-mell in the chase; the kangaroo, weak from the loss of blood, and embarrassed by the long spear which catches in the brushwood as it flies, at length turns on its pursuers, and to secure its rear places ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... all been neatly cleared away, and the shattered front of the building boarded up. Inside, Aubrey found Roger seated on the floor, looking over piles of volumes that were heaped pell-mell around him. Through Mr. Chapman's influence with a well-known firm of builders, the bookseller had been able to get men to work at once in making repairs, but even so it would be at least ten days, he said, before he could reopen for business. "I hate to lose the ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... evident, was giving him but a scatterbrained attention. Her secret was working in her ample breast. Very soon she could contain it no longer, and breaking in upon her husband's parish news, she tumbled it all out pell-mell, with a mixture of discomfiture and defiance infinitely diverting. She could not keep a secret, but she also could not bear to give William ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... scouts were ready. In another, the little party emerged from the house and started pell-mell down the hill in a mad race to reach the landing before the police-boat ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... too good to keep," shouted Josie Jordan, rushing in pell-mell, and seizing the pair with a lustiness peculiar only to a maiden of ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... the forward deck was always under water, and the men gathered abaft the trunk to keep as dry as possible. Officers and crew were huddled together pell-mell, and, with our usual loose discipline, every body joined in the conversation and counsel. Before sundown I again advised the laying-to of the schooner; but the task had now become so formidable that the men who dreaded the job, assured the captain that the wind would fall as the moon arose. Yet, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... separates the present geological epoch from that which immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the bones of Men and Mammoths, Hyaenas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell into ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... body was laid in, the lid put down, and the care of covering them with sand left to the winds. The lid is fastened with the same mortar which is used in the brick masonry surrounding the coffin, where such a receptacle has been made for it; but they more usually lie pell-mell, separated only by thin layers of loose sand. There are mounds which are, as one may say, larded with them: wherever you begin to dig a trench, the narrow ends stick out from both sides. In these coffins also various articles were buried with the dead, sometimes valuable ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... it crested and 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 to the current. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... the long rocket, That shot, from its socket, Puts armies, pell-mell, to the rout, sir; At Leipsic, its tail Made Napoleon turn pale, And sent all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... and poverty-stricken,—rickety, worn-out, rush-bottom chairs; unsold, unfinished pictures, pell-mell in the corner, covered with dust; broken casts of plaster; a lay-figure battered in its basket-work arms, with its doll-like face all smudged and besmeared. A pot of porter and a noggin of gin on a stained deal table, accompanied by two or three broken, smoke-blackened pipes, some tattered ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... work; the imagination readily accepts them. It instinctively rejects, on the contrary, whatever shall call up the image of our race upon its lowest terms, as the partner of beasts, beastly itself, dwelling pell-mell and hugger-mugger, hairy man with hairy woman, in the caves of old. And yet to be just to barbarous islanders we must not forget the slums and dens of our cities; I must not forget that I have passed dinnerward through ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson |
