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More "Roost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flood was going down, and by nightfall we had got back to where the house had stood. Every vestige of the once pretty homestead had disappeared, with sheep and cattle, though the fowls had managed to find a roost on the topmost branches of some orange trees, which alone remained to mark ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous
... cunning; as is well known, they nearly always post a sentinel in some tree top to keep watch while the rest of the flock is feeding in the field below. In the fall and winter, large numbers of them flock, and at night all roost in one piece of woods; some of the "crow roosts" are of vast extent and contain thousands of individuals. Crows nest near the tops of large trees, preferably pines, either in woods or single trees in fields. Their nests are made of ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... the Wellesley Chicken-coop, the Chicken-coop, the Chicken-coop. Come see the Wellesley Chicken-coop, (It isn't far from Chapel!) Come get your tickets for a roost, and give Your chicken-hearts a boost, Come see our Wellesley Chicken-roost, (It ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... when I had forgotten them, the Admiral sent for me. It was to show me, now without emotion, the two little visitors who had gone to roost in his room, perched upon a slender silken cord above his bed. They nestled closely together, two little balls of feathers, touching and almost merged one in the other, and slept without the slightest fear, sure of our pity. And those ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... struck me most in Joshua's domain was the quantity and the tameness of the game. The hen partridge scarce abandoned the roost, at the foot of the hedge where she had assembled her covey, though the path went close beside her; and the hare, remaining on her form, gazed at us as we passed, with her full dark eye, or rising lazily and hopping to a little distance, stood erect to look at us with more curiosity than ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... clearly. I have a great mind to send Blacas over to Stowe. I can trust to him to look to the crates and coops, and to see that the pheasants have enough of air and water, and that the Governor of Calais finds a commodious place for them to roost in, forbidding the drums to beat and disturb them, evening or morning. The next night, according to my calculation, they repose at Montreuil. I must look at them before they are let loose. I cannot well imagine why the public men employed by ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... boy! Fisherman Charlie, have I caught thee setting bait for Lorna? Now, I understand thy fishings, and the robbing of Counsellor's hen roost. May I never have good roasting, if I have it not to-night and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... he bought the little estate of Sunnyside, near the Sleepy Hollow which he had made famous. His first name for it was "The Roost" (Dutch for "Rest"), which he changed for reasons which are not recorded; possibly the little nieces who became regular inmates may have thought the old name not dignified enough. This he regarded as his home for the rest of his life. He set to ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... there are, no doubt you know, To which a fox is used,— A rooster that is bound to crow, A crow that's bound to roost, And whichsoever he espies He tells the most ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... don't nobody starve as long as this nigger rules the roost," said Milly, wiping one of the silver tea-spoons with a corner of her apron, and then placing it in the cup destined for Mabel, who, not having seen her breakfast prepared, relished it highly, thinking the world was not, after all, so dark and dreary, for there were yet ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... grinned. "I've flew some, but I've come home to roost now. How's the old savage down at the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... they should go out to the poultry-yard and get a quill. But it was already dark. They had, however, two lanterns, and the little boys borrowed the neighbors'. They set out in procession for the poultry-yard. When they got there, the fowls were all at roost, so they could look ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... she exclaimed, further manifesting her maternal instincts by applying her apron to her offspring's nose. 'He's al'ys a-findin' faut wi' him, and a-poundin' him for nothin'. Let him goo an' eat his roost goose as is a-smellin' up in our noses while we're a-swallering them greasy broth, an' ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... kitchen chair to Cis; and when she was seated, got the wood box and set it on its side. "Come and roost along with me," he bade Johnnie, the single eye under the wet-combed, tawny bang smiling almost tenderly ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... once behind a clump I wriggled forward faster. With the clump between me and the grouse I approached as close as I dared. The grouse was only four or five feet away. It must be now or never, for when once the grouse began to fly for their night's roost ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... trees, and the road so little used; spring was early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches, and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... fox that robbed my roost is sly; he keeps The cover warily; and, now the scent Is cold, the curs that yelp in scandal's pack Bay loud on many faults, but cannot ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... lady's life easier," said Martin; and in one moment she found herself where she wished to be, and in the next saw him close beside her on the apple-bough. The five other girls went to their own branches as naturally as hens to the roost. Joscelyn inspected them like a captain marshalling his men, and when each was armed with an ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... by Michaelis that the chasidah of the Hebrews could not be the stork, because the latter bird does not usually roost on trees; and yet it is asserted in the hundred-and-fourth Psalm, that the fir-trees are a dwelling for the stork. But Doubdan, who had no hypothesis to maintain, relates that he saw storks resting on trees between Cana and Nazareth; and Dr. Shaw says expressly, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... insect world ants have been noticed to go on working during totality, whilst grasshoppers are stilled by the darkness, and earth-worms come to the surface. Birds of all kinds seem always upset in their habits, almost invariably going to roost as the darkness becomes intensified before totality. In 1868 "a small cock which had beforehand been actively employed in grubbing about in the sand went to sleep with his head under his wing and slept for about 10 minutes, and on waking uttered an expression ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... are thousands of them that roost among the hills in that quarter. I know the place thoroughly. The heights are the greatest that we have in the surrounding country. The distance from this spot is about five miles. He, no doubt, has ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... road? If so, then call back our proud eagle of liberty from its pinion flight through the skies of national achievement, and make our national emblem the barnyard fowl that crows in the day dawn as if creating light instead of noise, and then runs for his roost when the shadows fall. ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... but my prompt action revealed who the intruder was, by producing a wild flutter and a frantic cackling! Before my companion could strike a light the mysterious attack was fully explained. The supposed midnight robber and possible assassin was simply a peaceable hen that had gone to roost on my arm, and, on finding her position unsteady, had dug her claws into what she mistook for ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... trying to look amiable, "pray don't be so concise. Tell me the condition of the marquis, at once: I did not come to this old owl's roost for pastime. I came to see what could be done to restore its unhappy lord to reason. That you are observing, I remember; you proved it by the good care you took of my ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... other officer, "this is a feather out of your cap. I thought your fellows had cleared out every hen-roost within twenty miles of ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... if you want to catch that fellow, I'll tell you how to do it. He has promised to bring me some food to-night, when all the rest are at roost. He will hide and not get shut up; then, when those cross old biddies are asleep, he will cluck softly, and I am to go in and eat all I want out of the pan. You hide on the top of the hen-house; and while he talks to me, you can pounce on him. Then I shall be the only cock here, ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... and seems to weep, As pallid blue-bells, crow-tyes and marsh lilies, But I'll plant here, and if they chance to wither, My tears shall water them; there's not a bird That trails a sad soft note, as ringdoves do, Or twitters painfully like the dun martlet, But I will lure by my best art, to roost And plain them in these branches. Larks and finches Will I fright hence, nor aught shall dare approach This pensive spot, save solitary things That love to mourn as ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... China shop"? You remember, sir, that "intelligent contraband" who, when asked his opinion of an offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "Sar, if I was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she "roosted high"—withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to escape the rough contact with the harsher ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... stall and sheep in the fold; Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold; A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere; The twitter of killdees keen in the air; The noise of a wagon that jolts through the gloam On the ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... that he doubted his own power, or failed to believe that he could himself take a high part in high affairs when his own turn came. He was biding his time, and patiently looking forward to the days when he himself would sit authoritative at some board, and talk and direct, and rule the roost, while lesser stars sat round and obeyed, as he had so well accustomed himself ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer; 40 So hight her cock, whose singing did surpass The merry notes of organs at the mass. More certain was the crowing of the cock To number hours, than is an abbey-clock; And sooner than the matin-bell was rung, He clapp'd his wings upon his roost, and sung: For when degrees fifteen ascended right, By sure instinct he knew 'twas one at night. High was his comb, and coral-red withal, In dents embattled like a castle wall; 50 His bill was raven-black, and shone like jet; Blue were his legs, and orient were his feet; White were ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... south through Central and most of South America. Every farmer knows it to be an industrious scavenger, devouring at all times the putrid or decomposing flesh of carcasses. They are found in flocks, not only flying and feeding in company, but resorting to the same spot to roost; nesting also in communities; depositing their eggs on the ground, on rocks, or in hollow logs and stumps, usually in thick woods or in a sycamore grove, in the bend or fork of a stream. The nest is frequently built in a tree, or in the cavity of a sycamore stump, though a favorite place ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... and, truth to tell, he proved himself as great a thief as he was a genealogist among them. Many a time the unfortunate foxes from some neighboring cover were cursed and banned, when, if the truth had been known, the only fox that despoiled the roost was Raymond-na-hattha. One thing, however, was certain, that unless the cock was thoroughly game he might enjoy his liberty and ease long enough without molestation from Raymond. We had well nigh forgotten ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... yore attention to the trained coyotes, ladies an' gents," remarked Johnny in a deep, solemn voice. "Coyotes are not birds; they do not roost on roofs as a general thing; but they are some intelligent an' can be trained to do lots of foolish tricks. These ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... of it is that she just fits into the scenery here, and I don't. You know, father, I never could wax enthusiastic over shooing the cows to roost ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... it worn't Stiff, for ye've no reason to be proud o't," observed Larry O'Dowd, with a grin; "don't spake so loud, man, but shut up yer potatie trap and go to roost. Ye'll need it all if ye wouldn't like to fall behind to-morrow. There now, don't reply; ye've no call to make me yer father confessor, and apologise for boastin'; good night, ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... hall had burned itself out. Big Jim Ennis had lost pretty much everything he owned except what he had on. Lanier was not much better off. As to the origin of the fire, Bob merely said that he had turned the lights low in the sitting-room, and, obedient to "Shoe's" orders, had gone up to his roost, too wrathful and amazed over what had occurred even to think of sleep—to think, in fact, of anything but the colonel's words. So absorbed was he, as he slowly undressed, he never noted the sounds ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... happy, and now set forth the beauty and harmony of the world, seen from the loftiness of the divine roost: below all was dark, unjust, sorrowful; seen from on high, it all became clear, luminous, ordered: the world was like the works of ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... full: a long, low room with a French window standing wide open to the garden just a step or two below. On the evening breeze wafted in the scent of mignonette and flowers, and the low sleepy clucking of the hens, about to go to roost. Near the window stood the table, with a silver kettle boiling merrily on its stand, and fruit and flowers and pretty china in abundance, all looking as dainty and tempting as heart could desire. There was an abundance too of more ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... auld rogue's-roost of dirt 'tis just now," said Will; "but a few pound spent in the right way will ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... empty air for a moment like a rotund fowl about to seek its roost. Suddenly he ran distractedly at an armchair and ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... croweth bravely, And guardeth hawk-scared hen roost; But when the sea swan swimmeth Against the shoreward nestings, There mighty mallard flappeth, And frayeth him from foray; Yet shoreward if he winneth, The ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... off the sun. The men and women wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... as he had done for years, and behind him Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third valley, and stood on the hill's summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their aged eyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to roost. ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... paper Bennie had thrown from the tree, and which she had quite forgotten. What did it mean? Was there anything inside it? With a thrill of fear she darted to the window, untwisted the paper, and by the dim light could just make out the following scrawl: "Leeve the en roost oppen nex Munday nite." Mary gazed at it with horror, unable for the first few minutes to take in the sense, but when she did so she sank down on the ground and burst into tears. What wicked, wicked people they were! Not content with ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... mine to command; have I not brought her up to this? She shall have him. I'll rule the roost for that. I'll give her pounds and crowns, gold and silver. I'll weigh her down in pure angel gold. Say, man, is't ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... confess I was as sorry as anybody. I climbed down from my cormorant roost, and picked my way between the alleys of aromatic piled lumber in order to avoid the press, and cursed the little gods heartily for undue partiality in the wrong direction. In this manner I happened on Jimmy Powers himself seated dripping on a board and examining ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... carry this letter to Mistress Fitzwalter, who is with thy cousin Robin Fitzooth in Barnesdale, Sir Knight," said Simeon, plausibly, "you will win the gratitude of the Sheriff's daughter, at the least; and she doth rule the roost here, as I can tell you. 'Tis but a letter from Master Fitzwalter ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... it, Heigham? I suppose Angela has gone upstairs; she goes to roost very early. I hope that she has not bored you, and that old Pigott hasn't talked your head off. I told you that we were an odd lot, you know; but, if you find us odder than you bargained for, I should advise ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... I wouldn't face the shame; she told him I—I'd kill my own father, and that the blood would be on his hands; she told him if he'd let me go to the devil without another chance—me that had been named after him—that a curse would roost on his chest. He didn't want to give in to her—he didn't want to; but she scared him, and she's a woman and she knew how to get inside of him—she knew how. They're going to send me out to his mines, where I can start over, Renie. Out West, where ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... a crown will be ready for the messenger.' In the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for the best part of an hour, with some solicitude; occasionally looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his mind that she ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... train pulled slowly into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summer population was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north to the south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for a certain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come—at the last moment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, 'She will, if humanly possible.' ... At last his ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... one pleasant day skirting along the Isles of Greece. They are very mountainous. Their prevailing tints are gray and brown, approaching to red. Little white villages surrounded by trees, nestle in the valleys or roost upon the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... me and the racing seas before, I raped your richest roadstead—I plundered Singapore! I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... things you do not believe in. I believe black thoughts breed black ills to those who think them. It is not a new idea. There is an old Oriental proverb which says, 'Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.' I believe also that the worst—the very worst CANNOT be done to those who think steadily—steadily—only of the best. To you that is merely superstition to be laughed at. That is a matter of opinion. But—don't go on with this thing—DON'T ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... tale, and one to be remembered," observed Colonel Manysnifters thoughtfully. "I never had an adventure like that, because I am awfully careful about what I eat and drink, and I roost at chicken-time. There's no telling what will happen to a man when he violates Nature's laws. Night is made for sleep, and the three hours before midnight count for more than all ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... foragers, and neither stringent orders nor armed guards availed to protect a field of maize or a patch of potatoes; the traditional negro was not more skilful in looting a fowl-house;* (* Despite Lee's proclamations against indiscriminate foraging, "the hens," he said, "had to roost mighty high when the Texans were about.") he had an unerring scent for whisky or "apple-jack;" and the address he displayed in compassing the destruction of the unsuspecting porker was only equalled, when he was caught flagrante delicto, by the ingenuity of his excuses. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... him loose," said he, "and you know now what I meant when I said Chadron's chickens has come home to roost." ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, listless, torpid,—an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given our generals so much trouble,—"Secesh prisoners," as a by-stander told us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they were tabooed to the common visitor, and it was necessary to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... ranged herself entirely on the side of the shopkeepers and bank clerks, and regarded all who slept late and had money to spend as her enemy and natural prey. And directly she had crossed the road at Holborn, her thoughts all came naturally and regularly to roost upon her work, and she forgot that she was, properly speaking, an amateur worker, whose services were unpaid, and could hardly be said to wind the world up for its daily task, since the world, so far, had shown very little desire to take the boons which ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... agitate anew his sorely ruffled temper, and the story flew from lip to lip that it was because the precious jewels were already on their way to 'Frisco, guarded presumably by Blake and forty carbines, a swarthy half-breed courier spurred madly southward from the outlying roost on the borders of the reservation, with the warning that it would be useless risk to meddle with the Teniente Loring's party when it came along—there were no valuables with them; they had been sent with the cavalry ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... running-fire of the most horrible execrations that I ever listened to even in this hard-swearing country. Whether this ebullition of blasphemy comforted him at the moment I cannot say; but, if "curses come home to roost," a black brood was hatched that night, unless one whole page be blotted out from the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... out and fetched a chicken from the roost, which she killed, and began to pick, without asking any questions. Then, summoning her son, who was in bed, to her assistance, she began to prepare this chicken for our supper. This she afterwards set before us in so neat, I may almost ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Cabot. "It's enough to give anybody the mulligrubs. Why in the world do you come over here and—and go to roost by yourself? ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... much pathos connected with their friendship. Both of them were bachelors and owned homes of more than passing historic interest on the Hudson. Irving called Kemble's residence at Cold Spring "Bachelor's Elysium," while to his own he applied the name of "Wolfert's Roost." In the spring of 1856 in writing to Kemble he said: "I am happy to learn that your lawn is green. I hope it will long continue so, and yourself likewise. I shall come up one of these days and have a roll on it with you"; and Kemble, upon another occasion, in ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... 'O stay, my son Willie, this night, This ae night wi' me; The best hen in a' my roost Sall be well made ready ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... get called in, he'll come home to roost like the rest of them," said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. "The people can't govern themselves,—only Bedloe doesn't know it. Some day he'll find ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... honest pride to see a well-furnished dresser, showing copper and pewter in shining splendor as if for ornament rather than for use. In all this they differed widely from the Germans, a people with whom they have been erroneously and often confounded. Roost fowls and ducks are not more different. As water draws one ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... they did not seem disposed to go anywhere that morning; but fluttered about as if to amuse themselves, in search of food, and flew from one tree-top to another till evening, when they returned to roost at their old quarters. On the second day it was just the same. However, on the third morning one bird said to the other, "We must go to the spring to-day, to see the Hell-Maiden washing her face." They waited till noon, and then flew away direct towards the south. The young man's heart beat with ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... he come across; they are suspicious, and roost out of reach. At last, half dead, he desires to drink, and sees a well with two pails on the chain; he descends in one of the pails, and finds it impossible to scramble out: he weeps for rage. The wolf, as ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... of humour. Miss Holbein is handsome. Jewesses can be the most beautiful women in the world, don't you think? and though she is snubbed by the grandes dames here and perhaps elsewhere, I notice that snubs generally come home to roost. She will have all the millions one day, and she is clever enough to pay people back in their own coin—not coin that she would miss in spending. And she is clever enough to be Madame la Baronne Rongier, wife to the idol of the French people, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the Spanish Authorities.)—It is now known that the battle was only skirmish. The rebels attacked a hen-roost in search of eggs, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... with his benignant smile, "despot, demagogue, dictator, oligarch, lord of the roost and cock of the walk! It's a great thing to be monarch of all ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... house. I then told Brigham I would go hunting and get him a nice one for dinner the next day. I went out that night with Gully and hunted some time, but the snow was a foot deep or more, and a crust had frozen, so that it was difficult hunting. At last we found a large flock of turkeys at roost in the tall Cottonwood timber. I shot two by starlight; one fell in the river, and we lost it, but the other fell dead at the roots of the tree. This was a large and fat turkey. I considered that it would do, and we returned home ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... is to MM. Marten's (381/4. For Marten's read Martins' [the name is wrongly spelt in the "Origin of Species."]) experiments on seeds "in a box in the actual sea.") that my observations on the effects of sea-water have been confirmed. I still suspect that the legs of birds which roost on the ground may be an efficient means; but I was interrupted when going to make trials on this subject, and ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... reaching out a hand to grasp the lad's and gazing with fatherly affection and pride into the handsome young face glowing with health and happiness, "she is the earliest young bird in the family nest. However, she seeks her roost earlier ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... arrived and passed to a belated dinner in the dining-room, an orchestra, consisting of a lady pianist and a lady violinist, was giving the closing piece of the afternoon concert. The dining-room was painted a self-righteous olive-green; it was thoroughly netted against the flies, which used to roost in myriads on the cut-paper around the tops of the pillars, and a college-student head waiter ushered Gaites through the gloom to his place with a warning and hushing hand which made him feel as if he were being shown to a ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... children, for a home Ne'er seems like home without 'em. And women seldom care to roam, Who love their babes about 'em, Should she have wealth, she must not boast Or tell of what she brought me; Content that I should rule the roost,— (That's what my father taught me.) If I can find some anxious maid Who all these charms possesses, I shall be tempted, I'm afraid, To pay her ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... heels, jist put a hand on each short rib, tickle her till she spills the red hot coals all over the floor, and begins to cry over 'em to put 'em out, whip the candle out of her hand, leave her to her lamentations, and then off to roost in no time. And when I get there, won't I strike out all abroad—take up the room of three men with their clothes on—lay all over and over the bed, and feel once more I am a free man and ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... join the barge, as I have said, above Assmannshausen, probably at night, and then cross directly over the river. The first castle with which I intend to deal is that celebrated robber's roost, Rheinstein, standing two hundred and sixty feet above the water. Disembarking about a league up the river from Rheinstein, before daybreak we will all lie concealed in the forest within sight of the Castle gates. When the sun is well risen, Captain Blumenfels ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... the little Carrs, and I don't know that I could ever have a better chance than one day when five out of the six were perched on top of the ice-house, like chickens on a roost. This ice-house was one of their favorite places. It was only a low roof set over a hole in the ground, and, as it stood in the middle of the side-yard, it always seemed to the children that the shortest road to every place was up ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... barren rock, inhabited only by clak-claks and creatures closer to true Terran birds in that they wore a body plumage which resembled feathers, though their heads were naked and leathery. And, Shann noted, the clak-claks and the birds did not roost on the same islands, each choosing their own particular home while the other species ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... etchings; or the designs for the Christmas cards? Have not heard a word, pro or con. Guess no news is good news; for I notice 'rejected' work generally travels fast, to roost ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the emotion, as you call it, vanished as I handed the last fair bundle of shawls into her carriage. While the light burns, you know, the moth hangs around it, but when the flame goes out, spent in a weary flicker, after 'braving it' for a whole night, the moth goes to roost, when he has not been singed, or otherwise personally damaged without insurance. Well, what are you thinking of now? when you cross your arms, bury your gaze in the fire and strike your slipper with such measured beat on the fender, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we pick off the roost Saturday evenings (you see, we're thinning 'em out; no sense in keeping all of 'em over winter)—as a result, I say, of all this good eating, and the outdoor life, and the necessity of stirring around ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... toward their great roost in the pines when I turned toward the town. They, too, had had good picking along the creek flats and ditches of the meadows. Their powerful wing-beats and constant play told of full crops and no fear for the night, already softly gray across the white silent ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... continued, "if a fellow could but know the rights of the matter; if he could be sure that any good was to come from it all." Then turning his head and glancing at the western sky: "Anyway, I wish that blamed sun would hurry up and go to roost. Perhaps they'll ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the page, "for you will be presently interrupted; the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will wing to roost presently.—This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who was she, in ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... gown," praised Nora. "I like it ever so much better than Jessica's, Anne's or mine. I can't blame you for wanting to dress up in it beforehand. I take back all my croaking. Here's hoping good luck will roost permanently ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... a person at the head of the Militia Department known as Lieut.-General Sam Hughes, K.C.B. But there was no longer in Canada any such man as old Sam Hughes. The Fate chickens hatched in 1914 were coming home to roost. For two years the Government had carried on two wars, one with the Kaiser Wilhelm, the other with Kaiser Sam. It had to be determined that whatever defects government may have because it is a democracy—even such democracy as was left in 1916—it is bigger than any ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Fagoni feeds well, bekase he's the cock o' the roost; but the poor Naygurs are not overly well fed, and the critters are up to their knees in wather all day, washing di'monds; so they suffer much from rheumatiz and colds. Och, but it's murther entirely; an' I've ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... her where she was going. She said she was going to the wise woman; her boy had screaming fits, so she was taking him to be doctored. I asked, 'Why, how does the wise woman cure screaming fits?' 'She puts the child on the hen-roost and repeats ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... malicious suggestion against us, I pity the person who tries to do it. He will get nothing out of it, because he is firing peas out of a pea-shooter against an iron-clad war vessel. That is what it amounts to; but for himself it amounts to something more. It is a true saying that "Curses return home to roost." I think if we study these things, and consider that there is a reason for them, we need not be in the least alarmed about negative suggestion, or malicious magnetism, of being brought under the power of other minds, of being got over in some way, of being done out of our property, of ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... fare, and anything the old man can do, and anything the old man can give to make you merry, he will do, and he will give, because you have come back gallantly, and have not brought dishonour to the roost where ye were hatched—but more than this I will not agree to. Ye would not abide at home, as I desired, and this therefore is no longer a home for you; ye would not be content to be forgers of weapons, but ye must e'en use them too, and ye have had ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... large and heavy as she was, and, standing upon its edge, would flap her arms and flutter back in a frightened manner and brace herself to the leap, as Gilby had done. She was aided in this representation by her familiarity with the habits of chickens when they try to get down from a high roost. The resemblance struck her; she would cry ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... marked in a Spanish chart; but the frequency of the birds seems to evince, that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered: For the greatest part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out, that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening; for we never saw them early or late; and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Ho'sford. He sed dat ebbery white man in de county 'cept about ten or twelve was inter it, an' dey wuz a gwine ter clean out nigger rule h'yer, shore. He sed de fust big thing they got on hand wuz ter break up dis buzzard-roost h'yer at Red Wing, an' he 'llowed dat wouldn't be no hard wuk kase dey'd got some pretty tough tings on Nimbus ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... afternoon it began to snow and it forgot to stop. He had hard work to get home and still harder to get out and attend to the little stock. The chickens, he found, had had the sense to go to roost before time; both Brownie and the cat were safe indoor; they could look out for themselves, but the gentle, fawn-like Jersey (quite a different animal from the wild-eyed beast of three years agone) had expectations, and she must needs receive ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... There isn't one of you can hold a candle to me. Fenwick, with all his cunning, is a child compared with Ned Blossett. Ask any of the old gang in New York, ask the blistering police if you like; and as to the rest of you, who are you? A set of whitefaced mechanics, without pluck enough to rob a hen-roost. Take that, ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... she, in response to a query from the ranks, pointing as she spoke across the river. "Hope you cotch him. Golly he'um slyer than a possum in a hen-roost." ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... multitude sayes a fool. C'est tousiours plus mal-aise de faire mal que bien, its easier to do a thing the right way then the wrong, as in opening a door. Il n'y a marchand qui gaigne tousjours. Nemo ubique potest foelici,[373] etc., its a good roost that drapes aye.[374] Of him that out of scarcity tauntes his neihbour wt the same scorne wt which he scorned him, the Frenchman sayes, il ne vaut rien pour prendre la bal a la seconde enleuement, at the 2d stot. He is a man of a 1000 crounes ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... parted. He stayed till one Pierce coming by, he went again with him about a bow's shot into the fields, and returned with him likewise to his master's gate, where they also parted; and the said John Perry averred that he went into his master's hen-roost, where he lay about an hour, but slept not, but when the clock struck twelve, arose and went towards Charringworth, until a great mist arising, he lost his way, and so lay the rest of the night under a hedge. At break of day on Friday morning he went ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Beagle, who visited here, where many things are reversed, spoke of "these singular though small islands, where crabs eat cocoanuts, fish eat coral, dogs catch fish, men ride on turtles, and shells are dangerous man-traps," adding that the greater part of the sea-fowl roost on branches, and many rats make their nests in ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... you, George, that one of the most uncomfortable things in the world must be to outlive your age? To have all the reforms of your boyish liberalism coming home to roost, just as you are settling down to ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... musical tone and a most goblin-like and eerie one. The partridge may be commonplace enough and his drumming but a strut of complacency and self-satisfaction. With patience and good luck I may see him doing it and follow him from his roost in the morning till he returns to it at night. But I cannot fathom the mystery which haunts the pasture in the genial melancholy of these sunny October days, to which his drum seems to sound the ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... nights" instead of "days." For one night his mother came home with a fat hen slung across her shoulders. She had been down to Farmer Green's hen- house, right in the middle of the night, when Farmer Green and his family were asleep; and she had snatched one of the sleeping hens off the roost and stolen away ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... in my lady's bower, (Oh! weary mother, drive the cows to roost;) They faintly droop for a little hour; My lady's head droops ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... things are in a crude and obscure condition, and the people's minds are unsophisticated. They roost in nests or dwell in caves. Their manners are simply what is customary. Now if a great man were to establish laws, justice could not fail to flourish. And even if some gain should accrue to the people, in what way would this interfere with the sage's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... about the best plan for building hen houses. My plan is, for 100 fowls, to build a house for them to roost in, eight or even ten feet wide and sixteen feet long, one story high with tight floor of yellow pine flooring. I prefer a tight floor because it is easily cleaned out, and every time it is cleaned out and swept ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... of Hartlepool's Wonder, won't you?" said Vera. "His mother took three firsts at Birmingham, and he was second in the cockerel class last year at Gloucester. He'll probably roost on the rail at the bottom of your bed. I wonder if he'd feel more at home if some of his wives were up here with him? The hens are all in the pantry, and I think I could pick out Hartlepool ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... of semi-darkness over the scene. Spasmodic bursts of lightning laid thin dull, unearthly flares upon the desolate land, and the rumble of apple-carts filled the ear with promise of disaster. The chickens had gone to roost; several cows, confined in a pen surrounded by the customary stockade of poles driven deep into the earth and lashed together with the bark of the sturdy elm, were huddled in front of a rude shed; a number of ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... they had not only to settle about the excursions, but to protect Will Tree—not only the dwelling, but the annexes, the poultry roost, and the fold for the animals, where the wild beasts could easily ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... have scarcely thought of him, but to tell you the truth when he has been here on business I have involuntarily thought of a mousing cat, or the animal he is named after on the scent of a hen- roost. But of course I can be civil or even polite to him if ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... fierce mechanic; "the owl hath kept close in his roost! An' it were not for the king's favour, I would soon see how the wizard liked to have fire and water brought ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... river is about 150 feet and its volume is twice that of the Cosireni. The climate is very trying. The nights are hot. Insect pests are numerous. Mr. Heller found that "the forest was filled with annoying, though sting-less, bees which persisted in attempting to roost on the countenance of any human being available." On the banks of the Comberciato he found several families of savages. All the men were keen hunters and fishermen. Their weapons consisted of powerful bows made from the wood ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... came to the conclusion that they were plotting mischief; but he could form no idea of the nature of the plot—whether it was to rob a hen-roost on shore, or capture the wooden fort that frowned upon them from the heights above. He was sorry to see John permitted to enter this conclave of mischief; but because his brother apparently acquiesced in the plan, he hoped that no serious roguery ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... very remotely of his own case when he wrote that jubilant semi-chorus, with the marvellous fugal succession of figures, wherein Samson, and by inference Milton himself, is compared to a smouldering fire revived, to a serpent attacking a hen-roost, to an eagle swooping on his helpless prey, and last, his enemies now silent for ever, to the phoenix, self-begotten and self-perpetuating. The Philistian nobility (or the Restoration notables) are described, with huge scorn, as ranged along the tiers of their theatre, like barnyard fowl blinking ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... away, but he did not. From the hour he decided to stay misfortune began. Willie Haslam, the clerk at the Company's Post, had learned a trick or two at cards in the east, and imagined that he could, as he said himself, "roast the cock o' the roost"—meaning Pierre. He did so for one or two evenings, and then Pierre had a sudden increase of luck (or design), and the lad, seeing no chance of redeeming the I O U, representing two years' salary, went down to the house where Kitty Cline lived, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with an odd smile; 'I haven't turned gambler, I assure you. You've heard that I've joined the Pigeon Trap? That's what they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks' Roost. There are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title, and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I'm ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... from him. He could not help it. The door behind him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to the point ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... nearly every village, and each family appears to have its patch of cotton, as our own ancestors in Scotland had each his patch of flax. Near sunset an immense flock of the large species of horn-bill (Buceros cristatus) came here to roost on the great trees which skirt the edge of the cliff. They leave early in the morning, often before sunrise, for their feeding-places, coming and going in pairs. They are evidently of a loving disposition, and strongly attached to each other, the male always nestling close beside his mate. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... was dispatched, the chief warder paid me another visit to instruct me how to roost. Under his tuition I received my first lesson in prison bed-making. A strip of thick canvas was stretched across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running through those mysterious rings. A coarse sheet was spread on this, then a rough blanket, and finally ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... was dark and still as they approached it. No welcoming light in the dining-room windows, no open door, no shrill voice demanding to know where the wandering brother had been "all this everlastin' time." Even the hens had gone to roost. Abishai groaned. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... wooden stanchions. There were arm racks round the stanchions, containing muskets, cutlasses, and long, double-barrelled pistols. As I expected, there were several bee-skeps hanging from nails, or lying on the floor. I was in the smugglers' roost, perhaps in the presence of ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... into "Organ-grinders' Roost," in the garret. To "Organ-grinders' Roost" the detective ascends. If, reader, you have ever pictured in your mind the cave of despair, peopled by beings human only in shape, you may form a faint idea of the wretchedness presented in "Organ-grinders' Roost," at the top ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... fowls are all going to roost, and you must wait till morning to see the squabs, and broods of Brahmas and Leghorns. They look like snowballs rolling about ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the hen-roost, in like manner, when such a danger as a voyage menaces a mother, she becomes suddenly endowed with a ferocious presence of mind, and bristling up and screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on the brows of Ben-Connal, He kens of his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs of Clan-Ronald, Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelve of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, But, ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, Nor house, ha', nor hame in his country has he: The conflict is past, and our name is no more— There 's nought left but sorrow for ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... me. Dem ar creeturs wuz mighty kuse—mo' speshually Brer Rabbit. W'en it come down ter dat," said Uncle Remus, lowering his voice and looking very grave, "I 'speck ef youder s'arch de country fum hen-roost to river-bank,[61] you won't fine a no mo' kuser man dan Brer Rabbit. All I knows is dat Brer Rabbit en Brer Tarrypin had a mighty laughin' spell des 'bout de time Brer ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... of your untirin' industry would rot on the ground if you did not weakly consent to help him. Let 'em rot, I say! Let him call you to the stables in vain an' nevermore! Let him shake his ensnarin' oats under your nose in vain! Let the Brahmas roost in the buggy, an' the rats run riot round the reaper! Let him walk on his two hind feet till they blame well drop off! Win no more soul-destroyn' races for his pleasure! Then, an' not till then, will Man the Oppressor know where he's at. ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... would give me the cock, whose dung he had taken, for my trouble, as it was a fine large cock, and he had nothing better to offer for my Sunday's dinner. And as the poultry was by this time gone to roost, he went up to the perch which was behind the stove, and reached down the cock, and put it under the arm of the maid, who was just come to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... and other strings. With the worthless portions we made huge bonfires. The flax, Mother would mass upon her distaff and spin into threads. The last I saw of the old crackle, fifty or more years ago, it served as a hen roost under the shed, and the savage old hetchel was doing duty behind the old churner when he sulked and pulled back so as to stop the churning machine. It was hetcheling wool then instead of flax. The flax was spun ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... bas-reliefs of Cupids imprisoned in baskets, and peeping through. That hammock was a very useful appendage; it was a couch for us, a cradle for Baby, a nest for the kittens; and we had, moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost there every night. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... when the bright, the ever-glorious sun In eastern slopes lifts up his flaming head, And sees the harm the envious night has done While he, the solar orb, has been abed— Sees here a yawl wrecked on the slushy sea, Or there a chestnut from its roost blown down, Or last year's birds' nests scattered on the lea, Or some stale scandal rampant in the town— Sees everywhere the petty work of night, Of sneaking winds and cunning, coward rats, Of hooting owls, of bugaboo and sprite, Of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... new girl we had to room with this year and here you aren't a new girl at all but one we've always known. Why I'm so tickled I'm foolish. Hug me Aileen or it will all seem like a dream and I'll wake up and find we've got to roost with someone like that stupid Electra Sanderson, or Petty Gordon, who can't do a thing but talk about that midshipman at Annapolis to whom she says she's engaged, and she's only just seventeen. She makes ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... magnifying glasses, in order to squeeze out the worms, clean your tooth-brushes, sweeten your handkerchiefs, and soften waste paper for your occasions. This fellow Pickle was entertained for more important purposes; his turn of duty never came till all those lapwings were gone to roost; then he scaled windows, leaped over garden walls, and was let in by Mrs. Betty in the dark. Nay, the magistrates of Bath complimented him with the freedom of the corporation, merely because, through his means, the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and the sentimental were all gone to roost, before our merry trio sallied forth from the Castle Tavern, ripe for any sport or spree. Of all the bucks in this buckish age, your London buck is the only true fellow of spirit; with him life never begins ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... never did and never will learn the art, and, as I am writing for men, and the ladies are not supposed to read this article, I will state that the fair sex show a like deficiency in this line. The first thing a woman wants to do with a fire is to make the logs roost on the andirons, the next thing is to remove every speck of ashes from the hearth, and then she wonders why the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... ain't scared of you, Abby," relented Mrs. Black. "But I says to myself, 'I'm goin' to let Lydia Orr stand on her two own feet in this town,' I says. She can say what she likes about herself, an' there won't be no lies coming home to roost at my house. I guess you'd feel the very same way if you was in ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... is a name given to a large family of degenerates. It is not the real name of any family, but a general term applied to forty-two different names borne by those in whose veins flows the blood of one man. The word "jukes" means "to roost." It refers to the habit of fowls to have no home, no nest, no coop, preferring to fly into the trees and roost away from the places where they belong. The word has also come to mean people who are too indolent and lazy to stand up or sit up, but sprawl out anywhere. "The Jukes" are a family ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... her arms and flutter back in a frightened manner and brace herself to the leap, as Gilby had done. She was aided in this representation by her familiarity with the habits of chickens when they try to get down from a high roost. The resemblance struck her; she would cry ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... half-a-dozen hens and their gentleman-friend roosting along my anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying rent for the roost. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... thing the United States could do, would be to appropriate thirty or forty millions to the formation of a marine, not to secure the coast, as our hen-roost statesmen are always preaching, but to keep in our own hands the control of our own fortunes, by rendering our enmity or friendship of so much account to Europe that no power shall ever again dare trespass on our national rights:—and one of the next wisest measures, I honestly ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... rather complicated exposition of how to tell which chicken laid what egg if any or something to that effect, an article that utterly demolished the moral character of the average hen, leaving her hardly a leg to roost on. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was "ungracious" in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she added with asperity, "that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself was not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate the complexity of English affairs. There were difficulties about his household. He ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... the hawk menaces the hen-roost, in like manner, when such a danger as a voyage menaces a mother, she becomes suddenly endowed with a ferocious presence of mind, and bristling up and screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like manner ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like nothing better than to put us in a hole? Don't we happen to know that Tony Pollock and his crowd are around here on Big Bear Mountain somewhere? Didn't they rob that hen roost of ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... life, Blackbeard afterward resumed his piratical career. He cruised around in the rivers and inlets and sounds of North Carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any longer. So they sent a deputation up to the Governor of Virginia asking if he would be pleased to help them in ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... directly of the fact that every region has its peculiar animal world, was that of the gallinaceous birds. The most frequent is the Cigana, to be seen in groups of fifteen or twenty, perched upon trees overhanging the water, and feeding upon berries. At night they roost in pairs, but in the daytime are always in larger companies. In their appearance they have something of the character of both the pheasant and peacock, and yet do not closely resemble either. It is a curious fact, that, with the exception of some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... into Duane Street, and, after groping our way up one of its wet and narrow alleys, halted at the cellar-door of a dilapidated little house that seemed to have been ignominiously crammed in between two dead walls and left for an owl roost. I was never wanting in courage, as my companions in Mexico can assert, but I confess that a sort of shaky sensation came over me just then. This was observed by my companion, who hoped I would not be alarmed, since the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... sooner had the sounds of day died away, and the family and our servants gone to roost, than a pack of jackals set up that plaintive and mournful wail by which they seem to announce to the world that they are in a starving condition. They came so close to the village that all the dogs in it set up a furious barking. This woke the baby, of whose vocal powers we had been ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... do you remember when you pulled down the old granary, and built the new one in the shape of an elevator? And do you remember, Ma wouldn't speak to us for a whole day because we pulled the old hen-roost to pieces and established the hogs there? She said it was flying in the face of Providence having the smelly old things so near the house. And now we're going to leave it all. We're farmers, aren't we, Seth? But Pa is going ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... slow, luxurious swings while her sister was recovering from her tumbles. On this occasion, having indulged their respective tastes, they paused for a brief interval of conversation, sitting side by side on the gate like a pair of plump gray chickens gone to roost. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... perpetuate their weaknesses. This eugenic conviction had helped to ease his conscience somewhat during his acquaintance with Alaire, for he had told himself that Ed Austin, by reason of his inherited vices, had sacrificed all right to love and marriage. These thoughts came home now to roost. What was Ed's evil heritage compared to his own? It was as vinegar ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... a rule Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep Under it all, his door sealed up and lost, Than the man fighting it to keep above it, Yet think of the small birds at roost and not In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? Their bulk in water would be frozen rock In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow They will come budding boughs from tree to tree Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee, As if not knowing what ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... Now then I am calm! When Alice left me she had no child. I knew not that she bore within her the pledge of our ill-omened and erring love. Verily, the sins of my youth have arisen against me; and the curse has come home to roost!" ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the woman, putting her feet upon the low, brass fender and drawing up the edge of her dress, to toast her ankles, "this is just as good a time to tell you all about it as any other, now that the young uns are gone to roost. I hate to talk about the wickedness of the world before the young uns; they will find it out quick enough for themselves, poor things! Well, you want to know what in the name o' sense ever possessed me ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... plantation; and sometimes, to my great happiness, a flock would elect to remain with us for whole days and weeks, feeding on the surrounding plain, coming at intervals to the trees during the day, and at night to roost. I used to go out on my pony to follow and watch the flock at feed, and wondered at their partiality for the bitter-tasting seeds of the wild pumpkin. This plant, which was abundant with us, produced an ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... boys had crowded on deck, and their plaintive, querulous voices sounded like the sleepy noises of a roost of birds. Borckman came and stood by Van Horn's shoulder, and both men, strung to their tones in the tenseness of apprehension, strove to penetrate the surrounding blackness with their eyes, while they listened with all their ears for any message ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead of stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off, accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the forest, hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... spent the largest part of the forenoon sitting at the foot of the tall dead tree on which Ol' Mistah Buzzard likes to roost. All the time Ol' Mistah Buzzard had been sailing 'round and 'round in circles way up in the blue, blue sky, sometimes so high that to Bobby he looked like just a tiny speck. Bobby had watched him until his own neck ached. Mistah Buzzard hardly ever moved ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess
... was fond of quoting this line as one of his roost successful individual lines. Its rhythm ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the question, and each one of them realized it. Their only safe course, indeed, was to remain hidden as they were in that cover till the night came again, when, tramp-like, they would take to the road once more, and, tramp-like, might rob some hen-roost to provide a meal for the morrow. Yet it was hard, and became harder still as the hours went by, to put up without even those scanty meals which had ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... directions to his friend. "Duck back into the restaurant, Bob. Get a pocketful of dry rice from the Chink. Trail those birds to their nest and find where they roost. Then stick around like a burr. Scatter rice behind you, and I'll drift along later. First off, I got to stay and talk with Miss Joyce. And, say, take along a rope. Might ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... volunteered Keating. "You see, the boys are getting in line again for this convention. They are the old file that used to rule the roost before the 'Herald' got too strong for them, and they rely on Mr. Harkless's being sick to beat Kedge Halloway with that Gaines County man, McCune. Now, none of us here want Rod McCune I guess. We had trouble enough once with him and his heelers, and now that Mr. Harkless is down, they've ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... of attack and defence. If the pitching has the best of it than we have a predominance of the undesirable class of pitchers' games, in which the minority of the fielders only bear the brunt of the contest. On the other hand, if the batting rules the roost, then we have too much of the old slugging style of play, in which the outfielders are mostly brought into play, and but little chance to see skilful base running or splendid infielding is afforded. Here are some records which show what was done ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... trees do hide A body by the hedge's zide, An' twitt'ren birds, wi' playsome flight, Do vlee to roost at comen night, Then I do saunter out o' zight In orcha'd, where the pleaece woonce rung Wi' laughs a-laugh'd an' zongs a-zung By ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... I must babble about The Merry Men, my favourite work. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks. Chapter I. "Eilean Aros"—the island, the roost, the "merry men," the three people there living—sea superstitions. Chapter II. "What the Wreck had brought to Aros." Eh, boy? what had it? Silver and clocks and brocades, and what a conscience, what a mad brain! Chapter III. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have said, I am the skipper of the Rugger team of Cambridge 'Varsity, and Godfrey Staunton is my best man. To-morrow we play Oxford. Yesterday we all came up, and we settled at Bentley's private hotel. At ten o'clock I went round and saw that all the fellows had gone to roost, for I believe in strict training and plenty of sleep to keep a team fit. I had a word or two with Godfrey before he turned in. He seemed to me to be pale and bothered. I asked him what was the matter. He said he was all right—just a touch of headache. I bade him good-night and left him. Half ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment. She was curiously grave. "Nigel, I believe in certain things you do not believe in. I believe black thoughts breed black ills to those who think them. It is not a new idea. There is an old Oriental proverb which says, 'Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.' I believe also that the worst—the very worst CANNOT be done to those who think steadily—steadily—only of the best. To you that is merely superstition to be laughed at. That is a matter of opinion. But—don't go on with this thing—DON'T GO ON WITH ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mingling their reflections with the impalpable outbreathings of the silence. The audience listened intently to an indignant and spirited passage against the pirates, so numerous at that period, who had become cocks of the roost after long haunting the darkest corners to rob all who passed. Certainly Maranne, when he wrote those fine lines, had had nobody less in his mind than the Nabob. But the audience saw in them an allusion to him; and while a triple salvo of applause greeted the end of the tirade, all ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... pigeons roost among S. Mark's statuary and on convenient ledges in the neighbourhood; by day, when not on the pavement of the Piazza, the bulk of the flock are dotted about among the reliefs of the ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... steer my course, I here, he there, alas, both kept by force; Return, my Dear, my Joy, my only Love, Unto thy Hinde, thy Mullet and thy Dove, Who neither joys in pasture, house nor streams, The substance gone, O me, these are but dreams, Together at one Tree, O let us brouse, And like two Turtles roost within one house. And like the Mullets in one River glide, Let's still remain one till death divide. Thy loving Love and Dearest Dear, At ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... murdering errands toil'd, Lone from your savage homes exil'd, The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd My heart forgets, While pityless the tempest wild ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... called the Pigeon Roost settlement at the fork of the White River. The Kickapoos and Winnebagoes did it. There were about two ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... now, we must allow the traitor to hope for his own future, and we simply shrug. We cannot plant him neck-deep for everlasting in a burning marl, and hear him howling. We have no weapons in these times—none! Our curses come back to roost. This is one of the serious facts of the century, and controls violent language. What! are you all gathered about me? Oracles must be moving, too. There's no rest even for them, when they have got ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Turkish bath. It was once waste ground covered with horrible rubbish-heaps, and made dangerous by the imperfectly-protected shafts of disused coal-pits. Now you enter it by emblazoned gates; it is surrounded by elegant railings; fountains and cascades babble in it; wild-fowl from far countries roost in it, on trees with long names; tea is served in it; brass bands make music on its terraces, and on its highest terrace town councillors play bowls on billiard-table greens while casting proud glances on ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... do not intrude too much, but have subsided into the shade; the awkward squads are in bed; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the quiet waters somewhere; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the Mole, which is about to set out on some night expedition. You forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself up entirely to romance; the sentries look noble ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... And they ran out like bees in a midsummer swarm. There were dames with their kerchiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poultry were free from mishaps; The turkeys they gobbled, the geese screamed aloud, And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd; There was raising of ladders, and logs laying on, Where the thatch from the roof threatened soon ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... tree there; let us roost in the branches like the birds." So they took the door up with them and laid down to sleep on it as comfortable, as ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... it touches the chords of truth, makes the heart respond to the tale. The raven would find sufficient for its carnivorous appetite in the floatage of the animal remains, on the briny flood, and would return to roost on the ark; but it was far different with Noah's bird, so long as the waters prevailed, there could be no pause for her weary wing, and the messenger would return to the ark. So soon, however, as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... his cunning, is a child compared with Ned Blossett. Ask any of the old gang in New York, ask the blistering police if you like; and as to the rest of you, who are you? A set of whitefaced mechanics, without pluck enough to rob a hen-roost. Take that, you cur!" ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... anything but abuse from her, my curiosity induced me to see her. If anything, she was more of a tyrant than her brutal husband, and I had no occasion to thank her for anything she had done for me. She was the more plucky of the pair, and it had surprised me, years before, to learn that she "ruled the roost." At that time the captain was ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... farm anywhere round Hatboro' for less than the buildings on it cost. I'd rather the Irish would have the land than the summer folks. They make an honest living off it, and the other fellows that come out to roost here from June till October simply keep somebody else from making a living off it, and corrupt all the poor people in sight by their idleness and luxury. That's what I tell 'em at South Hatboro'. They don't like it, but I guess they believe it; anyhow they have to hear ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... yet touched the outstretched arms of the prickly pear upon the kopje, and the early cocks and hens still strutted about stiffly after the night's roost, when Waldo stood before the wagon-house saddling the grey mare. Every now and then he glanced up at the old familiar objects: they had a new aspect that morning. Even the cocks, seen in the light of parting, had a peculiar interest, and he listened ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... among the causes of the war must be reckoned one which has received far too little attention from social and political philosophers—the tenacious and half-unconscious memories of a race. Injustice comes home to roost, sometimes after an astonishingly long interval. The disaffection of Catholic Ireland would be quite unintelligible without the massacres of the sixteenth century and the unjust trade-legislation of the seventeenth ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... wouldn't face the shame; she told him I—I'd kill my own father, and that the blood would be on his hands; she told him if he'd let me go to the devil without another chance—me that had been named after him—that a curse would roost on his chest. He didn't want to give in to her—he didn't want to; but she scared him, and she's a woman and she knew how to get inside of him—she knew how. They're going to send me out to his mines, where ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... just the same with her first husband—Bantry?" Mr. Davey asked, not for information, as he immediately answered himself. "You bet it was! Didn't she always rule the roost? Yes, she did. She made a god of 'Gene from the day he was born. Bantry's house was run for him, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... fragrant herbage of the mountains, that might vie with venison in juice and flavour; my delicious veal, fattened with nothing but the mother's milk, that fills the dish with gravy; my poultry from the barn-door, that never knew confinement, but when they were at roost; my rabbits panting from the warren; my game fresh from the moors; my trout and salmon struggling from the stream; oysters from their native banks; and herrings, with other sea fish, I can eat in four hours after they are taken — My sallads, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... had not come back. It was dark now. The cows and horses had been fed. The chickens had had their supper, and gone to roost long ago. Bunny, Sue and all the others had had a good meal. But Ben was ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... twisted bag strings, flail strings, and other strings. With the worthless portions we made huge bonfires. The flax, Mother would mass upon her distaff and spin into threads. The last I saw of the old crackle, fifty or more years ago, it served as a hen roost under the shed, and the savage old hetchel was doing duty behind the old churner when he sulked and pulled back so as to stop the churning machine. It was hetcheling wool then instead of flax. The flax was spun on a quill which ran by the foot and the ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the enemy attacked Stevenson's Division, along Buzzard Roost Ridge, east of railroad, and Mill creek gap with Geary's Division. They were easily repulsed. Lumsden's battery assisting by placing a few shells in the gap on the right of the attacking Division. Geary reported a loss of 200 to 300 men, ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... Heaven—on a stake; and one's belly full of wind holes—from the spears. Go Shukke Sama, the crime was a dastardly one. Five thousand ryo[u]! Surely it means crucifixion on the embankment. We will furnish poles for plover—to roost upon."[25] Dentatsu made a sign of frightened repulsion. He could not speak. Jimbei seemed to catch an idea. "Ne[e]san! Ne[e]san! keep the honoured Shukke Sama company over his wine. There is a purchase to make.... By the house? No such trouble asked. It is for waraji, ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... me with your charity and your allegories," says the wife angrily; "I tell you they are my relations, not yours, and they shall not roost here; they shall go ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... above is my preachment, and here follows the reason and purpose of it. I want you to run over here, roost over the machine a week and satisfy yourself, and then go to John P. Jones or to whom you please, and sell me a hundred thousand dollars' worth of this property and take ten per cent in cash or the "property" for your trouble—the latter, if you are wise, because the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ordinary, but somewhat inclined to taper to the smaller end. This species usually arrives from the valleys of the Dhoon about the middle of March; and, until they begin to sit on their eggs, they congregate every morning and evening into small flocks, and roost together in trees near houses; in the morning they separate for the day into pairs, and proceed with the building of nests or laying of eggs. After the young are hatched and well able to fly, all betake themselves to the ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... were quite right; he had given her plenty of run and ignored her cackle, and now she had come home to roost. There is nothing like a knowledge of farming, and an acquaintance with the habits of domestic animals, to teach a man ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... boats lying for full three months, the loss to the fellaheen is serious, and our Consul Mustapha A'gha is afraid to say anything. I have given my neighbours permission to call the pigeons mine, as they roost in flocks on my roof, and to go out and say that the Sitt objects to her poultry being shot, especially as I have had them shot off my balcony as they ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment, chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round the ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... now flew among the rocks, the cocks and hens perched on the frame of the tent, and the geese and ducks chose to roost in a marsh, covered with bushes, near the sea. We prepared for our rest; we loaded all our arms, then offered up our prayers together, thanking God for his signal mercy to us, and commending ourselves to his care. When the last ray of light departed, we closed our tent, and lay down on our ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... fate. And conversely, elderly people who are treated with courtesy, consideration, kindness and respect are those who, in manhood's morning, have sown the seeds of love and kindness. Water rises to the height of its source; results follow causes; chickens come home to roost; action and reaction are equal; forces set in motion continue indefinitely in one direction. The laws of love are as exact as the laws of the tides that moan and cry and beat upon the shores, the round world over. A family of ten children born and reared ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... night his mother came home with a fat hen slung across her shoulders. She had been down to Farmer Green's hen- house, right in the middle of the night, when Farmer Green and his family were asleep; and she had snatched one of the sleeping hens off the roost and stolen away ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... sorry for one thing, boys," remarked Farmer Trotter's wife, who had apparently hailed the decision of the seven bold scouts to guard her fowl-roost with undeniable joy. ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... not yield, But it was she that rul'd the roost;[1] Until by proof, she did confess, If he were gone, her joy ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... being numerous, were Crows, Kites, Hawkes, Cockadores* (* Cockatoos.) of 2 Sorts, the one white, and the other brown, very beautiful Loryquets of 2 or 3 Sorts, Pidgeons, Doves, and a few other sorts of small Birds. The Sea or Water fowl are Herns, Whisling Ducks, which perch and, I believe, roost on Trees; Curlews, etc., and not many of these neither. Some of our Gentlemen who were in the Country heard and saw ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Museum. When I was in Guernsey in November, 1871, Starlings were certainly unusually plentiful, even for the autumn, very large flocks making their appearance in all parts of the Island, and in the evening very large flocks might be seen flying and wheeling about in all directions before going to roost. Many of these flocks I saw fly off in the direction of Jersey and the French coast, and they certainly continued their flight in that direction as long as I could follow them with my glass, but whether they were only going to seek a roosting-place and ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... my lady's bower, (Oh! weary mother, drive the cows to roost;) They faintly droop for a little hour; My lady's head droops like ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... successes, and all the swift changes of life, God's attempts to lead him to yield himself up, and bow his will? And was not God striving with him now, in the anxieties which gnawed at his heart, and in his dread of the morrow? Was He not trying to teach him how crime always comes home to roost, with a brood of pains running behind it? Was not the weird duel in the brooding stillness a disclosure, which would more and more possess his soul as the night passed on, of a Presence which in silence strove with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... he strolled about among the saloons and gambling-dens, watched the playing, but neither drank nor gambled, and at last, tiring of looking on, went to his roost and turned in for the night, an object of curiosity to all, yet also of admiration, for a man who would volunteer to drive the coach over that trail was one to command respect in ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... Nora. "I like it ever so much better than Jessica's, Anne's or mine. I can't blame you for wanting to dress up in it beforehand. I take back all my croaking. Here's hoping good luck will roost permanently on your doorstep." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... Central and most of South America. Every farmer knows it to be an industrious scavenger, devouring at all times the putrid or decomposing flesh of carcasses. They are found in flocks, not only flying and feeding in company, but resorting to the same spot to roost; nesting also in communities; depositing their eggs on the ground, on rocks, or in hollow logs and stumps, usually in thick woods or in a sycamore grove, in the bend or fork of a stream. The nest is frequently built in a tree, or in the cavity ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... roost on this side-hill for a month, if a lady told me to," he sneered, speaking aloud as he frequently did in the solitude of the range land. He glanced from ribbon to note, ended his indecision by stuffing the note carelessly into his coat pocket and letting the ribbon drop to the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... the night the "wife of the change-house," under the pretence of inquiring for her sick lodger, and administering to him some renovating cordials, the beneficial effects of which he gratefully acknowledged, took occasion to dip her finger in her saucepan, upon which the cock, perched on his roost, crowed aloud. All Michael's sickness could not prevent him considering very inquisitively the landlady's cantrips, and particularly the influence of the sauce upon the crowing of the cock. Nor could he dissipate some inward desires he felt to follow her example. At ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... of thing," Kent confided to him, as he handed Conniston the message he wished sent from Valley City to Clayton & Paxton, of Denver. "I think that if Mr. Brayley has no objections and can spare me a blanket and some bread and coffee I'll roost here and watch the ditch grow in ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... and cause much irritation to any exposed part of the body. I do hate tame flies, flies that though driven away twenty times elude capture, and will pertinaciously return to the same spot—say your nose—until one is driven nearly mad with vexation. At dusk the flies return to roost, and then myriads of mosquitoes emerge from their hiding places, and make night hideous with their monotonous hum and blood-thirsty propensities. I do not find chepatties so bad as I expected, indeed I rather like them, but then my boy makes them excellently ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... Vancourt, I don't think I need utter any special formula on this occasion," he said, gaily. "You have done a good action to the whole community by dismissing Leach. Good actions bring their own reward, while curses, like chickens, come home to roost. Pray forgive me for quoting copybook maxims! But, for the curse of one ill-conditioned boor, you will have the thanks and blessings of all your tenantry. That will take the edge of the malediction; ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the pigpen nights—wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would—and that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It pretty often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fear him now, but swept past the treetop where he sat as if to challenge him to a race, and then went their way. I have seen it stated that these birds, when suddenly surprised by a hawk, will dive beneath the snow to escape him. They doubtless roost upon the ground, as do most ground-builders, and hence must often be covered ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... I wandered through the old house for the last time, sniffing the agreeable odor of aged hypo still permeating the dark room, re-covering the empty stains of skins and traces of maps on the walls, and re-filling in my mind the vacant shelves. The vampires had returned to their chosen roost, the martins still swept through the corridors, and as I went down the hill, a moriche oriole sent a silver shaft of song after me from the sentinel palm, just as he had greeted ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... days were darkened by the resulting intrigues of his sons. No doubt, too, Solomon was disliked by his brethren as the child of Bathsheba, and the shame of David's crime was an obstacle in his younger son's way. Thus, as ever, his evil deeds came home to roost, and the poisonous seed which he had sown grew up and waved, a bitter harvest, which he had to reap. Repentance and forgiveness did not neutralise the natural consequences of his sin. Nor will they do so for us. God often leaves them to be experienced, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... referred to in the foregoing notes is not, perhaps, the most satisfactory, since, with the possible exception of the smaller stock-dove, which lays its eggs in rabbit burrows, and the rock-dove, which nests in the cliffs, all the members of the family need trees, if only to roost and nest in. A more descriptive name is that of ringdove, easily explained by the white collar, but the bird is also known as cushat, queest, or even culver. The last-named, however, which will be familiar to readers of Tennyson, probably alludes specifically to the rock-dove, as it undoubtedly ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... exclaimed, after returning from a drive to Eastboro village, "I give you my word, Seth, they dummed nigh et me alive. They covered the horse all up, so that he looked for all the world like a sheep, woolly. I don't mind moskeeters in moderation, but when they roost on my eyelids and make 'em so heavy I can't open 'em, then I'm ready to swear. But I couldn't get even that relief, because every time I unbattened my mouth a million or so flew in and choked me. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... at the Hang-Out there was a Flag at Half-Mast. The Roost had been nailed up for keeping open after ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... check on the whig officer, whom he equally feared and hated. A libertine in principle, and a profligate in practice, he scrupled at no means to attain his object, and a violent attack on the peaceful dwelling of a defenceless woman was as consonant with his views as robbing a hen-roost. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... mark; nor stops for aught, But now and then, with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. Now from the roost, or from the neighboring pale, Where, diligent to cast the first faint gleam Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side, Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing, And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... slender meal was dispatched, the chief warder paid me another visit to instruct me how to roost. Under his tuition I received my first lesson in prison bed-making. A strip of thick canvas was stretched across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running through those mysterious rings. A coarse sheet was spread on this, then a rough blanket, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... said Barbesieur, trying to look amiable, "pray don't be so concise. Tell me the condition of the marquis, at once: I did not come to this old owl's roost for pastime. I came to see what could be done to restore its unhappy lord to reason. That you are observing, I remember; you proved it by the good care you ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... prodigious flock, were not yet turned into their fen, because a new scheme had occurred to Marvel, relative to some reeds with which a part of this fen was covered; on these reeds myriads of starlings were accustomed to roost, who broke them down with their weight. Now Marvel knew that such reeds would be valuable for thatching, and with this view he determined to drive away the starlings; but the measures necessary for this purpose would frighten his ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... you see them, that I mightn't be like a runaway prisoner. It took me two days before I was fit to be seen— pretty smart work; and that's how the servant the old gentleman sent out missed me. At last I set out for the sea; but I was very hungry, and I can't say if I'd fallen in with a hen-roost what I'd have done. I got some nuts and fruit though, enough to keep body and soul together. Three days I wandered on, when I found myself in this very wood. I was getting wickedly hungry, and I was thinking I must go out and beg, when I sees a cart and a ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... midges which astonished me one summer evening when I was a boy,—so thick that you could not see through them. Whether these ever alight I cannot say. One thing is certain: they cannot all, nor any considerable portion of them, alight on this rock together,—unless, indeed, one should roost on another's back. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... was universal in civilized communities, labour, as conducted under that regime, was a curse, and this at length came home to roost on the gaunt wreckage of imperialism. Thereafter came slowly increasing liberty under the feudal system with its small social units and its system of production for use not profits, monasticism with its doctrine and practice ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... the wings of imagination and enthusiasm to heights which would make an archangel dizzy; who from paroxysms of anguish at the condition of those whose burning bodies are lighting the fires of hell, will go off and commit adultery or rob a hen-roost as complacently as if to do so were a part of their religion. This is not fiction. Religion has not meant chastity, for slavery made that impossible; it has not meant justice, for injustice forged their chains; it has not meant generosity, for they had nothing; it has ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... all the wild crows that had nested in that part of the country flew every night from far and wide to the famous crow-roost, not far from a big peach orchard. They came down from the mountain that showed like a long blue ridge against the sky. They flew across a road that looked, on account of the color of the dirt, like a pinkish-red ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... the empty air for a moment like a rotund fowl about to seek its roost. Suddenly he ran distractedly at an armchair and ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... a week, there had been no more raids upon barn or chicken-roost, and no more bear-tracks about the garden, Mrs. Gammit knew that her victory had been final, and she felt so elated that she was even able to enjoy her continuing diet of cold turkey. Then, one pleasant morning when a fresh, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Red's got—seemin' unimportant. Red spends a heap of his time not sayin' anything, an' hangin' around lookin' like he's been misplaced. But when there's any trouble, you'll find Red like the banty rooster that's figurin' to rule the roost. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Why shouldn't they?" said Nick tolerantly. "Are you getting tired, my chicken? Do you want to go home to roost?" ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... threw him a wave of her hand. "Good-bye, Mr. M.M.!" she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked at her wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as curiously uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering to roost, and sunlight slanted on the dovecot, on their snowy feathers, and beyond in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. The click of billiard-balls came from the ingle-nook—Jack Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling, too, from an eucalyptus-tree, startling Southerner in this old English garden. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they'll keep you in the ropes, Mr. Guy; they've got you on your back, Mr. Guy; and I'm going to laugh at you all the way as you go. Ho! ho! ho! See if I don't laugh, till I scares away all your white owls from the roost." ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... at Eagle Roost and make our Twelfth Night cheer, Full well we know the solemn ass will not disturb us here: For pleasure rules the roost to-night, by order of the King, And every one must play his part, and ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... now set forth the beauty and harmony of the world, seen from the loftiness of the divine roost: below all was dark, unjust, sorrowful; seen from on high, it all became clear, luminous, ordered: the world was like the works of ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... white man in de county 'cept about ten or twelve was inter it, an' dey wuz a gwine ter clean out nigger rule h'yer, shore. He sed de fust big thing they got on hand wuz ter break up dis buzzard-roost h'yer at Red Wing, an' he 'llowed dat wouldn't be no hard wuk kase dey'd got some pretty tough tings on ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... said, reaching out a hand to grasp the lad's and gazing with fatherly affection and pride into the handsome young face glowing with health and happiness, "she is the earliest young bird in the family nest. However, she seeks her roost earlier than ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... opposite to it. He, of course, looks up; Pompilia looks down; the neighbours say, 'What of that?' The Count is uncomfortable, but he is only laughed at for his pains; the fox prowls round the hen-roost undisturbed. He wakes one morning, after a drugged sleep, to find the house ransacked, and Pompilia gone, and everyone able to inform him that she has gone with Caponsacchi, and to Rome. He pursues ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... free as moorfowl over all the Ross; and whenever the way rose a little, your eye would kindle with the brightness of the sea. From the very midst of the land, on a day of wind and a high spring, I have heard the Roost roaring, like a battle where it runs by Aros, and the great and fearful voices of the breakers that we ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... And here are my two dollars. Now off to bed, the whole trundle-bed crowd, for I have a lot of copy to write to-night. Ethel may bring me a bite, and then sit beside me and write while I sip my tea and dictate and Meg puts the chickens to roost. And Conrad will keep quiet over his books. Just one kiss apiece and a ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... down a little to let her get well up. She always wanted to ride when we went up to the dormitory. It was very hard for her to get up the stairs. She used to laugh about it herself, saying that she hopped up like an old hen going to roost. As Sister Marie-Aimee always went upstairs first, I used to wait and go up among the last girls. But sometimes Sister Marie-Aimee would turn round suddenly. Then Ismerie slipped down my body to ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... shout amid the roost tumultuous cheers. All cried, "Long live the Emperor Francis! Down with ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... craws on the brows of Ben-Connal, He kens of his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs of Clan-Ronald, Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelve of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, But, ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, Nor house, ha', nor hame in his country has he: The conflict is past, and our name is no more— There 's nought left but sorrow for Scotland ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... place!" repeated Cabot. "It's enough to give anybody the mulligrubs. Why in the world do you come over here and—and go to roost by yourself? Do you actually ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was no one in the lonely neighborhood of the cottage who could furnish any information as to the cause of its being thus deserted. I conjectured from the heaps of fagots which remained in the yard, from the hens and pigeons which returned of themselves to roost in the room, or on the roof, and from the stacks of hay and straw which stood untouched in the orchard, that the family had gone to gather in a late harvest in the high chalets of the mountain, and had ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... place this to wait in. So dark, so hemmed in with trees, and the road so little used; spring was early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches, and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only added to the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... chamber he could easily pretend that he had originally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant's identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens would come home to roost on him. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... will be wisest," said Fritz. "But now let us arrange our bunks and have a bit of something to eat from the little basket the steward put up for us before coming ashore. After that, we must go to roost like the penguins outside, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... women; and if their creed in the lapse of time has lost something of its vigor, the influence of their ethical righteousness still endures. The prophecy of Samuel Sewall that Christians should be found in Newbury so long as pigeons shall roost on its oaks and Indian corn grows in Oldtown fields remains still true, and we trust will always remain so. Yet, as of old, the evil personage sometimes intrudes himself into company too good for him. It was said in the witchcraft trials ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... again lower down. He turned down the track towards the river, and at the junction left word at Lowe's—one of the old land-grant families. The dogs woke an old handy man (who had been "sent out" in past ages for "knocking a donkey off a hen-roost"-as most of them were) and Ben told ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... distance from our track. Some indeed there are marked in a Spanish chart; but the frequency of the birds seems to evince, that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered: For the greatest part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out, that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening; for we never saw them early or late; and the hour ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... again," Jean continued, "if a fellow could but know the rights of the matter; if he could be sure that any good was to come from it all." Then turning his head and glancing at the western sky: "Anyway, I wish that blamed sun would hurry up and go to roost. Perhaps they'll ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... operations consisted in making easy marches to Almarez, halting wherever the commissariat reported a well-stocked cellar or well-furnished hen-roost, taking the primrose path in life, and being, in words of the major, "contented and grateful, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and perch, all of them, just about locking-up time; and then first there's a regular chorus of caws; and then they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two or three in different trees, caw solos; and then off they all go again, fluttering about and cawing anyhow till they roost." ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... listen expensive, I have Vee's word for it that since Madame Battou has been doin' the marketin' the high cost of livin' has been jarred off the roost. I don't know how accurate Professor Leon is at countin' up the calories in every meal, but I'm here to announce that he always produces something tasty, with no post-prandial regrets concealed in the bottom ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... do poor rude wolf wool chew you soon rule could foot crew to noon tool would good brew shoe whom school should hood drew prove food spool woman wood threw broad whose roof shook stood screw moon tomb broom crook pull strew goose stoop roost hook bush shrewd took full brook ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... to some new circuit, where old sermons come in, at times, conveniently for new hearers. The various churches are ruled by "leaders"—men of a deaconly frame of mind, invested with power sufficient to enable them to rule the roost in ministerial matters, to say who shall preach and who shall not, and to work sundry other wonders in the high atmosphere of church government. The "members" support their churches, financially, in accordance with their means. ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... she said, "you've been lyin' to me two weeks, tryin' to buy that rooster that I wouldn't sell no more'n I'd sell my first husband's gravestun'. And when you couldn't git it by lyin', you stole it off'm the roost to-night. And to make sure there won't be any more lies, I've followed you right here to find out the truth. Now what does ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Revolving such revenge within, When night had still'd the various din, And poppies seem'd to bear full sway O'er man and dog, as lock'd they lay Alike secure in slumber deep, And cocks and hens were fast asleep, Upon the populous roost he stole. By negligence,—a common sin,— The farmer left unclosed the hole, And, stooping down, the fox went in. The blood of every fowl was spill'd, The citadel with murder fill'd. The dawn disclosed sad sights, I ween, When heaps on slaughter'd heaps were seen, All weltering ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... one; so, if you please, I'll go to roost." And thus there was nothing more said about ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... sward at the cliff-top Lie strewn the white flocks. On the cliff-side the pigeons Roost deep in the rocks. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... made was that he was to take no murderous action against his countrymen. The man at the helm and the quarter-master being the only men on deck, and I being gone to roost, all seemed easy enough, but Providence ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... or thirty-footer to be brought in from her moorings, for Cap'n Perry to land with a load of oysters; or it is the bench you sit upon to watch the sunset glow behind the pines on the opposite headland, the pines where the blue herons roost, or to see the moon track on the dancing water. The Post Road is alive with motors now, far into the evening. You get your mail from the little post office beside it as quickly as possible—which isn't very quickly, to ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... feed them, and teach them to fly about the cottage unconfined by cages. One of his blackbirds became so tame, that, after flying about the doors all day, and in and out of the cottage, it would take up its roost upon the bed-head at night. And most singular of all, the bird would disappear in the spring and summer months, when it was supposed to go into the woods to pair and rear its young, after which it would reappear at the cottage, and resume its social habits during the winter. This went on for several ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... they will not break up: on the contrary, they are much more likely to extend the German community by incorporating German Austria. And as this would raise the question whether Hohenzollern or Hapsburg should rule the roost, the simplest solution would be to get rid of them both, and take the sooner or later inevitable step into the democratic republican form of Government to which Europe is visibly tending, though "this king business," as my American correspondents call it, has certain conveniences when it is ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... recent promises, such as "No Conscription," "Punish the Kaiser," and "Germany must pay," did not trouble him much. If these election-eggs had hatched out prematurely and the contents were coming home to roost at an inconvenient moment he had no time to attend to them. What the country most needs at the moment is a firm clear statement on the Labour troubles, and that is what it got. So far as those troubles are due to remediable causes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... extreme end of a village a Fox one day went to have a peep at a hen-roost. He had the bad luck to fall into a well, where he swam first to this side, and then to that side, but could not get out with all his pains. At last, as chance would have it, a poor Goat came to the same place to seek for some drink. "So ho! friend Fox," said he, "you quaff ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... steepe, and rollyng in his heede, That stemde as a forneys of a leede;{36} His boots souple, his hors in gret estat. Now certeinly he was a fair prelat; He was not pale as a for-pyned goost. A fat swan lovede he best of eny roost. His palfrey was as broun as is a berye. A FRERE there was, a wantown and a merye, A lymytour,{37} a ful solempn man. In alle the ordres foure{38} is noon that can So moche of daliaunce and fair langage. He hadde i-mad ful many a mariage Of yong wymmen, at his own ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... highness slaughters criminals in the same way as mentioned under the other tree. The space beneath the boughs is also swept clean. This tree is more spreading, and of another sort; it is crowned with the filthy vultures, which roost day and night in considerable numbers on its upper branches. Yusuf tells me the history of these trees, when the inhabitants were pagans. It was under them that the people sacrificed their oxen and sheep to the deity, who ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... stop for breath; and her neighbors all looked at one another, feeling undecided whether to own they were wrong, or to put Mrs. Wing down. Every one twittered and chirped, and made a great noise; but no one would give up, and all went to roost in a great state of uncertainty. But, the next day, it became evident that Mrs. Wing was right; for Major Bumble-bee came buzzing in to tell them that old Daddy Winter's hut was empty, and his white head had been seen in the sunny porch ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... balances his millions with a sense of humour. Miss Holbein is handsome. Jewesses can be the most beautiful women in the world, don't you think? and though she is snubbed by the grandes dames here and perhaps elsewhere, I notice that snubs generally come home to roost. She will have all the millions one day, and she is clever enough to pay people back in their own coin—not coin that she would miss in spending. And she is clever enough to be Madame la Baronne Rongier, wife to the idol ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... round, but finding they could not get out, began to peck away at the food. Supposing that, as they took to the woods, they would require some shelter, we threw in a quantity of leaves, and small branches, and twigs. Under these, when they could eat no more, they went to roost, apparently very well contented ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... pulled slowly into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summer population was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north to the south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for a certain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come—at the last moment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, 'She will, if humanly possible.' ... At last his eye ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... who has no other virtue than her insolence. Poor Chiquon was greatly embarrassed while going to the quarter of the Marmouzets. He was greatly afraid that he would be unable to find the house of La Pasquerette, or find the two pigeons gone to roost, but a good angel arranged there speedily to his satisfaction. This is how. On entering the Rue des Marmouzets he saw several lights at the windows and night-capped heads thrust out, and good wenches, gay ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... on the fragrant herbage of the mountains, that might vie with venison in juice and flavour; my delicious veal, fattened with nothing but the mother's milk, that fills the dish with gravy; my poultry from the barn-door, that never knew confinement, but when they were at roost; my rabbits panting from the warren; my game fresh from the moors; my trout and salmon struggling from the stream; oysters from their native banks; and herrings, with other sea fish, I can eat in four hours after they are taken ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to catch that fellow, I'll tell you how to do it. He has promised to bring me some food to-night, when all the rest are at roost. He will hide and not get shut up; then, when those cross old biddies are asleep, he will cluck softly, and I am to go in and eat all I want out of the pan. You hide on the top of the hen-house; and while he talks to me, you ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... and that they must thus inflict the most abominable tortures every day. What could be a sadder sight than a tiger in a cage, save it be a forest monkey climbing dispairingly up a barked stump, or an eagle chained to its roost? How can man be benefitted and made better by robbing the seal of its arctic ice, the hippopotamus of its soft wallow, the buffalo of its open range, the lion of its kingship, the birds ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... whole land is covered with a dense and rank vegetation. I have yet to find a square smig of it that is open ground, or one that is not the lair of some savage beast, the haunt of some venomous reptile, or the roost of some offensive bird. Crackers and Coons alike are long extinct, and these are ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie, down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness and despatch, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and set it upon a nest. "The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is Beelzebub ahatching ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... pretty French bas-reliefs of Cupids imprisoned in baskets, and peeping through. That hammock was a very useful appendage; it was a couch for us, a cradle for Baby, a nest for the kittens; and we had, moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost there ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... all swept out to sea and drowned. I observed that many horses were still turned out to pasture all summer on the islands and beaches in Wellfleet, Eastham, and Orleans, as a kind of common. He also described the killing of what he called "wild hens" here, after they had gone to roost in the woods, when he was a boy. Perhaps they were "Prairie ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to go to roost. I will have my gruel abed," said my Lord Mohun: and limped off comically on Harry Esmond's arm. "By George, that woman is a pearl!" he said; "and 'tis only a pig that wouldn't value her. Have you seen the vulgar trapesing orange-girl whom Esmond"—but ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or probably cannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits of fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told. They scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls in a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves obscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they cannot show themselves, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... work only as mere mercenaries. They have not been guilty of great crimes; but it is only because they have not energy of mind to rise to any height of wickedness. They are not hawks or kites: they are only miserable fowls whose flight is not above their dunghill or hen-roost. But they tremble before the authors of these horrors. They admire them at a safe and respectful distance. There never was a mean and abject mind that did not admire an intrepid and dexterous villain. In the bottom of their hearts they believe such hardy miscreants to be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... failing me. They won't sit up after midnight. They have taken to sleeping out of doors, on porches and pergolas. Some, I understand, merely roost on plain wooden bars. They rise early. They take deep breathing. They bathe in ice ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was six feet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly ready-made, (The youngest on 'em's 'most growed up,) rugged an' spry ez weazles, So's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' bills fer hoopin'-cough an' measles. Our farm's at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River, Wal located in all respex,—fer 't ain't the chills 'n' fever Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm; a Southuner'd allow I'd Some call to shake, for I've jest hed to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... my poor countenance as if it had been a tambourine. It wasn't pleasant while it lasted, of course; but then it was all in the regular course of things, and had to be grinned at and borne; and besides it was a splendid training for me, when I came to be left ruler of the roost with young number four at my mercy. Poor number four! he had a hard time of it. He was a meek sort of fellow, and took a lot of bullying. I've a broken-backed lexicon to this day which often used to fly across the room at his devoted head, and which he as regularly ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... had to! There! Ma Sills certinly did rule the roost, and no mistake. She'd been a widder ever since the boys were a year old, so she had to do for herself and them, and she done it. She was a ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... she had gone back to roost in the henhouse, it seemed to Henrietta that she had scarcely fallen asleep when ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... three days in the year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear, into an old gallery, that has not been glazed since ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... monkey-like motions, and nip it with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths; and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... dispatched, the chief warder paid me another visit to instruct me how to roost. Under his tuition I received my first lesson in prison bed-making. A strip of thick canvas was stretched across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running through those mysterious ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... the region were very shy of the old woman and her strange hens. The timid never ventured past her door after dark, after her hens went to roost. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... your charity and your allegories," says the wife angrily; "I tell you they are my relations, not yours, and they shall not roost here; they shall go ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... her intention of retiring to roost. Not that she was likely to sleep a blink, she said; but she thought all early-Victorian old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... be lost in returning to the horses, which were nearly a mile higher up the river. Although I ran part of the way, the mud creeks filled up so rapidly, there was some risk of my being cut off from the shore and having to take up a roost on the top of the mangroves until the tide fell; I had time, however, to observe that the head of the tide carried with it thousands of fish of great variety, amongst them a very remarkable one from three to six inches in length, in form resembling a mullet, but with fins ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... along. He readily consented, and directed me to report to General O. O. Howard, commanding the 4th Army Corps, as Volunteer Aide. I did so, and remained with him thirty days, participating in the battles of Buzzard's Roost, Resaca, Adairsville and Dallas. At the end of that time, having gained invaluable experience, and feeling that my place was with my regiment, I returned to Chattanooga, determined to again make every possible effort to get it into ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... was carried off from his allegiance in the late times by a d—d Presbyterian scoundrel, who calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long enough.—There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of Bridgenorth—neighbour Bridgenorth, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... banks of the Godavery there stood a large silk-cotton-tree, and thither at night, from all quarters and regions, the birds came to roost. Now once, when the night was just spent, and his Radiance the Moon, Lover of the white lotus, was about to retire behind the western hills, a Crow who perched there, 'Light o' Leap' by name, upon awakening, saw ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... hens clucked and scratched and kept on clucking until the little chicks were let out, when every one of them ran to its own mother, and each hen strutted off with her own brood. That is the absolute truth, but is not all. When night came the chickens went back to their boxes to roost—all but the small ones. Those were left outside with their mothers, and just before daylight Charlie raised a great commotion when he put them up for the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... except for a slight fog that floated from the river valley, increasing the roar of the falls. About nine o'clock a huge black shadow suddenly rushed over Piedmont from the west, and in a moment the town was shrouded in twilight. The cries of birds were hushed and chickens went to roost as in a total eclipse of the sun. Knots of people gathered on the streets and gazed uneasily at the threatening skies. Hundreds of negroes began to sing and shout and pray, while sensible people feared a cyclone or cloud-burst. A furious downpour of rain was swiftly ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the cat, he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... just as he stands. Why, he had a little fuss with Murphy's Poland rooster here some time back, and instead of going at him and taking the chances of getting whipped, that chicken actually put himself into training, ate nothing but corn, took regular exercise, went to roost early, took a cold bath every morning and got a pullet to rub him down with a corn-cob. It was wonderful; and in a week or so he was all bone and muscle, and he flickered over the fence after Murphy's rooster ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... enough cold crispiness in the air to-night to make the two fat cows move faster into the stable, with smoking breath, to bring out a crow of defiance from the chickens huddling together on the roost; it spread, too, a white rime over the windows, shining red in the sinking sun. When the sun was down, the nipping northeaster grew sharper, swept about the little valley, rattled the bare-limbed trees, blew boards ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the event of the night. Black had for some time appeared to rule the roost, and thrust red off the table, and the Klosking ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the morning," said Mr. Tucker. "We go to bed early here. The paupers go to roost at seven, and me and my wife and Zeke at eight. You'd better go to ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... and I, after running the risk of catching cold in searching over the house, have this morning been at the expense of new fastenings to the doors and windows. The next time, however, you rise, Richard, to alarm the family, you shall in future roost with the hens or ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... crows roost; but, in a twinkle, they are gone. How fares these latter days the scenery in Sui T'i? It's all because he has so long enjoyed so fine a fame, That he has given rise around ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... being one of those things not included in drill, and a British soldier having a good deal of the machine about him, Harry stands fast, and Chunder pulls up short, grinning rolling his eyes, and twisting his hands about, just for all the world like as if he was robbing a hen-roost, and wringing all the ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... fowls were a drug. In the midst of all these fears, it began to be whispered about, that if any chickens were concerned in the motion, it was Cary's chickens; and that the attack, though nominally on the hen-roost, was in reality on the wood. It was now the depth of winter; snowy showers were succeeded by biting frosts; the very smoothness of the surface of the wooden pavement was against it; for as no steps were taken to prevent slipperiness, by cleansing or sanding the street—or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... States—viz., give them Home Rule—is exactly what Hungary wants, for she will then be head state of the Empire; not number two, as she is at present. Nothing would please her more than to see Austria broken up into a number of little States and Hungary ruling the roost. Well, these are my political remarks! It is a great blessing getting out of rifle fire, even for a minute. The constant strike of the bullets whirling round, or its scream as it ricochets over one's head, is very trying. I suppose there never has been ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and a very good one too) likened them the other day to the head of a German; and even this hyperbolical image was grudging. I remember all the trouble you had with servants at the Roost. The most of them were nothing to the trances that we have to go through here at times, when I have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence which is never twice the same, and decide, practically blindfold, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has come down to the present day, built on what I may perhaps call the fox lines, and it is a type evolved by work—hard and deadly dangerous work. It is only of late years that dogs have been bred for show. The so-called 'Scottish' Terrier, which at present rules the roost, dates from 1879 ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... they stop three or four years at one church, and then move off to some new circuit, where old sermons come in, at times, conveniently for new hearers. The various churches are ruled by "leaders"—men of a deaconly frame of mind, invested with power sufficient to enable them to rule the roost in ministerial matters, to say who shall preach and who shall not, and to work sundry other wonders in the high atmosphere of church government. The "members" support their churches, financially, in accordance with their means. There is no fixed payment. Those who are better off, and not ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... he doubted his own power, or failed to believe that he could himself take a high part in high affairs when his own turn came. He was biding his time, and patiently looking forward to the days when he himself would sit authoritative at some board, and talk and direct, and rule the roost, while lesser stars sat round and obeyed, as he had so ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... said Mr. Healy at an Irish political meeting, 'that there are at the present moment crystallizing in this city precedents which will some day come home to roost like a boomerang.'" ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... with green goggles in the front pew. That very same brilliant passage you have just pronounced was delivered by the clergyman who preached in that pulpit the Sabbath before: two thieves met in one hen-roost. All we know of Doctor Hayward of Queen Elizabeth's time is that he purloined from Tacitus. Be dishonest once in this respect, and when you do really say something original and good the world will cry out, "Yes, very fine! I always ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... a lady pianist and a lady violinist, was giving the closing piece of the afternoon concert. The dining-room was painted a self-righteous olive-green; it was thoroughly netted against the flies, which used to roost in myriads on the cut-paper around the tops of the pillars, and a college-student head waiter ushered Gaites through the gloom to his place with a warning and hushing hand which made him feel as if he were being shown to a ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... you row, for the tide is at the turn, and you will not need to watch the currents. There is a great roost here ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... the men, who were rejoiced at my having taken up so snug a berth. It happened, however, that a little after sunset, a flight of the new paroquets perched in the lofty trees that grew on the island, to roost; when we immediately commenced the work of death, and succeeded in killing eight or ten. The reports of our guns were heard by some natives up the river, and several came over to us. Although I was annoyed at their having discovered our retreat, they were too few to ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... the true cat-like stealthy pace," half muttered the centurion, as his sentinel descended to do such a crime as he was posted there to prevent. "This cockerel's comb must be cut, or he will become king of the roost. But let us see if his hand be as resolute as his tongue; then we will consider what turn to give to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a little-girl, looked up from her knitting. "The hens are all quite snug, mother, Fluffy and Biddy and the rest. I peeped in just now, after they were gone to roost." ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... had forgotten them, the Admiral sent for me. It was to show me, now without emotion, the two little visitors who had gone to roost in his room, perched upon a slender silken cord above his bed. They nestled closely together, two little balls of feathers, touching and almost merged one in the other, and slept without the slightest fear, sure of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... see one of these bills with the extras. Now in our district schools, there isn't much chance for the scholars to get over intimate. They don't sleep and eat and work together, like canary birds crowded in one cage and huddled together on one roost; the weak don't catch the faults of the strong, and if they did, the free breezes of our hills would sweep them away before the poison struck in. Flirtations do not become a science with them before they can spell "baker," and ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... goats, cows, pet herons, rude peasant carts, policemen, and inhabitants share the middle of the road with the liveried equipages of royalty and courtiers; where the crows and pigeons assert rights equal to those of man, except that they go to roost at eight o'clock on the nightless "white nights;" and where one never knows whether one will encounter the Emperor of all the Russias or a barefooted Finn when one turns ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... sayes a fool. C'est tousiours plus mal-aise de faire mal que bien, its easier to do a thing the right way then the wrong, as in opening a door. Il n'y a marchand qui gaigne tousjours. Nemo ubique potest foelici,[373] etc., its a good roost that drapes aye.[374] Of him that out of scarcity tauntes his neihbour wt the same scorne wt which he scorned him, the Frenchman sayes, il ne vaut rien pour prendre la bal a la seconde enleuement, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... gulls were as free as moorfowl over all the Ross; and whenever the way rose a little, your eye would kindle with the brightness of the sea. From the very midst of the land, on a day of wind and a high spring, I have heard the Roost roaring like a battle where it runs by Aros, and the great and fearful voices of the breakers that we call ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inactive life, Blackbeard afterward resumed his piratical career. He cruised around in the rivers and inlets and sounds of North Carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any longer. So they sent a deputation up to the Governor of Virginia asking if he would be pleased to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... the muezzin sounded, cracked voices cried unmelodiously from all the minaret tops. Immediately, as if it were their signal, all the crows arose from the town, hovered around in batches for a moment, chattering, and flew away up the hill to roost in the trees round ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... to my bad luck. Then, as to the noise, never did I sleep at that enormous Hen and Chickens [2] to which usually my destiny brought me, but I had reason to complain that the discreet hen did not gather her vagrant flock to roost at less variable hours. Till two or three, I was kept waking by those who were retiring; and about three commenced the morning functions of the porter, or of "boots," or of "underboots," who began their rounds for collecting the several freights for the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the hour was the desire to put down by a strong hand the depredations of these lawless robber hordes. Not a house in the place but had suffered from them, not a farmer but had complaints to make of hen roost robbed or beasts driven off in the night. Others had darker tales to tell; and Will Ives clenched his fists and vowed that he would be glad indeed to see the day when he and Simon Dowsett might meet face to face in equal ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Arnold City, Justice of the Peace John Reisinger hit upon a "Solomonesque" solution. "Take this fowl to Arnold City," he directed his constable, "and release it near the poultry yards of these two men. In whose hen house it goes to roost, to him it belongs." The constable, accompanied by Bass and Nedrow, did as directed. When liberated, the bird promptly flew into the chicken yard of Charles Black, where the constable decided it would have to stay under the justice's ruling. The costs in the case ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... keg. Then he turned the keg upside down, without taking away the pan. The water ran into the pan only as far as the hole in the keg, and it would have to be used before more would flow in. Now let us go and see my beautiful, bronze turkeys. They don't need any houses, for they roost in ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... "I know I'm very mean. But I had such a bad night. I thought that all the devils in hell were jeering at me because I had told you my romance was dead. Oh, Jack! it was a great big lie, and it's come home to roost. I can't get rid ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... trick Red's got—seemin' unimportant. Red spends a heap of his time not sayin' anything, an' hangin' around lookin' like he's been misplaced. But when there's any trouble, you'll find Red like the banty rooster that's figurin' to rule the roost. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the crows nesting in its parapets, rising blind and dumb on its green mound, with the hamlet at its feet; or like the craggy islet, severed by the raging sea from the towering headland, where the samphire sprouts in the rift, and the sea-birds roost, at whose foot the surges lap, and over whose head the landward wind blows swiftly all ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... can repose in a chair, Chickens can roost upon rails; Puppies are able to sleep in a stable, And oysters can slumber in pails. But no one supposes A poor Camel dozes— ANY PLACE ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... than Dad's, I believe; and she was shaped something like an alderman. We found her one day in about eighteen inches of mud, with both eyes picked out by the crows, and her hide bearing evidence that a feathery tribe had made a roost of her carcase. Plainly, there was no chance of breaking up the ground with her help. We had no plough, either; how then was the corn to be put ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... changes of life, God's attempts to lead him to yield himself up, and bow his will? And was not God striving with him now, in the anxieties which gnawed at his heart, and in his dread of the morrow? Was He not trying to teach him how crime always comes home to roost, with a brood of pains running behind it? Was not the weird duel in the brooding stillness a disclosure, which would more and more possess his soul as the night passed on, of a Presence which in silence strove with him, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... and heavy as she was, and, standing upon its edge, would flap her arms and flutter back in a frightened manner and brace herself to the leap, as Gilby had done. She was aided in this representation by her familiarity with the habits of chickens when they try to get down from a high roost. The resemblance struck her; she would cry aloud to ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... for Ben had not come back. It was dark now. The cows and horses had been fed. The chickens had had their supper, and gone to roost long ago. Bunny, Sue and all the others had had a good meal. But Ben was ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... had quite forgotten. What did it mean? Was there anything inside it? With a thrill of fear she darted to the window, untwisted the paper, and by the dim light could just make out the following scrawl: "Leeve the en roost oppen nex Munday nite." Mary gazed at it with horror, unable for the first few minutes to take in the sense, but when she did so she sank down on the ground and burst into tears. What wicked, wicked people they were! Not content with taking all her money, they wanted to rob the hen-roost, ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... for flying officers) tire of trying to be offensive on a patrol, and by now we are varying our rubber-neck searchings with furtive glances at the time, in the hopes that the watch-hands may be in the home-to-roost position. At length the leader heads for the lines, and the lords of the air (more war correspondentese) forget their high estate and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... the open country," Sergeant Corney said, when I would have found fault with our blind choice. "We will burrow amid these small bushes until daylight, an' then, if necessary, go to roost." ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... for nothing, they saw; And when they had fed, "Neighbor Hen," the pig said, "Won't you stay here and roost in my straw?" ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... horns frightened the birds at roost in the melancholy grove, and taking wing, they ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... by the clock They roost upon or quit their rock, Or swim ashore and hold their levee, Lords of the mixed lacustrine bevy; Or with their slow unwieldy gait Their green domain perambulate, Or with prodigious flaps and prances Indulge ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... up the road announced that John was now near the parental roost. Mrs. Fogel with her motherly solicitude was awaiting him with happy tears dimming her eyes. She took in with all a mother's fondness his high-stepping prancers, his prosperous appearance, last but not least the entire absence of the ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... as our Professor says, these School Pills have proved to be a great success. One day while I was making them I happened to drop one of them, and one of Billina's chickens gobbled it up. A few minutes afterward this chick got upon a roost and recited 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck' without making a single mistake. Then it recited 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and afterwards 'Excelsior.' You see, the chicken had eaten an ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Christo the cook (who was a capital fellow for speed in preparing a dinner) was enveloped in savoury steam, when the usual inmates of the hut quietly invaded us. Cocks and hens marched in, and went to roost upon some sticks within a corner; two or three dogs arrived, evidently with the intention of staying through the night; a donkey at length walked composedly through the entrance door and steered for his accustomed corner. ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... their depth. Then they dressed again, and stretched themselves under the cottonwood-trees and sycamores, and played games and told stories, and longed for a gun to kill the blackbirds which nested in the high tops, and at nightfall made such a clamor in getting to roost that ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... reflectively. "Yet some few bucks drifted off to the Tontos, and the agent's been raising a row because so many of them roost down here instead of staying on the reservation, bringing in game. Did you know that two bands were out—women and all—without permits, and that was one thing that brought Lieutenant Harris ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... suggested that it were better to let Cuba be Cuba, until the time came when, if she felt like snugly brooding under Uncle Sam's wings, without any assistance would he attend to the little matter of offering her a roost. Uncle Sam was growing, but had grave ideas, with which he generally maintained his own dignity. They here reckoned Mr. Smooth had delivered his speech with becoming dignity. Of this fact I was fully sure, for my Lord Littlejohn put his finger into his mouth and began to suck it, as is common ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Celestial Empire, sometimes literally act "like a bull in a China shop"? You remember, sir, that "intelligent contraband" who, when asked his opinion of an offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "Sar, if I was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she "roosted high"—withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to escape the rough contact with the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... is a child compared with Ned Blossett. Ask any of the old gang in New York, ask the blistering police if you like; and as to the rest of you, who are you? A set of whitefaced mechanics, without pluck enough to rob a hen-roost. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... him, when he came first into New-England. And a warrente was sente from y^e Lord Cheefe Justice to apprehend him, by vertue wherof he was by the Gov^r of y^e Massachusets sent into England; and for other his misdemenors amongst them, they demolisht his house, that it might be no longer a roost for shuch unclaine birds to nestle in. Yet he got free againe, and write an infamouse & scurillous booke against many godly & cheefe men of y^e cuntrie; full of lyes & slanders, and fraight with profane callumnies against their ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... in the sea The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade and hang ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... bad part; Mohammed had his good points; respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is ornamented with a hen-roost! Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other's profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... fowl-house there must be perches put up for the fowls to roost on. These should be placed one above another at the corner, and so disposed, that one range of birds does not sit quite under the other, for reasons which need not be explained. At the bottom of the ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... to roost! It was only night before last that I said, in the presence of Meshach's negro, 'May the ague strike him and the bilious sweat from Nassawongo mill-pond!' He slept by it that night, while I was ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... her temper grew steadily sharper and more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was "ungracious" in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she added with asperity, "that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself was not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate the complexity of English affairs. There were difficulties ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... of course, were quite right; he had given her plenty of run and ignored her cackle, and now she had come home to roost. There is nothing like a knowledge of farming, and an acquaintance with the habits of domestic animals, to teach a man how ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... moorcock that craws on the brows of Ben-Connal, He kens of his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs of Clan-Ronald, Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelve of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, But, ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, Nor house, ha', nor hame in his country has he: The conflict is past, and our name is no more— There 's nought left but sorrow for ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... grace of her body against that dead, barn-sprinkled background. I could observe her easily without her knowledge, for she was looking up, as we so often used to at twilight, to the old plank high above the sagging mill, where the turkeys fly to roost towards evening, so awkwardly and comically, with a great breathless whirring of wings. I saw her lift her arms to them with a swift, urging gesture, as though to steady their ungainly flight, and I could not be certain that she was not talking ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the back door stood a common pine bedstead, with an enormous bed upon it. How any bedstead held such a bed was remarkable; for Phillis believed there was a virtue in feathers even in the hottest weather, and she would rather have gone to roost on the nearest tree than to have slept on any thing else. The quilt was of a domestic blue and white, her own manufacture, and the cases to the pillows were very white and smooth. A little, common trundle bedstead was underneath, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... What are even your public charities? what your best institutions? How few of the multitude are relieved at all; how few of that few relieved permanently! Men die, suffer, starve just as soon, and just as numerously; these public institutions are only trees for the public conscience to go to roost upon. No, my dear fellow, everything I see in the world says, Take care of thyself. This is the true moral of life; every one who minds it gets on, thrives, and fattens; they who don't, come to us to borrow money, if gentlemen; or fall upon the parish, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upon the reefs and beaches. Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour there flashed into my mind the reason of the name that they were called. For the noise of them seemed almost mirthful, as it out-topped the other noises of the night; or if not mirthful, yet instinct with a portentous joviality. Nay, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... west snapped asunder suddenly, and a single forked flame shot above the jagged pines and went out in the dove-coloured clouds. In a huge oak beyond the rail fence there was a harsh rustling of wings where a flock of buzzards settled to roost. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... dust on the dried leaves; the cannon-balls do not intrude too much, but have subsided into the shade; the awkward squads are in bed; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the quiet waters somewhere; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the Mole, which is about to set out on some night expedition. You forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself up entirely to romance; the sentries look ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jack. "We're going to make the best of a bad bargain, and roost here in Murderkill Creek for ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... daytime we seek the darkest part of the woods, and perch lengthwise on the branches of trees, just as our cousins the Whippoorwills do. We could perch crosswise just as well. Can you think why we do not? If there be no woods near, we just roost ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... with their kerchiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poultry were free from mishaps; The turkeys they gobbled, the geese screamed aloud, And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd; There was rearing of ladders, and logs laying on, Where the thatch from the roof threatened soon ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the eggs, it would not have been so careful to hide the egg-shells. So, this morning, I fastened up the door of the hen-house, and only left open the little sliding door, by which the fowls go in to roost; and then, after you were up, I watched behind the trees, and saw Tommy come out, and go to the hen-house. He tried the door, and finding it fast, crept into the hen-house by the little sliding-door. As soon as he was in I let down the slide, and fastened it with a nail; ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... may listen expensive, I have Vee's word for it that since Madame Battou has been doin' the marketin' the high cost of livin' has been jarred off the roost. I don't know how accurate Professor Leon is at countin' up the calories in every meal, but I'm here to announce that he always produces something tasty, with no post-prandial regrets concealed in ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... hunted or get into a hen-roost or a trap or anything exciting, poor little thing,' ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... with an awning, where the trunks, cases, and packages were piled; but the prudent Pierrotin only allowed his regular customers to sit there, and even they were not allowed to get in until at some distance beyond the "barriere." The occupants of the "hen-roost" (the name given by conductors to this section of their vehicles) were made to get down outside of every village or town where there was a post of gendarmerie; the overloading forbidden by law, "for the safety of passengers," being too obvious to allow the gendarme on duty—always ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... 'we need thee, good knight. But come out of this accursed fly-roost, and we shall show thee a better way than thine. It is the flies that ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... eggs to-day; one had dropped from the roost and frozen; it was cracked, but it will do for ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... air for a moment like a rotund fowl about to seek its roost. Suddenly he ran distractedly at ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... civilization itself. They thought it like a fight for life with a pack of wolves. In some parts of the South there were men as ready to murder a negro who tried to get an office as to kill a fox they found prowling about a hen roost. These brave and haughty men who had governed the country for half a century, who had held the power of the United States at bay for four years, who had never doffed their hats to any prince or noble on earth, even in whose faults or vices there was ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... nodded Flanders, "but then it's happened the same way with others I could tell about. As long as he was winnin' Sandy was the king of any roost. The minute he lost a fight he wasn't worth so many pounds of salt pork. Take a hoss; a fine hoss is often jest the same. Long as it wins nothin' can touch some of them blooded boys. But let 'em go under the wire ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... enters and where nothing can live but beast-men and beast-women and rats; behind foul rookeries where skulk the murderer and the abandoned tramp; beside hideous plague-spots where the stench is overpowering—Bottle Alley, where the rag-pickers pile their bags of stinking stuff, and the Whyo Roost where evil-visaged beings prowl about, hunting for prey; dozens of alleys winding in and out and intersecting, so that the beast may slay his prey, and hide in the jungle, and be safe; these foul alleys—who shall picture ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... as I am standing here, and by the looks of things, trying his best to roost in my birdhouse!" The Hermit chuckled as he looked up into the eyes of the animal, who did not seem at ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... hand of every farmer is uplifted, are very shy and cunning; as is well known, they nearly always post a sentinel in some tree top to keep watch while the rest of the flock is feeding in the field below. In the fall and winter, large numbers of them flock, and at night all roost in one piece of woods; some of the "crow roosts" are of vast extent and contain thousands of individuals. Crows nest near the tops of large trees, preferably pines, either in woods or single trees in fields. Their nests ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... out, climbed up on the barn, sot down on the ridgepole and waited for Kingdom Come. He sot there and tooted all mornin' and 'spected the angel Gabriel would answer back. He sot there and tooted all the arternoon till the cows come home and the chickens went to roost. I had three good square meals that day, but Silas didn't get a bite. 'Bout six o'clock I did think of takin' him out some doughnuts, but then I decided if he was goin' up so soon it was no use a wastin' em, so I put 'em back in the pantry. He sot there and tooted all the evenin' till the moon ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... greenish and murky, merging into a vast tent of deepest blue studded with a myriad of shining golden stars. Then the eider-ducks and swans grew silent and went to roost for the night, and the soft warm air was thrilled by the whines of bear-cubs and the cries of land-rails. It was then that the maidens assembled on the slope to sing of Lada and to dance their ancient dances, while strapping youths came forth from their winter dwellings in the woods ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... rather eat stewed fish-heads than steal out of other folkses houses so much till you went to sleep on the roost and fell down one night and broke up the settin' hen. ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... be wisest," said Fritz. "But now let us arrange our bunks and have a bit of something to eat from the little basket the steward put up for us before coming ashore. After that, we must go to roost like the penguins outside, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... come to Paris, of course, by the first train the day before, arriving at the studio shortly after they had left in search of food. She had vibrated between the studio and the Neuilly villa ever since, sure that when Adelle was short of funds she would go home to roost. And Pussy had taken immediate measures to cut off funds by cabling to the trust company the exact facts of Adelle's disappearance in company with the Californian. She ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... wild crows that had nested in that part of the country flew every night from far and wide to the famous crow-roost, not far from a big peach orchard. They came down from the mountain that showed like a long blue ridge against the sky. They flew across a road that looked, on account of the color of the dirt, like a pinkish-red ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... its volume is twice that of the Cosireni. The climate is very trying. The nights are hot. Insect pests are numerous. Mr. Heller found that "the forest was filled with annoying, though sting-less, bees which persisted in attempting to roost on the countenance of any human being available." On the banks of the Comberciato he found several families of savages. All the men were keen hunters and fishermen. Their weapons consisted of powerful bows made from the wood of a small palm and long arrows made of reeds and finished with feathers ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... shirts and shaggy hair of the young men, who have levelled nobility almost as much as the mobility in France have, have confounded all individuality. Besides, if I did go to public places and assemblies, which my going to roost earlier prevents, the bats and owls do not begin to fly abroad till far in the night, when they begin to see and be seen. However, one of the empresses of fashion, the Duchess of Gordon, uses fifteen ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... top of this rock and a tuft on the corner. Mustn't tell me a cow would roost there, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... For years now his life had been without blemish. It was impossible to believe that even in his youth he could have sown any wild oats; terrible to think that these wild oats might now be coming home to roost. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... herself entirely on the side of the shopkeepers and bank clerks, and regarded all who slept late and had money to spend as her enemy and natural prey. And directly she had crossed the road at Holborn, her thoughts all came naturally and regularly to roost upon her work, and she forgot that she was, properly speaking, an amateur worker, whose services were unpaid, and could hardly be said to wind the world up for its daily task, since the world, so far, had shown ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... darkening the air with their myriads. As I sit a moment writing this by the bank, I see the black, clear-cut reflection of them far below, flying through the watery looking-glass, by ones, twos, or long strings. All last night I heard the noises from their great roost in a ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us discuss him no more. Your wish is ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... each of the seventy-two motor-lorries keeping its distance like the ships of a fleet. Despatch-riders with blue and white armlets whizzed past on their motor-bicycles, and high overhead was the loud droning hum of the aeroplane going home to roost. The thunder of guns was clearly audible from the north-east. The D.A.A.G. turned to me and said, "It's Hill 60 again. My old regiment's up there. And to-morrow the casualty returns will come in. Good God! will ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Pipeclay Creek again lower down. He turned down the track towards the river, and at the junction left word at Lowe's—one of the old land-grant families. The dogs woke an old handy man (who had been "sent out" in past ages for "knocking a donkey off a hen-roost"-as most of them were) and Ben told him to tell ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... along whistling, past Dr. 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 sojourn, could but know what grievous ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... they entered their house. Then they would fly off to another tree at a distance, and make believe they had nothing to do with the one their nest was in. At last, they grew bolder; and, every evening at sunset, I saw the mother bird go into her nest while her mate went to roost. ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... sleepy one; so, if you please, I'll go to roost." And thus there was nothing more said about Lucy's beauty ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... words he biffed off; and I, having given him a minute or two to get out of the way, rose and made for the drawing-room. The tendency of females to roost in drawing-rooms after dinner being well marked, I expected to find Angela there. It was my intention to have a ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... name is wrongly spelt in the "Origin of Species."]) experiments on seeds "in a box in the actual sea.") that my observations on the effects of sea-water have been confirmed. I still suspect that the legs of birds which roost on the ground may be an efficient means; but I was interrupted when going to make trials on this subject, and ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... made me take that oath. I suppose she's head girl and that's why she rules the roost? Is she decent or does she keep you petrified? I don't know whether I'm expected to say 'Bow-wow,' or to listen in respectful humility when she deigns to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... hopes In a superior stench to lose his own: But faithful to the track, the unerring hounds With peals of echoing vengeance close pursue. 160 And now distressed, no sheltering covert near, Into the hen-roost creeps, whose walls with gore Distained attest his guilt. There, villain, there Expect thy fate deserved. And soon from thence The pack inquisitive, with clamour loud, Drag out their trembling prize; and ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... and I was not long in making acquaintance with it. I awoke to find, by the light of the lantern swung from the roost overhead, the dozen men in the loft awake and pulling on their boots. They had lain in their sodden clothes all night: but of their boots, I found, they were as careful as dandies, and to grease them would hoard up a lump ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... venison in juice and flavour; my delicious veal, fattened with nothing but the mother's milk, that fills the dish with gravy; my poultry from the barn-door, that never knew confinement, but when they were at roost; my rabbits panting from the warren; my game fresh from the moors; my trout and salmon struggling from the stream; oysters from their native banks; and herrings, with other sea fish, I can eat in four hours after they are taken — My sallads, roots, and potherbs, my own garden yields in ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... are very shy and cunning; as is well known, they nearly always post a sentinel in some tree top to keep watch while the rest of the flock is feeding in the field below. In the fall and winter, large numbers of them flock, and at night all roost in one piece of woods; some of the "crow roosts" are of vast extent and contain thousands of individuals. Crows nest near the tops of large trees, preferably pines, either in woods or single trees in fields. Their nests are made of sticks and lined with rootlets, and the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... to them to hasten on; while the children, in noisy bands, chased the fowls about and pelted them with stones. In the churchyard a couple of scapegraces, a lad and a girl, were creeping along under the shelter of the wall in order to escape notice. Swarms of sparrows were retiring to roost beneath the eaves of the church; and, on the steps of the parsonage, a blue calico skirt had just appeared, of such spreading dimensions as ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... me that there was much pathos connected with their friendship. Both of them were bachelors and owned homes of more than passing historic interest on the Hudson. Irving called Kemble's residence at Cold Spring "Bachelor's Elysium," while to his own he applied the name of "Wolfert's Roost." In the spring of 1856 in writing to Kemble he said: "I am happy to learn that your lawn is green. I hope it will long continue so, and yourself likewise. I shall come up one of these days and have a roll on it with you"; and Kemble, upon another occasion, in urging ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... whose sensibilities had been wounded by the events of the evening, "I didn't cut no el'phant ner no cow, ner rob no hen roost neither, but I guess he won't starve 'fore mornin'," and with that he proceeded to fill up the stove and ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... timidly, carrying his head a little down as usual, and glancing uncomfortably about in a manner which used to make Drysdale say that he always looked as though he had just been robbing a hen-roost. Mary went forward to meet him, holding out ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... generally known, that this bird rarely roosts at the rookery, except for a few months during the period of incubation, and rearing its young. In the winter season it more commonly takes flights of no ordinary length, to roost on the trees of some remote and sequestered wood. The Elm is its favorite, on which it usually builds; but such is its attachment to locality that since the incident alluded to in the following Poem took place the Rooks have, many of ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... what that is," cried Fred. "Pigeons. I've often seen them fly into the holes of the rocks. They build in these places, and roost ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... To-day perhaps none had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird is forced by hunger to leave the covert of his cedars, since he, on the naked or white landscapes of winter, offers the most far-shining and beautiful mark for Death. I stepped across to the tree in which a pair of these birds roost and shook it, to make sure they were at home, and felt relieved when they fluttered into the next with the quick startled notes they utter ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... of that. Trust a woman to find a place where she can't ruin her hat. My word for it, Cecil, she's found a safe roost. I say, by Jove!" The duke was staring more intently than ever at the windows far above. "I have it! Isn't it rather odd that a house should be lighted so brilliantly at ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... for he never intermitted a muttered running-fire of the most horrible execrations that I ever listened to even in this hard-swearing country. Whether this ebullition of blasphemy comforted him at the moment I cannot say; but, if "curses come home to roost," a black brood was hatched that night, unless one whole page be blotted out from the register ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... scald. Alone of our House, he had the gift of the Dane in the flow of fierce song, and for him things lifeless had being. Stately tree, from which all the birds of heaven sent their carol; where the falcon took roost, whence the mavis flew forth in its glee,—how art thou blasted and seared, bough and core!—smit by the lightning ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pretty much everything he owned except what he had on. Lanier was not much better off. As to the origin of the fire, Bob merely said that he had turned the lights low in the sitting-room, and, obedient to "Shoe's" orders, had gone up to his roost, too wrathful and amazed over what had occurred even to think of sleep—to think, in fact, of anything but the colonel's words. So absorbed was he, as he slowly undressed, he never noted the sounds from below ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... the door to the turret chamber. Let the owls and bats have their quarters if they wanted to. There was plenty of room in that great castle for himself and chums to sleep without ousting, the happy family from their roost. ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... fig tree, which bears the most delicious figs. Every night the red rooster, the five hens, and the turkey go to roost in its branches, and every day its green boughs make a pleasant shade across ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... which began to be tossed about with a high wind. At last, when they were tired of watching his motions, and some of the boldest, now grown familiar with him and no longer chilled with fear, talked of stoning him from his roost, he cried out, pointing with his finger, "Look yonder!" They now beheld, in the direction he bade them look, far away on the foaming bosom of the Great Lake, something resembling a great, white fowl. It was moving very swiftly towards the land of the Narragansetts. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... filled the air; it was the continuous plunge of a cascade somewhere near at hand among the mountains. The air struck chill, but tasted good and vigorous in the nostrils - a fine, dry, old mountain atmosphere. I was dead sleepy, but I returned to roost with a grateful mountain feeling ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the ground when he shot. You could use a knuckle-dabster of fur or cloth to rest your hand on, but it was considered effeminate, and in the excitement you were apt to forget it, anyway. Marbles were always very exciting, and were played with a clamor as incessant as that of a blackbird roost. A great many points were always coming up: whether a boy took-up or edged beyond the very place where his toy lay when he shot; whether he knuckled down, or kept his hand on the ground in shooting; whether, when another boy's toy drove one marble against another and knocked both ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... was supported by a line of wooden stanchions. There were arm racks round the stanchions, containing muskets, cutlasses, and long, double-barrelled pistols. As I expected, there were several bee-skeps hanging from nails, or lying on the floor. I was in the smugglers' roost, perhaps in the presence ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... midnight, the bird of prey went straight to roost. At mid-day following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, in the character, not new to him, of a witness ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... him a wave of her hand. "Good-bye, Mr. M.M.!" she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked at her wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as curiously uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering to roost, and sunlight slanted on the dovecot, on their snowy feathers, and beyond in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. The click of billiard-balls came from the ingle-nook—Jack Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling, too, from an eucalyptus-tree, startling Southerner in this old English garden. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... way back they caught sight of a large number of good-sized birds perched thickly in a tree, apparently intending to roost there for the night. Having drawn their bullets, they loaded with small shot, and firing into the midst of the birds, they brought down a dozen, which proved to be ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... is completed,—we have all taken roost in the old Tower. My father's books have arrived by the wagon, and have settled themselves quietly in their new abode,—filling up the apartment dedicated to their owner, including the bed chamber and two lobbies. The duck also ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... moved from Chattanooga on the 6th of May, with the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Generals Thomas McPherson, and Schofield, upon Johnston's army at Dalton; but finding the enemy's position at Buzzard's Roost, covering Dalton, too strong to be assaulted, General McPherson was sent through Snake Gap to turn it, while Generals Thomas and Schofield threatened it in front and on the north. This movement was successful. Johnston, finding his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... there must be perches put up for the fowls to roost on. These should be placed one above another at the corner, and so disposed, that one range of birds does not sit quite under the other, for reasons which need not be explained. At the bottom of the fowl-house, but not under the perches, should be placed the nest boxes, from four to six, ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... talked till the sun went down And the chickens went to roost; And he seized the collar of the poor young man, And ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... matter in his astral and mental bodies similar to that of the thought-form he generated, is thrown into respondent vibrations, and suffers the destructive effects he had intended to cause to another. Thus "curses [and blessings] come home to roost." From this arise also the very serious effects of hating or suspecting a good and highly-advanced man; the thought-forms sent against him cannot injure him, and they rebound against their projectors, shattering them mentally, morally, or physically. Several such instances ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... "Spanish Voyages," "Conquest of Grenada," "Conquest of Spain," "Moorish Chronicles," and "Life of Mohammed." The influence of this historical research, too, you shall find in reading his romances: "Wolfert's Roost," "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," "Bracebridge ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... because the whole fire department of the neighboring village is, to a man, in love with the house-keeper's daughter, and is always on hand in force. The chickens are the envy and pride of the county, and there are so many of them that they have to take turns in going to roost. The pigs are the most intelligent of their kind, and are so happy they never grunt. In fact, everything is lovely and cheap, the only thing that hangs ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... days, and then pass on. As it was unnecessary to use hooks and lines to catch a few fish out of the multitudes which swarmed in the streams, so it was hardly worth while to waste powder and shot on the vast flocks of pigeons which visited New Jersey in those days. When they came to roost in the forests, they could be knocked down with poles and stones; and thousands and thousands of them were thus obtained by the men and boys, and very good ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... to Eastboro village, "I give you my word, Seth, they dummed nigh et me alive. They covered the horse all up, so that he looked for all the world like a sheep, woolly. I don't mind moskeeters in moderation, but when they roost on my eyelids and make 'em so heavy I can't open 'em, then I'm ready to swear. But I couldn't get even that relief, because every time I unbattened my mouth a million or so flew in and choked me. That's what I said—a million. Some moskeeters ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... presents; it is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I have led that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the cost of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye to your mistress! I am forgetting your ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced through underneath. A lesser beast, it ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the preceding evening, when the cock-partridge went to roost, there had been no suggestion of rain, but a bitter air from the northwest searching through the woods. The wise old bird, finding cold comfort on his perch, had bethought him of a trick which many a time before had served ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... ride to Agua Fria a little Indian girl had slipped like a brown shadow across the Plaza. Stopping at the door of the Exchange Hotel, she leaned against the low slab of petrified wood that for many a year served as a loafer's roost before the hotel doorway. Inside the building Jondo caught the clear twitter of a bird's song at daybreak, twice repeated. A pause, and then it came again, fainter this time, as if the bird were fluttering away through ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... in the long run," sighed the unwilling listener. "Mrs. MacD. rules the roost, unless ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... years before, I had spent a week in trying to beat through the Roost of Sumburgh under double-reefed trysails, I was at home in the weather; and guessing we were in for it, sent down the topmasts, stowed the boats on board, handed the foresail, rove the ridge-ropes, and ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... little world could still be distinguished by a few faint lights, winking more or less ineffectually through the leafless boughs, and the undiscerned songsters they bore, in the form of balls of feathers, at roost among them. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... her in the street; has constantly occasion to pass under her window, or to talk to some one opposite to it. He, of course, looks up; Pompilia looks down; the neighbours say, 'What of that?' The Count is uncomfortable, but he is only laughed at for his pains; the fox prowls round the hen-roost undisturbed. He wakes one morning, after a drugged sleep, to find the house ransacked, and Pompilia gone, and everyone able to inform him that she has gone with Caponsacchi, and to Rome. He pursues ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... bring every brooding failure carrion-crow in the Universe to roost on the top rail of your iron bedstead. Think success, look success, live success,—and success walks in at your front door, while everyone helps you along the same way with each thought he gives your apparent success, even if his thought ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... observed, and Mr. Gould has made the same remark to me, that the aboriginal parent must have been a species which roosted and built its nest on rocks; and I may add that it must have been a social bird. For all the domestic races are highly social, and none are known to build or habitually to roost on trees. The awkward manner in which some pigeons, kept by me in a summer-house near an old walnut-tree, occasionally alighted on the barer branches, was evident. (6/2. I have heard through Sir C. Lyell from Miss Buckley, that some half-bred Carriers kept during many years near ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... bruised and sore now played on my poor countenance as if it had been a tambourine. It wasn't pleasant while it lasted, of course; but then it was all in the regular course of things, and had to be grinned at and borne; and besides it was a splendid training for me, when I came to be left ruler of the roost with young number four at my mercy. Poor number four! he had a hard time of it. He was a meek sort of fellow, and took a lot of bullying. I've a broken-backed lexicon to this day which often used to fly across the room at his devoted head, and which ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... end of a village a Fox one day went to have a peep at a hen-roost. He had the bad luck to fall into a well, where he swam first to this side, and then to that side, but could not get out with all his pains. At last, as chance would have it, a poor Goat came to the same place to seek for some drink. "So ho! friend ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Cherokee,' says Faro Nell, from her lookout's roost by his shoulder; 'give 'em a lecture on the perils ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... she seemed to care about as her reward was pilfering, and a crown put into her hand, gave her less pleasure than a halfpenny which she had stolen. Neither was it any use to dream of ruling her as the sole male, or as the proud master of the hen roost, for which of them, no matter how broad shouldered he was, would have been capable of it? Some had tried to vanquish her, but ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... be used; If we have Numbers, they must be united; If we have Strength, it must be all exerted; If we have Courage it must be inflamed, And every Art and Stratagem be practis'd: We've more to do than fright a Pigeon Roost, Or start a timorous Flock of running Deer; Yes, we've a strong, a warlike stubborn Foe, Unus'd to be repuls'd and quit the Field, Nay, flush'd with Victories and long Success, Their Numbers, Strength, ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... 'old hag', and is applied in that sense. In early boyhood we understood, from old diggers, that Mother Middleton—in common with most other 'old hands'—had been sent out for 'knocking a donkey off a hen-roost.' We had never seen a donkey. She drank like a fish and swore like a trooper when the spirit moved her; she went on periodical sprees, and swore on most occasions. There was a fearsome yarn, which impressed us greatly as boys, to the effect that once, in her best (or worst) days, she had ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... beautiful grove upon the top of a hill overlooking the city of Bombay and the sea, surrounded by a high, ugly wall, are the so-called Towers of Silence, upon which these hideous birds can always be seen, waiting for their feast. They roost upon palm trees in the neighborhood, and, often in their flight, drop pieces of human flesh from their beaks or their talons, which lie rotting in the fields below. An English lady driving past the Towers of Silence was naturally horrified when the finger of a dead man ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Roddy's bed was too short for her, and there was no ease in it, even had her mind and heart been at rest. All the fantasies she had beguiled from the boy's brain had come to roost in her own, with a hundred other vivid and painful impressions. The night, too, was fuller than usual of disquietude. The wind, which had been rising steadily, now tore at the shutters and rushed shrieking through the trees. There was a savage ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... employed in attaining the greatest success with this vegetable. In England, pigeon-dung and the cleanings of the pigsty are extensively employed. In this country the sweepings of the hen-roost are generally recommended. It should be remembered that all these are strong agents, and if brought in contact with the roots of any vegetable while in a crude, undiluted state, burn like fire, especially in our climate. What can be done ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... and fetch'd me a Piece of boil'd Mutton; for these Cacklogallinians, contrary to the Nature of European Cocks, live mostly on Flesh, except the poorer Sort, who feed on Grain. They do not go to Roost, but lye on Feather-beds and Matrass, with warm Coverings; for, at the setting of the Sun, there falls so great a Dew, that I was, in the Night, as sensible of Cold, as ever I was in ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... and saw the sun go down behind a yellow gullied hill. From afar up and down the valley came the lonesome "pig-oo-ee!" of the farmers, calling their hogs for the evening's feed. We heard the flutter of the chickens, flying to roost, and the night hawk heard them, too, for his eager, hungry scream pierced the still air. On a smooth old rock at the verge of the ravine the girl's brother stood, arms folded, looking out over the darkening low land, and from within the house, where Mrs. Jucklin sat alone, there ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... in the year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear, into an old gallery, that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... indefatigable interpreter. I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to this Scheme is that colonists already over sea will see with infinite alarm the prospect of the transfer of our waste labour to their country. It is easy to understand how this misconception will arise, but there is not much danger of opposition on this score. The working-men who rule the roost at Melbourne object to the introduction of fresh workmen into their labour market, for the same reason that the new Dockers' Union objects to the appearance of new hands at the dock gates, that is for fear the newcomers will enter into unfriendly competition with them. But no Colony, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... birdmen (war correspondentese for flying officers) tire of trying to be offensive on a patrol, and by now we are varying our rubber-neck searchings with furtive glances at the time, in the hopes that the watch-hands may be in the home-to-roost position. At length the leader heads for the lines, and the lords of the air (more war correspondentese) forget their high estate and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... nuther—thet is weakmindeder then thet she air a—she hev the mine uv a female, an' nachully not able ter hannel proppity. An' I haint sayin' she aint gettin' mighty well took keer uv by Lige, nuther. The last time I war theer she war roolin' the roost. She slep' in the bes' bed, an' et offen the bes' plate, an' had the bes' corn dodger an' shote; but what I air—that is what some air thinkin' about air whence Lige onct gits the hull er thet proppity in bulk, air hit goin' ter be thet away? Mine you, I aint ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... danger threatened us. Though we felt quite secure in our "roost" we could not remain there long. It was by no means comfortable, straddling the naked branch of a tree; but the comfort was a small consideration. We were both used to riding such a stock-horse, and as for Brace, he could have gone to sleep with only the flying-jib-boom between his legs, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... to tell a fellow how to live on wine, women and horses," exclaimed Douglas, "and then raise the devil when your chickens come home to roost. We all know Little Marion was born a month before ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... busy. Most of the nests appear to be fit for habitation. Work is suspended at sundown. They do not roost in the tree. Have not detected their resting-place; but it seems to be some ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Roman Roma. Romance (a novel) romano. Romance (music) romanco. Romantic sentimentala. Romp ludegi. Romp bubino, petolulo. Rood (crucifix) krucifikso, kruco. Roof tegmento. Roofing (material) tegmentajxo. Rook frugilego. Room cxambro. Room (space) spaco. Roomy vasta. Roost stangigxi. Rooster koko. Root, to take enradiki. Root-word radikvorto. Root (of trees, etc.) radiko. Root up elradiki. Rope sxnurego. Rosary rozario. Rose rozo. Rosebush rozarbeto. Rose-coloured rozkolora. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was "ungracious" in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she added with asperity, "that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself was not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate the complexity of English affairs. There were difficulties about his household. ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... to be 'fraid of her. She ain't crazy. She's only lettin' the birds that fly over your an' my heads settle down to roost. You and me, both of us, if we was situated jest as she is, might think of doin' jest what she's a-doin', but we won't neither of us do it. We'd let our best dresses hang in the closet, safe and sound, while we cut them up in our ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... should be seen to speak to, capable of the highest Acts of Friendship and Benevolence," one recognises the hand that made the sole good Samaritan in Joseph Andrews "a Lad who hath since been transported for robbing a Hen-roost." The account of the Terrestrial Chrysipus or Guinea, a burlesque on a paper read before the Royal Society on the Fresh Water Polypus, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it is supposed to be written by Petrus Gualterus ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... opened the pan, threw out all the priming, leaving it with the pan open, so that it could not go off; in case they fell in with another of the wires. Rushbrook then proceeded to business, for he well knew that the gun would be set where the pheasants were most accustomed to roost; he put a small charge of powder in his fowling-piece, that, being so near, he might not shatter the birds, and because the noise of the report would be much less; walking under an oak-tree he soon discovered the round black masses which the bodies of the roosting pheasants presented between ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... up to roost on a cloud, but I didn't kick. Now they're tryin' to charge me for meals extry. Don't that twelve dollars ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... result. After some time she heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer entered the house. 'What luck had you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the woodpile,' said the old man, 'with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared, not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, and killed one—and he raised such a fearful smell I concluded it was best to let the other six alone.'" The Senators retired, and nothing more was heard ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... house was dark and still as they approached it. No welcoming light in the dining-room windows, no open door, no shrill voice demanding to know where the wandering brother had been "all this everlastin' time." Even the hens had gone to roost. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... what Hungary wants, for she will then be head state of the Empire; not number two, as she is at present. Nothing would please her more than to see Austria broken up into a number of little States and Hungary ruling the roost. Well, these are my political remarks! It is a great blessing getting out of rifle fire, even for a minute. The constant strike of the bullets whirling round, or its scream as it ricochets over one's head, is very ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... jauntily. "I'm called from yer side to descend the companion ong route for higher spheres. Sounds like a contradiction that, but ain't so.—See you again when the docks 'as quitted this fond old floating 'earse of ours and took themselves back to their 'ereditary marble 'alls to roost." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... should not be carelessly hung on the hat rack in the royal hall for the flies to roost upon, but it should be thoroughly cleaned and put away as soon as the weather becomes too hot ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... tail and run; but that being one of those things not included in drill, and a British soldier having a good deal of the machine about him, Harry stands fast, and Chunder pulls up short, grinning rolling his eyes, and twisting his hands about, just for all the world like as if he was robbing a hen-roost, and wringing ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... with, he will be almost sure to get into mischief. One will want to boss the other, but they can generally be left to settle their own quarrels. In every pack there is a master hound who rules the roost, but if he degenerates into an intolerable bully, he may, not improbably, be killed and eaten by the others, an occurrence which Mr. Mills tells us took place in Mr. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... the way of a rabbit without setting a wire,' he said. 'But I have managed to get these by knowing where they roost.' ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Early in May, Sherman's Atlanta Campaign commenced, and, simultaneously, General Grant began his movement toward Richmond. In quick succession came the news of the bloody battles of the Wilderness, and those around Spottsylvania, Va.; at Buzzard Roost Gap, Snake Creek Gap, and Dalton, Ga.; Drury's Bluff, Va.; Resaca, Ga.; the battles of the North Anna, Va.; those around Dallas, and New Hope church, Ga; the crossing of Grant's forces to the South side of the James and the assault ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... he sat as if to challenge him to a race, and then went their way. I have seen it stated that these birds, when suddenly surprised by a hawk, will dive beneath the snow to escape him. They doubtless roost upon the ground, as do most ground-builders, and hence must often be covered ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... pretend that he had originally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant's identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens would come home to roost on him. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... world ants have been noticed to go on working during totality, whilst grasshoppers are stilled by the darkness, and earth-worms come to the surface. Birds of all kinds seem always upset in their habits, almost invariably going to roost as the darkness becomes intensified before totality. In 1868 "a small cock which had beforehand been actively employed in grubbing about in the sand went to sleep with his head under his wing and slept ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... humanitarianism of Mr. Tate induce him to give his money to science instead of to art? As well build a hothouse for swallows to winter in as a British Luxembourg; but science is a good old barn-door fowl; build her a hen-roost, and she will lay you eggs, and golden eggs. Give your money to science, for there is an evil side to every other kind of almsgiving. It is well to save life, but the world is already overstocked with life; and in saving ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... home with a fat hen slung across her shoulders. She had been down to Farmer Green's hen- house, right in the middle of the night, when Farmer Green and his family were asleep; and she had snatched one of the sleeping hens off the roost and stolen away with ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Authorities.)—It is now known that the battle was only skirmish. The rebels attacked a hen-roost in search ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... sort of constitution will suit us." But they will not break up: on the contrary, they are much more likely to extend the German community by incorporating German Austria. And as this would raise the question whether Hohenzollern or Hapsburg should rule the roost, the simplest solution would be to get rid of them both, and take the sooner or later inevitable step into the democratic republican form of Government to which Europe is visibly tending, though "this king business," as my American ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... said Fouchette, gaining her feet and lightly shaking her ruffled remains together, as if she were a young pullet that had calmly fluttered down from the roost. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... afore those new stores came it makes me nigh crazy. I'll go out with a card of matches some night and burn 'em down. Damn pirates! Callin' themselves good Cape Cod names—names that don't belong to 'em! Baker's Bazaar! Ugh! Rheinstein's Robbers' Roost would be nigher the truth. . . . Say, Zoeth, we mustn't hint a word to Mary-'Gusta about this. We've got cash enough on hand to pay her clearance charges up ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... gave directions to his friend. "Duck back into the restaurant, Bob. Get a pocketful of dry rice from the Chink. Trail those birds to their nest and find where they roost. Then stick around like a burr. Scatter rice behind you, and I'll drift along later. First off, I got to stay and talk with Miss Joyce. And, say, take along a ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... its number of waterfowl of the same species is the roost on the east cliffs of Bonaventure island. These have fortunately been rendered by Nature, thus far, inaccessible and the bird men have not yet found a way of getting among them. Yet, even so, there is constantly a great deal of reckless shooting at the birds simply for ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... used to say, Master Rupert, that curses, like chickens, came home to roost, and surely we have proved it's the case with blessings. Who would have thought that that little act of kindness was to save ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... doubt the pigeons roost among S. Mark's statuary and on convenient ledges in the neighbourhood; by day, when not on the pavement of the Piazza, the bulk of the flock are dotted about among the reliefs of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... stair leads into "Organ-grinders' Roost," in the garret. To "Organ-grinders' Roost" the detective ascends. If, reader, you have ever pictured in your mind the cave of despair, peopled by beings human only in shape, you may form a faint idea of the wretchedness ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... still for a little they walk out of the village, without saying a word to each other, and look towards the dark streak of the forest. The whole sky above the forest is studded with moving black spots, the rooks flying home to roost. The snow, lying white here and there on the dark brown plough-land, is lightly flecked with ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... all the flowers in the mead, Then love I roost these flowers white and rede, Such that men callen daisies in ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... room with the old man, and Nikita drove through the gate opened for him by Petrushka, by whose advice he backed the horse under the penthouse. The ground was covered with manure and the tall bow over the horse's head caught against the beam. The hens and the cock had already settled to roost there, and clucked peevishly, clinging to the beam with their claws. The disturbed sheep shied and rushed aside trampling the frozen manure with their hooves. The dog yelped desperately with fright and anger and then burst out barking like a ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy
... orders to note every movement of the Sioux, and having assigned Clayton to the minor duty of watching the south front and the flanks, Ray was moving cheerily among his men, speeding from cover to cover, suggesting here, helping there, alert, even joyous in manner. "We couldn't have a better roost, lads," he said. "We can stand off double their number easy. We can hold out a week if need be, but you bet the major will be reaching out after us before we're two days older. Don't waste your shots. Coax them close in. Don't ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... absolutely right. We have no authority to fire him, Skinner. Just think of a government that will permit such a ridiculous state of affairs as that to exist! Think of it, Skinner! We hire the man Peasley but we can't fire him—and in the meantime he'll roost in Cap'n Noah's cabin and run up bills on us and consume our groceries and draw master's pay until McBride arrives ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... scarcely thought of him, but to tell you the truth when he has been here on business I have involuntarily thought of a mousing cat, or the animal he is named after on the scent of a hen- roost. But of course I can be civil or even polite to him ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... back; There ain't no ifs n'r maybes. The boys'll fetch the'r wives an' kids; The gals, th'r men an' babies. The ol' place will be upside-down; An' me an' Mammy driven To roost out in the locus' trees— When ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Sylvester's day—St. Sylvester! Why, that is his birthday! Ungrateful friend, to give no thought to it! Quick! my coat, my stick, my hat, and let me run to see these two early birds before they seek their roost. ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... captain said, reaching out a hand to grasp the lad's and gazing with fatherly affection and pride into the handsome young face glowing with health and happiness, "she is the earliest young bird in the family nest. However, she seeks her roost earlier ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... Legend of Sleepy Hollow," that waited for Rebecca Gratz in the drawing room of her father's home about ten years later. Since the death of Matilda Hoffman, he had grown to be a very close friend of the Gratz family, never failing when in Philadelphia to visit their home where he might "roost," as he put it, in the large, comfortable guest room. He had never referred to his intimate conversation with Rebecca when she had tried to comfort him after Matilda's death; yet their mutual grief and confidence had created a strong ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... carved out of blue stone; trees with stems dark-veined as marble rose up to give rest to boughs which drooped the altered hues of their foliage like the feathers of peacocks at roost. Jewel within jewel they burned through every shade from blue to onyx. The white blossoms of a cherry-tree had become changed into turquoise, and the tossing spray of a fountain as it drifted and swung was like a column of blue fire. Where a long inlet ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... of temperature, and the soil being fertile exceedingly, the whole land is covered with a dense and rank vegetation. I have yet to find a square smig of it that is open ground, or one that is not the lair of some savage beast, the haunt of some venomous reptile, or the roost of some offensive bird. Crackers and Coons alike are long extinct, and these are ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... significance with which he spoke plainly indicated that, though Cervera may have ruled her own roost, there was but one chief of this gang, and ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... Baron Fagoni feeds well, bekase he's the cock o' the roost; but the poor Naygurs are not overly well fed, and the critters are up to their knees in wather all day, washing di'monds; so they suffer much from rheumatiz and colds. Och, but it's murther entirely; an' I've more than wance felt inclined ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... conical or pyramidal form, from one to four feet high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... entitled to their full blossom? Gustation was meant to be delightful; and cooking is certainly half as good as tasting. At times one may have longed for the old Roman custom of two meals a day, and going to bed at chicken-time, bringing the hour of roast near the hour of roost; but this was probably in families where there were three repasts, with lunch all the way between, and an incessant buying of cookies from the baker, lest the children should go hungry. After this surfeit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... cottage who could furnish any information as to the cause of its being thus deserted. I conjectured from the heaps of fagots which remained in the yard, from the hens and pigeons which returned of themselves to roost in the room, or on the roof, and from the stacks of hay and straw which stood untouched in the orchard, that the family had gone to gather in a late harvest in the high chalets of the mountain, and had ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... meal was dispatched, the chief warder paid me another visit to instruct me how to roost. Under his tuition I received my first lesson in prison bed-making. A strip of thick canvas was stretched across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running through those mysterious rings. A coarse sheet was spread ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... chiefly to keep off the sun. The men and women wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... never to be play'd, And there a summer-house that knows no shade; Here Amphitrite sails thro' myrtle bow'rs, There gladiators fight or die in flow'rs; Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn." ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... lived in Paris "with nothing but a troop of devotees around him, shallow persons without a spark of judgment, who greet him as the founder of a brand-new musical system, and completely turn his head." To a certain degree this judgment came home to roost in Wagner's later years in Bayreuth; but he was saved by the fact that, being a great musician, he also drew genuine musicians to him. If Bayreuth was crowded by strange beings of low intelligence who bowed low before Richard and found ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... the grandfather, moving slowly, came the Hondecoeters—Giles, Gybrecht, and Melchior. They led the party before the house was entered, by fading light, to see the curious poultry of the Burgomaster go to roost; and it was almost night when the supper-room was reached at last. The occasion was an important one to Sebastian, and to others through him. For (was it the music of the duets? he asked himself next morning, with a certain distaste as he remembered ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... hunt up the new girl we had to room with this year and here you aren't a new girl at all but one we've always known. Why I'm so tickled I'm foolish. Hug me Aileen or it will all seem like a dream and I'll wake up and find we've got to roost with someone like that stupid Electra Sanderson, or Petty Gordon, who can't do a thing but talk about that midshipman at Annapolis to whom she says she's engaged, and she's only just seventeen. She makes ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... whip-poor-will* from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... called in, he'll come home to roost like the rest of them," said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. "The people can't govern themselves,—only Bedloe doesn't know it. Some day he'll find ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the path along the plain there stands near the shrine a poplar with its crown of countless leaves, whereon often chattering crows would roost. One of them meantime as she clapped her wings aloft in the brandies uttered ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... cannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits of fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told. They scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls in a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves obscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they cannot show themselves, and they ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thus inflict the most abominable tortures every day. What could be a sadder sight than a tiger in a cage, save it be a forest monkey climbing dispairingly up a barked stump, or an eagle chained to its roost? How can man be benefitted and made better by robbing the seal of its arctic ice, the hippopotamus of its soft wallow, the buffalo of its open range, the lion of its kingship, the birds ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... now to deliver one more brief oration, which will infallibly secure me the plerophory of the jury and exalt my head to the skies as Cock of the Roost. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... a-calling, And those eyes can scarcely peep: It is little children's bedtime When the poppy goes to sleep. In the west the sun is sinking, And the chickens go to roost: And the poppy folds its petals That the beaming sun ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... House," the Duke answered sadly, "though I dare say George would be glad enough to see me. We always had a great deal in common, but all that is of no use. The Fitz does not like me and she is ruling the roost there again." ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Christmasnever mind the venison, boy, and remember Indian John; his yarbs are better than all the foreign intments. Here, Judge, holding up the bird again, do you think a smooth-bore would pick game off their roost, and not ruffle a feather? The old man gave another of his remarkable laughs, which partook so largely of exultation, mirth, and irony, and, shaking his head, he turned, with his rifle at a trail, and moved into the forest with steps that were between a walk and a trot. At each movement ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... west wind rushed triumphantly right through the building, swinging the lantern that hung from the roof, whisking the ostler's cap out into the darkness, blowing the rugs over the horses' heads, and sweeping a white hen off the roost into the watering-trough. And the cock raised a frightful screech, and the ostler swore, and the hens cackled, and in the kitchen they were nearly smothered with smoke, and the horses grew restless, and struck sparks from the stones. Even the ducks, which had huddled themselves ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... scared of you, Abby," relented Mrs. Black. "But I says to myself, 'I'm goin' to let Lydia Orr stand on her two own feet in this town,' I says. She can say what she likes about herself, an' there won't be no lies coming home to roost at my house. I guess you'd feel the very same way if you was ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... once came to the conclusion that they were plotting mischief; but he could form no idea of the nature of the plot—whether it was to rob a hen-roost on shore, or capture the wooden fort that frowned upon them from the heights above. He was sorry to see John permitted to enter this conclave of mischief; but because his brother apparently acquiesced in the plan, he hoped that no ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... seven, reading Plato, Sophocles, or Spinoza, with the accompaniment of a hunch of dry bread; then he joined Williams in a sail on the Arno, in a flat-bottomed skiff, book in hand, and from thence he went to the pine-forest, or some out-of-the-way place. When the birds went to roost he returned home, and talked and read until midnight." The great wood of stone pines on the Pisan Maremma was his favourite study. Trelawny tells us how he found him there alone one day, and in what state was the manuscript of that prettiest lyric, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... neighbour—though he was carried off from his allegiance in the late times by a d—d Presbyterian scoundrel, who calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long enough.—There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of Bridgenorth—neighbour Bridgenorth, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... touches the chords of truth, makes the heart respond to the tale. The raven would find sufficient for its carnivorous appetite in the floatage of the animal remains, on the briny flood, and would return to roost on the ark; but it was far different with Noah's bird, so long as the waters prevailed, there could be no pause for her weary wing, and the messenger would return to the ark. So soon, however, as the subsidence of the waters had permitted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... backwards, and, by a cunning contrivance, the act of bending the leg draws them all automatically together. So a hen closes its toes at every step it takes, as if it grasped something, and, of course, when it settles down on its roost, they grasp that tight and hold it fast till morning. But to birds that do not perch this mechanism is only an encumbrance, so many of them, like the plovers, abolish the hind toe entirely, and the prince of all two-legged runners, the ostrich, has got rid of ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... abrupt and guttural, mingling with others more clear and soul-piercing than ever human lips drew from reed or metal. It soon ended; up sprang the vocalists like a fountain of fire and fled away to their roost among the hills, then silence reigned once more. What brilliant hues, what gay, fantastic music! Were they indeed birds, or the glad, winged inhabitants of a mystic region, resembling earth, but sweeter than ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... for the urchin.' What is the one unfailing, all-sufficing trick? The proper and judicious use of spines. All of you would use spines if you could. Most of you do. Think of the bramble-thickets, think of the furze, the last resort of valiant stoat and viper, think of the holly, where the sparrows roost. ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... make up; they had to! There! Ma Sills certinly did rule the roost, and no mistake. She'd been a widder ever since the boys were a year old, so she had to do for herself and them, and she done it. She was a master hand; ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... started on uncle Alex again. Yes sir, dat's de way turkey buzzards does. Dey pukes on folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards looks like down till dey gits over three days old. You can go to a buzzard roost and see for yourself, but you sho better stay out'n de way of de old buzzard's puke. Dey sets around de little ones and keeps ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... "We'll have to roost here, sir, all night. There's no getting out of this cutting, nohow. Thank you, sir; I'll see ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... loose," said he, "and you know now what I meant when I said Chadron's chickens has come home to roost." ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... incoming tide warned me that no time was to be lost in returning to the horses, which were nearly a mile higher up the river. Although I ran part of the way, the mud creeks filled up so rapidly, there was some risk of my being cut off from the shore and having to take up a roost on the top of the mangroves until the tide fell; I had time, however, to observe that the head of the tide carried with it thousands of fish of great variety, amongst them a very remarkable one from three to six inches in length, in form resembling ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... sportsmen were returning from the Upper Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call. He was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said, 'he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a turkey on the ridge of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... perched on their Sunday roost in the gallery, until I thought of Jenny Lind, and Nilsson, and Sontag, and all the other warblers; but there came not one tear to my eye, nor one master emotion to my heart. But one night I went down to the African Methodist meeting-house in Philadelphia, and at the close of the service a ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summer population was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north to the south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for a certain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come—at the last moment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, 'She will, if humanly possible.' ... At last his eye caught ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... United States could do, would be to appropriate thirty or forty millions to the formation of a marine, not to secure the coast, as our hen-roost statesmen are always preaching, but to keep in our own hands the control of our own fortunes, by rendering our enmity or friendship of so much account to Europe that no power shall ever again dare ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the wings, or about the size of a large Rhode Island turkey. Employing these birds for the removal of refuse is a remedy almost as bad as the disease, since the habits of the huge, ungainly, ill-omened creatures are extremely disgusting. Clouds of them roost upon the eaves of the houses, the church belfries, and all exposed balconies, and would invade the patios of the dwellings were they not vigorously driven away and thus taught better manners. The cathedral facade on the plaza is sometimes black with them, the rays of the bright ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... I sat and saw the sun go down behind a yellow gullied hill. From afar up and down the valley came the lonesome "pig-oo-ee!" of the farmers, calling their hogs for the evening's feed. We heard the flutter of the chickens, flying to roost, and the night hawk heard them, too, for his eager, hungry scream pierced the still air. On a smooth old rock at the verge of the ravine the girl's brother stood, arms folded, looking out over the darkening low land, and from within the house, where Mrs. Jucklin sat alone, there came a sad ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... what my Dad once did in the hen-yard," remarked Eph, in a low voice. "He went out with a couple of quarts of corn, looked at the hens, and said: 'Now, biddies, I'm going to toss your supper down. But any of you critters that want can go in and roost for the night before I ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... slavery was universal in civilized communities, labour, as conducted under that regime, was a curse, and this at length came home to roost on the gaunt wreckage of imperialism. Thereafter came slowly increasing liberty under the feudal system with its small social units and its system of production for use not profits, monasticism with its doctrine and practice of the sanctity of work, and the Church with its progressive ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... "Military Journal," Dunlap's "History of New York," and Mrs. Ellet's "Domestic History of the Revolution." For an excellent description of the border warfare on the "neutral ground," the reader should go to Irving's delightful "Chronicle of Wolfert's Roost." Cooper's novel, "The Spy," deals accurately with that subject, which is touched upon also in that good old standby, Lossing's "Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution." Philipse Manor-house has been carefully written of by Judge ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... arrived at the ranch on New Year's eve. He brought the report that wild pigeons were again roosting at the big bend of the river. It was a well-known pigeon roost, but the birds went to other winter feeding grounds, except during years when there was a plentiful sweet mast. This bend was about midway between the ranch and Shepherd's, contained about two thousand acres, and was heavily timbered with ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... to come to sea. I said that I saw nothing sneaking in preventing men from being ill-treated, and reminded them of a proverb I had met with, "That curses, like pigeons, are sure to come home to roost ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the evening when Sundown returned to his ranch. Chance welcomed him with vocal and gymnastic abandon. Sundown hastened to his "tame cow" and milked her while the four hens peeped and clucked from their roost, evidently disturbed by the light of the lantern. Meanwhile Chance lay gravely watching his master until Gentle Annie had been relieved of the full and creamy quota of her donation to the maintenance of the household. Then ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... Appeal to Reason' or some other radical paper and attends to his voluminous correspondence with the leading radicals of the day. Then he retires for the night, also Esther, after the farewell scrub of the dishes, table, and the rest, and the kids, too, go to roost. When I was there, I also went to bed, though it was ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... use the same mound. The eggs are deposited at a depth of from one to three feet; the heat at that depth is very great, more than the hand can bear for any length of time. I cannot say whether the young, when released from the mounds, are tended by the parents; they, however, return and roost in the mounds at night. The flesh of the 'Megapodius' is dark and flavorless, being a mass of hard muscle and sinew. birds, which may be called game, are not numerous. The brush turkey ('Talegalla'), the 'Megapodius', several species of pigeon, ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... of a village a Fox one day went to have a peep at a hen-roost. He had the bad luck to fall into a well, where he swam first to this side, and then to that side, but could not get out with all his pains. At last, as chance would have it, a poor Goat came to the same place to seek for some drink. "So ho! friend Fox," said ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... and a British soldier having a good deal of the machine about him, Harry stands fast, and Chunder pulls up short, grinning rolling his eyes, and twisting his hands about, just for all the world like as if he was robbing a hen-roost, and wringing all ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... in her own mind why he was perched there so ruffled and sad, little dreaming of his kindly intentions towards her—how should she?—so away he went, and reached his place of abode just as his brothers and friends were going to roost. ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... master! there's naught amiss 'at I know. I'm but takin' roost here wi' the owls an' jackdaws a bit, maybe for want ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... could faintly be discerned. Blue and white lotus-flowers floated on the clear water, bats of all kinds darted softly through the still air, heavy with the scent of acacia-blossom and jasmine; the wild pigeons and other birds were at roost in the tops of the trees, while the pelicans, storks and cranes squatted in groups on the shore under the shelter of the papyrus-reeds and Nile-beans. The pelicans and storks remained motionless, their long bills hidden beneath their wings, but the cranes were startled by the mere beat of an oar, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... charged to my bad luck. Then, as to the noise, never did I sleep at that enormous Hen and Chickens [2] to which usually my destiny brought me, but I had reason to complain that the discreet hen did not gather her vagrant flock to roost at less variable hours. Till two or three, I was kept waking by those who were retiring; and about three commenced the morning functions of the porter, or of "boots," or of "underboots," who began their rounds for collecting the several freights for the Highflyer, or the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... said Florence, frowning slightly, "what is the good of going over that now? Uncle Tom has been in his grave for the last six years, hasn't he? and Aunt Susan rules the roost. It's Aunt Susan we have got to think about. What did she say ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... black traitor, Whose blood and thoughts have twin conception: Study to act deeds yet unchronicled; Cast native monsters in the moulds of men; Case vicious devils under sancted rochets; Unhasp the wicket, where all perjureds roost, And swarm this ball with treasons. Do thy worst; Thou canst not (hell-hound) cross my star[A] to-night. [A] [Old copy, steare.] Nor blind that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Then would I uplift another shout, believe me! As things go now, we must allow the traitor to hope for his own future, and we simply shrug. We cannot plant him neck-deep for everlasting in a burning marl, and hear him howling. We have no weapons in these times—none! Our curses come back to roost. This is one of the serious facts of the century, and controls violent language. What! are you all gathered about me? Oracles must be moving, too. There's no rest even for them, when they have got ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... midnight heavens, but between ten o'clock in the evening and four in the morning there is a sensible change. Colour tints and lines of demarcation on sea and ships are harder to distinguish, shadows less clearcut. Birds roost and even flowers close, Nature whispering to both that, if they would reproduce after their kind in the short Arctic summer, energies must be conserved. Surely the world holds nothing more beautiful ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Dad's, I believe; and she was shaped something like an alderman. We found her one day in about eighteen inches of mud, with both eyes picked out by the crows, and her hide bearing evidence that a feathery tribe had made a roost of her carcase. Plainly, there was no chance of breaking up the ground with her help. We had no plough, either; how then was the corn to be put in? That was ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... little outfit. He's got into debt for it. He's a Britisher, and has got two brothers fighting. Very dubious, dark children have been admitted already, as presumably Dutch. Dutch and colonials rule the roost here. And to leave Christianity alone, where does British Imperialism come in? It's risking spoiling a life, and the life of such ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... flocks of crows to roost in their garden rookeries at the center of the town. Across the harbor water, now too gloomy to reveal its thousands of jelly-fish, drifted the complaining cries of the loons. Then as the occasional city lamps began ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... man can lay up his siller in is his ain hert. And I'll tell ye hoo that is. Ye ken whan meal's laid up ower lang it breeds worms, and they eat the meal. But they do little hairm forbye, for they're saft craters, and their teeth canna do muckle ill to the girnell. But there's a kin' o' roost that gathers and a kin' o' moth that breeds i' the gowd and siller whan they're laid up i' the hert; and the roost's an awfu' thing for eatin' awa', and the moth-craters hae teeth as hard's the siller that breeds them; and instead o' eatin' the siller, like the meal-worms, they ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Bill. "I tell you what, Frank, if it wasn't for being cock of the roost myself, I should wish that Stewart headed this watch now. What fine times we used to have, eh?—but he has altered as well as the times—how odd he has acted by spells ever since we got that packet at Malta. I'm d—d if I don't believe he got ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... had cast in their lot with the Burgdalers, and they were exceeding merry; and especially the women of them, they were chattering like the stares in the autumn evening, when they gather from the fields in the tall elm-trees before they go to roost. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... morning some years ago, my friend, the old fox-hunter, rose at daylight for a run with the dogs over the new-fallen snow. Just before calling his hounds, he went to his hen-house, some distance away, to throw the chickens some corn for the day. As he reached the roost, his steps making no sound in the snow, he noticed the trail of a fox crossing the yard and entering the coop through a low opening sometimes used by the chickens. No trail came out; it flashed upon him that the fox must be ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... at the slender grace of her body against that dead, barn-sprinkled background. I could observe her easily without her knowledge, for she was looking up, as we so often used to at twilight, to the old plank high above the sagging mill, where the turkeys fly to roost towards evening, so awkwardly and comically, with a great breathless whirring of wings. I saw her lift her arms to them with a swift, urging gesture, as though to steady their ungainly flight, and I could not be certain that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "A proper auld rogue's-roost of dirt 'tis just now," said Will; "but a few pound spent in the right way will do ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... that robbed my roost is sly; he keeps The cover warily; and, now the scent Is cold, the curs that yelp in scandal's pack Bay loud on many faults, but cannot ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... slumber in their dens, The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade and hang their ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... for a little they walk out of the village, without saying a word to each other, and look towards the dark streak of the forest. The whole sky above the forest is studded with moving black spots, the rooks flying home to roost. The snow, lying white here and there on the dark brown plough-land, is lightly flecked with gold by ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... threw out all the priming, leaving it with the pan open, so that it could not go off; in case they fell in with another of the wires. Rushbrook then proceeded to business, for he well knew that the gun would be set where the pheasants were most accustomed to roost; he put a small charge of powder in his fowling-piece, that, being so near, he might not shatter the birds, and because the noise of the report would be much less; walking under an oak-tree he soon discovered the round black masses which the bodies of the roosting pheasants presented between ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... calling undisturbed, and indulge the sweets of domestic and rural life, which of all things lay nearest his heart. And these two undertakings compelled him to be diligent with his pen to the end of his life. The spot he chose for his "Roost" was a little farm on the bank of the river at Tarrytown, close to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt, one of the loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situations on the Hudson. At first he intended nothing more than a summer retreat, inexpensive and simply furnished. But his experience was that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the great cause; or if you haven't, you ought to have been. That chance has come. You alone can save us. In a sense, of course, we do not need to be saved. They will find it hard to get at us, I fancy, on the roof. But it ill befits the dignity of the editorial staff of a great New York weekly to roost like pigeons for any length of time; and consequently it ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sleeper for a few minutes, thinking of how perfectly helpless the strong man had become, and then a thought occurred to him. In an hour's time the guinea-fowl would be coming to roost in the trees beyond the kopje, and a couple of these stewed down by Tanta Sal would make a delicious kind of broth, the very thing for the sick man. Going out, he called to the Kaffir woman, and sent ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... Barbesieur, trying to look amiable, "pray don't be so concise. Tell me the condition of the marquis, at once: I did not come to this old owl's roost for pastime. I came to see what could be done to restore its unhappy lord to reason. That you are observing, I remember; you proved it by the good care you took of my ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... that hate? "Hate by water and hate by land; Hate of the head and hate of the hand." Black and bitter and bad as sin, Take you care lest it hem you in, Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone, And curses, like chickens, find roost at ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... asking him,' cried Mrs. Shepherd's shrill voice at the back door; 'why, don't ye hear that Mrs. Barker's hen-roost has been robbed by Dick Royston and two or ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with corrugated brow, Wet towels bound about his pow, Locked legs and failing appetite, He thought so hard he couldn't write. His soaring fancies, chickenwise, Came home to roost and wouldn't rise. With dimmer light and milder heat His goose-quill staggered o'er the sheet, Then dragged, then stopped; the finish came— He couldn't even write his name. The Thundergust in three short weeks Had risen, roared, and split its cheeks. Said Pondronummus, "How unjust! ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen-house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens did lay, he might carry off their eggs without their being ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... New York every two weeks to see a show,' says the farmer, hanging up the receiver. 'I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight hours later. Oh, the pristine Hubbard squasherino of the cave-dwelling period is getting geared up some for the annual meeting of the Don't-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, don't you ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... into flight The flagging Rearguard of a ruined Night, And hark! the meagre Champion of the Roost Has flung a matins ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... the autumn fields, the pigeon and the squirrel, to say nothing of other birds and beasts, hunt for acorns to eat or store. On the road to roost or storehouse many are dropped. Of these no small number fall on waste ground; a few take root, only to be overgrown or destroyed before they reach the beginnings of strength. But here and there an acorn drops on favourable soil; the rich earth nourishes it; the germ, when ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... shelter from storms, but chiefly to keep off the sun. The men and women wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... (381/4. For Marten's read Martins' [the name is wrongly spelt in the "Origin of Species."]) experiments on seeds "in a box in the actual sea.") that my observations on the effects of sea-water have been confirmed. I still suspect that the legs of birds which roost on the ground may be an efficient means; but I was interrupted when going to make trials on this subject, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... I had spent a week in trying to beat through the Roost of Sumburgh under double-reefed trysails, I was at home in the weather; and guessing we were in for it, sent down the topmasts, stowed the boats on board, handed the foresail, rove the ridge-ropes, and reefed ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... as sorry as anybody. I climbed down from my cormorant roost, and picked my way between the alleys of aromatic piled lumber in order to avoid the press, and cursed the little gods heartily for undue partiality in the wrong direction. In this manner I happened on Jimmy Powers ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... without a peer For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer; 40 So hight her cock, whose singing did surpass The merry notes of organs at the mass. More certain was the crowing of the cock To number hours, than is an abbey-clock; And sooner than the matin-bell was rung, He clapp'd his wings upon his roost, and sung: For when degrees fifteen ascended right, By sure instinct he knew 'twas one at night. High was his comb, and coral-red withal, In dents embattled like a castle wall; 50 His bill was raven-black, and shone like jet; Blue were his legs, and orient ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... to my mistress, who, thinking she had not changed for the better, dismissed my successor, and received me into favour again. I was, like many greater men, immediately reinstated in office when it was discovered that they could not do without me. I once more became chancellor of the hen-roost and ranger of the orchard, with greater power than I had possessed before my disgrace. Had my mistress looked half as much in my face as she did into my hatful of eggs, she would have read my guilt; for at that unsophisticated ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Love, Unto thy Hinde, thy Mullet and thy Dove, Who neither joys in pasture, house nor streams, The substance gone, O me, these are but dreams, Together at one Tree, O let us brouse, And like two Turtles roost within one house. And like the Mullets in one River glide, Let's still remain one till death divide. Thy loving Love and Dearest Dear, At home, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... whistling, past Dr. 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 sojourn, could ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... when she was quite well again, I restored her to her rightful owner. Perhaps she had grown weary of her solitary life, for she seemed delighted to rejoin her old companions; but every day she made us a visit, and at night came regularly to roost ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... sent to prison for two years. One or two got off with a caution, and with instructions to preach to the locations on the heinousness of hooliganism, and of the power of Martial Law to hang "boys" for less than murder—as the next roost-robber would learn to his cost. No remarkable curiosity to be learned in the "Law" was ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... as the lamps were being lit. The soft October darkness was falling fast, and on the ledges of St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace the pigeons had begun to roost. An animated crowd was walking up and down in the Piazza where a band was playing; and on the golden horses of St. Mark's there shone a pale and mystical light, the last reflection from the western sky. Under the colonnades the jewellers and glass-shops blazed and sparkled, and the warm ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... acceptable refrained, especially during the last two years, from adding to the heavy tax which casual visitors began to levy upon the quiet hours of the host. Ten years ago, when Mr. Irving was in his best estate of health and spirits, when his mood was of the sunniest, and Wolfert's Roost was in the spring-time of its charms, it was my fortune to pass a few days there with my wife. Mr. Irving himself drove a snug pair of ponies down to the steamboat to meet us—(for, even then, Thackeray's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we pick off the roost Saturday evenings (you see, we're thinning 'em out; no sense in keeping all of 'em over winter)—as a result, I say, of all this good eating, and the outdoor life, and the necessity of stirring around a little ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... flight lies safety. Skirmish and run To forest and fastness, Teuton and Hun, From the banks of the Rhine to the Danube's shore, And back to the banks of the Rhine once more; Retreat from the face of an armed foe, Robbing garden and hen-roost where'er you go. Let the short alliance betwixt us cease, I and my Norsemen will go in peace! I wot it never will suit with us, Such existence, tame and inglorious; I could live no worse, living single-handed, And better with half ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... There is an eloquent charm which, while it touches the chords of truth, makes the heart respond to the tale. The raven would find sufficient for its carnivorous appetite in the floatage of the animal remains, on the briny flood, and would return to roost on the ark; but it was far different with Noah's bird, so long as the waters prevailed, there could be no pause for her weary wing, and the messenger would return to the ark. So soon, however, as the subsidence of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... he made was that he was to take no murderous action against his countrymen. The man at the helm and the quarter-master being the only men on deck, and I being gone to roost, all seemed easy enough, but ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... meantime is brimful of interest; and, despite this reflex result of the English long-blunder with Ireland (how our sins come home to roost), the Great Republic casts its beams across the whole world and I was never so proud to be an American democrat, as I see it light this hemisphere in a ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... say it is," grumbled Saxe; "but it seems to me that it would be easier to bear the pain. I couldn't forget a thing that's always reminding you that you are sore. But there, I am glad it's to-night. I shall go to roost in good time, so as to get a ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... head, and seems to weep, As pallid blue-bells, crow-tyes and marsh lilies, But I'll plant here, and if they chance to wither, My tears shall water them; there's not a bird That trails a sad soft note, as ringdoves do, Or twitters painfully like the dun martlet, But I will lure by my best art, to roost And plain them in these branches. Larks and finches Will I fright hence, nor aught shall dare approach This pensive spot, save solitary things That love to mourn ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... them with my fingers and thrust them aside. I would stand chewing my cud like a bull in the city market. And now he is so poor that I have to run here, there, and everywhere, and come home, like the pigeons, only to roost. Now here is this jasmine-scented cloak, which Charudatta's good friend Jurnavriddha has sent him. He bade me give it to Charudatta, as soon as he had finished his devotions. So now I will look for Charudatta. [He walks about and looks around him.] Charudatta has finished his devotions, and ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... quick sight, The Preacher[1] and Glutton[1] came hither that night. The Camel, so often with burthens opprest, Was glad for a while from his labour to rest. The Sloth, when invited, got up with much pain, Just groan'd out, "Ah, No!" and then laid down again. The Fox, near the hen-roost, no longer kept watch, But hied to the feast, better viands to catch. The Monkey, so cunning, and full of his sport, [p 8] To show All his Talents came to this resort. The Dog and Grimalkin[2] from service releas'd, Expected good snacks, at the end of the feast: The first at the ...
— The Elephant's Ball, and Grand Fete Champetre • W. B.
... Alden always kept a loaded rifle on a rack on the kitchen wall with which to shoot foxes that attempted to raid his hen-roost. ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... jackal ventures near a house, and perhaps enters a hen-roost, to steal a hen. But in such cases, he often shows himself to be as stupid as he is impudent; for even then, if he hears the yelling of his comrades chasing their game, he forgets himself, and yells as lustily as the rest of them. The result is as might ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... to you, Silas, I may lay my belt across your shoulders," Aylward answered, amid a general shout of laughter. "But it is time young chickens went to roost when they dare cackle against their ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... advised him not to take the cock away before dark. Ned agreed to wait till then. Just before his bed time, he went for Chanticleer, and brought him as quietly as possible to the house. He was afraid to put the new master of the poultry yard on the roost with the old cock, lest they should fight in the morning; so he carried his treasure softly up to his own bedroom in which was a large closet where he had prepared a temporary roost. The cock, who was very tame, as he had been always a pet, made no ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... chirp; crows roost; but, in a twinkle, they are gone. How fares these latter days the scenery in Sui T'i? It's all because he has so long enjoyed so fine a fame, That he has given rise around ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... and pretty, the philosopher watches with indescribable emotion and interest. What a number of pretty coquetries do the ladies perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they take care to fall! All the little children have been gathered up by the nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been walking the deck for some time with a great mattress on his shoulders, knowing full well that were he to relinquish it for ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... preached against a mixed background of fanners, corn measures, piles of sacks, and spare implements of the finer sort; and the congregation, who had come up a ladder cautiously like hens going to roost—being severally warned about the second highest step—sat on bags stuffed with straw, boards resting on upturned pails, while a few older folk were accommodated with chairs, and some youngsters disdained not the floor. It was pleasanter in the barn, a cool, lofty, not unimpressive ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... white clusters of feathery-like blossoms, which swayed to and fro as though alive, yet not a breath of air was stirring. His wonder at the beautiful spectacle was so great, that he ceased moving the paddle and drifted with the current toward the snowy looking tree. When opposite, he saw it was a roost for some sort of water fowl. He shouted and a cloud of white heron rose in the air ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... after returning from a drive to Eastboro village, "I give you my word, Seth, they dummed nigh et me alive. They covered the horse all up, so that he looked for all the world like a sheep, woolly. I don't mind moskeeters in moderation, but when they roost on my eyelids and make 'em so heavy I can't open 'em, then I'm ready to swear. But I couldn't get even that relief, because every time I unbattened my mouth a million or so flew in and choked me. That's what I said—a million. Some moskeeters are fat, but ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rum 'un, Master Roberts, sir," said Dick, solemnly. "Now, look here, sir, you being a boy like, and not wanted, if I was you, I'd just go down below, get on my perch, and tuck myself up and go to roost where ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... quarrels with Robins and other birds much might be written. Those who wish to investigate their remarkable habits will do well to read the acute and elaborate observations of Mr. Lyndes Jones, in a recent Bulletin of Oberlin College. He has studied for several seasons the remarkable Bronze Grackle roost on the college campus at that place, where thousands of these birds congregate from year to year, and, though more or less offensive to some of the inhabitants, add considerably to the attractiveness ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... Skipper; "look ye, Master—I crave your pardon—Sir Robert Cecil; as soon could one of Mother Carey's chickens mount a hen-roost, or bring up a brood of lubberly turkies, as I, Hugh Dalton, master and owner of the good brigantine, that sits the waters like a swan, and cuts them like an arrow—live quietly, quietly, on shore! Santa Maria! have I not panted under the hot sun off the Caribbees? ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... leads into "Organ-grinders' Roost," in the garret. To "Organ-grinders' Roost" the detective ascends. If, reader, you have ever pictured in your mind the cave of despair, peopled by beings human only in shape, you may form a faint idea of the wretchedness presented ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... you are!" sneered Mortimer. "I believe you roost on the foot-board of your bed, like a confounded turkey. Come on! You'd better begin training, you know. People in this town are not going to stand for the merry ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... a railway strike which developed almost to the verge of revolution, I had often gone to the Croissant at two, three or four in the morning, because it had police privileges to keep open all night for the comfort of journalists. Other night birds had found this roost—ladies who sleep by day, and some of the queer adventurers of the city which never goes to bed. One night I had come into the midst of a strange company—the inner circle of Parisian anarchists who were celebrating a victory over French law. Their white faces had eyes like live coals. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... barn. We use it for cows now. And do you remember when you pulled down the old granary, and built the new one in the shape of an elevator? And do you remember, Ma wouldn't speak to us for a whole day because we pulled the old hen-roost to pieces and established the hogs there? She said it was flying in the face of Providence having the smelly old things so near the house. And now we're going to leave it all. We're farmers, aren't we, Seth? But Pa is going ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... them and the noisy bar-room. There was a rustling noise under the porch, as of a fowl disturbed on its roost, and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... there was a sound throughout the town of fowls cackling, as though they were being disturbed and caught while at roost. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... flowers in the mead, Then love I roost these flowers white and rede, Such that men callen ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... mo' honey dan he want. Kwishins on mule's foots done gone out er fashun. Pigs dunno w'at a pen's fer. Possum's tail good as a paw. Dogs don't bite at de front gate. Colt in de barley-patch kick high. Jay-bird don't rob his own nes'. Pullet can't roost too high for de owl. Meat fried 'fo' day won't las' twel night. Stump water won't kyo' de gripes. De howlin' dog know w'at he sees. Blin' hoss don't fall w'en he follers de bit. Hongry nigger won't w'ar his maul out. Don't fling away de empty ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... they get big enough to roost in the fall, I expect we'll have to gather that crop with a gun," Hiram ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... off to bed, the whole trundle-bed crowd, for I have a lot of copy to write to-night. Ethel may bring me a bite, and then sit beside me and write while I sip my tea and dictate and Meg puts the chickens to roost. And Conrad will keep quiet over his books. Just one kiss apiece and a hug for Dolly. ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... I am standing here, and by the looks of things, trying his best to roost in my birdhouse!" The Hermit chuckled as he looked up into the eyes of the animal, who did not ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... he is alive to small objects, not because his mind is narrow, but because his glance is clear and his heart is large. Instead of trying to edify us by supercilious allusions to the "brutes" and the "stalls," he interests us in that tragedy of the hen-roost when the thief has ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... unprotected sailor ever repaired of his own free will, for early in the century of pressing the chickens of the most notorious kidnapping city in England began to come home to roost. The mantle of the Bristol mayor whom Jeffreys tried for a "kidnapping knave" fell upon a succession of regulating captains whose doings put their civic prototype to open shame, and more petitions and protests against the lawlessness ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... you bring every brooding failure carrion-crow in the Universe to roost on the top rail of your iron bedstead. Think success, look success, live success,—and success walks in at your front door, while everyone helps you along the same way with each thought he gives your apparent success, even if his thought be simply ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... burning feeling of the hour was the desire to put down by a strong hand the depredations of these lawless robber hordes. Not a house in the place but had suffered from them, not a farmer but had complaints to make of hen roost robbed or beasts driven off in the night. Others had darker tales to tell; and Will Ives clenched his fists and vowed that he would be glad indeed to see the day when he and Simon Dowsett might meet ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... wants to go to roost," replied Sheppard. "So, stir your stumps, Saint Giles; and, if you mean to ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the pigeons roost among S. Mark's statuary and on convenient ledges in the neighbourhood; by day, when not on the pavement of the Piazza, the bulk of the flock are dotted about among the reliefs of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... and having assigned Clayton to the minor duty of watching the south front and the flanks, Ray was moving cheerily among his men, speeding from cover to cover, suggesting here, helping there, alert, even joyous in manner. "We couldn't have a better roost, lads," he said. "We can stand off double their number easy. We can hold out a week if need be, but you bet the major will be reaching out after us before we're two days older. Don't waste your shots. Coax ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... the way of game that was a great surprise to me, as I had not seen any of that kind in several years. It was a large flock of wild turkeys. I saw that they had not discovered me as yet. I looked all around and could see no place where they could roost except a little bunch of timber about a quarter of a mile from where they were feeding. I got back out of sight and rode back to the train as quickly as I could. When I overtook the train, the boss was looking for a place to corral, and it was ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... starve for a while and he'll realize what his father has done for him," he fumed. "Let him shift for himself and we'll see how soon he'll come home to roost." ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... imagination,—the moan of the whippoorwill from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if by chance a huge blackhead of a beetle ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... no doubt you know, To which a fox is used: A rooster that is bound to crow, A crow that's bound to roost, And whichsoever he espies He ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... night on that blooming island. Why, ever since I c'n remember I've heard the tallest yarns about it. Some say it's just a nest of crawlers; and others, that all the varmints left unshot in the big timber up beyond have a roost on that strip of land in the middle ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... to stir after their meal, but at last guns were taken, and in the hope of securing a few of the wild turkeys, a start was made; but after a stroll in different directions, Joses began to shake his head, and to say that it would be no use till daybreak, for the turkeys had gone to roost. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... this to wait in. So dark, so hemmed in with trees, and the road so little used; spring was early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches, and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... if I am to see you but two or three days in the year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear, into an old gallery, that has not been glazed ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... farmer knows it to be an industrious scavenger, devouring at all times the putrid or decomposing flesh of carcasses. They are found in flocks, not only flying and feeding in company, but resorting to the same spot to roost; nesting also in communities; depositing their eggs on the ground, on rocks, or in hollow logs and stumps, usually in thick woods or in a sycamore grove, in the bend or fork of a stream. The nest is frequently built in a tree, or in the cavity of a sycamore stump, though a favorite place ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... be able to get a dish of glory and a dish of beef-steak on the same day; in consequence of which, the heart, which ought properly to be soaring in the clouds, or, at all events, in a castle half way up, is more generally to be found grovelling about a hen-roost, in the vain hope, that, if it cannot get hold of the hen herself, it may at least hit upon an egg; and such, I remember, was the state of my feelings on this occasion, in consequence of my having dined the three preceding days on the ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... we have had for three or four months past, the strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we pick off the roost Saturday evenings (you see, we're thinning 'em out; no sense in keeping all of 'em over winter)—as a result, I say, of all this good eating, and the outdoor life, and the necessity of stirring around a little lively these days we feel pretty good. And yet we get kind ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... child, a little-girl, looked up from her knitting. "The hens are all quite snug, mother, Fluffy and Biddy and the rest. I peeped in just now, after they were gone to roost." ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... eyes were intently fixed upon the waters of the Great Lake, which began to be tossed about with a high wind. At last, when they were tired of watching his motions, and some of the boldest, now grown familiar with him and no longer chilled with fear, talked of stoning him from his roost, he cried out, pointing with his finger, "Look yonder!" They now beheld, in the direction he bade them look, far away on the foaming bosom of the Great Lake, something resembling a great, white fowl. It was moving very swiftly towards the land of the Narragansetts. The nearer it approached, the more ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... ordered and regulated for your fathers. No seed of you will come after you, except that we order and regulate for you now. You must be peace-abiding, and decent, and blow your noses. You must be early to bed of nights, and up early in the morning to work if you would heave beds to sleep in and not roost in trees like the silly fowls. This is the season for the yam-planting and you must plant now. We say now, to-day, and not picnicking and hulaing to-day and yam-planting to-morrow or some other day of the many careless days. You must not kill one another, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... inclined to delve in the soil, a definite saving can be accomplished by tending a vegetable garden, raising small fruits and berries, and even maintaining a hen roost. Some people (I would I could honestly include myself) have a gift for making things grow and getting crops that are worth the work that has gone into them. Likewise there is such a thing as possessing ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... few fish out of the multitudes which swarmed in the streams, so it was hardly worth while to waste powder and shot on the vast flocks of pigeons which visited New Jersey in those days. When they came to roost in the forests, they could be knocked down with poles and stones; and thousands and thousands of them were thus obtained by the men and boys, and ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... For one night his mother came home with a fat hen slung across her shoulders. She had been down to Farmer Green's hen- house, right in the middle of the night, when Farmer Green and his family were asleep; and she had snatched one of the sleeping hens off the roost and stolen away ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah's dove, come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own nature, that is all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and grey tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into the room timidly, carrying his head a little down as usual, and glancing uncomfortably about in a manner which used to make Drysdale say that he always looked as though he had just been robbing a hen-roost. Mary went forward to meet him, holding ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained with wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... alas, she would not yield, But it was she that rul'd the roost;[1] Until by proof, she did confess, If he were gone, her ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... upon his ear, and he shouted. Two sportsmen were returning from the Upper Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call. He was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said, 'he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a turkey on the ridge of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... some time she heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer entered the house. 'What luck had you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the woodpile,' said the old man, 'with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared, not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, and killed one—and he raised such a fearful smell I concluded it was best to let the other six alone.'" The Senators retired, and nothing ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the smaller end. This species usually arrives from the valleys of the Dhoon about the middle of March; and, until they begin to sit on their eggs, they congregate every morning and evening into small flocks, and roost together in trees near houses; in the morning they separate for the day into pairs, and proceed with the building of nests or laying of eggs. After the young are hatched and well able to fly, all betake themselves to the Dhoon ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... but as it took Tiburcio a day to go to the post-office, he justified himself in putting writing off, sometimes several weeks, because it ruined a whole day and tired out a horse to mail a letter. Hardships were enjoyed. They thought nothing of spending a whole night going from one turkey roost to another, if half a dozen fine birds were the reward. They would saddle up in the evening and ride ten miles, sleeping out all night by a fire in order to stalk a buck at daybreak, having located his ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... down in de market reckoned it was high time fancy niggers was drov into de swamp, and I allowed that loafers and beggars had better roost high when workin' folks was around, and Marse Tom said he'd cut ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... All she seemed to care about as her reward was pilfering, and a crown put into her hand, gave her less pleasure than a halfpenny which she had stolen. Neither was it any use to dream of ruling her as the sole male, or as the proud master of the hen roost, for which of them, no matter how broad shouldered he was, would have been capable of it? Some had tried to vanquish her, but ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear, into an old gallery, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... scarce possible they should have done so, for she placed her chair in such a posture as to occupy almost the whole fire. She then ordered a chicken to be broiled that instant, declaring, if it was not ready in a quarter of an hour, she would not stay for it. Now, though the said chicken was then at roost in the stable, and required the several ceremonies of catching, killing, and picking, before it was brought to the gridiron, my landlady would nevertheless have undertaken to do all within the time; ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... sent me up to roost on a cloud, but I didn't kick. Now they're tryin' to charge me for meals extry. Don't that ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... that craws on the brows of Ben-Connal, He kens of his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs of Clan-Ronald, Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelve of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, But, ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, Nor house, ha', nor hame in his country has he: The conflict is past, and our name is no more— There 's nought left but sorrow ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... bought the little estate of Sunnyside, near the Sleepy Hollow which he had made famous. His first name for it was "The Roost" (Dutch for "Rest"), which he changed for reasons which are not recorded; possibly the little nieces who became regular inmates may have thought the old name not dignified enough. This he regarded as his home for the rest of his life. He set to work at once to enlarge the old ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... He sed he'd corned over ter let 'em know how they was gittin' on in Ho'sford. He sed dat ebbery white man in de county 'cept about ten or twelve was inter it, an' dey wuz a gwine ter clean out nigger rule h'yer, shore. He sed de fust big thing they got on hand wuz ter break up dis buzzard-roost h'yer at Red Wing, an' he 'llowed dat wouldn't be no hard wuk kase dey'd got some pretty tough tings on Nimbus ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Jasperson, "I thought of the album, an' 'twas then my feet begun to get cold. But I up and as't to see it, as bold as a coyote in a hen-roost. Then she sez, kind of soft an' smilin': 'Why, Mister Jasper, what d'you want to see my album for? you ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... kept roost, And perched at his side; Whereat the last the watchful Cock, Made known the ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... Care and Dispatch, etc., etc.," so read the sign. The house was situated in "Phinney's Lane," the crooked little byway off "Cross Street," between the "Shore Road" at the foot of the slope and the "Hill Boulevard"—formerly "Higgins's Roost"—at the top. From the Phinney gate the view was extensive and, for the most part, wet. The hill descended sharply, past the "Shore Road," over the barren fields and knolls covered with bayberry bushes and "poverty grass," to the yellow sand of the beach and the gray, weather-beaten fish-houses ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... believe the general testimony is in his favour, and against the Wallack, whose love of revenge is the ugliest feature in his character. These people seem to forget the saying that "curses, like chickens, come home to roost," for they will set fire to places under circumstances that not unfrequently involve ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... houses should be a door by which the gallinarius who takes care of them, may have access. Within the houses enough poles are arranged to serve as roosts for all the chickens: opposite each roost a nest should be set in the wall. In front of the house should be an enclosed yard to which the fowls may have access in the day time and where they can dust themselves,[182] and there should be constructed ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... attractive spot, the cabin of the indefatigable interpreter. I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Chattanooga on the 6th of May, with the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Generals Thomas McPherson, and Schofield, upon Johnston's army at Dalton; but finding the enemy's position at Buzzard's Roost, covering Dalton, too strong to be assaulted, General McPherson was sent through Snake Gap to turn it, while Generals Thomas and Schofield threatened it in front and on the north. This movement was successful. Johnston, finding his retreat likely to be cut off, fell back ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... yon'er on Still Water Creek, De Niggers grows up some ten or twelve feet. Dey goes to bed but dere hain't no use, Caze deir feet sticks out fer de chickens t' roost. ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... I had forgotten them, the Admiral sent for me. It was to show me, now without emotion, the two little visitors who had gone to roost in his room, perched upon a slender silken cord above his bed. They nestled closely together, two little balls of feathers, touching and almost merged one in the other, and slept without the slightest fear, sure of our pity. And those little Belgians sleeping ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... away from Screech-Owl and hid in a wood-yard for the night. Next day she was found, taken before a magistrate and sent to a reformatory as a vagrant until she was sixteen. It was a perfect paradise compared to Screech-Owl's miserable roost. But when she came out she fell into the hands of the Ogress who kept the inn they were now in. The clothes she stood in belonged to the Ogress, she owed her for board and lodgings and could not stir from her or she must be taken up ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... enjoys telling stories. So he shook his feathers out, half spread his wings to let the air blow under them, looked down at all the little meadow and forest people gathered about the foot of the tall, dead tree where he delights to roost, grinned at them in the funniest way, and then ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... when he wrote that jubilant semi-chorus, with the marvellous fugal succession of figures, wherein Samson, and by inference Milton himself, is compared to a smouldering fire revived, to a serpent attacking a hen-roost, to an eagle swooping on his helpless prey, and last, his enemies now silent for ever, to the phoenix, self-begotten and self-perpetuating. The Philistian nobility (or the Restoration notables) are described, with huge scorn, as ranged along the tiers of their theatre, like barnyard fowl blinking ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... the bird of prey went straight to roost. At mid-day following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, in the character, not new to him, of a witness before a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... timid. In the evening, when he is put to roost in a close and dark room, he is afraid of the shadow of his perch that is cast by the light we carry in our hand; he eyes it, and utters a low cry, which stops when the candle is blown out and he ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... perfect conical or pyramidal form, from one to four feet high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... who from his high roost could see every way, spied far off a tiny light, and calling to his comrades told them he thought they were near a house in ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... then, you had not sent for me," answered the other. "Come, let us have the knaves in. I suppose they have been robbing some one's hen-roost, and want to lay the blame on ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... clouds," he said in surprise. "Ain't it queer! Looks's if it might be some kind of eclipse," he said. "Do you remember—no, of course you don't—but, th' was an eclipse of th' sun—total, I believe they called it—when I was only about seven year old. All th' chickens went to roost, it got so dark, an' when th' cover come off they crowed's if 'twas mornin'. We had a blue hen an' she crowed too. Pap killed 'er. He said it was bad luck t' have a hen ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they chose. The carpet had transported them to bed just at the right moment, and the Phoenix had gone to roost on the cornice supporting the window-curtains ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... he told me he had prayed already, and that he would give me the cock, whose dung he had taken, for my trouble, as it was a fine large cock, and he had nothing better to offer for my Sunday's dinner. And as the poultry was by this time gone to roost, he went up to the perch which was behind the stove, and reached down the cock, and put it under the arm of the maid, who was just come to call ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... into the shade; the awkward squads are in bed; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the quiet waters somewhere; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the Mole, which is about to set out on some night expedition. You forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself up ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I was as sorry as anybody. I climbed down from my cormorant roost, and picked my way between the alleys of aromatic piled lumber in order to avoid the press, and cursed the little gods heartily for undue partiality in the wrong direction. In this manner I happened on Jimmy Powers himself seated dripping on a board ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... seasons. They've pinched hard for the child's poor little outfit. He's got into debt for it. He's a Britisher, and has got two brothers fighting. Very dubious, dark children have been admitted already, as presumably Dutch. Dutch and colonials rule the roost here. And to leave Christianity alone, where does British Imperialism come in? It's risking spoiling a life, and the life ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... Eastborough Centre, he went out, climbed up on the barn, sot down on the ridgepole and waited for Kingdom Come. He sot there and tooted all mornin' and 'spected the angel Gabriel would answer back. He sot there and tooted all the arternoon till the cows come home and the chickens went to roost. I had three good square meals that day, but Silas didn't get a bite. 'Bout six o'clock I did think of takin' him out some doughnuts, but then I decided if he was goin' up so soon it was no use a wastin' em, so I put 'em back in the pantry. ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... cat, he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced through underneath. A lesser beast, it may be noted, would ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... night after he had killed many in one town, the people decided to watch him, and they saw him go to roost with the chickens. The next day they placed a fish trap under the house near the chicken-coop, and that night when Sayen went under the house he was caught in ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... mercy, master! there's naught amiss 'at I know. I'm but takin' roost here wi' the owls an' jackdaws a bit, maybe ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... reading Plato, Sophocles, or Spinoza, with the accompaniment of a hunch of dry bread; then he joined Williams in a sail on the Arno, in a flat-bottomed skiff, book in hand, and from thence he went to the pine-forest, or some out-of-the-way place. When the birds went to roost he returned home, and talked and read until midnight." The great wood of stone pines on the Pisan Maremma was his favourite study. Trelawny tells us how he found him there alone one day, and in what state was the manuscript of that ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... and the flight Of crook-clawed birds, did I make clear to man— And how they soar upon the right, for weal, How, on the left, for evil; how they dwell, Each in its kind, and what their loves and hates, And which can flock and roost in harmony. From me, men learned what deep significance Lay in the smoothness of the entrails set For sacrifice, and which, of various hues, Showed them a gift accepted of the gods; They learned what streaked and varied comeliness Of gall and liver ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... send across the road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger.' In the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for the best part of an hour, with some solicitude; occasionally looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his mind that she ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... and hate by land; Hate of the head and hate of the hand." Black and bitter and bad as sin, Take you care lest it hem you in, Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone, And curses, like chickens, find roost at home IN GERMANY! ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... quills." Elizabeth Eliza suggested that they should go out to the poultry-yard and get a quill. But it was already dark. They had, however, two lanterns, and the little boys borrowed the neighbors'. They set out in procession for the poultry-yard. When they got there, the fowls were all at roost, so they could ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... breed. Anyway the wind was, it was always sea air, as salt as on a ship; the gulls were as free as moorfowl over all the Ross; and whenever the way rose a little, your eye would kindle with the brightness of the sea. From the very midst of the land, on a day of wind and a high spring, I have heard the Roost roaring, like a battle where it runs by Aros, and the great and fearful voices of the breakers that ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... land-fowls we saw crows, kites, hawks, cockatoos of two sorts, one white and the other black, a very beautiful kind of loriquets, some parrots, pigeons of two or three sorts, and several small birds not known in Europe. The water-fowls are herns, whistling ducks, which perch, and, I believe, roost upon trees, wild geese, curlieus, and a few others, but these do not abound. The face of the country, which has been occasionally mentioned before, is agreeably diversified by hill and valley, lawn and wood. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... fields, with separate histories, yet bound by one common cause—the union of our country, and the perpetuation of the Government of our inheritance. There is no need to recall to your memories Tunnel Hill, with Rocky-Face Mountain and Buzzard-Roost Gap, and the ugly ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... given to a large family of degenerates. It is not the real name of any family, but a general term applied to forty-two different names borne by those in whose veins flows the blood of one man. The word "jukes" means "to roost." It refers to the habit of fowls to have no home, no nest, no coop, preferring to fly into the trees and roost away from the places where they belong. The word has also come to mean people who are too indolent and lazy to stand up or sit up, but ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... Bailie along the street with exhortations. "I've said all I wanted to say, and I've just one word more. Ye've fought with the Tories and ye've fought with the Publicans, ye've fought with this body and with that body, and ye've beaten them, and ye thought ye were cock of the roost in Muirtown; but ye meddled with the laddies, and they've licket ye once, Bailie, and they've licket ye twice, Bailie, and if ye dinna cry 'Peace,' they'll lick ye again, and that'll be the end of ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... there, alas, both kept by force; Return, my Dear, my Joy, my only Love, Unto thy Hinde, thy Mullet and thy Dove, Who neither joys in pasture, house nor streams, The substance gone, O me, these are but dreams, Together at one Tree, O let us brouse, And like two Turtles roost within one house. And like the Mullets in one River glide, Let's still remain one till death divide. Thy loving Love and Dearest Dear, At ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey, although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and he ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... of joyance yawned, Lord Dusiote laughed heart-free: I count her as much as a crack o' my thumb, But, or shame of my manhood, to me she shall come Like the bird to roost in the tree! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... frowning slightly, "what is the good of going over that now? Uncle Tom has been in his grave for the last six years, hasn't he? and Aunt Susan rules the roost. It's Aunt Susan we have got to think about. What did she say ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... of his, which, after all, had touched him but lightly—these had, like chickens, come home to roost! And how these chickens had multiplied and grown! On the way home it seemed that everybody had striven to fatten them up a bit and add surreptitiously a chicken or two of his own. Oh, these meddlers, these idle tongues! None of them would set ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... about face—quick! Your back's prettier than your face, and besides, I want to know whether your hip-pockets are empty. I've heard it's the habit of you gentry to pack guns in your clothes.... None? That's all right, then. Now roost on the transom, over there in the corner, Stryker, and don't move. Don't let me hear a ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Columbus," "Spanish Voyages," "Conquest of Grenada," "Conquest of Spain," "Moorish Chronicles," and "Life of Mohammed." The influence of this historical research, too, you shall find in reading his romances: "Wolfert's Roost," "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," "Bracebridge Hall," ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... on uncle Alex again. Yes sir, dat's de way turkey buzzards does. Dey pukes on folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards looks like down till dey gits over three days old. You can go to a buzzard roost and see for yourself, but you sho better stay out'n de way of de old buzzard's puke. Dey sets around de little ones and keeps everything off ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... full-feathered owl slid softly through the midnight air above him. Not a dead leaf fell; and where the leaves had fallen there they lay. How was it, then, that a twig broke? The deer were couched; the pheasants sat at roost, their heads beneath that splendid coverlet, their wing; and though there were creeping things which even midnight did not woo to rest in that vast wilderness, Yorke had imbibed enough of forest lore to know that the noise which he had heard was produced by none of these. A ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... distances visit them in the night with guns, clubs, long poles, pots of sulphur, and various other engines of destruction. In a few hours they fill many sacks, and load their horses with them. By the Indians, a pigeon roost or breeding place is considered an important source of national profit and dependence for the season, and all their active ingenuity is exercised on the occasion. The breeding place differs from the former in its greater extent. In the western countries before ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... that of the rails (but the rails, like the long-billed marsh wrens, appeared to be present in force all up and down the river, in suitable places), was occupied nightly as a crow-roost. Judged by the morning clamor, which, like that of the rails, I heard from my bed, its population must have been enormous. One evening I happened to come up the street just in time to see the hinder part of the procession—some hundreds ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... hazel-bushes, a few trees, and where these were absent, furze tufts—as tall as men—on stems nearly as stout as timber. The shriek of some bird was occasionally heard, as it flew terror-stricken from its first roost, to seek a new sleeping-place, where it might pass ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the vicar, if to no one else who heard it, I to the grave do summon all, kept on its heavy booming monotone, with which no other sound from land or sea, near or distant, intermingled, except the cackle of the geese on some far-away farm on the moors, as they were coming home to roost; and that one noise from so great a distance seemed only to deepen the stillness. Then there was a little movement in the crowd; a little pushing from side to side, to make a path for the corpse and its bearers—an aggregate of the fragments ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a long story short, I laid about in the woods for a month, making a raid now and then on a chicken-roost, to supply my commissary department; but all this while the rebels followed me like blood-hounds. I had gone miles out of my way—in fact, I did not know where I was, until one day I was in with a party of guerrillas. I told them I was a reb on French leave, and on my way to visit ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... black a name in the Andredsweald. We should have to answer for every peasant we have hanged or hen roost we ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... out. Big Jim Ennis had lost pretty much everything he owned except what he had on. Lanier was not much better off. As to the origin of the fire, Bob merely said that he had turned the lights low in the sitting-room, and, obedient to "Shoe's" orders, had gone up to his roost, too wrathful and amazed over what had occurred even to think of sleep—to think, in fact, of anything but the colonel's words. So absorbed was he, as he slowly undressed, he never noted the sounds from below until his room of a sudden seemed ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... is too much attention given to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow, no profit in it to anyone at all. A coach now is a real thing and a thing that will last for generations and be made use of the last, and maybe turn to be a hen-roost at its ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... visited Daniel it was along toward evening. She heard from a distance the piano and the shrill crowing of Daniel's voice. Down in the hall she saw three white figures cuddled up close to each other like hens on a roost. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... like power over the native-born citizen. If a State has power over the franchise of the women citizens of the United States, it also has power over the men citizens. Unjust laws, like curses, go home to roost; they can always be made to plague their enactors. When the rights of any one class of citizens are assailed, a blow is struck against the rights of all. The danger to individual liberty lies in special ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Philip Kerr, Mr. Lloyd George's confidential assistant. However, on the 19th day of the month, Mr. Clemenceau was shot, and the next day Mr. Lloyd George telephoned over from London to say that as long as Clemenceau was wounded and was ill, he was boss of the roost, and that anything he desired to veto would be immediately wiped out and therefore it was no use for him and Col. House, as long as Clemenceau was ill, to attempt to renew the Prinkipos proposal, as Clemenceau would simply have to hold up a finger and the ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... the North hez took to brustlin' At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, I 'll tell ye wut 'll save all tusslin' An' give our side a harnsome boost,— Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question I 'm RIGHT, although to speak I 'm lawth; This gives you a safe pint to rest on, An' leaves me frontin' ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... had recently travelled till he struck Pipeclay Creek again lower down. He turned down the track towards the river, and at the junction left word at Lowe's—one of the old land-grant families. The dogs woke an old handy man (who had been "sent out" in past ages for "knocking a donkey off a hen-roost"-as most of them were) and Ben told him to tell ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... precipices, the condor reappears. From these facts, it seems that the condors require perpendicular cliffs. In Chile, they haunt, during the greater part of the year, the lower country near the shores of the Pacific, and at night several roost together in one tree; but in the early part of summer, they retire to the most inaccessible parts of the inner Cordilleras, there to ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... grandmamma came in, and invited her to visit the poultry yard. She readily accepted, but for want of Queen Bee to hurry her, kept her grandmamma waiting longer than she liked, and had more of a scolding than was agreeable. The chickens were all gone to roost by the time they arrived, the cock just peering down at them with his coral-bordered eye, and the ducks waddling stealthily in one by one, the feeding was over, the hen-wife gone, and Mrs. Langford vexed at being ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
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