"In the nick of time" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a sleepless one for Derues, whose brain was occupied by a confusion of criminal plans. The chance which had caused his acquaintance with Madame de Lamotte, and even more the accident of Brother Marchois appearing in the nick of time, to enlarge upon the praises which gave him so excellent a character, seemed like favourable omens not to be neglected. He began to imagine fresh villanies, to outline an unheard-of crime, which as yet he could ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... desperate stand. Three citizens who had run upon his knife, lay squirming at his feet; but the odds were too great. In another moment all would have been over with him had it not been for the Captain who chanced upon him in the nick of time. Snatching a club from one of his assailants and accompanying each blow with a volley of Spanish oaths, he rushed through the mob, scattering it in all directions. Whether it was the oaths or the Captain's exhibition of his fighting qualities that impressed Jose most it is difficult ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... you for the sake of the ladies to give up this out-of-the-way place, and come close, up to the settlement. We feel that we cannot leave you out here unprotected. Think of what would have happened if we had not arrived in the nick of time." ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... "That's come in the nick of time!" said Jimmy, as he watched her go off the stage. "Lily, perhaps ... in her new position ... will want a real maid, not a Glass-Eye! Lily ... why, she's perfection! To think of the abysses she has walked along without falling! There's ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... don't you see that Ethel would have married Lord Farintosh the next week?)—annoying folks are got out of the way; the poor are rewarded—the upstarts are set down in Fable-land,—the frog bursts with wicked rage, the fox is caught in his trap, the lamb is rescued from the wolf, and so forth, just in the nick of time. And the poet of Fable-land rewards and punishes absolutely. He splendidly deals out bags of sovereigns, which won't buy anything; belabours wicked backs with awful blows, which do not hurt; endows heroines ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mounted the coal, he caught a glimpse of one of the desperadoes on top of the car and yelled to Ketchel and Jim who jumped just in the nick of time, and by sheer luck not uncommon in battles, escaped unhurt. As for the fireman he took a novel way of making his escape, by diving into the shelving bank of coal and letting it slide over him. In the excitement of the flurry of firing he was ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... together. Hal felt a bullet brush past his ear. Nicolas dropped suddenly from his horse. Turning, Hal gazed into the calm face of Nikol and in the dwarf's hand was a smoking revolver. He had whipped out his revolver and fired in the nick of time. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... exultation another feeling as sincere—devout thankfulness that he had gone no further. He drew deep breaths of relief over his escape, but knew that he had not himself to thank. His friends, the little sprites, had done it, in return for the amusement he seemed to give them. They had stayed him in the nick of time, but not earlier; it was quite as if they wanted Tommy to have his fun first. So often they had saved him from being spitted, how could he guess that the great catastrophe was fixed for to-night, and that henceforth they were ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... round? My dear girl, if it had rested with me, we should both be lying in smithereens at the present moment, on the rocks below. She realised the drop just in the nick of time, and wheeled ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... in a low undertone. "You held the nose of the boat true enough, too, I guess, when I let the torpedo drive. But that infernal Jack Benson was on the watch, and he saw the thing coming. Of course he stopped his boat and put the reverse clutch on just in the nick of time. That young Benson always appears to be in ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... lane of green that curved beside and between two cellars, each deeper than the last. He knew instantly that he could not survive these, and, with every ounce of his strength, drove across the broken river to the head of the chute. Making it in the nick of time, he plunged in, with the water sucking at his thighs, and the sinews in his arms burning like fire. There followed a swift descent through cellars of dwindling depth, till he floated into the long, spume-flecked swells at the foot of the decline, where the canoe drifted sluggishly, ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... coolness. 'That remains to be seen, Sir,' I said; 'but I think it may be in the nick of time. For God's sake, gentlemen, tell me who went out ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... Raffles without a murmur, only too thankful that he had assumed the lead at last. Already the stables were lit up like a chandelier; there was a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In another minute we were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the high-road rang with the dying ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... babies creeping and playing about the schoolroom, I read George Meredith's 'Ordeal of Richard Feveril' (referred to on p. 33, Part I) and felt that that book was an excellent counter-balance, saving me, in the nick of time, from imposing any system, however perfect, upon my children. Perhaps you will enjoy reading ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... the portiere close behind her. It had been as dramatic an entrance and exit as the two visitors had ever seen upon the stage. It was as if Aram had given a signal, and the only person who could help him had come in the nick of time to plead for him. Aram, stupid as he appeared to be, had evidently felt the effect his wife's appearance had made upon his judges. He still kept his eyes fixed upon the floor, but he said, and this time with more confidence in ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... As the current carried the log toward this point, Alfred, after divesting himself of some of his clothing, plunged in and pulled it to the shore. The pallid face of the man clinging to the log showed that he was nearly exhausted, and that he had been rescued in the nick of time. When Alfred reached shoal water he slipped his arm around the man, who was unable to stand, ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... light gig, the same Punch which I had offered to him, which I have ever since kept, and which brought me and this short young man to Horncastle, and in eleven hours I drove that Punch one hundred and ten miles. I arrived at H—- just in the nick of time. There was the ugly jail—the scaffold—and there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world. Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of the crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood up in my gig, took ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... I am, and am not ill now. Only been a little overworked; and your telegram, as well as Miss Jessica's letter, came in the nick of time. Not an hour after the doctor had ordered this very medicine ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... kept nipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursued the hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just as the cougar reached for him. Major, the leader of the hounds, darted bravely in, and grasped the leg of the beast just in the nick of time. This enabled Jones to take aim and fire at close range, which ended the fight. Upon examination, it was discovered the cougar had been half-blinded by the fine shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts he ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... of it. Bolli dealt him a blow with Footbiter, and cut off the tail-end of the shield, and clove An through the head down to the shoulder, and forthwith he gat his death. Then Lambi went in; he held his shield before him, and a drawn sword in his hand. In the nick of time Bolli pulled Footbiter out of the wound, whereat his shield veered aside so as to lay him open to attack. So Lambi made a thrust at him in the thigh, and a great wound that was. Bolli hewed in return, and struck Lambi's shoulder, and the sword flew down along the side of ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... insult him; and when Quonab's knife flashed out at last, it was only his recently established relations with the governor's son that saved him from some very sad results, for there were many loafers about. But burly Vandam appeared in the nick of time to halt the small mob with the warning: "Don't you know that's Mr. Van Cortlandt's guide?" With the governor and Vandam to back him, Quonab soon had the mob on his side, and the dock loafer's own friends pelted him with mud ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... limb and swung upward, at the moment the foremost grizzly was beneath him. So close in truth was his pursuer that the hunter distinctly felt the sweeping blow of his paw aimed at the leg which whisked beyond his reach just in the nick of time. ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... officer them with Europeans, and arm and equip them after American methods. This he did, and in six months he appeared at Shanghai at the head of three bodies of Chinese, splendidly drilled and under iron discipline. He arrived in the nick of time, and, routing a vastly superior force, saved the ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... poor ladies, wives of four Emperors, who had been left behind in the palace almost starved to death when the international troops guarding the Forbidden City forbade all ingress and egress through the pink gates, until the I.G. saved them, in the nick of time, by applying to the Allied Generals, might ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... business, as will be seen. The man is gray and old, with a sharp prominent nose, suggestive of his chief occupation, and with a bent back—the effect, perhaps, of stooping to pull the pig's ear in the nick of time should the beast be tempted to snap up one of the savoury cryptogams. When it is added that he wears a short blouse and a low, broad-brimmed felt hat, I have described the appearance of the truffle-hunter. Now, inasmuch as the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... I have shown ever since the day I first met you at dear old Basel. It almost broke my heart when father—fatherland—when Burgundy made war on Switzerland." The word "land" was a lucky thought, and came to the girl just in the nick of time. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Burleigh's new volume, 'Sirdar and Khalifa,' comes just in the nick of time. Its object is to recount the story of the reconquest of the Soudan up to the Battle of Atbara.... ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... up as high as you can, fellow!" ordered Hal. Just in the nick of time he remembered Captain Foster's instructions, and spoke in English instead of Spanish. But his gesture was eloquent enough for no words ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... a child was to pinch a cow's ear; and when the animal bellowed and everybody ran out to know why, a dwarf would slip indoors and effect the change. On one such occasion the father saw his infant being dragged out of the room. In the nick of time he grasped it and drew it towards himself. The changeling left in its place was found in the bed; and this he kept too, defying the efforts of the underground folk to regain it. At a place in North Jutland it happened many years ago in a lying-in room that the mother could get no sleep while ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... supernatural terror. Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was one of the most successful writers of this school of exaggerated romance. Her novels, with their azure-eyed heroines, haunted castles, trapdoors, bandits, abductions, rescues in the nick of time, and a general medley of overwrought joys and horrors,[219] were immensely popular, not only with the crowd of novel readers, but also with men of unquestioned literary ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... cook was just going to refuse her demand and order her out of the kitchen, but the words died on his lips when he turned and beheld the beautiful Hyacinthia, and he answered politely, 'You have just come in the nick of time, fair maiden. Bake your cake, and I myself will lay it ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... violence of these disputes, and the peril in which the existence of the Government seemed to be placed, brought Melbourne up to town, and Lord John came to meet him, and imparted to him his intentions. Just in the nick of time, however, arrived the news of the Emir's flight, which seemed to be almost conclusive of the Syrian question. On this, Palmerston took courage, and, no longer insisting upon supporting Ponsonby a tort et a travers, entreated that a damp ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... dine, he politely inquired in what names he should engage their seats. Then, for an instant, a horrible confusion nearly overcame the Baron. He—a von Blitzenberg—to give a false name! His color rose, he stammered, and only in the nick of time caught ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... this problem arrived, the telephone business was fairly well established. It had outgrown its early days of ridicule and incredulity. It was paying wages and salaries and even dividends. Evidently it had arrived on the scene in the nick of time—after the telegraph and before the trolleys and electric lights. Had it been born ten years later, it might not have been able to survive. So delicate a thing as a baby telephone could scarcely have protected itself against the powerful currents of electricity that ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... in the nick of time, two millions and a quarter of whites was a meagre outfit for stocking a virgin farm of fifteen hundred miles square, to say nothing of its future police and external defence against the wolves of the deep. It barely equaled the original population, between the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... had a good outlook over Lake Loeven from his chamber window at Borg. He could see when the steamer rounded the point and never appeared at the landing until just in the nick of time. Therefore he did not have to sit on the rocks and wait, and would only cast a glance, in passing, at those who were seated there. However, one summer, he noticed a meek-looking little man with a kindly face sitting there ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... of the turn affairs had taken. "I had a trap for them at the House-of-the- Eight-Half-brothers, and some hillmen in there ready to rush out and seize them as they passed. But a fool Afridi murdered one, and I only got there in the nick of time to save the other's life. I meant that Ranjoor Singh, who is a buffalo, should be troubled about his troopers and suspected on his own account, for he and I have a private quarrel. I did not mean to catch him, or make use of him. But he walked into the trap. What shall be done with him? Let ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... were on 73. By Gridley's orders, the two Ruffords and some others turned an engine loose to run down the road for a head-ender with the freight that was bringing the soldiers. Dawson chased the runaway engine with the coupled-up Nadia outfit, caught it just in the nick of time to prevent a collision with 73, and brought it back. He's down in the car now, with one of the young women crying on ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Think not, but pray, and if a chance occurs Send aid to poor Fitzgibbon. Little help Just in the nick of time oft turns the scale Of fortune. God bless you, dear! ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... then of Jack Duane, and of his political career in the stockyards, and his downfall and subsequent failures. Marija listened with sympathy; it was easy to believe the tale of his late starvation, for his face showed it all. "You found me just in the nick of time," she said. "I'll stand by you—I'll help you till you can ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... beer for us! And I reached for my purse, and for one wild moment I thought sure he had called my bluff and would really take my only nickel, my carfare home. I nearly fell over with suspense, but in the nick of time he went out, refusing my money. And I even taunted him, asked him if ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... could be that desired such property. But her father shook his head, repeating the name, which was, I believe, Smith. And that, including the check, was all they had ever learned of this investor who had wanted what they did not want, in the nick of time. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... backward just in the nick of time. The Koeln flagship of the German commodore, was soon staggering off in a blaze, and was later sunk with her total complement of 380 officers and men. The Ariadne, steaming at high speed across the bows of the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... going to walk right up against it! Oh! Frank, what a horrible monster!" Andy replied, in trembling tones, as he strove to point toward something that he had seen just in the nick of time. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... been of the slightest use, for it would have been lost in the sea, had I not come with my boat just in the nick of time." ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... but, bless them for it, let me go. And last year I was almost caught when I passed off French counterfeit notes for fifty roubles on Korovayev, but, thank God, Korovayev fell into the pond when he was drunk, and was drowned in the nick of time, and they didn't succeed in tracking me. Here, at Virginsky's, I proclaimed the freedom of the communistic wife. In June I was distributing manifestoes again in X district. They say they will make me do it again.... Pyotr ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... he returned the smile. "Just a while back, my young daughter was in sobs, and I coaxed her out here to amuse her. I am just now without anything whatever to attend to, so that, dear brother Chia, you come just in the nick of time. Please walk into my mean abode, and let us endeavour, in each other's company, to while away this long ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... for just then breath was precious and not to be wasted in idle words. Silently, the two called on their splendid reserve strength, while arm in arm they sped along the shore to the dock. They reached it just in the nick of time. ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... and kukris, waiting to make the rush. The bugle was being raised to the holder's lips to sound the advance, when a thrill of joy surged through the British leaders' breasts, for the help they needed came in the nick of time. ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... the pen eagerly, tremblingly, a sense of wonder in her pounding heart, and signed her name just as Ellen's heavy footsteps could be heard pounding down the back stairs. Leslie seized Julia, and gave her a great hug as the last letter was finished, and then threw open the parlor door in the nick of time to save her Aunt Ellen ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... tells me, too, that the poor girl has fallen in love with a Christian chief, who lives on an island some fifty miles or so to the south of this one, and that she is meditating a desperate attempt at escape. So, you see, we have come in the nick of time. I fancy that this chief is the fellow whom you heard of, Ralph, at the Island of Emo. Besides all this, the heathen savages are at war among themselves, and there's to be a battle fought the day after to-morrow, in which the principal ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... expiatory offering for the whole country. So the people decked him with garlands like a victim and led him to the altar, where they were just about to sacrifice him when he was rescued either by his grandson Cytisorus, who arrived in the nick of time from Colchis, or by Hercules, who brought tidings that the king's son Phrixus was yet alive. Thus Athamas was saved, but afterward he went mad, and mistaking his son Learchus for a wild beast, shot him dead. Next he attempted the life of his remaining son ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... reproving Bridget when she came back to the fold. He burnt his fingers trying to straighten the stovepipe, smelt of the dish-cloths to see if they were greasy, rattled the pans and bethought himself of the eggs just in the nick of time. In some haste and embarrassment he removed the skillet from the fire just as Annie came out of the pantry with the bread and ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... her blackened arms. The sight of his mother in trousers greatly amused Tommy, who worked like a little hero by her side, but the terrified baby howled lustily for his "mummy." The fire would have mastered her but for four excited bushmen who arrived in the nick of time. It was a mixed-up affair all round; when she went to take up the baby he screamed and struggled convulsively, thinking it was a "blackman;" and Alligator, trusting more to the child's sense than his own instinct, charged ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... recognize Sam Weller, making his first appearance in "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club"? And who has not revelled in the lively scene in the White Hart when Mr. Pickwick and his friends arrived in the nick of time to prevent the ancient but still sentimental Rachael from becoming Mrs. Jingle? It is not difficult to understand why that particular instalment of "Pickwick" was the turning-point of the book's fortunes. Prior ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... her, two or three of the rabble behind her were in the act of poising themselves with great stones in their hands, and their muscles were stiffening for a cast when, just in the nick of time, the obstinate snap yielded, and with a jerk the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... "By Jove! how lucky, Miss Daisy. You've come in the nick of time. Just finished our pool. Now you and Mrs. Halton shall play a single and I shall ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... although it cannot be said that Fielding disregards probability, he certainly strains it considerably. Money is conveniently lost and found; the naivest coincidences continually occur; people turn up in the nick of time at the exact spot required, and develop the most needful (but entirely casual) relations with the characters. Sometimes an episode is so inartistically introduced as to be almost clumsy. Towards the end of the book, for ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... point-blank volley, and immediately charged home with the first of those wild, high rebel yells that rang throughout the war. The stricken and astounded Federal front caved in, turned round, and fled. At the same instant the last of the Shenandoahs—Kirby Smith's brigade, detrained just in the nick of time—charged the wavering flank. Then, like the first quiver of an avalanche, a tremor shook the whole massed Federals one moment on that fatal hill: the next, like a loosened cliff, they began ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... 'nobody can do more than be sorry for a wrong turn; small blame to her for taking a fancy to your humble servant, Mr. Officer,'—and he stood as tall as possible to show himself off: 'you see the fair lady is sorrowful for her folly, so as it's not yet too late, and as you came in the nick of time, in the name of Providence take my place, and let the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the subject of his wet feet. A smile of tender amusement visited his lips as he took hold of the door-handle. Exactly as he touched it, the key on the other side turned. The lock had been stiff, but it had shot out in the nick of time, and he found himself brought up short in his impulsive career and hurtling against a solid barrier. He knocked, but no one answered. He could have fancied he heard panting breaths on the other ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... the Romany camp. She employed her grandchild, Leonora, to open relations in a friendly way with Lavengro, and then to persuade him to eat of a "drabbed" of poisoned cake. Lavengro was grievously sick, but was saved in the nick of time by the appearance upon the scene of a Welsh preacher, Peter Williams, and his wife—two good souls who wandered over all Wales and the greater part of England, comforting the hearts of the people with their doctrine, and doing all the good they could. They never slept beneath a roof, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... nick of time for Nell, as all things, indeed, in life seemed to befall in the nick of time for her. The impious huswives shook their heads and attributed it to the evil influence; the pious huswives asserted it was providential; Nell herself laughingly declared it ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... a talent for turning up unexpectedly in the nick of time," he added, with a peculiar smile, as he turned and walked off towards the huts, around which the men who had sided with Antonio were by that time assembling. Among them Lawrence, to his ineffable joy, found Manuela and Mariquita. ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... cat's body. The child was restless and uneasy, and Jane had ever since believed that the cat had been sucking little Dodie's breath, with what might have been fatal results had she not appeared just in the nick of time. ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the fighting and reconnaissance squadrons began to hear interesting yarns from the corps squadrons that specialised in contact patrols. An observer saved two battalions from extinction by calling up reinforcements in the nick of time. When two tanks slithered around the ruins of Courcelette two hours before the razed village was stormed, the men in the trenches would have known nothing of this unexpected advance-guard but for a contact machine. The pilot and observer of another bus saw two ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... surrounded by a palisade, and occupied by fifteen armed men, under Captain Convers, an officer of militia. On the ninth of June, two sloops and a sail-boat ran up the neighboring creek, bringing supplies and fourteen more men. The succor came in the nick of time. The sloops had scarcely anchored, when a number of cattle were seen running frightened and wounded from the woods. It was plain that an enemy was lurking there. All the families of the place now gathered within the ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... a waiter at a Pall Mall Club gave him the tip, and the chance came in the nick of time, for Mr. and Mrs. W. Keyse were up against it, and no gay old error. "If you was to offer to blooming-well work for people for nothing," said Mrs. Keyse, "my belief is, they wouldn't 'ave you at ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Again, it was necessary for Scott to sacrifice Frank Kennedy, who is rather a taking adventurer, like Bothwell in "Old Mortality." Readers regret the necessity which kills Kennedy. The whole fortunes of Vanbeest Brown, his duel with the colonel, and his fortunate appearance in the nick of time, seem too rich in coincidences: still, as the Dormont case and the Ormiston case have shown, coincidences as unlooked for do occur. A fastidious critic has found fault with Brown's flageolet. It is a modest instrument; but ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Evidently he had not had a talk all day, and felt he must expand and let himself out to somebody. I appeared in the nick of time, and came in for all his honey. He rose, went to a bookcase, ran his eye along a shelf, took down a volume, and began, in a low tone: "'Cooperation is the mighty lever upon which an effete society relies to extricate ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... by letter, Mr. Stone slipped off to Denver for a personal interview with his intended victim, and, as I have already intimated, he arrived just in the nick of time to find Field ready for any move that would take him away from the killing kindness and exhilarating atmosphere of the Colorado capital. "The engagement," says Mr. Stone, "was in itself characteristic. Field wanted to join me. He was tired of Denver ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... of victory. Bradley ran up his Napoleons on the right in the nick of time, and, although only one of them could be brought to bear, it was enough; the grape raked the Confederate left, broke it, and the battle was over. In five minutes more their whole array was scattered, and the entire position open to galloping cavalry, seizing ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... in the nick of time," he said. "We sail to-morrow in search of the Dutch. You shall all serve on board. There's work to be done, and I have not too many officers or men to do it. After we have thrashed the Dutch, I promise you, should my life ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... Just in the nick of time the Regent surrendered the town to Duke Philip, not, we may be sure, without many regrets for having recently refused him Orleans. He realised that thus, by returning to its French allegiance, the chief city of the realm would make a more energetic defense against the Dauphin's men. The Parisians' ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... well," replied Colonel Zane cheerily. "But we must thank Providence that Wetzel and Jonathan came up in the nick of time." ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... each other, there arrived at Twenty Mile one Sandy MacPherson, as companionable a man as ever whistled along the trail or raised a ballad by a camp-fire. A Jesuit priest had run into his camp, a couple of hundred miles up the Yukon, in the nick of time to say a last word over the body of Sandy's partner. And on departing, the priest had said, "My son, you will be lonely now." And Sandy had bowed his head brokenly. "At Twenty Mile," the priest added, "there is a lonely ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... skirmishers had swept the field, after Davies thought the struggle at an end, and was unprepared for the stealthy blow. Nothing but Brannan's vigilance, and the warning cry which caused the lieutenant to turn in the nick of time, had saved his life. Red Dog in irons lay in the log guard-house. Thunder Hawk, on parole,—for White had dared the wrath of the bureau and refused to let McPhail have him,—walked the garrison at will. Mr. Davies, still ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... "You come in the nick of time," replied the Cardinal. "This is his last week. There is a great demand for the seats; but you will see to it, Mr. Wogan, that the box is in ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... consorted with the sweepings af the doss-houses now addressed me as a courteous gentleman addresses an inferior—not haughtily or patronizingly, but with a note of conscious superiority and self-respect wholly unfamiliar. Almost it threw me off my guard, but remembering in the nick of time ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... heard at night, and of the things I had done with Sam. I would hear the mountain engine come panting impatiently up the grade. As it reached the top I would rise from my bed and soar off into space, in one swift rushing flight through the darkness I would be there in the nick of time, I would swing on to a freight car in the way Sam had shown me, climb to the top and crouching there I would watch the dark roadway open ahead through the silent forest. Lower would sink the voice of the engine ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... girl for whose sake he had plunged into the brawl with the Prussian soldiers:[Footnote: See Jean-Christophe—I, "Revolt."] she wrote to tell him that she was going to be married: she gave him news of his mother, and sent him a basket of apples and a piece of cake to eat in her honor. They came in the nick of time. That evening with Christophe was a fast, Ember Days, Lent: only the butt end of the sausage hanging by the window was left. Christophe compared himself to the anchorite saints fed by a crow among the rocks. But no doubt the crow was hard put to it to ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... off St. Augustine, just before the dawn, and narrowly missed taking Menendez himself, who was on board a solitary Spanish vessel which lay outside the bar. Just in the nick of time she escaped within ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... slippers, that were a world too big, on Mungloo's little feet, and lighted the hubble-bubble, that he might smoke, they mounted him on a buffalo, captured from the village hurkaru, who happened, just in the nick of time, to come riding by, on his way to Delhi, with the mail. And they led out the prisoner, smoking his hubble-bubble,—and looking, as Metcalfe Sahib said of the real Nawab, "as if he had been accustomed to be hanged every day of his life,"—to the place of execution, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... thought I'd screw up my courage to go through the bills just to see where I was. My dear, I was paralysed! I had the most appalling time! Well, Mr. Pilcher's sermon came just in the nick of time. I thought "what an idiot I must be to endure all this misery just for want of ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... after reading it in gallous Latin, and "It's come in the nick of time," says he; "so I'll wed them in a hurry, dreading that young ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... was a fight at Brookfield, the Nipmucks and their allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearly entire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siege in a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in the nick of time. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... time had come the three brothers met once more, and they sat down and discussed the best opportunity of showing off their skill. Just then a hare came running across the field towards them. 'Look!' said the barber, 'here comes something in the nick of time!' seized basin and soap, made a lather whilst the hare was approaching, and then, as it ran at full tilt, shaved its moustaches, without cutting it or injuring a single ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... you did it!" insisted Mr. Swift, "and you did it in the nick of time. Now I wouldn't for a moment think of offering you a reward for saving my son's life. But I do feel mighty friendly toward you—not that I didn't before—but I do want to help you. Alec, I will go into this business ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to triumph—and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all against him, and he could not withstand ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... them—the scouts. But for Stannard the hostiles would have gotten away, not only with Mrs. Bennett, but with Harris. Harris made a hare-brained attempt to rescue her single-handed. He only succeeded in running his own neck into a noose. Your wisdom, and God's mercy, sent Stannard just in the nick of time, and there's the whole situation ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... Ford mischievously, as Dab stepped upon the car-platform; but Dick Lee, who had just escaped from the tremendous hug his mother had given him, and had got his breath again, came to his friend's relief in the nick of time. Dick felt, as he afterwards explained, that he "must shout, or he should go off;" and so, at the top of his shrill voice ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... But in the nick of time the Liberal Administration fell, and Lord Salisbury's Cabinet reversed their decision. It is interesting, in reading the Blue Books on Indian questions, to watch the emotions of party principles, stirring beneath the uniform ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... from the tree and dashed across the open, reaching the scene of the struggle just in the nick of time to strike up Diggle's weapon ere it sheathed itself in the Gujarati's side. Diggle turned with a startled oath, and seeing who his assailant was, he left his companion to take care of himself, and faced Desmond, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could play it myself, now, and it wouldn't be any plagiarism, either, because I should get it in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... gently and lovingly. Nimrod eyed his enemies, for such plainly he counted them, as if he wished he were a lion that he might eat as well as kill them. At the same time he seemed to regard them with triumph, saying in his big heart, "Ha! ha! you did not know what a friend I had! Here he is, come in the nick of time! I thought he would!" Clare proceeded to untie the ropes from the ring in his nose. The man with the ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... was put on sentry," continued the lieutenant, bolstering up Mr Smythe with his arm and just saving him in the nick of time from coming to grief again over a ringbolt on the deck, "the sergeant told him he would have to call out when the bell was struck, thinking, of course, he knew all about it. The poor fellow, though, as you are aware, was quite ignorant of the custom; so, as soon as the sergeant's back was turned, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... flight of steps and calling to the men behind not to hustle and precipitate him into one or other of the two longboats that lay below. Into the nearer of these his company swept him, and poured in at his heels until the gunwale was nearly level with the water. The rowers pushed off in the nick of time, and pulled their freight slowly across the sullen tide, while the rain beat ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... brand it had been her mission to snatch in the nick of time and detained her in conversation with unusual empressement. Madeleine responded with an excessive politeness, and Mrs. Abbott learned for the first time that sweet brown eyes could glitter as coldly as her own protuberant orbs when ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... you are marrying a girl out of L'Houmeau, it must be because she has lots of cash, eh? Good! you will pay me my rent now. There are two years and one-quarter owing, you know, my boy; that is two thousand seven hundred francs altogether; the money will come just in the nick of time to pay the cooper. If it was anybody else, I should have a right to ask for interest; for, after all, business is business, but I will let you off the interest. Well, how much ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... into life. The ship moved slowly forward as Dr. Bird climbed on board. Toward the oncoming trucks they rushed across the plain. A crash seemed imminent. In the nick of time McCready pulled back on his joystick and the plane rose gracefully into the air, clearing the leading truck by inches. The truck halted and ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... idea, but in countries infested by these creatures such things happen occasionally. I distinctly recollect a story which I once heard, of a little girl in some district of tropical America falling into such a decline, from which she was only rescued in the nick of time by the discovery that one of these Vampire Bats, a particularly large one, had formed the habit of flying into her room at night and attaching itself to her bare arm which lay outside ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... of the bunk, and he leant his weight on them, breathing very hard. It might have been an attack of asthma, or it might have been a more serious seizure, but it was a case for stimulants if ever I saw one, and in the nick of time I remembered the flask that Raffles had left with me. It was the work of a very few seconds to pour out a goodly ration, and of but another for Daniel Levy to toss off the raw spirit like water. He was begging ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... ladies had on as well, saying while he pulled, disregarding their protests, that in the water Mother Nature was the best. "Mother Nature—Mother Nature," said the steward, pulling; and he was only stopped just in the nick of time by the stewardess rushing in again and seeing what was ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... gaining the top of the Island and an easy descent. Instead of this I came to an impossible overhanging cliff of lava, and was forced to descend as I had come up. It was no easy task, and I was glad to get down with only one slip, when I brought myself up with my ice axe in the nick of time to prevent a fall over a cliff. This Island is very steep on all sides. There is only one known place of ascent; it will be interesting to ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Just in the nick of time a good-sized prahu came down the river, and on anchoring by the steamer her captain went on board, with a pitiful tale of how he had been ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... summer," he said, turning to Phil, "I was only two years old, and that Otter punished me so severely that but for Mother Beaver there, who came to my rescue in the nick of time, I should have been done for. But now—well, he ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... and his force were now between two fires. The frontal attack was within 200 yards. The rear attack, flushed with success, were hurrying impetuously forward. The defeat and consequent total destruction of the Kassala column appeared certain. But in the nick of time the Dervish frontal attack, which had been suffering heavily from the fire of the troops, wavered; and when the Arab battalion and the 16th Egyptians advanced upon them to complete their discomfiture, they broke and fled. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... understand that, and a good deal more of which we will talk later. But, to change the subject, where do you come from now, and how did you happen to turn up just in the nick of time?" ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... great an exertion. As they fought, the raccoons drew nearer and nearer to the porcupine, who did not offer to move. Another lurch would undoubtedly have brought them into contact with his bristling quills had they not in the nick of time discovered their danger. Instantly they separated and leaped back. The leap brought them to the slippery mud at the edge of the stream and the next moment both rolled helplessly ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... "mission to France. From this single year's employment he obtained nearly $20,000, which, says his biographer, "over and above his expenses," was "three times his annual earnings at the bar"; and the money came just in the nick of time to save the Fairfax investment, for Morris was now bankrupt and in jail. But not less important as a result of his services was the enhanced reputation which Marshall's correspondence with Talleyrand brought him. His return to Philadelphia was a popular triumph, and ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... he repeated, when the captain laughed when Seth mentioned his sensations at the time and detailed his thoughts, "fur he came just in the nick of time to grip holt o' me; and if he hadn't ben thaar I guess it 'ud a ben all sockdolagar with Seth, I does! He must have got what ye call a call, that he must! Guess you'd a thought him a angel, if you'd ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... to surprise you," said Betty gleefully, noting with pride how splendid he looked in his uniform. "You don't seem at all glad to see us. Mrs. Watson," remembering her manners in the nick of time, "this is a friend of ours from Deepdale—Allen Washburn. He didn't know we ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope |
