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More "Croaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he took it into his head that he would travel to Rome. On the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great difficulty as to whom they ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... Kakakew and his mighty crew did not fly back to the forest. Their number gave them courage. The taste of Ahtik's flesh and the flavour of it in their nostrils intoxicated them, to the point of madness, with desire. Neewa was dazed. Over him, behind him, on all sides of him they swept and circled, croaking and screaming at him, the boldest of them swooping down to beat at him with their wings. Thicker grew the menacing cloud, and then suddenly it descended like an avalanche. It covered Ahtik again. In it ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... conceived. Who has not read of the nobleman who, when his coachman ran over a child and crushed out its life, was only concerned lest its blood should soil his carriage, or of the poor peasants who were compelled to beat the bogs all night long, to prevent the frogs from croaking and thereby disturbing the slumber of their lordly masters? The condition of no people could be more horrible, than that of the lower classes in France previous to the uprising, with its excesses that ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... caressing the hand of the Roman. Now his head rose, and for a little his old vigor and menacing voice returned to him. "He has run me through with the blade of remorse and put upon me the chains of infirmity," he complained, an ominous, croaking rattle in his throat. "To-day, to-day, my wrath shall descend upon him and my gratitude upon you! These forty years have I been seeking a man of honor. At last, at last, here is the greatest of men! I, Herod, surnamed the Great, king of Judea, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... was noisy with the croaking of frogs, the whirring and whizzing of insects, the cheeping of bats, and the distant cries of birds, but Dennis and Eileen were silent. Then she called out, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... The croaking made Maget's brain scream with the immensity of the sound. Luminous, white disks, three feet in diameter, glared at him, and the creature, which progressed with jerky leaps toward him, almost filled the mouth ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... alive by the mosquitoes while passing through it. Our boat floated along through the flags, the horses on a tow-path just wide enough to enable the teams to pass, with bog on one side and canal on the other, water birds whistling and calling, frogs croaking, and water-lilies dotting every open pool. My spirits soared as I passed spots where the view was not shut off by the reeds, and I could look out over the great expanse of flags, just as my heart rose when I first looked upon the Iowa prairies. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... you mistake Husbands.[7] [Sidenote: mistake your] Begin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces, [Sidenote: murtherer, leave] and begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... my memory is that of a soft warm evening. I am cradled in the lap of my sister Harriet who is sitting on the door-step beneath a low roof. It is mid-summer and at our feet lies a mat of dark-green grass from which a frog is croaking. The stars are out, and above the high hills to the east a mysterious glow is glorifying the sky. The cry of the small animal at last conveys to my sister's mind a notion of distress, and rising she peers closely along the path. Starting ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... as bad as I thought their cause, for the boldness with which they silenced all opposition and all croaking, by press or by individuals, within their control. War at all times, whether a civil war between sections of a common country or between nations, ought to be avoided, if possible with honor. But, once entered into, it is too much for human nature to tolerate an enemy within their ranks to give ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to compare your maternal relative to a cat!" chuckled Ingred. "Stop the orphan if you can, but you might as well try to stop the brook! She's quiet for five minutes then bursts out into song again like a chirruping cricket or a croaking corn-crake. I want to spiflicate ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... was absorbed in these reflections a pair of ravens fluttered around his head and, croaking loudly, alighted on the dusty ruins of one of the shattered houses. He involuntarily glanced around him and noted that they had perched on the corpse of a murdered Hebrew, lying half concealed amid the rubbish. A smile which the priests of lower rank who ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Enchanter. At first, to be sure, he had to struggle to conquer his fear of some of the goblins; but as time passed and no ghost or goblin ever ventured to annoy him, he grew accustomed to their presences and ended by paying no more attention to them than he paid to the great ravens who flew croaking over the mire. So faithful and courageous was the little page that, when his year was up, the Enchanter begged him to remain yet another year, promising him rich rewards if he stayed. When this second year was up, however, Florian felt a longing to see the world again, and told the ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... all one—they're never still, those English!" A chorus of croaking laughter rattled down the street along with ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the more fully convinced that I had been too early an intruder when a wench came to fetch away the basket, and recommend to my courtesies a red and green gentleman in a cage, who answered all my advances by croaking out, "You're a fool—you're a fool, I tell you!" until, upon my word, I began to think the creature was in the right. At last my friend arrived, a little overheated. He had been taking a turn at golf, to prepare him for "colloquy sublime." And wherefore not? ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... hardly know," said the old frog gentleman in his hoarsest, deepest, thundering, croaking voice. "Perhaps I may meet with a fairy or a big giant, or even the ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... when all was quiet; when the general, having seen his horse comfortably provided for; when not even a vulture was heard croaking his hopes of a banquet on some dead hero; and when the great and all powerful Potter was sleeping quietly in his camp, the whole army was thrown into a state of great confusion by various voices calling out that they had come ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... were so hostile to him. Feemy, too, had looked very pretty and nice, and had not contradicted him; and whereas what Thady had drunk had made him cross, Ussher had only just had enough to make him good-humoured. Feemy too was very happy; she had contrived to forget her brother's croaking and Father John's warning, or at least the misery which they had occasioned her, and was very happy in Ussher's good-humour. It were bootless to repeat their conversation, or to tell how often it was interrupted by some unchided caress on the part of Ussher. Feemy, however, had not forgotten her ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... off this third passenger. The crow rose on its toes, let the boat slide away from under him, and followed croaking dismal good wishes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... bust, and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking, "Nevermore." ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... thought, could she have heard those tales, or known to what kind of people her brother-in-law was presenting her son? Only once, leaning on Arthur's arm, she had passed through the room where the green tables were prepared for play, and the croaking croupiers were calling out their fatal words of Rouge gagne and Couleur perd. She had shrunk terrified out of the pandemonium, imploring Pen, extorting from him a promise, on his word of honor, that he would ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... files, forever croaking. Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade. Dumb in the dark, not even God invoking, We lie in chains, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... fallen; the clouds that covered the moon had just thinned enough to render darkness visible, and nothing was to be heard save the continual croaking of the frogs, which are very large and numerous in the marshes of the Danube, when four boats pushed off and proceeded quickly, yet quietly, up ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... heretical fellow has not a word to say for himself," Dr. Cumming, having drawn his ugly portrait of the infidel, and put arguments of a convenient quality into his mouth, finds a "short and easy method" of confounding this "croaking frog." ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... your expedition, Mr. Hurdlestone. It might well be termed the forlorn hope; however I wish with all my heart that you may be successful." As he spoke he lowered a fowling-piece from his shoulder to the ground. "Do you hear that raven that sits croaking upon the rotten branch of the old oak opposite? Does not his confounded noise make you nervous? It always does me. It sounds like a bad omen. I was just going to pull down at him as you came along. I fancy, however, that he's too far above us for ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... now. He took some cakes of chocolate and a couple of hard biscuits and stuffed them in his pocket. Then he went out into the cockpit and listened. There was no sound of voices or footfalls, nothing but the myriad voices of nature, or frogs croaking nearby, of a cheery cricket somewhere on shore, of the water lapping against the broken old wharf as the wind ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... "You've been croaking for six years, Morgan, about the bad luck that would come to Jim from saving me out of the snow. It's never happened, ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... (full of strange singing, humming, whistling, buzzing, twittering, cooing, booming, croaking, flying, creeping, crawling, jumping, climbing, burrowing, splashing, diving things) had been neglected for ages—an Eden where one might gather and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge without fear, and learn lovingly the ways of life without losing one's innocence; ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... where there was no getting them, and where we supposed their young were deposited. As not one was to be seen in the day, the old ones were probably, at that time, out at sea searching for food, which in the evening they bring to their young. The noise they made was like the croaking of many frogs. They were, I believe, of the broad-bill kind, which, are not so commonly seen at sea as the others. Here, however, they are in great numbers, and flying much about in the night, some of our gentlemen at first took them for bats. After restoring the sportsmen to their boat, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... have a true republic—a "government of the people, by the people, for the people," and we shall hear no more the oligarchical cry of croaking conservatism calling for a "white man's government"—appealing by this, and like slogans of class and caste to the lowest and meanest principles of human nature, dangerous alike to real republicanism and true democracy. Expediency, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... flies, and everything else flies, but contrariwise—both the verst stones, and traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the woodcutter and the croaking of the raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote distance the road comes towards one, and while nothing save the sky and the light clouds through which the moon is cleaving her way seem halted, the brief glimpses ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... some wild beast; but it was not easy to distinguish any sound in particular, as at this season the tropical forest is full of noises—so loud that it is often difficult for persons to hear each other in conversation. What with the chirruping of cicadas, the croaking of swamp-frogs, the tinkling of tree-toads, and the hooting and screeching of owls and night-hawks, the Indian forest is filled with a deafening ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... word Joe stooped, and lifting the old man beneath one arm, bore him up the stairs regardless of his croaking protestations and fierce invective. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... sailor protested, but Mark raised his voice as loudly as he could in a stentorian "Ahoy!" and as if the occupants of the forest had kept close upon their heels there came the same sneering laugh, and the hoarse croaking ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... a marvellous understanding and co-operation create for themselves a symphony with beauties and harmonies of its own, and such as to stand unrivalled in man's musical world. In the great chorus are voices from the lowest bass of the croaking bullfrog, squatting in the marshes, to the myriads of tiny green tree tenors, between which are millions of altos, contraltos, sopranos, coloraturas and other voices not yet in our musical vocabulary. These are accompanied by all the sounds of ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... Rachel or Deborah (I don't remember her name) keeping order among his little ones. She kept very good order, too, so that most of the time you could hear the scratching of the laborious pens accompanied by the croaking of the frogs in ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace and vulgar way. And, 11, the man worthy of immortality was just at the point of death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him; only withered old Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and croaking Jesuit to prepare him, with heavens knows what wretched tricks and mummeries, for his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the other side of the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable years, he never ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... office-hours and stationed themselves on a pile of lumber near where Bruce caulked and tarred the seams of the three boats which were to make the first trip through the rapids. They made Bruce think of so many ancient ravens, as they roosted in a row croaking disaster. By the time the machinery was due to arrive they spoke of the wreck of the boats as something foreordained and settled. They differed only as to where ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Tsarevitch flew to the red porch of a rich merchant, and on the porch there stood a sweet girl, the merchant's daughter. The youngest, the brave Tsarevitch Ivan, had the ill luck to send his arrow into the midst of a swamp, where it was caught by a croaking frog. ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... Fenwick, wrathfully. 'If ever there was a strong man, it's your father. Don't you believe any croaking of that ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the river they had reached was so perfectly still that every cloud in the sky, every mangrove, root and spray, and every bending bulrush, was perfectly reproduced in the reflected world below. Plaintive cries of wild-fowl formed appropriate melody, to which chattering groups of monkeys and croaking bull-frogs contributed a ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... which, when cooked, look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game. This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been once benighted in a district of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... constitution, so they determined to send up a petition to Jove to give them what they wanted. "Mighty Jove," they cried, "send unto us a king that will rule over us and keep us in order." Jove laughed at their croaking, and threw down into the swamp a huge Log, which came down—kersplash—into the water. The Frogs were frightened out of their lives by the commotion made in their midst, and all rushed to the bank to look at the horrible monster; but after a time, seeing that it ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... casts, the more to gain; The Gardener now superfluous branches lops, And poles erect for his young clambring hops. Now digs then sowes his herbs, his flowers & roots And carefully manures his trees of fruits. The Pleiades their influence now give, And all that seemed as dead afresh doth live. The croaking frogs, whom nipping winter kil'd Like birds now chirp, and hop about the field, The Nightingale, the black-bird and the Thrush Now tune their layes, on sprayes ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... you, Father; it's like the croaking frogs in the Widow Finnegan's pond you are! But, sh-h-h, I will tell you what I saw, as real as real, as I lay dreaming—Destiny herself, as fine as you please, sailing to the new world, a-spinning on her loom. She had Moira O'Donnell's poor thread and who knows, Father ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... insurgent deity, and for eight years sent back no report. After this they sent a pheasant down to inquire why a report was not sent. This bird perched on a cassia tree at the palace gate of the delinquent envoy, and he hearing its mournful croaking shot it with an arrow, which flew up through the ether and landed in the plains of heaven. The arrow was shot down again and killed the envoy. Finally two other envoys were sent down, who landed in Izumo, and after some parley with the refractory deities of the land received their adhesion and ...
— Japan • David Murray
... in queer, croaking tones, so different from his usual deep and vibrant ones. "That's the odd part of it. I have no real pain. It isn't sore at ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... owing to the opposition in England, or whether the magnitude of the concern is too much for their minds and their nerves, or whether I am mistaken and they are right, I cannot tell; but there is a system of croaking in the army which is highly injurious to the public service, and which I must devise some means to put an end to, or it will put an end to us. Officers have a right to form their own opinions upon events and transactions, but officers of high rank or situation ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... for one hour. I tell you I am chained to it, as the Aloides were chained to the pillars of Tartarus! and the croaking fiend that will not let me sleep in memory! Memory of sins that—that avenge your wrongs, old man! that goad me sometimes to the very verge of suicide! Do you know, ha! how could you possibly know? Shall I tell you that only one thought has often stood ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... we rode again over to Chillon, and paused under its walls. The frogs were croaking in the moat, and we lay rocking on the wave, and watching the dusky outlines of the towers and turrets. Then the spirit of the scene seemed to wrap me round like a cloak. Back to Geneva again. This lovely place will ever leave its image on ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... nation listened to this croaking of a raven; and forgot how many times it had been heard before disturbing their slumbers and ringing its echoes in the hollow night. They knew it was true that the Indian nations, excited by their own ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... sails fast, With silken flags at the mast, And the home-wind blows soft; But a Raven sits aloft, Chuckling and choking, Croaking, croaking, croaking:— Let the beacon-fire blaze higher; Bridegroom, watch; the Bride ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... of their happiness, and this thin, tall girl, all in black, with black hair fluttering round her pale face, seemed like a big black bird of evil presage: her skirts flapped round her knees like wings and her voice sounded cold and harsh like the croaking of a raven. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... mountain waves and teeming with aquatic animals, when at its height at the rise of the Moon. O Karna, thou challengest Dhananjaya, the son of Pritha, to battle even like a calf challenging a smiting bull of keen horns and neck thick as a drum. Like a frog croaking at a terrible and mighty cloud yielding copious showers of rain, thou croakest at Arjuna who is even like Parjanya among men. As a dog from within the precincts of the house of his master barks at a forest-roaming tiger, even so, O Karna, thou barkest ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... At length, after consultation, we determined to steer west and by north by compass, the make of the land indicating the existence of a river. We continued to march all day through a country untrodden before by an European foot. Save that a melancholy crow now and then flew croaking overhead, or a kangaroo was seen to bound at a distance, the picture of solitude was complete and undisturbed. At four o'clock in the afternoon we halted near a small pond of water, where we took up our residence for the night, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... out on a balcony. The stars glowed above the palms; a frog was croaking. He managed to draw his chair so that he could look at her unseen. How deep, and softly dark her eyes, when for a second they rested on his! A moth settled on her knee—a cunning little creature, with its hooded, horned owl's face, and tiny black ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Lovin Child. "Ain't I trying to shut him up, for gosh sake? What d'yuh want me to do?—let him throw all the tobacco you got into the fire? Here, you young imp, quit that, before I spank you! Quick, now—we've had about enough outa you! You lay down there, Cash, and quit your croaking. You'll croak right, if you don't keep covered up. Hey, Boy! My jumpin' yellow-jackets, you'd drown a Klakon till you couldn't hear it ten feet! Cash, you old fool, you shut up, I tell yuh, or I'll come over ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... of the creeping-plants, and the roots of trees—climbed up the moist stones where the water-snakes were writhing and the toads were croaking—and he gained the summit before the sun had quite gone down. How magnificent was the sight from this height! The sea—the great, the glorious sea, that dashed its long waves against the coast—was stretched out before ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... collection, where the subject of the antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red color. There are sounds, also, which have strange effects on some individuals. Among the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silk stuffs, the sound of sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effects in different cases have been spasms, a sense of strangling, profuse sweating,—all showing a profound disturbance ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... look on Sigurd, On the ways that go southward, There shalt thou hear The ernes high screaming, The ravens a-croaking As their meat they crave for; Thou shalt hear the wolves howling Over ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... its gardens bore ripe produce. It was a city with impenetrable gates, empty, still, without a voice or a cheering inhabitant, but the owl hooting in its quarters, and birds skimming in circles in its areas, and the raven croaking in its districts and its great thoroughfare-streets, and bewailing those who had been in it. The Emeer Moosa paused, sorrowing for its being devoid of inhabitants, and its being despoiled of people and dwellers; and he said, Extolled be the perfection ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... second all the energy which makes him run, jump about, live. That I can do by touching controls here at my table without even leaving this marvelous, marvelous room." A frown crossed his forehead above his pop-eyes, and he exclaimed with swift anger, in a croaking voice, "And what I do to the little dog, I can do as easily to the whole ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... without more delay; for the raven, foreknowing the deed, is already croaking, and, as it were, calling out for ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... longed for all these, and more besides—for anything and everything that appertained neither to man nor his works. Then I said good-bye to the raven, and, taking it with me to the top of a high hill, let it go. Croaking, croaking, croaking it flew away, without giving me as much as one ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... vampires, bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... distinguished from the Black-billed variety by its larger size (12 inches long), blackish tail with broad white tips, and yellowish lower mandible. They are often regarded by the superstitious as forecasters of rain, and as omens, probably because of their gutteral croaking notes. ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... side, plundering and harrying wherever he put ashore. Now as he was sailing his course off the skerries of east Gautland put he ashore and offered up a great sacrifice, and whiles this was solemnized came two ravens flying up, loudly croaking, & for this reason deemed the Earl that Odin had accepted his sacrifice, and that good fortune would favour him in his battles. Even so burned he all his ships and came ashore with every man of all his host, and carried war throughout ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... with the green curtain!' Again that horrible cry rang out, dying down to a harsh croaking. It ended in a loud, sharp snick, as when one cracks one's joint, but many times louder. I knew only too well what that dreadful sound portended. We rushed together into the room, but the hardened Savary and the dare-devil hussar both recoiled in horror from ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dignified silence, which was broken only by the croaking of the frogs and the occasional remarks of the two detectives. She had relinquished all hope of ever seeing the Archaeological Society, and had philosophically resigned herself to the prospect of sitting ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... to the story with his big eyes wide open behind his spectacles, and said in his deep, croaking voice: ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... it seemed a dismal fear of approaching winter was stealing through the gay, though fresh, smile of fading nature. High above me, a cautious raven flew by, heavily and sharply cutting the air with his wings; then he turned his head, looked at me sidewise, and, croaking abruptly, disappeared beyond the forest; a large flock of pigeons rushed past me from a barn, and, suddenly whirling about in a column, they came down and stationed themselves bustlingly upon the field—a sign of spring autumn! ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... favorable to the heron; but the fisher again rallied, and, now thoroughly maddened, rushed down the log, and leaped blindly upon his foe. Again and again his attacks were parried. The snarling growls now rose to shrieks, and the croaking ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... faces. Voices rose and fell, As I recall them, in a great vague dream, Curious, pitiful, angry, thrashing out The tragic truth. Then, all along the Cheape, The ballad-mongers waved their sheets of rhyme, Croaking: Come buy! Come buy! The bloody death Of Wormall, writ by Master Richard Bame! Come buy! Come buy! The Atheist's Tragedy. And, even in Bread Street, at our very door, The crowder to his ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... flocks of critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of a play! With croaking notes they bode some dire event, And follow dying poets by the scent. Ours gives himself for gone; y' have watched your time: He fights this day unarmed,—without his rhyme;— And brings a tale which often has been told; As sad as Dido's; and almost as old. His hero, ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... Gardner's house, past the deanery; they and the cathedral tower, rising above them, looked grey in the moonlight. He picked up a stone and sent it right into one of the elm trees; some of the birds, disturbed from their roost, flew out, croaking, over his head. In the old days of superstition it might have been looked upon as an evil omen, coupled with what was to follow. Ah, Charley! if you could only foresee what is before you! If Mrs. Channing, from her far-off ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and cried out in the night, "I will, I swear it to you, mother.... I will!" And in assurance thereof he shot a ball into the air, so that the echo rolled through the silence awfully and the ravens flew croaking from their nests. ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the pond of the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... to make light of what he termed my "croaking" and say I need have no fears for him; and I believe he spoke from the sincerity of his good intentions; he thought all others as sincere and open-hearted as himself, and happy had it been for him if he had found them so. Arthur received ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... hole, we must catch them, and catch them with their own bait, too. Come all to church to-morrow, and I'll let you hear how I'll gull the saints of Auchtermuchty. In the meantime, there is a feast on the Sidlaw hills tonight, below the hill of Macbeth—Mount, Diabolus, and fly." Then, with loud croaking and crowing, the bridal of corbies again scaled the dusky air, and left Robin Ruthven in the ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... same moment ten thousand frogs started from the morions of Gog and Magog, and furiously assailed the knight on every side. In vain he roared, and invoked fair Dulcinea del Toboso: for frogs' wild croaking seemed more loud, more sonorous than all his invocations. And thus in battle vile the knight was overcome, and spawn all swarmed ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... watched their restless circuit—my friend and his jumping shadow. He stopped and bent forward to examine a Sunday-supplement chromo tacked on the wall, and the two heads drew together, as though there were something to whisper. Of a sudden I seemed to hear the old gnome croaking, "Now that story sounds to me ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... is sitting, croaking statements most unfitting, On BRITANNIA's much-peeled bust that's placed above my Office-door, And if Pangloss, e'en in seeming, lent an ear to his dark dreaming, Useless were official scheming, grants of millions by the score, ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... "And is it possible that any man could neglect an invoice merely to go to hear a parcel of frogs croaking in a swamp? Sir, you will never do in a mercantile house." He walked off to the warehouse, and left me ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... north. They had seen something approaching over the veld. The great bird hanging motionless, purposeful, lower down, became aware of his comrades' change of tactics. With one downward stroke of his powerful wings, he shot upwards, and with a hoarse, croaking cry took flight after ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Cleggett and the Doctor listened to him the youth's ravings suddenly took a new form. He ceased to babble; terror expanded the pupils of his eyes and he pointed at vacancy with a shaking finger. "Stop it!" he cried in a croaking whisper. "Stop it! It's his skull—it's Loge's skull come alive. Stop it, I say, it's come alive and getting bigger." With a violent effort he raised himself before the nurse could prevent him, shrinking back from the horrid hallucination ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... to you, Doctor," I cried. "Don't you know such croaking would spoil the peace of any true lover? Is ever any worthy man able not to be anxious in such matters? 'Tis only foppery coxcombs who have great confidence, and they are usually misled, thank the Lord! Be quiet, now, and try to ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... last the train was grinding along discordantly with the brakes on, and, after a little preliminary jolting and banging over the points, drew up at a long lighted platform, where melancholy porters paced up and down, croaking "Market Rodwell!" like so many Solomon ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the men at the front. A few days ago flags were flung out all over Berlin at the news of Hindenburg's victory; military attaches were saying that there had been nothing like this since Napoleon; up and down the streets the newswomen were croaking: "Sechsund-zwanzig tausend Russen gefangen... Hindenburg zahlt noch immer..." ("Twenty-six thousand Russians captured... and Hindenburg's still counting..."). And all you could find in the papers was the General Staff report that "at one place the fighting has been very severe; up ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... Indras, I will take you to Cakras; flow, O moon, and envelop Indras.'" [250] Here in India we again find our old friend "the frog in the moon." "It is especially Indus who satisfies the frog's desire for rain. Indus, as the moon, brings or announces the Somas, or the rain; the frog, croaking, announces or brings the rain; and at this point the frog, which we have seen identified at first with the cloud, is also identified with the pluvial moon." [251] This myth ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... traceable, on the slightest inspection, not to emancipation, but to the illegal continuance of slavery, under the cover of its legal substitute. Not the slightest reference to the rash act, whereby the thirty thousand slaves of Antigua were immediately "turned loose," now mingles with the croaking which strives to defend our republican slavery against argument ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... accept this jewel. I am informed it is wanted, to pay off I know not what encumbrances and arrears—Pshaw!—I care not—I have never yet troubled myself about wants, nor do I wish to begin. My father lived fast, and died soon. Well! And is not that better than croaking and crawling over this dirty globe, haunted by razors, halters, and barebones, sobbing in your sleep, groaning when awake, vegetating in sorrow, and dying in the sulks? Let me kick my heels in mirth and sunshine. Or, if clouds intervene, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... can give away your farm on which you were doing well and getting ahead, though how you did it, I can't see. You'd have to about give it away if you forced a sale, and where on earth you'll find a tenant who'll pay anything worth considering—But there's no use of croaking. I wish I could help you, old feller. By jocks! I believe I can. There's an old woman here who's right smart and handy when she can't get her bottle filled. I believe she'd be glad to go with you, for she don't like our board ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... up an endless chatter, croaking, or rather barking, just like a number of dogs quarrelling, in all manner of keys, as they bustled in and out of the "rookery" they had established in the arm of the cliff; and Fritz and Eric had been much diverted by their movements, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... eyes half-closed—she waited. The male threw himself towards her, seized her comb with his bill, clapping the ground with his heavy wings; and through his veins there coursed such a wonderful ecstasy, such invigorating joy, that he was dazzled, feeling nothing else save this delicious rapture, croaking hoarsely and making the ravine reverberate with a dull echo that ruffled the stillness of ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... number of opossums here which often damaged the garden produce in the night. There were various dull-plumaged small birds, with hawks, crows, and occasionally ducks, and one abominable croaking creature at night used to annoy me exceedingly, and though I often walked up the glen I could never discover what sort of bird it was. It might have been a raven; yes, a raven never flitting may be sitting, may be sitting, on those shattered rocks of wretchedness—on that Troglodytes' ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... on to the floor, and felt a great lump in her throat. Dick had to be dried and warmed, in order to stop that horrid little croaking cough; and no one cared for her ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... love Verse, as Croaking comforts Frogs,[46] And Mire and Ordure are the Heav'n of Hogs. As well might Nothing bind Immensity, Or passive Matter Immaterials see, As these shou'd write by reason, rhime, and rule, Or we turn Wit, whom nature doom'd a ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... Beauvais, the singing contest for the prize of fifty dollars offered by the battalion commander Major Robert R. McCormick was resumed with intense rivalry between the tenors and basses of batteries A and B. A "B" Battery man was croaking Annie Laurie, when an "A" Battery booster in ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... ere her own hunger, now grown savage, could hope to be assuaged. She glided supplely forth into the glimmer, raised her head, and screamed at the moon in a voice as terrible as her mate's. Again the crows stirred, croaking harshly; and the two beasts, noiselessly mounting the steep, stole into the shadows of the forest ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... sensible of injury, but prompt to forgive; Grenville's character was stem, melancholy, and pertinacious. Nothing was more remarkable in him than his inclination always to look on the dark side of things. He was the raven of the House of Commons, always croaking defeat in the midst of triumphs, and bankruptcy with an overflowing exchequer. Burke, with general applause, compared him, in a time of quiet and plenty, to the evil spirit whom Ovid described looking down on the stately temples and wealthy haven of Athens, and scarce able ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trained to stand still indefinitely, and the young man, with the heavy pistol, who held the reins was also immovable. The silence about him was so deep that Harry could hear the frogs croaking at a ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hearing, as has already been demonstrated. Since the hearing but slowly grows more acute during the first days, no utterances of sound at this period can be regarded as responses to any sound-impressions whatever. The first cry is purely reflexive, like the croaking of the decapitated frog when the skin of his back is stroked (Vol. I, p. 214). The cry is not heard by the newly-born himself and has not the least value as language. It is on a par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the bleating of the new-born lamb, and the peeping ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... to climb a rickety stair till they reached the highest floor. A voice that sent all the blood rushing back to poor Lady Oldfield's heart was heard in high strain, and another, mingling with it, muttering a croaking accompaniment of remonstrance,— ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... for hospitality we find in these young men," said one, whose voice was hoarse and croaking and guttural and who was called ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... graceful reeds which give it a tropical appearance, and in a few places are pools of dirty, green water that has not dried up since the last rainy season, and in these water tortoises and big green frogs live in hundreds. To-night it was rather weird as I came along, with the bull frogs croaking, and several other nocturnal animals making loud cries, down past the "Turk's grave," where a pile of dead had been collected in The Gully and a little earth thrown over them, and now the odour is so strong that one has to pass at the double, ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... cluster of eggs, the size of peppercorns, wrapped round his hindlegs: the genial paterfamilias has brought his precious packet from afar, to leave it in the water and afterwards retire under some flat stone, whence he will emit a sound like a tinkling bell. Lastly, when not croaking amid the foliage, the tree frogs indulge in the most graceful dives. And so, in May, as soon as it is dark, the pond becomes a deafening orchestra: it is impossible to talk at table, impossible to sleep. We had to remedy this by means perhaps a little too rigorous. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... with the stomach-ache cannot enjoy Shakespeare; and that this wild, wayward, glowing, and glorious Bettine must disappear in the Frau von Arnim, wearing caps and taking snuff, and instead of these pine-trees, false curls, cut from the last criminal, perhaps, and then croaking and child-bearing and nursing and diapering! things so beautiful for many, but not for her. She is not yet a woman, but belongs to us and the woods and the waters and the midnight. A child singing ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... it," he said, in a harsh, croaking voice. "Play for the two thousand. Win it, if you can. You want it bad. I want to keep it bad. It's nice to have; it makes a man feel warm—money does. I'd sleep in ten-dollar bills, I'd have my clothes made of them, if I could; ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... who was by no means a timid man, was so afraid in 1802, of the croaking of the Australian frogs, that he raised his anchor with all possible speed, and quitted the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Ruyven, nor the others. Forget what I said. As the Spaniards have it, 'Only a fool goes travelling,' and I'm not too notorious for my wisdom, even in Augustine. If it be the custom of the people here to go mad, I'll not sit in a corner croaking, 'Repent and be wise!' If the Varicks and the Butlers set the pace, I promise you to keep the quarry, Mistress Folly, in view—perhaps outfoot you all to Bedlam!... But, cousin, if you, too, run this uncoupled race with the pack, I mean to pace you, neck and neck, like a keen whip, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... his lungs asunder. There was a clock in a room below whose striking he could hear each hour. Between each time it struck he felt as if weeks elapsed. Sometimes it was months. He had begun to be light-headed and to think queer things. Once or twice he heard a man talking in a croaking wail, and after a few minutes realised that it was himself, and that he did not know what he had said, though he knew he had been arguing with Linthicum, who was proving to him that his claim was too rotten to have a ghost of a chance. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... beautiful in the sense that a dado or a Liberty curtain is beautiful, is only one of her charms, and almost an accidental one. The highest and most valuable quality in Nature is not her beauty, but her generous and defiant ugliness. A hundred instances might be taken. The croaking noise of the rooks is, in itself, as hideous as the whole hell of sounds in a London railway tunnel. Yet it uplifts us like a trumpet with its coarse kindliness and honesty, and the lover in 'Maud' could ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... features too heavily accentuated in nose and chin, she might have produced an impression of eternal spring-tide. As it was, the comic papers would have found her cruelly easy to caricature, had she been a statesman. The parrot screamed at her approach, croaking out an air, slightly off ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... we little thought to see Such legs stretched under such mahogany; That British Royalty would ever share At a French Palace, French Imperial fare: Nor eat—as we should have believed at school— The croaking tenant of the marshy pool. At the Trois Freres we had not feasted then, As we have since, and ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... steadying himself, fixed an arrow to the string. As the bird came within easy bow shot the lad took aim. But as he drew the string he saw the great dusky bird open its stout beak. He heard a hoarse croak, and knew it to be the croak of a raven. Now the croaking of a raven was held in those times to be a sound of very ill omen; it was also considered that the man who killed one of these birds was certainly doomed to meet with speedy misfortune. Einar slackened his bow, and the arrow slipped from his fingers. In trying to catch ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... in his chamber. The care and attention of Dr. Laidley contributed greatly to alleviate his sufferings; his company beguiled the tedious hours during that gloomy season, when the rain falls in torrents, when suffocating heats oppress by day, and when the night is spent in listening to the croaking of frogs, the shrill cry of the jackal, and the deep howling of the hyena; a dismal concert, interrupted only by the roar of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... flying in the face of providence to moan about my appearance? it being one of the greatest blessings I had, as it would save me from countless temptations to which pretty girls are born. That was another piece of old croaking of the job's comforter order, of which I was sick unto death, as I am sure there is not an ugly person in the world who thinks her lack of beauty a blessing to her. I need not have feared aunt Helen holding forth in that strain. She always said something brave and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... broke in the youth impetuously. "Suffer me to leave you, Sir Crispin, to your bottle, your croaking, and your memories." ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Suddenly she heard a croaking voice, and she looked up and saw a great frog with goggle eyes looking at her and speaking ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... heresy, dear! From you, too, who are always preaching courage and perseverance! That's pneumonia croaking, not the gallant little champion of the family! What would Ron and I have done without you this last year, I should like to know? Isn't it nice to see father and the boy on such good terms? I believe that also is in a great degree due to Mr Elgood's influence. The pater told me that he congratulated ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... supposed to enter animals, were expelled. St. Hilarion (288-371), we are told, courageously confronted and relieved a possessed camel. "The great St. Ambrose [340-397] tells us that a priest, while saying mass, was troubled by the croaking of frogs in a neighboring marsh; that he exorcised them, and so stopped their noise. St. Bernard [1091-1153], as the monkish chroniclers tell us, mounting the pulpit to preach in his abbey, was interrupted by a crowd of flies; straightway the saint uttered the sacred formula of ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... peculiar sensation in Mrs. N—'s breast nor in yours; and, therefore, cannot know that they are alike. She is an idle, croaking gossip, and I wish she would never cross our threshold. ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... delicate of scent and chaste in beauty. Yet the night of the tropics has many drawbacks: noxious, unsightly creatures then forsake their lair, lithe snakes uncoil their glossy rings, bats flutter in the moonbeams, and croaking frogs disturb the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... and, with it, the old hatred against the Government that had been nearly effaced in far-off Burma. So he raged up and down the West face of the Fort from morning till noon and from evening till the night, devising vain things in his heart, and croaking war-songs when Lalun sang on the City wall. As he grew more acquainted with the Subaltern he unburdened his old heart of some of the passions that had withered it. 'Sahib,' he used to say, tapping his stick against the parapet, 'when I was a young man I was one of twenty thousand horsemen ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... of a short visit of my son Major Van Buren to Albany before he goes South to drop you a few lines. Although I have not admitted it in my conversations with those who are given to croaking, and thus alarm our friends, I have nevertheless witnessed with the keenest regret the distractions among our friends at Albany; & more particularly in relation to the state printing. It is certainly a lamentable winding up of a great contest admirably conducted &, as we ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... out!" cried Roberts. "What do you mean by your croaking? Look at the way in which our duck has spread her wings and is following in the schooner's wake. It's glorious, and the very air seems in our favour, for it isn't half ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... he began in a confidential tone, and the young engineer bent over towards him. "I don't want to be croaking all the time, but railroading isn't all fun ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... the other hundred-franc note and held the two together in his hand. Once more the gnome made his strange, croaking sound and the withered ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... that the body had not been disturbed, she brushed past so as to cause it to drop to the ground. She hastily plucked a few feathers, put them with the herbs and roots already gathered, and turned homeward. Everything was quiet and still around her, only at a short distance two crows flew up croaking. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... in no way armed; many of the toads have no teeth, and those of the frog are insignificant for its size; they have no tails; neither the frogs nor the toads are venomous; the fiery expectorations of the poor toads are matters of household fable only; and their croaking choruses have startled many a poor traveller. One variety, in the case with which the visitor is now engaged, is remarkable. Here are specimens of the tree frogs that can walk with their backs downwards on the most polished surfaces, and can slightly change their colour; ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... delightful voice you have!" cried the Frog. "Really it is quite like a croak, and croaking is of course the most musical sound in the world. You will hear our glee-club this evening. We sit in the old duck pond close by the farmer's house, and as soon as the moon rises we begin. It is so entrancing that everybody lies awake to listen to us. In fact, ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... word you said about pa an' the woman. I heard that, and I heard them frogs down there croaking, too, and the chickens fluttering on their roosts. I heard his horse still a-trotting. Mother, he was whistling when ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... black shadows walking to and fro in the quadrangle, near the statues of the Patron Saint and his sister; and hopping on behind them, in and out of the old arches, is a raven, croaking in answer to the bell, and uttering, at intervals, the purest Tuscan. How like a Jesuit he looks! There never was a sly and stealthy fellow so at home as is this raven, standing now at the refectory door, with his head on one ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... been said, dread sat upon that rooftree like a croaking raven, nor could they escape from the shadow of its wing. Far away in the East a mighty monarch had turned his thoughts towards this English home and the maid of his royal blood who dwelt there, and who was mingled with his visions of conquest and of the triumph of his ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... gaze? Does then Squire Gander gawk Till Lady Goose-quill gawks again? Is't so? And next, I ween, thou takest up thy lute, And turning towards the balcony, as here, Thou singst a croaking song, to which the moon, A yellow pander, sparkles through the trees; The flowers sweet intoxicate the sense, Till now the proper opportunity Arrives—the father, brother—spouse, perhaps— Has left the house on similar errand ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... seven of these soldiers marched a considerable way in front; they were villainous looking ruffians upon whose livid and ghastly countenances were written murder, and all the other crimes which the decalogue forbids. As I passed by, one of them, with a harsh, croaking voice, commenced cursing all foreigners. "There," said he, "is this Frenchman riding on horseback" (I was on a mule), "with a man" (the idiot) "to take care of him, and all because he is rich; whilst I, who am a poor soldier, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
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