"Sprawling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beloved gave the young man almost superhuman strength. Seizing in his right hand a cudgel which was lying on the ground, while his left arm still supported Kathinka, he hewed a passage through the ranks. Eight men lay sprawling upon the ground and their companions retreated before the telling blows of Joseph's club. When he found himself unembarrassed by the rioters, he lifted Kathinka in both his arms and ran as fast as his feet would bear him to his father's house, which, having already been attacked, he hoped would ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... used to the incessant cries and outcries, quarrels, accidents, and miseries of a great city. Mrs. Rowles ran swiftly down the sloppy stairs to the open door, there she found Juliet leaning against the railings, while the baby lay sprawling on the step. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... 24th, probably for her second brood this season. Some young vespers flitting about farther up the road are presumably her first brood. Each day thereafter for four consecutive days she added an egg. Incubation soon began and on the 10th of July the young were out, the little sprawling, skinny things looking, as a city girl said when she first beheld newly-hatched birds in a nest, as ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... with a harum-scarum devil of a half-bred, making his way at all risks, at a full gallop, as unmanageable in his career as his driver had been in his speculations; dust flying, women sprawling, men bawling, dogs barking, and the multitude continually increasing. Scouts, Scamps, Lords, Loungers and Lacqueys—Coster-mongers from—To the Hill Fields—and The Bloods from Bermondsey, completely lined the road as far as the eye could reach, both before and behind; it was a day ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... sport about in; and my manoeuvring in these confined places became so irritating, that a large female came rapidly under water to the stern of the canoe, and gave it such a sudden and violent cant with her head or withers, that that end of the vessel shot up in the air, and sent me sprawling on my back, with my legs forced up by the seat—a bar of wood—at right angles to my body; whilst the poler and the big double gun were driven like a pair of shuttlecocks, flying right and left of the canoe high up into ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... as the bystanders saw with what ease Amos was handling his opponents, they began to laugh and take sides. A crowd always does that. Some urged Amos to go on fighting; others urged the sprawling ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... when he had been a common little fellow, but a short time ago, sprawling in every mud-puddle, or wobbling uncertainly after the many strange alluring things in the streets. Matt, who seemed to have second sight in regard to the invisible, latent good points in all horses ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... but do not see my home. The steam-whistle shrills several times on the boundless expanse where meet sky and earth. The steamer, floating gently like a hollow reed, sails out of the Middle Kingdom."[203] But we must not envy Chinese its terseness unduly. Our more sprawling mode of expression is capable of its own beauties, and the more compact luxuriance of Latin style has its loveliness too. There are almost as many natural ideals of literary style as there are languages. Most of these are ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... tried to jump through the door-way leading to the library. In order to do this he had to pass Horace Sumner, and putting out his foot the old broker sent the man sprawling to the floor, and then ended his struggles by sitting down on him so suddenly that Parsons' wind was knocked ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... the soldiers had run round to the other side he was off, dodging in and out among the wagons in the mad idea that he could escape; but before he had gone a hundred yards he came out suddenly upon a mounted man, and the next instant he went sprawling over a lance-shaft, and the steel-shod butt end was planted upon his back to keep him ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... paragraph; just, in short, where he ought to be, to inspire confidence in a wicked and adulterous generation. But, mind you, Bummkopf is not human; he is Dagon the fish god, and down he will come, sprawling on his belly or his behind, with his hands broken from his helpless carcase, and his head rolling oft into a corner. Up will rise on the other side, sane, pleasurable, human knowledge: a thing of beauty and a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the cattle pony, and, as the horse veered away, Hal Dozier dropped limply into his arms. He lay with his limbs sprawling at odd angles beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyes were bright and wide, and his face ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... collided, and attacked each other in anger, only to fall, so weak they scarcely could squeal. A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster, after several attempts, flew to the fence, balanced with great effort, wildly flapped his wings and started a guttural crow, but fell sprawling among the pigs, too helpless ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... the four territories met, New Reno flung its sprawling, dirty carcass over the muddy soil and roared and hooted endlessly, laughed with the rough boisterousness of miners and spacemen, rang with the brittle, brassy laughter of women following a trade older than New Reno. It clanged and shouted and bellowed ...
— Foundling on Venus • John de Courcy
... half-veiled by delicate wrinkled lids. Very still, in her grey dress, and with grey hair, she gave the impression of a little figure carved out of fine, worn steel. Her firm, spidery hand held a letter written in free somewhat sprawling style: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... disappointed in the middle of the courtyard. At this sudden intrusion into their domain, a brood of chickens, who had been clucking sedately around, and picking up nourishment at the same time, scattered screaming in every direction, heads down, feet sprawling, until by unanimous consent they made a beeline for a half-open door, leading to the orchard. Through this manoeuvre, the young man's attention was brought to the fact that through this opening he could reach the rear facade of the building. He therefore entered a grassy lane, winding round a group ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... his dark face. "That so, alma mater?" he said. "Then—considering all things—again thanks!" He turned from her to the baby sprawling on the rug at his feet, and lifted the youngster to his knee. "So this is the pride of ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... expostulating, catching him by the coat sleeve. Rivers turned savagely. The wide road was deserted, and in a flash he brought his heavy blackwood stick across Kwong's face with a terrific blow. The coolie fell sprawling in the dust at his old master's feet, and Rivers, furious, kicked him savagely in the stomach, again and again, until the man lay still and ceased writhing. Blood gushed from his mouth, making a puddle in the dust, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... his victim, then at the pistol still smoking in his hand, he put the weapon back in his pocket, and began gathering up the money for which he had just damned his soul. To get it all, he had to move an arm of the body sprawling along the board. But he did not appear to mind. When every bill was in his pockets, he reached out his hand for the watch. Then I saw him smile. He smiled as he shut the case, he smiled as he plunged it in after the bills. There was gloating in this smile. He seemed ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... for the third time, he caught Rowl by the collar, jerked him, felt him rise, dropped him, sure that he had contributed the needed impulse, and ran on. But when he turned, confident that he would find Rowl sprawling on the pan, Rowl had failed and dropped ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... when I reached the trees he was racing madly up it, hand over hand. He had almost reached the lowest branch of the tree from which the creeper depended when the thing parted beneath his weight and he fell sprawling ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... glared at each other, and then the Swede aimed a lightning blow that carried with it his entire weight. Johnnie was evidently half stupid from weakness, but he miraculously dodged, and his fist sent the over-balanced Swede sprawling. ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... were closing in upon him. He turned the knob of the door opening to the landing on which he stood, and tried to push it in, but it was locked. Then he stepped quickly to the door on the opposite side and threw his shoulder against it. The door opened, and he stumbled forward sprawling. The room in which he had taken refuge was almost bare, and very dark; but in a little room leading from it he saw a pile of tossed-up bedding on the floor, and he dived at this as though it was water, and crawled far under it until he reached the wall ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... lips Clavering fell sprawling on his back, for Hugh had caught his leg with his left arm and thrown him, so that they lay ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... the Dunnan blitz. Normally about five or ten thousand, the place was now jammed with almost fifty thousand homeless refugees from half a dozen other towns that had been destroyed, overflowing the buildings and crowding into a sprawling camp of hastily built huts and shelters, and already permanent buildings were going up to accommodate them. Everybody, locals, Mardukans and Space Vikings, had been busy with the work of relief and ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... have to give a lesson to this brazenface!" replied the doctora, joggling her husband, who just missed sprawling in the dust. ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... a lusus naturae of any nationality but English, who rising from Private to Brigadier-General, could write six hundred and seventy-three sprawling foolscap pages purporting to contain the story of his life from eighteen-eighty something to June nineteen hundred and nineteen and deliberately omit, as if it were neither here nor there, its four and a half ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... his fists; then, resisting the desire of striking her, he seized hold of her by the arms, shook her violently and sent her sprawling upon the bed of the children, who recommenced crying. And he lay down again, mumbling, like a man resolving on something that he ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... herd of buffalos, but there didn't seem to be any way to remedy the matter. Hinpoha would shriek when she stepped on a rolling stick, thinking it was a snake, and Katherine was continually tripping over something and sprawling ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... put his shoulder to the mouldering door. It fell inward with a dull crash and as it did so the professor leaped backward with a startled cry, stumbling over a deck beam and sprawling in ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... had the complexion of a half-ripe watermelon. His fellow-sufferers were only heaps of wet and dirty linen dumped in the lee alley-way. It was bad enough in a bunk, where you could brace your knees against the side, and keep moderately still till you dozed off, when naturally you were shot out sprawling into the lost drainage wandering on the erratic floor. What those Arabs suffered on deck I cannot tell you. I never went up to find out. At Bougie they seemed to have left it all to Allah, with the usual result. It was clear, from a glance at those piles of rags, that the Arab is no more ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... himself with bag and rifle and blanket sprawling on the gravel-covered floor of a flat car. Casey, the old lineman, grinned at him over ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... had been no less successful in repulsing their assailants; and, when Charles rose to his feet, he saw three or four of the Regulators, who had followed him to the attack, sprawling on the ground, and ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... sure; but of late years it seems he has taken up with company rather beneath him. First of all, he has gone to work in a most plebeian, almost slave-like fashion, turning wheels and making lights and dragging silly little trolley cars about a straggling town. Also, he hobnobs continually with a sprawling, brawling, bad-breathed smelter, as no respectable Titan should do. And on top of it all—and this was the straw that broke the back of my sentimental camel—he allows them to maintain a park on the cliffs ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... man reached the climax of his madness, the girl's hard challenging gaze, as if by some miracle of his ministering angels, had suddenly wavered and broken. Her eyes flitted from his face, rested fixedly on a hideous sprawling pile on the corner ahead, an abode of trade exceptionally repellent to all the senses. However, she was unaware of the detestable object, so confused was she by the odd frustrating weakness that suddenly possessed her, staying ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... knees, but as I had gone under the surface, and was completely drenched, I made an enthusiastic move toward the bank. Now snowshoes are not adapted for walking either in swift water or among boulders. I realized this thoroughly after they had several times tripped me, sprawling, into the liquid cold. Finally I sat down in the water, took them off, ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... to spiders, caterpillars, and wood-lice, grown to gigantic proportions, some with bare glaucous skins, others tufted with filthy matted hairs, whilst many had sickly limbs—dwarf legs, and shrivelled, palsied arms—sprawling around them. And some displayed horrid dropsical bellies; some had spines bossy with hideous humps, and others looked like dislocated skeletons. Mamillaria threw up living pustules, a crawling swarm of greenish tortoises, bristling ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... on. They let drive another straggling volley, and with a convulsive spring in air, the leading dog of the team dropped dead. In a trice the rest of the dogs, pulled up abruptly, were in a hopeless tangle. The sledge dashed into them, grated sidewise, and tipped over, sending its occupant sprawling on the snow. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; it's an almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... John's skate sank to his shoe sole in a crack and sent him sprawling. He stood up shakily and rubbed a ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... brocaded skirts; others, with cheerful and childlike pleasure in both antique and modern, like Benozzo, crowding together half-naked youths and nymphs treading the grapes and scaling the trellise with Florentine magnificos in plaited skirts and starched collars, among the pines, and porticos, the sprawling children, barking dogs, peacocks sunning themselves, and partridges picking up grain, of his Pisan frescoes; yet others using the antique as mere pageant shows, allegorical mummeries, destined to amuse some Duke of Ferrara or Marquis of Mantua, together with the hurdle races ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... him, the cowardly creature went wild with fear, and made convulsive and clumsy efforts to reach the water ten feet away, tumbling down twice in doing so, and finally plunging into the ocean trembling as though with ague. At the alarm, the entire rookery took flight, leaving the pups behind, sprawling on the rocks. The parents ranged up in a line about fifty feet from shore and remained at that safe distance as long as Colin was in sight. He watched the pups for a little while, but they were not nearly as interesting as seals, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and speared them and spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek, and shriek and bellow; and here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and took the funeral procession right in the center, and sent that section of it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered apart and fled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on him, and not a rag of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in no mood for finesse: with a vicious shove he sent the vindictive Pud-Pud sprawling, ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... Sprawling in an easy chair opposite him was a fat European in a tight white linen suit buttoned up to the neck. He evidently felt the heat acutely, and with a large coloured handkerchief he incessantly wiped his red face, down which the sweat rolled in ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... even in early morning and at six in the evening left her listless, nervously dreading the great concrete-lined room, the reek of glue and oil, the sweaty propinquity of her neighbours, and the monotonous appetite of the sprawling machine which she fed all day long with ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... loud, a wild, screaming laugh, for really he looked most ridiculous, sprawling there on the bend of the hut, and the lightning showed her all sorts of pictures ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... into the well hole, his brother and Songbird holding him by his free arm. The loose end of the chain dangled close to Stanley and he grasped hold. Then came a short, hard pull, and Stanley came sprawling out on the grass. Then Spud crawled up a little higher and he was hauled out the ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... Government was to them a sacred thing, and they did not fancy having their demands for a better wage scale confused by the talk of anarchists and socialists. Many of the laborers of Bidwell were sons and grandsons of pioneers who had opened up the country where the great sprawling towns were now growing into cities. They or their fathers had fought in the great Civil War. During boyhood they had breathed a reverence for government out of the very air of the towns. The great men ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... a film of mud from his lips and chin. Then he made the last pull, bracing his slight body against the push of the wind he met there. A palm struck hard between his shoulders, nearly sending him sprawling. He had only wits enough left to recognize that as an order to get on, and he staggered ahead until rock arched over him and the sand drift ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... with cats falling in a perfect shower from the sky. They were of all sizes and colors,—big cats, little cats, black cats, white cats, gray cats, yellow, spotted and brindle cats, and at least a dozen of them fell sprawling into the clock. Among them, to Davy's dismay, was Solomon, with the other mitten drawn over his head and the thumb sticking straight up like a horn. This gave him a very extraordinary appearance, and the ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... You sat there, moon-struck, dozing, Upon the window's edge, Then lost yourself, and falling, Just where we found you, sprawling, Struck the piazza ledge; A lucky hit, old fellow, Of black and blue and yellow It gives your face a touch, You saved your neck, but barely; To state the matter fairly, You took ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... the ground; but this beast is as tenacious of life as a cat, and instead of falling dead, he limped off and escaped. But to resume: I fired, and never heard a ball strike with more satisfaction in my life. It laid the alligator sprawling, feet uppermost. There was no time to be lost in getting him on shore; two or three strokes with the oars brought us alongside of the monster, as he floated on the surface of the stream. The business was to attach a line to one ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... he spoke, but he went; and a soft-hearted walrus in uniform sprawling across a lofty desk took down names and notes and minute descriptions of Kedzie and her costume. He told the two babes in the wood that such t'ings happened constant, and the goil would toin up in no time. He ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... my perch on the top of the hack, all sprawling, the vehicle was approaching one of those small public houses at the corner of a cross street, which abound in the upper part of New York and Harlem. In front of it burned a street lamp. Tom Thornton—and I could distinctly make him out now, though I did not see his face—had bent his ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... the sands, above on the bluffs, were set the homes of the summer residents—those whom Gusty Durgin, the waitress at the hotel, termed "the big bugs." On the farthest point visible in this direction was a sprawling, ornate villa with private dock and boathouses, and a small breakwater behind which floated a fleet of small craft. Louise heard the "put-put-a-put" of a motor and descried a swift craft ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... said the man, laying a detaining left hand on the near rein, "it's this way it is; ye see—" and at that, with a sudden powerful upward push of the unskilled rider's leg, Lord Durie was hurled from the saddle and lay sprawling on his back on the wet sand, as the horse sprang ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... gate Dragonfly was on was as wide open as it could go, and Dragonfly who didn't have a very good hold with his hands—and the gate being icy anyway—slipped off and went sprawling head over heels into a ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... out to see anew her home valley as it looked from her grove. So it was with something very close to annoyance that she looked at the sprawling figure of ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... speeches about liberty, equality, and fraternity, and then they sang till they were hoarse, and then they began hugging each other and shrieking, and lastly, they got up and danced and skipped and frisked about, till tripping up their heels they toppled down on deck, and lay sprawling about unable to move. Now and then one tried to rise, but all he could do was to reach a bottle, and to pour a little more liquor down his throat, which soon finished him off completely, and he, like the rest, lay ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the car line a new town had sprung up. In Ironville dwelt the brawn and bone of the works. The place was not restful like St. Marys, but a heterogeneous collection of sprawling cabins, corner saloons and grocery stores where the food was piled on sidewalk stands and gathered to itself the smoke and grime of the works when the wind came up from the south. Here were the Poles and Hungarians and Swedes, with large and constantly increasing families, and to them ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... English, and as Miss Walker thought herself the next thing to it, she took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women; the mushroom life; the haste, the crudities of living; the ugliness and the disorder; the unsettled, ever restless, patchy catch as catch can existence; the attempt, in a word, to make life, to build a town, a capital. All this ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... is not getting on with the Book. A score of men and women are crowding up to these pages waiting to get into the story. And the town of Harvey, how it is bursting its bounds, how it is sprawling out over the white paper, tumbling its new stores and houses and gas mains and water pipes all over the table; with what a clatter and clamor and with what vain pride! Now the pride of those years in Harvey came with the railroad, and here, pulling at the paper, stands big George Brotherton ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... this expert. They cut smaller notches in the tree, and insert their "boards" into it. These "boards" have a steel claw which bites into the tree when the men stand on the board, the idea being both to raise the cutters above the sprawling roots, and to give their swing on the saw an elasticity. It is because they cut so high that Canada is covered with tall stumps that make clearing a problem. The stumps are generally dynamited, or torn up by the roots by cables that pass through a block on the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... But because otherwise this strange sprawling empire of ours will drop back into a secondary place in the world. These two writers really seem to think that the slack workman, the slacker wealthy man, the negligent official, the conservative schoolmaster, ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... upon its back, or resting against glass, the soft arms, sprawling aimlessly about, and the bare, round head, give it the appearance of an infant in a cradle, so that a tank well stocked with them might be taken for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the action, and the loathsome sprawling of the trunk of Argus under the chariot, are the essential contributions of Rubens' own Netherland personality. Then the rest of the treatment he learned from other schools, but ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... the old man angry, for he could see with what deliberation she had planned for a long campaign. Even the comforts of his club were denied him; everyone knew him and everyone smiled at the little domestic disturbance. So he asked his secretary, young Spencer, to make his home for the present in the sprawling, brand-new "palace" that frowned out on the South Boulevard. Young Spencer accepted, out of pity for the old man; for he wasn't a toady and ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... tails, its nurse-maids, and its rows of people on piazzas? She could not know my tastes, and perhaps she had thought but little on the subject, and had taken her ideas from her father. He is just the man to be contented with nothing else than a vast sprawling hotel, ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... of the shotgun was followed by a yell from Whopper. The weapon, had kicked back and sent him sprawling. Now he was rolling over and over on the smooth rocks, directly toward the ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... unexpected quarter was at hand, and next moment Broomberg was sprawling on his back with Briton's great paws on ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... door, when one of the men made a dash to stop me; but Ike threw put one leg, and he fell sprawling. At the same moment my enemy made a rush at Ike, who stepped back, and then I saw his great fist fly out straight. There was a dull, heavy sound, and the big ruffian stopped short, reeled, and then dropped down upon his hands ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... this, and after traversing it a short distance Stella found herself in a circular chamber in the mountains with the starry sky for a roof. Several fires were burning in the chamber, around which Indians and white men were sprawling, playing cards, talking, or ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... brought to a sudden halt and he was sent sprawling to the ground by running full tilt into a man who tried to turn the same corner at the same time Jerry did, but from the opposite direction. The impact was so swift and so hard that Jerry was whirled clear around and fell on his face, striking ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... Bay man, throwing lantern-light across the dismal low roof as I fell sprawling into the room. "That'll cool the young hot-head," and all the French soldiers laughed at ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... was thrown off his feet. It all happened in a moment, and before I had time to look the sledge and the two men hurtled past me; I braced myself to stop them, but might as well have attempted to hold an express train. With the first jerk I was whipped off my legs, and we all three lay sprawling on our backs and flying downward with an ever-increasing velocity. For some reason the first thought that flashed into my mind was that someone would break a limb if he attempted to stop our mad career, and I shouted something to this effect, but might ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... authority—the authority he had come to respect in hospital—and he waited, setting his teeth. Next moment he set them still harder, for Li Ho and the girl picked him up without ceremony and laid him, whitefaced, upon the sprawling sofa. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... fierce lunges or gets out of their reach, till his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping, collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous bundle.—If my young friend, whose excellent article I have referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... who, being a great coward, immediately turned about and fled. But Charlie was upon him in a moment, and with the leg of pork dealt him a blow on the back of the head, which sent him sprawling on the ground. A knife fell from his hand and Charlie at once seized it. The woman, seeing what had befallen her husband, scrambled to her feet and toddled to him shouting, 'Foreigners!' as she went. To prevent her being heard Fred clapped his hand over her mouth, and, in spite of her biting ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the watershed, yet another pleasure shock. Through the sea haze Mitylene shines out like an iridescent bubble of light. Never had I seen anything so vivid in its colour and setting as this very ancient, very small, very brilliant city of Mitylene. Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, the Golden Horn are sprawling daubs to flawless Mitylene. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... knew not how long a while, Perion propped his chin between his hands and, still sprawling upon the rushes, stared hard into the little, crackling fire. He was thinking of a Perion de la Foret that once had been. In him might have been found a fit mate for Melicent had this boy not died ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... up an easy incline towards a turning ahead, and the deep note of the horn; round the corner to the right, close in; the flash of a bicycle coming down on the wrong side, and swerving desperately; a little brittle smashing of steel; then a man sprawling on his face in the road as ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... sank into a hole. Perhaps with a little calmness and patience he could have released it. But in his wild hurry he tried to wrench it out. A sudden, sharp pain rewarded this insane effort. He lost his balance and went sprawling to the ground, another quick, excruciating twinge accompanying his fall, and lay there on the soggy ground like ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the near ox lightly in the ribs. And the team lurched to the right to avoid a markedly obtrusive boulder. "Haw, Bright!" he ejaculated a minute later, flicking with his whip the off shoulder of the farther ox. And with sprawling legs and swaying of hind-quarters the team swerved obediently to the left, shunning a mire-hole that would have taken in the wheel to the hub. Presently, coming to a swampy spot that stretched all the way across the road, the youth seated himself sidewise on the narrow tongue connecting ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and spoke to her, calling her a good creature. Already he was resigned and now, indeed, for the first time he thoroughly understood what had happened to her, and how far apart they were now. But looking first at one cub, then at another, and having them sprawling over his lap, he forgot himself, only watching the pretty scene, and taking pleasure in it. Now and then he would stroke his vixen and kiss her, liberties which she freely allowed him. He marvelled more than ever now at her beauty; for her ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... to notice the young thrall when he came among them and began to refill the empty cups. The older men, sprawling on the sun-flecked grass and over the rude benches, were still drowsy from too deep soundings in too many mead horns. The four young people were talking together. They sat a little apart in the shade of some birch trees ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... twinkled like tiny lamps. Claude had been sitting there for a long while, and he knew he ought to go. Through the window at his elbow he could see rows of double hollyhocks, the flat leaves of the sprawling catalpa, and the spires of the tangled mint bed, all transparent in the gold-powdered light. They had talked about everything but the thing he had come to say. As he looked out into the garden he felt that he would never get it out. There was something in the ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... a root of gorse which cropped up at the edge of the pit. He aimed to swing himself back with all his might, depending on his grasp of the root. The root snapped short off close to the ground, and Chippy went tumbling and sprawling head-long into the pit, landing at the ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... in the dinner queue I had an imaginary fight with our Commanding Officer. I knocked him down and gloated over him as he lay sprawling in the mud with my hand savagely clutching his throat. Our pent up feelings often ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... stride without noticing its presence; but Werper's horse was jaded, his feet were heavy with weariness, and as the branch caught between his front legs he stumbled, was unable to recover himself, and went down, sprawling in the trail. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ground, and the rapid stream below bore away on its turbid bosom the yellowish tinge of the golden quartz. It was a perfect day, and Wheeler and I blessed our stars and, instead of breathing the air of sour paste and hot presses in the newspaper offices, away in the valley, we were sprawling in the glorious sunshine of the hills, playing draw poker with the miners in the evening, and forgetful of the daily newspaper where one man does the work and the other draws the salary. It ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and leaped for the running-board of the car. Tom switched on the power. Just as the huge hound leaped, and his fore-paws touched the step, the car darted away and the brute was left sprawling. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... borders the small lake, when a man sprang at their heads. He missed them, fell, and the carriage passed over him; but the horses shied from the road into the trees, and in an instant the splendid vehicle was a mass of fragments, and Mrs. Dawsey and the negro were sprawling on the ground. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you, my kivey," he said to the bargee, as he sent him sprawling. Then, turning round, he asked a townsman: "What do you charge for a pint of Dutch pink?" following up the question by ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... naked, under the hands of a ruffian, who had put his garter round her neck, and was endeavouring to draw her up to a tree. Jones asked no questions at this interval, but fell instantly upon the villain, and made such good use of his trusty oaken stick that he laid him sprawling on the ground before he could defend himself, indeed almost before he knew he was attacked; nor did he cease the prosecution of his blows till the woman herself begged him to forbear, saying, she believed he had ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Constantinople fades from a lurid silhouette to a sooty monotone by night, it at least makes amends by day. Then the sun, shining out of a sky of intense blue, on water vividly green, catches the tiled color-chips of the sprawling town; glints on dome and minaret, and makes such a city as might be seen in ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... this morning oh, beautiful, star-eyed Harry, that you and I, wearied with the frantic vain attempts of the unmathematical professor to elucidate by appalling triangles and hieroglyphics on the blackboard the perplexities of cube root, ousted each other from the seat, sprawling upon the floor, and were chased by the LL.D. out of doors, never to return until we apologized and promised "to ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... of the long car two young men dawdled in languid comfort, their bodies sprawling loosely in two big, soft arm-chairs, a tray with a couple of half-emptied high-ball glasses upon the table between them. They had created an atmosphere of their own about them, an atmosphere constituted of the blue haze from cigarettes mingled with trivial talk. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... to his representation and lifts him often to a true if sober eloquence. But in at least two of his novels imagination takes him, as only imagination can take a novelist, beyond the reach of either intelligence or conscience. Together, a little cumbersome, a little sprawling, nevertheless glows with an intensity which gives off heat as well as light. It is more than an exhaustive document upon modern marriage; it is interpretation as well. Clark's Field, a sparer, clearer story, is even more than interpretation; it is a work of art springing ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... silently and were about us before I had a hint of their presence. It was a troop of dragoons in the king's buff and scarlet, and they rode us down as if we had been hares in a field. The next I knew of it I was sprawling on the ground with a dizzy head, and horses trampling around me, I had a glimpse of Muckle John with a pistol at his nose, and the sorrel curveting and plunging in a panic. Then I bethought myself of saving my bones, and crawled out of ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... was the roar of the breakers, that it was with difficulty that the orders could be heard. In the mean time Mynheer Von Stroom lay upon the deck, kicking, sprawling, and crying for help. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... which look like tea-leaves now, and will take a withered and weird appearance hardly to be foreseen, long before the twenty-fifth, when the visit is vaguely expected to come off. In addition to these faded garlands all over the leading streets, there are painted eagles hoisted over gateways and sprawling across a hundred ways, which have been washed out by the rain and are now being blistered by the sun, until they look horribly ludicrous. And a number of our benighted compatriots who came over to see a perfect ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... scream of pain as the hot liquor flew into his eyes, the miserable little man struck out helplessly with both his fists, and fell down between the benches. A friend who was with him, advanced to avenge his injuries, and was thrown sprawling on the floor. Yells of "Turn him out!" and "Police!" followed; people at the other end of the room jumped up excitably on their seats; the women screamed, the men shouted and swore, glasses were broken, sticks were waved, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... composers," said Campbell; "figured music may be right, yet Mozart or Beethoven inadmissible. In like manner, you don't suppose, because I tolerate Roman architecture, that therefore I like naked cupids to stand for cherubs, and sprawling women for the cardinal virtues." He paused. "Besides," he added, "as you were saying yourself just now, we must consult the genius of our country and the religious associations of ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... It is that of a teaching Brother. He is a thin grizzled man of sixty, with an expression of melancholy benevolence in his rugged face. I have watched him sitting upon a bench with his arm round some little village urchin by his side, while the children from the outlying hamlets, sprawling upon a heap of stones in the sun, ate their mid-day meal of bread and cheese or buckwheat pancakes that their mothers had put into their baskets before they trudged off in the early morning. I have noticed by many signs that he is full of sympathy for the young peasants placed in his charge. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... in battle it acquires an added unkemptness. Men suddenly and sorely stricken have a way of shrinking up inside their clothes; unless they die on the instant they have a way of tearing their coats open and gripping with their hands at their vitals, as though to hold the life in; they have a way of sprawling their legs in grotesque postures; they have a way of putting their arms up before their faces as though at the very last they would shut out a dreadful vision. Those contorted, twisted arms with the elbows up, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... than one country we have hunted the savage and his little children and their mother with dogs and guns through the woods and swamps for an afternoon's sport, and filled the region with happy laughter over their sprawling and stumbling flight, and their wild supplications for mercy; but this method we do not mind, because custom has inured us to it; yet a quick death by poison is loving-kindness to it. In many countries we have taken the savage's land from him, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sprawling round her, half in and half out of the window, told the story, the triumph overcoming all compunction, as they described the morning raid, the successful scaling of the park-wall, the rush across the sward, the silence of the garden, the hoisting up of Allen to fasten on the ears, and the wonderful ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... midst of their dream came the disturbing patter of small feet and the joyous, innocent laughter of infantile glee. Two tiny mud-stained figures rushed at the doorway and fell sprawling into the hut. They were on their feet again in a moment, laughing and crowing out their delight. Then, as the man and woman sprang apart, they stood round-eyed, wondering ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... butler, who was terrified lest his young master should waken, stepped suddenly to the door, and opened it. "Get out of here!" he said; and then as Jurgis passed through the opening, he gave him a ferocious kick that sent him down the great stone steps at a run, and landed him sprawling in ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the "Heart of the World" players came to fulfil their engagement at San Juan upon a Saturday night. This was the liveliest camp in all that mountain region, a frantic, feverish, mushroom city of tents and shacks, sprawling frame business blocks, and a few ugly brick abominations, perched above the golden rocks of the Vila Valley, bounded on one side by the towering cliffs, on the other by the pitiless desert. In those days San Juan recognized no material distinction between midnight ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... fall far, the One-and-All being loaded to within a foot or two of the hatches. Her tumble sent her sprawling upon a heap of loose china-clay. She felt it sliding under her and herself sliding with it, softly, down into darkness. She was bruised. She had wrenched her shoulder terribly, but she clenched her teeth and kept back the cry she ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of gold-fish she had ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... Sphex, sprawling flat upon the vine leaves, grows dizzy with the heat and frisks for very pleasure; "with its feet it taps rapidly on its resting-place, and thus produces a drumming like that of a shower of rain falling thickly on the leaves." Fabre takes a keen ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... up any portion of the stiff and ungovernable hair, filthy finery, every colour in the rainbow, and the deepest possible shades blended in fierce companionship round one dusky visage, head handkerchiefs, that put one's very eyes out from a mile off, chintzes with sprawling patterns, that might be seen if the clouds were printed with them—beads, bugles, flaring sashes, and above all, little fanciful aprons, which finish these incongruous toilets with a sort of airy grace, which I assure you is perfectly ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... sudden he fell forward sprawling. Then I thought him dead, and for the first time the dreadful consciousness of my crime in its true character, came to my mind. I can not describe the agony of fear and horror which filled my soul. He did not die, but he was ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... lama's thrown back against the tree-bole, where it showed like yellow ivory. A naked child toddled up, stared, and, moved by some quick impulse of reverence, made a solemn little obeisance before the lama—only the child was so short and fat that it toppled over sideways, and Kim laughed at the sprawling, chubby legs. The child, scared and indignant, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... in amount and comparatively unimportant in manner), the presence, the throes of a new dramatic style are evident. Faults and beauties are more or less common to the whole quartet. In all we find the many-sided activity of the Shakesperian drama as it was to be, sprawling and struggling in a kind of swaddling clothes of which it cannot get rid, and which hamper and cripple its movements. In all there is present a most extraordinary and unique rant and bombast of expression which reminds one of the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... dragging the clothes together and making a bundle, with which he ran off into his own room with both the others in full chase. And then began a regular scrimmage, French and English fashion, and Harry, having two enemies, was pulled down sprawling over a rushbottom chair, and then nearly kicked over the washstand, making such a clatter that the Squire knocked angrily at the wall; when off the noisy ones ran back into Fred's room, Harry this time being the pursuer, armed with his bolster, "Bang, crash—crash, bang—whiz—wuz—rush." ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... holds, and then, sliding and slipping on their weak legs, down a steep gangway to the low quay. Once on firm ground, the horses threw up their heels, bucked and neighed in sheer delight. But they overestimated their strength and came sprawling to earth and soon, for lack of breath, quieted down. The squadron led its horses to a piece of waste sandy ground, removed their covers, and let them roll to their hearts' content. They were in excellent ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... into consideration that the farm-wagon was the stronger of the two vehicles, and that in any collision the buggy must come off second best. So it happened that a wheel of the buggy was broken, and the driver, in the shock, thrown sprawling into a puddle on the other side of the road. The wagon suffered no damage, but the old horse, terrified, set off at a rapid pace. Herbert looked back to see if the stranger was injured, but seeing that he had already ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... opposite bank, having come down, not having discovered the rope, rather more rapidly than he intended. Some had already descended in the same rapid way, coming down on all-fours, or with all-fours upwards, and there lay on the soft grass, kicking and sprawling in delightful confusion, before the rope was discovered. The rest got down by the rope, followed by the whipper-in, and then they all picked themselves up, and set off at full speed after the hare. I need not follow them. Continually this indefatigable whipper-in had to keep them up ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... all at once it occurred to me to use my feet—so I lifted one foot and let him have it right in the stomach. He let go his hold on the rifle and sat down as suddenly as if he was shot, while I lost my balance and went sprawling in the other direction. I don't know which of us would have recovered first, but one of our boys settled the combat by blowing the big Boche's head off. Our three lads had cleared up all the others and we had time to think of our own condition. We were a very sorry-looking outfit; ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... direction indicated by Lowell. Black clouds were pouring in masses over the mountain-range. The sunshine was being blotted out, as if by some giant hand. The storm-clouds swept toward them as they turned the horses and started back along the ridge. A huge shadow, which Helen shudderingly likened to the sprawling figure of Talpers in the lamplight, raced toward them ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... out of the mist. Smith instantly warped his planes, and the machine dived so precipitately as almost to throw him from his seat. Next moment there was a shock; he was flung headlong forward, and found himself sprawling half suffocated on a damp yielding mass, which, when he had recovered his wits, he knew to be the unthatched top of ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... from the transporters. They emerged almost at the same instant. Before them lay the space ship with its airlock wide open. Not a living soul was in sight. Damis leaped toward the ship, but his foot struck an obstruction which sent him sprawling. He glanced down and a hoarse cry of alarm broke from his lips. He had stumbled over the body of Kastner. The body had been horribly mutilated by some heavy instrument, one arm hanging to the torso by a mere shred of flesh. Scattered around on the ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... simplest form it is to be found in the stiff, circumstantial report of the seconds in the duel at Boulogne in Denis Duval; and in the missive in barbarous French of the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood[70]—a letter which only requires the sprawling, childish script to make it an exact facsimile of one of the epistolary efforts of that "baby-faced" Caroline beauty who was accustomed to sign herself "L duchesse de Portsmout." It is better still in the letter from Walpole to General Conway in chap. xl. of The ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... woman gave a shriek as if she were suffering some intermittent agony which caught her at regular intervals. At the sight of the crowd she gave a quick cry of despair, and ran forward, leaving her child sprawling on the road. She knelt by the dead man's side with shriek after shriek, and seemed to lose all control over herself, for she gave way to those strange gestures of despair of which many read in novels and a few in the Scriptures, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... the carriage wheels awoke her from the dream which had lightly brushed away the night and the vision of the Arc de Triomphe—looming into the mystery of sky and stars, its monumental flanks sprawling across the Place de l'Etoile. She heard her name called by Mrs. Sheldam as their coachman guided his horses through the gateway of the Princesse ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... and tunics becoming stained with dark patches—through the camp area, past Indian troops; past horses, tossing and switching, surrounded by clouds of flies; past bullocks, huge, delicately pastel-tinted beasts, sprawling under the feathery palms; past screaming mules, motor lorries, wayside canteens and squads of men, until Makina Plain came in sight. It was in this neighbourhood that our site lay, alongside a creek where a liquorice factory had been in ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... sacks and sat again on the couplings. The train was running at a fair speed, but I felt it was time to leave it. I took hold of the iron handle at the back of the truck, pulled strongly with my left hand, and sprang. My feet struck the ground in two gigantic strides, and the next instant I was sprawling in the ditch, considerably shaken but unhurt. The train, my faithful ally of the night, hurried on ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... stowed himself in his own bunk. Max could just make out a huddled shape under bedclothes which had been drawn high for warmth. Then he knelt down to grope for the suitcase which he had pushed far under his own berth. Seeking it in the semi-darkness, a wave sent him sprawling. He heard from somewhere a shrill crash of glass, a sudden babble of excited voices, and decided it would not be worth while to undress unless the storm should abate. He scrambled up, and thankfully ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... in a sprawling fist concluded the communication; heavy, labored characters, inscribed in a crimson fluid by a blunt pen, ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... packing-cases, hampers, and boxes, keeping potatoes and apples, and a hundred things besides. The short road—avenue, our landlord termed it—which led from this to the house, had a strawberry-bank on one side, a row of cherry-trees on the other; and the garden, although overgrown with weeds and sprawling shrubs, looked quite capable of being easily made very pretty indeed. The entrance to this our magnificent chateau was through the kitchen only; for the room next it, although it could boast of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... till the chief said he was ready. Then, like a flash, he dropped to a low stooping posture, seized each leg of the other below the knee in a grip of iron, and straightening up with marvelous quickness and power sent Tall Bear sprawling like a frog through the air, and over ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... and, guided by the hoarse voices of the mastiffs, I soon reached the spot where they were. Sure enough the wounded elk was there, down upon his knees, and defending himself with his antlers; while one of the dogs lay sprawling on the ground and howling with pain. The other still kept up the fight, endeavouring to seize the elk from behind; but the latter spun round, as though his knees were upon a pivot, and always presented his horny spikes in the direction ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... for her bureau, and snatching her own motto down, crumpled its face securely against her skirt and started for the door. Just what the motto was no one but herself knew. Sprawling in paint-brush hieroglyphics on a great flapping sheet of brown wrapping-paper, the sentiment, whatever it was, had been nailed face down to the wall for ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... his youthful worshippers betrayed them into imitating the externals of a style that was rapidly losing spontaneity. Therefore they fancied they were treading in his footsteps and using the grand manner when they covered church-roofs and canvases with sprawling figures in distorted attitudes. Instead of studying nature, they studied Michelangelo's cartoons, exaggerating by their unintelligent discipleship his willfulness and arbitrary choice ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... to be endured!" he shouted. "My room has been entered, and my belongings tossed about! My pajamas are spread out on the floor as if someone meant to take a pattern of them! My watch is soaking in the wash bowl, and my brush and comb are each in a slipper. My topcoat is out of the window and sprawling in the sun on the roof of this piazza, and every neck-tie I own is hanging from the ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... men were coming in that direction, and he dashed back to find himself faced by Tom Jecks again. In his desperation he charged right at the sailor, lowering his head as he did so, and striking him with so much force that Tom Jecks went down sprawling, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... became desperate and sprang, but the hesitation gave him a much higher fall than he would otherwise have had; it caused him also to leap wildly in a sprawling manner, so that he came down on the shoulders of his comrades "all of a lump". Fortunately they were prepared for something of the sort, so that no ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... the gulch, where the upward march of the forests had been halted, there, among scattered outposts of scrubby spruce and wind-twisted willow, stood a village, a sprawling, formless aggregation of flimsy tents and green logs known as Sheep Camp. Although it was a temporary, makeshift town, already it bulked big in the minds of men from Maine to California, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, for it was the last outpost of civilization, and beyond it lay ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... ceremony as though the bullet had lodged in himself, Lanyard tumbled back into the room, tripped, and fell sprawling; while to a tune of clattering boots two sergents de ville lumbered valiantly into the library and pulled up to discover Madame Omber standing calmly, safe and sound, beside her desk, and Lanyard picking himself up from the floor ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... his hand on whichever he likes. Into what a small compass they have forced themselves! But the one behind has the wall at his back, and, taking advantage of so good a purchase, he sends his three laughing companions sprawling on the floor, and is himself caught through their having fallen, as his shoulder is the first that is grasped by Blindman-buff—so that he must ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson |
