But in ruins, with its roof falling piecemeal upon the floor, tall weeds standing close by its walls, gorse overgrowing its garden, and black birches clustering thickly around, it presented an aspect of wild and gloomy desolation: the very spot where one might expect to be robbed, or even murdered.
"The White Gauntlet"
Mayne Reid
In one instance, at an exhibition in this country, it was necessary to cut the snake away piecemeal with a butcher's knife before the terrible muscular contraction of its body was relaxed.
"The Pearl of India"
Maturin M. Ballou
It is true that our piecemeal information comes largely from writers who somewhat despised them; but the known history of the Seleucid Empire, closed by an extraordinarily facile and ignominious collapse before Rome, supports the judgment that, taken one with another, its kings were shallow men and haphazard rulers who owed it more to chance than to prudence that their dynasty endured so long.
"The Ancient East"
D. G. Hogarth