"Crawl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lister undertook the diving, but for long his efforts to reach the floor of the engine-room were baffled. To crawl across slanted gratings and down weedy ladders, while air-pipe and signal-line trailed about the machinery, was horribly dangerous, but he kept it up, although he got slacker and felt his pluck was breaking. Then one afternoon he knew he could ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... attached to Fort Yellowstone, had a similar adventure on a more heroic scale. While out on a camera hunt in early winter he descried afar a large bull Elk lying asleep in an open valley. At once Fossum made a plan. He saw that he could crawl up to the bull, snap him where he lay, then later secure a second picture as the creature ran for the timber. The first part of the programme was carried out admirably. Fossum got within fifty feet and still the Elk lay sleeping. Then the camera was opened out. But alas! ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... worse. She took bark; but it soon ceased to produce a beneficial effect. She was stimulated with wine; she was soothed with opium; but in vain. Her breath began to fail. The whisper that she was in a decline spread through the Court. The pains in her side became so severe that she was forced to crawl from the card-table of the old Fury to whom she was tethered, three or four times in an evening for the purpose of taking hartshorn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter would have excused her from work. But her Majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day the accursed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... became dreadfully alarmed, on observing a puma occupying the same den. She was, however, soon quieted by the animal approaching and caressing her. The poor brute was very ill, and scarcely able to crawl towards her. Maldonata soon discovered what was the cause of the animal's illness, and kindly ministered to it. It soon recovered, and was all gratitude and attention to its kind benefactress, never returning from searching after ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... did he take one step in the woods, than he perceived the full difficulty of his task. The woods were of the wildest kind, filled with rocks and fallen trees, the surface of the ground being most irregular. At every other step it was necessary to clamber over some obstacle, or crawl under it. ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... heart quicken, for here was one of the things of Opal. It must have crawled up here from that silent sea. Then a feeling of gloom and dread swept over him. What had happened down there to make this thing leave its home and crawl here ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... Ed Hanlon rushed into the cabin with his trousers in one hand and his valise in the other, and they say that I filled my mouth with Mrs. Anson's diamonds, grabbed a base-ball bat and stood guard at the doorway, ordering my wife to crawl under the bunk, but that statement is a libel and one that I have been waiting for years to deny. I only got up to see what a Chinese pirate looked like, that's all. It was a scared lot of ball players ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... clean down a long fill among the rocks of a creek bottom. The fall had knocked him senseless. When finally he had recovered consciousness he had been too ill to move for a long time. Then the hot sun had driven him to crawl painfully into the woods where he had lain helpless most of the day, with just enough strength to get water from the creek. When he began to feel a little better toward nightfall he had gone back to the track and started for ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the floor, and stacks of rushes; in the dusk the solemn eyes of babies regarded them, and old women stared out too. As they sauntered about, the stare followed them, passing over their legs, their bodies, their heads, curiously not without hostility, like the crawl of a winter fly. As she drew apart her shawl and uncovered her breast to the lips of her baby, the eyes of a woman never left their faces, although they moved uneasily under her stare, and finally turned away, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Teta Elzbieta all day, and for the children when they could not get to school. At night they would sit huddled round this stove, while they ate their supper off their laps; and then Jurgis and Jonas would smoke a pipe, after which they would all crawl into their beds to get warm, after putting out the fire to save the coal. Then they would have some frightful experiences with the cold. They would sleep with all their clothes on, including their overcoats, and put over them all the bedding and spare clothing they owned; the children would sleep ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... that difficult reading that she would do anything in all the world to stop that "true bullet" in the heart that had pounded beneath her open palms.... Knew she would break her given word to Jim Last—knew she would forsake the Holding—that she would crawl to Courtrey's feet and kiss his hand, if only he would spare Kenset of the foothills, would send him out to that vague world of ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... underlying metamorphic rock. Wonderful virtues are attributed to St. Declan's Stone, which, on the occasion of the patronal feast, is visited by hundreds of devotees who, to participate in its healing efficacy and beneficence, crawl laboriously on face and hands through the narrow space between the boulder and the underlying rock. Near by, at foot of a new storm-wall, are two similar but somewhat smaller boulders which, like their venerated and more famous neighbour, were all wrenched originally by a glacier from their ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... But 'twill not do. Like soap of Monkey brand, It will not wash clothes, Or, in truth, ought else. 'Tis but an accident of rhythm Born of the imperative mood that makes one Start a poem of this kind on ten feet, Howe'er it may thereafter crawl or soar. What I really was about to remark was that My name and style are ELLIS ASHMEAD BART- LETT, Knight; late Civil Lord of Admiralty You know me. I come from Sheffield; at least I did on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... "has never offered to do me any harm; and when I sing, as I sometimes do when I am alone here at work on some tomb or other, he will crawl up and listen for two or three hours together. One morning, while he was listening, he came in for a good meal, which lasted him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... through the room. In order better to retain it, we stopped up the hole we had made to let the smoke escape, and merrier than usual, went to bed and began chatting together; but soon, giddiness and then stupefaction attacked us, and had not one of the party had the presence of mind to crawl to the door and open it, we would soon have been suffocated by the poisonous gas which came from the coal. Thus ended the year 1596. The next year commenced with the same unpleasant weather, so that we were obliged to pass New Year's day in the house. We had now used ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... of savage horse-thieves arrived at a kind of little hollow in the trail, about an eighth of a mile from the door of the station. They got off their animals and, Indian-fashion, commenced to crawl ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... bullets. No other man in the world can become so infuriated as the coward, for the brave man knows that he can satisfy his anger. He reserves it as a force to use in vengeance. He is temperate in that. But the worm-soul, which must crawl and be satisfied with merely stinging the heel of his enemy, knows no such temperance. He is the victim of ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... hind legs; his eyes are of little use when he is nosing in the grass; and Tito knew this. Further, a yellowish-grey animal on a yellowish-grey landscape is invisible till it moves. Tito seemed to know that. So, without any attempt to crawl or hide, she walked gently up-wind toward the Prarie-dog. Upwind, not in order to prevent the Prairie-dog smelling her, but so that she could smell him, which came to the same thing. As soon as the Prairie-dog sat up with some ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... distant idea he was thus armed and encircled with instruments of death-bayonets, lances, pistols, guns, sabres, daggers !-what horror assailed me at the sight! I had only so much sense and self-control left as to crawl softly and silently away, that I might not inflict upon him the suffering of beholding my distress - but when he had passed the windows, I opened them to look after him. The street was empty - the gay constant gala of a Parisian Sunday was changed into ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... down in the depths once more. I shall not try to crawl out again—at least, not while my wife ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... of weakness and pity in her eyes, "you know that it means everything to me! But I can't marry any one. All I want is just to crawl away and die in peace. I wish that that Indian hadn't come upon me so promptly. I'd just have gone to ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... scalp. The scout took his stand near a thicket of quaking asp and almost at once sighted a band of antelope. Taking Bucks, he worked around the wind toward the band, and directed him how and when to shoot if he got a chance. Bucks, highly wrought up after the long crawl to get within range, did get a chance, and with his heart beating like a trip-hammer, covered a buck and fired. The scout shot immediately afterward, and the herd broke swiftly for the timber ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... further evaporates the surface fish are left uncovered, and they crawl away in search of fresh pools. In one place I saw hundreds diverging in every direction, from the tank they had just abandoned to a distance of fifty or sixty yards, and still travelling onwards. In going this distance, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... trunks in torrents. The footing became uncertain, and Piang warned Kali to look out for broken limbs. For many yards the path lay along fallen tree trunks, slippery with moss and mold. The footing became so treacherous that the order was given to crawl on all fours, and the progress was painfully slow and tedious. Frequently they strayed from the path and were forced to halt. The torches at the head of the column twinkled and flickered fitfully, but they only ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... the heart of the King, Tarry ye not in Egypt! So the creatures that crawl and the insects that sting Will add terror to life and bring death on the wing. Tarry ye not, Tarry ye not, Tarry ye not in Egypt! The Lord hath hardened the heart of the King, So the creatures that crawl and the insects that sting Will ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... Nepeese returned to Baree. She brought him water and gave him a piece of raw fish. For hours they were alone, and with each hour there grew stronger in Baree the desire to follow the girl in every movement she made, to crawl close to her when she sat down, to feel the touch of her dress, of her hand—and to hear her voice. But he did not show this desire. He was still a little savage of the forests—a four-footed barbarian born ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... something like a gigantic seal, having two large flippers, or fins, near its shoulders, and two others behind, that look like its tail. It uses these in swimming, but can also use them on land, so as to crawl, or rather to bounce forward in a clumsy fashion. By means of its fore-flippers it can raise itself high out of the water, and get upon the ice and rocks. It is fond of doing this, and is often found sleeping in the sunshine on the ice and on rocks. It has even been known to scramble up the ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... the shadows of the boxwood trees had grown longer, and there was just a promise of the coming night in the air. They must walk, for they had only the one horse now, and it did not seem likely he could hold out long. The other had lain down to die, and whether this one could crawl on under the slender pack was a question Anderson asked himself more than once. That he could carry either of them was out of the question. They put a blanket or two on his back, their pistols, and the empty waterbags, and then it seemed cruelty to force the poor beast to move, but ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... me," Daisy called from the kitchen. "I'll make Gusterson suffer. I'll make him crawl around on his hands and knees begging ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... them eat out of my hand? Look at that ass—glad to crawl in here and nibble a crust from my table to-night! Ass!" He had halted for a second in front of the manager, but resumed his pacing with a ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... we were shown to our room, where the almost forgotten luxuries of feather beds and pillows, and the great, warm, fluffy woolen blankets of the Hudson's Bay Company—such blankets as are found nowhere else in the world—awaited us. To undress and crawl between them and lie there, warm and snug and dry, while we listened to the rain, which had begun beating furiously against the window and on the roof, and the wind howling around the house, seemed to me at first the pinnacle of comfort; ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... expecting every minute that they would break into the house, would send them out a half-pail of vodka; after that the noise would subside and the long beams, one after another, would crawl slowly ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was killed. He was lame and on a sofa, but curiosity led him to crawl to the window and peep out, when a ball struck him in the forehead. Lady Blantyre and his children were with him. He was much esteemed. He was in the Peninsula, and a ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... not want to stare at it, and no more did we. But it was more comfortable to talk with the chair standing still; for though to look at one going it seems to crawl along like a snail, I can tell you to keep up with it you have to step out pretty fast, faster than Peterkin could manage without a bit of running every minute or so, which is certainly not comfortable, and faster than I myself could manage as well as talking, without getting ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... alone; But up against the steeple reared, Became a clock, and still adhered; And still its love to household cares By a shrill voice at noon declares, Warning the cook-maid not to burn That roast meat which it cannot turn; The groaning chair began to crawl, Like a huge snail, along the wall; There stuck aloft in public view, And with small change, a pulpit grew. A bedstead of the antique mode, Compact of timber many a load, Such as our ancestors did use, Was metamorphosed into pews, Which still ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... he said. "We know nothing of the ground over which we should have to crawl, and it would be hardly possible for thirty men—with our accouterments, and firearms—to crawl along without snapping sticks, or striking rifles against a stone and giving ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... lifeless. And he made my skin crawl. Paul, do you remember how you used to feel when you came close to a snake? There's something wrong with ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... evening, and then not rising before eight o'clock in the morning; else, they would pray to God to make him catch in the day-time frogs and snails in their stead, and let fleas and other insects crawl over him at night; for why should not Wolf rather employ his wrath and vindictiveness against the sparrows, daws, mice, and such like? When a servant named Rischmann parted from him, in 1532, after several years of hard work, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the pulse of a continent here. From the factories, the mines and mills, the prairies and the forests, the plantations and the vineyards, there flowed a mighty tide of things—endlessly, both day and night—you could shut your eyes and see the long brown lines of cars crawl eastward from all over the land, you could see the stuff converging here to be gathered into coarse rope nets and swept up to the liners. The pulse beat fast and furious. In gangs at every hatchway you saw men heaving, sweating, you heard them swearing, ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... still unconscious, nor was Mr. Swift able to help. He lay with his eyes closed. Garret Jackson, however, managed to crawl to the engine-room, and soon the clank of machinery told Tom that the pumps were in motion. The lad staggered to the pilot house and threw the levers over. An instant later there was the hissing of water as it rushed ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... them. He spent whole days scanning the winter colored slope for the flicker and slide of light on a hairy flank that betrayed his enemy, or, rifle in hand, stalking a patch of choke cherry and manzanita within which the mule-deer could snake and crawl for hours by intricacies of doubling and back tracking that yielded not a square inch of target and no more than the dust of his final disappearance. Wood gatherers heard at times above their heads ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... copies. Every other person Lady Hannah encountered upon the street seemed to have got one, and to find it unusually interesting. The women especially. None of them were dull, or languid, or dim-eyed this morning. The siege crawl was no longer in evidence. They walked upon springs. Upon the stoep of the Hospital, where the long rows of convalescents were airing, every patient appeared plunged in perusal. Those who had not the paper were waiting, with watering mouths, until those who had would ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... blinded fool, and worse, She was whiter than driven snow, And so one morning the universe Lost forever its sapphire glow; Across the land, and across the sea, I felt a horrible shadow crawl, A spasm of hell shot over me, Wilmur and ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... sensation of nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite close to each other, to stand between them in the form of a green, icy-cold corpse, till they became paralyzed with fear, and finally, to throw off the winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with white, bleached bones and one rolling eyeball in the character of "Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide's Skeleton," a role in which he had on more than one occasion produced a great effect, and which he considered quite equal to his famous part ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... evidently not unwilling to expose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's case. "And if so, they can trail us in; and then trail us out again!" He pointed to the lacets of the trail up the north wall. He grinned again. "You and I'd just crawl down a mile ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... but we saw from this that the dog had a great deal more of generous love in its nature than the cat, because it not only found it impossible to live after the death of its master, but it must needs, when it came to die, crawl to his side and rest its head ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... traffic on the original line; but it was because consolidation had been pushed to an extreme by the directors of the corporation, so much so that the entire system yielded no dividends; a fleet and useful animal had been loaded down with dead wood and rubbish till he could scarcely crawl; barren acres had been added to an originally fruitful farm until the whole estate could hardly pay taxes; a mass of rotten apples had been thrown into the measure with sound fruit, and buyers refused the whole as a mere heap of corruption. And it was generally ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... cried Mrs. Mullarky. "Does a dog-house drive all of ye crazy? T' see a human bein' crawlin' around on his four legs an' callin' it detectin' where a dog is that ain't there! Go awn, if ye wish! Crawl ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... cold winter's night striking through her nightgown reminded her that she was risking her life, which she had no right to do, for baby needed her. 'Who would look after poor baby if I were taken away?' she asked, and shaking with cold, was about to crawl into bed; but on laying her knee on the bedside she remembered that a little spirit often saved a human life; and going to the chest of drawers took out the bottle she had hidden from Dick and ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... species of them—and even upon the Himalayas more than one kind— the small black species swarming above the elevation of three thousand feet, while a large yellow kind, more solitary, is found farther down. They are not only troublesome and annoying, but dangerous. They often crawl into the fauces, noses, and stomachs of human beings, where they produce dreadful sufferings and even death. Cattle are subject to their attacks; and hundreds perish in this way—the cause of their death not being always understood, and ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... military gain the bells of victory peal wildly, and gay flags colour mile after mile of city streets, flags under which weary, silent women crawl in long lines to the shops where food is sold. A bewildering spectacle is this crawling through victory after victory ever ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... the same pealing horrid laugh. "Vengeance! Punishment!" he repeated grinning. "Fool! matchless fool! art thou now for the first time to find out that such language toward me does not beseem thee? that thou juggler, must crawl in the dust before me? that a glance of my eye, a grasp of my iron arm, will dash thee to pieces, thou earth-born mummery with thy wretched tricks, which only ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... wonderful word which the southern South American mother teaches her child from the moment it begins to toddle, and is useful in a desert and sparsely inhabited country where biting, stinging, and other injurious creatures are common. For babies when they learn to crawl and to walk are eager to investigate and have no natural sense of danger. Take as an illustration the case of the gigantic hairy brown spider, which is excessively abundant in summer and has the habit of wandering about as if always ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... white-lipped, and all a-tremble, skulking in panic only a little beyond his reach: a fancy that so worked upon his nerves that he himself seemed infected with its shuddering dread, and thought to feel the fine hairs a-crawl on his neck and scalp and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... your teeth like stones. And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea, And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily. And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze, And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees. Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you're fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... bed," said the man; "he was taken last night in the yard, and could scarcely crawl home. His wife sent a boy this morning to say his father was in a high fever and could not get out, so I'm ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... falsehood. In no word nor syllable does Christ's injunction give the least color of truth to the reverend gentleman's "interpretation;" that is the reverend gentleman's very own, and doubtless he feels an honest pride in it. It is the product of a controversial need—a characteristic attempt to crawl out of a hole in an enclosure which he was not invited to enter. The words need no "interpretation;" are capable of none; are as clear and unambiguous a proposition as language can frame. Moreover, they are consistent with all that we think we know of their author's life and character, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... and double up just as much, and be just as futile, with it as without it. Why do you crawl about on the top of that post, little worm? It should have been a tree, eh? with green leaves for eating. But it isn't, and you have crawled about it all day, looking for a new brown branch, or a green leaf. Do you know anything ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... in his deep relief. "Righto! And after I've phoned for a doctor, if you don't mind, I'll crawl in with you." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns.— No vernal zephyr breathes, no sunbeams cheer, Nor song, nor simper, ever enters here; O'er the green floor, and round the dew-damp wall, The slimy snail, and bloated lizard crawl; 120 While on white heaps of intermingled bones The muse of MELANCHOLY sits and moans; Showers her cold tears o'er Beauty's early wreck, Spreads her pale arms, and bends ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... fisher-folk may be accounted the Chinese shrimp-catchers. It is the habit of the shrimp to crawl along the bottom in vast armies till it reaches fresh water, when it turns about and crawls back again to the salt. And where the tide ebbs and flows, the Chinese sink great bag-nets to the bottom, with gaping mouths, into which the shrimp crawls and from which it is ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... a dark cellar has a certain low cunning about him which serves him in excellent stead. He knows perfectly well what he wants and how to get it. He sees the light coming from the cellar window and sends his shoots crawling straight thereto: they will crawl along the floor and up the wall and out at the cellar window; if there be a little earth anywhere on the journey he will find it and use it for his own ends. What deliberation he may exercise in the matter of his roots when he is planted in the earth is a thing ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... out of correspondence with its new surroundings that its life must pay the forfeit. Had it been able by internal change to adapt itself to external change—to correspond sufficiently with the new environment, as for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, back into that environment with which it had completer correspondence—its life might have been spared. But had this happened it would continue to live henceforth only so long as it could continue in correspondence ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... had fallen on the first fire of the Indians and had been supposed by his comrades to be dead, was in truth though [147] badly wounded, yet still alive; and was observed feebly struggling to crawl towards the fort. The fear of laceration and mangling from the horrid scalping knife, and of tortures from more barbarous instruments, seemed to abate his exertions in dragging his wounded body along, lest he should be discovered ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... barn, An' pay him fer tellin' us that yarn!" "Agreed!" Through the orchard they creep back, Along by the fences, behind the stack, And one by one, through a hole in the wall, In under the dusty barn they crawl, Dressed in their Sunday garments all; And a very astonishing sight was that, When each in his cobwebbed coat and hat Came up through the floor like an ancient rat. And there they hid; And Reuben slid The fastenings back, and the door undid. "Keep dark!" said he, "While I squint ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... all right, because, with needles in his eyes and all through his body, Nelsen seemed to be goaded on by imps to crawl, in infinite weariness, through a hot steel pipe, to face Old Nick himself—or was ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... crawling over ninety miles in four hours:"—it was at this time about midnight. "You ask me what I'd do; why now I'll tell you, if I was you, I'd say, Mat. here take the stick,—it wouldn't be the first time,—and I'd crawl out o' that hole and shake myself; and then I'd ask this gentleman for a cigar and a mouthful of liquor, and then I'd clap a bit o' the square mainsail on her, and lift the sloppy little slut out of it a yard or two; ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... slinging the paper lantern to my arm, I proceeded, hampered though I was, to make trial of my cat-like qualities in the matter of wall climbing. Placing the tips of my fingers and toes in the crevices between the stones and in other gaps in the wall, I managed with some little difficulty, to crawl up a certain height. The wall was nearly perpendicular, mind you, and, owing to the cold frozen nature of the stones, my fingers got so stiff that I had hardly any power left in them. Then, too, the weight of the heavy ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... the child is old enough to crawl about, it is sure to get out into the road and roll in the dust. It is a curious fact that the agricultural children, with every advantage of green fields and wide open downs, always choose the dusty hard road to play in. They are free to wander as they list over mead and leaze, and pluck the flowers ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... the weird prairie had gleamed into eerie life, had dropped the veil and spoken to him; while the breeze stopped, and the sun stood still for a flash in waiting for his answer. And he, his heart in a grip of ice, the frozen flesh a-crawl with terror upon his loosened bones, white-lipped and wide-eyed with frantic fear, uttered a yell of horror as he dashed the spurs into his panic-stricken horse, in a mad endeavor to escape from the Awful Presence that filled all earth and sky ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... a trapper; and led him into the right path, pointing out a village inn where he could get rest and refreshment. Piotrowski managed to crawl to the place, and then fainted away. When he recovered himself, he asked for radish-soup, but could not swallow it; and toward noon he fell asleep on the bench, never awaking until the same time on the next day, when the host roused him. Sleep, rest, and ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of the brutes who had raised him he endured his suffering quietly, preferring to crawl away from the others and lie huddled in some clump of tall grasses rather than to show his misery before ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... time a night-prowling fiacre ambled up and veered over to his hail. He viewed this stroke of good-fortune with intense disgust: the shambling, weather-beaten animal between the shafts promised a long, damp crawl to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... and again we crawl along a rail's length or two," admitted the boy, "but it's mighty slow ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault—it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigiously ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... not know what gratitude is." "I am not of that kind," answered the snake: "here I am in danger of death, I beseech you to have pity on me." These pleadings prevailed and the prince got off his horse and beat out the fire and then spread a cloth over the embers so that the snake could crawl out. When the snake was safe the prince asked for the boon that had been promised him: "No boon will you get" said the snake: "you did a foolhardy thing in saving me, for now I am going to eat you, and ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... empty-handed—that is small bane to one who may spring up again, and by sheer might wrest all his treasures back from Fortune. But to wake helpless as well as empty-handed, the strength for ever gone from arms that were invincible; to crawl, a poor crushed worm, the mark for all men's pity, where one had thought to win the meed of all men's praise, ah, then to live is agony! Each breath ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... course, necessary to keep several tall ant-hills in a line with that upon which the antelope was standing, and to stoop so low that I could only see the horns of the animal upon the sky-line. In some places it was necessary to crawl upon the ground; this was trying work, on account of the sharp stumps of the burnt herbage which punished the hands and knees. The fine charcoal dust from the recent fire was also a trouble, as the wind blew it into the eyes. The watermark upon the ant-hills ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... experienced in detaching sufficient to obtain hand hold. Working silently, not knowing what watchers might be already stationed without, they succeeded in loosening enough of the rock to allow them to crawl through, lying breathless in the open. Accustomed as they were to the darkness, they could yet see little. They were upon the opposite side from the town, with no gleam of lights visible, prairie and ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... the merest crawl, as space-speed goes, and with electro-magnetic detector screens full out, the Nevian vessel crept toward our sun. Finally the detectors encountered an obstacle, a conductive substance which the patterns showed conclusively to be practically pure iron. Iron—an enormous mass of it—floating ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... an amused smile on his pale face. Before I could speak, he turned and began to crawl away. I followed. We descended the stairs again to the hall. At the foot he turned sharply to the left, and came to a standstill in a recess ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... surface of water-plants. They also swim with facility, as they are aquatic, having swimming membranes on their feet, and while vegetable feeders to some extent, they dive for food. It is noted that some Gallinules, when young, crawl on bushes by wing claws. The voice somewhat resembles the cackling or clucking of a hen. It eats the tender shoots of young corn, grass, and various kinds of grain. When the breeding season approaches, the mated pairs generally resort to rice fields, concealing ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... lay nearly an hour unable to move. Fearing an increase of tortures if he were captured, he thought of returning to his dungeon. But the old hope whispered in his soul that divine perhaps, which comforts us in our sorest trials. A miracle had happened. He could doubt no longer. He began to crawl toward the chance of escape. Exhausted by suffering and hunger, trembling with pain, he pressed onward. The sepulchral corridor seemed to lengthen mysteriously, while he, still advancing, gazed into the gloom where there must ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... this was that Dock Phillips had taken to going with that tough crowd again. For a while his work in the grocery store had tired him so much each day that when evening came he had been content to go to his home, eat his supper, and then crawl in between ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... ones—there are no rabbits—are widely spread, but not numerous; porcupines the same. Wild cats, and animals of the ferret kind, destroy game. Monkeys of various kinds and squirrels harbour in the trees, but are rarely seen. Tortoises and snakes, in great variety, crawl over the ground, mostly after the rains. Rats and lizards—there are but few mice—are very abundant, and feed both in the fields and on ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... up some day; I know it; I have dreamt it. Elba at any cost. Depend upon it, Martin, you have been foiled in your suits on account of the mean house you inhabit. Enter Elba as that girl's husband, or go there to own it, and girls will crawl to you." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Death?— The vilest reptiles, brutes or men, who crawl Across their portion of this earthly ball, Share life and motion with us; would we strive Like such to creep alive, Polluted, loathsome, only that with sin We still might keep ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... led him to the big chair in the studio. He sat quietly waiting under strained nerves for the darkness to lift. It did not lift that day, nor the next. Dick adventured on a voyage round the walls. He hit his shins against the stove, and this suggested to him that it would be better to crawl on all fours, one hand in front of him. Torpenhow found him ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... present the scum naturally?' I told her 'the grapes I saw, walking abroad, did hang i' the air, not stick in a wall; and even these insects,' quo' I, 'and Nature her slime in general, pass not their noxious lives wedged miserably in metal prisons like flies in honey-pots and glue-pots, but do crawl or hover at large, infesting air.' 'Ah my dear friend,' says she, 'I see now whither you drive; but this ground is gold; whereon we may not shade.' 'Who said so?' quoth I. 'All teachers of this craft,' says she; and (to make an end o' me at once, I trow) 'Gerard himself!' 'That for Gerard ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... rail; the man's consumed by spite! If Lockman's fate[7] attends you when you write, Let prudence more propitious arts inspire; The lower still you crawl, you'll climb the higher. Go then, with every supple virtue stored, And thrive, the favour'd valet of my lord. Is that denied? a boon more humble crave. And minister to him who serves a slave; Be sure you fasten on promotion's scale, Even if you seize some footman by the tail: 70 The ascent ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... moon shone out for a short time, enabling him to complete his work. Scarcely was it finished than down came the rain, and he was glad to crawl in and obtain rest. He slept on until morning. Immediately on getting up he went down to the beach on the chance of finding any of his companions, but no one was visible, either alive or dead. There were, however, a number of articles and masses of wreck floating or cast on shore, while ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... down to the pier and get into the boat as fast as you can," said I to Kate. "Crawl into the cuddy, and keep ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... limbs of its corpses tossed out of its whirling, like water-wheels. Bat-like, out of the holes and caverns and shadows of the earth, the bones gather, and the clay heaps heave, rattling and adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, like his of old who went his way unseeing ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... cold, black water, through which they had to wade. It was above their knees, and, filling their rubber boots, made them so heavy as to greatly impede their progress. In several places where the old timber props had rotted out, such masses of rubbish choked the gangway that they were compelled to crawl on their hands and knees for long distances through the low spaces that were still left. Once they were on the point of turning back, but animated by the importance of their errand they kept on, cheering each other with the thought that they would not be obliged to ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... the ground and began to crawl forward over the velvet moss; and we followed his example, feeling our way with our right hands to avoid dry branches and rocks. From time to time we paused to regain our strength and breathe; and the last time we did so the aromatic smell of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... taking note of all I saw, till at last I came to a little hill of which the top rose above the level of the mist, so that I could see on it a long hut built of green boughs with the leaves still fresh upon them. Now I thought that I would crawl up to the hut since it came into my mind that Rezu himself must be sleeping there and that I might kill him. But while I stood hesitating I heard a noise like to that made by an old woman whose husband had thrown a blanket over her head to keep her quiet, or to that ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... surprises, marchings and counter-marchings. Their dreary insignificance was redeemed by the good-tempered pertinacity shown by our troops in enduring month after month of hardship and exposure in the rain-soaked bush and the deep mud of the sloughs, miscalled tracks, along which they had to crawl through the gloomy valleys. And there was one story of heroism. An out-post of the fifty-eighth regiment had been surprised at dawn. The bugler, a lad named Allen, was raising his bugle to sound the alarm, when a blow from a tomahawk half severed his arm. Snatching the bugle ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... — not removing his eyes from the forest: "If any o' them boys has let Quintana crawl through I'll kill him, too. ... G'wan home, girlie. I gotta mosey — I gotta kinda loaf ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... his conscious life dawned, he had crawled toward the mouth of the cave. And in this his brothers and sisters were one with him. Never, in that period, did any of them crawl toward the dark corners of the back-wall. The light drew them as if they were plants; the chemistry of the life that composed them demanded the light as a necessity of being; and their little puppet-bodies crawled blindly and chemically, like the tendrils of a vine. Later on, when each developed ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... dangerous for the sovereign power of a State to license immorality; to hold the shield of its protection over any thing that is not "legal in a moral view." Bring into your house a benumbed viper, and lay it down upon your warm hearth, and soon it will not ask you into which room it may crawl. Let Slavery once lean upon the supporting arm, and bask in the fostering smile of the State, and you will soon see, as we now see, both her minions and her victims multiply apace till the politics, the morals, the liberties, even the religion of the nation, are brought completely ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he knew, and strove to meet; In vain he strove to crawl and kiss his feet; Yet (all he could) his tail, his tears, his eyes, Salute his master, and confess his joys. Soft pity touch'd the mighty master's soul; Adown his cheek a tear unbidden stole, Stole unperceived: he turn'd his head ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... resolved to secrete himself near the hut and watch. After it had been dusk some time, and all sounds had ceased, he saw the two children emerge from the hut, and, tiptoeing softly towards the trees, fall on their hands and knees and crawl along a tiny, deviating path. Hardly knowing what he was doing, but impelled by a force he could not resist, Van Hielen followed them. It was a delicious night—at that time of year every night in Arawak is delicious—and ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... Adrian could crawl about, he was taken from me by the priests. They sent him to Italy, where he grew up a stranger to me. When he returned, I did not know him. I spoke to him of that false marriage; I wept for his lack ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... overlooking an angle of the moat. Thence he was lowered with every precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period; then a black figure was observed to land by the branches of a willow and crawl away among the grass. For some half-hour Sir Daniel and Hatch stood eagerly giving ear; but all remained quiet. The messenger had got ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... That is my limit, and you know it. Don't crawl now, or do any more bluffing. Show your hand—I've ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man; nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see which is the better bird. 'T is long since ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... coloring them it will be necessary to mix a weak solution of gum arabic with the colors to prevent their penetrating the paper. If printed on too thin a paper the photogravure or engraving should be mounted. If it is found that the colors "crawl" or spread on the photograph, mix a little acetic acid with the colors you are using, and should this fail to remove the difficulty, rub a pinch of pumice stone over the ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... arm about his daughter, who nestled close to him for the sake of warmth. A bitter frost had set in during the last hour or so, and the snow was frozen in white patches upon her wrappings, while it was with numbed senses she vacantly watched the pines flit past her. It seemed that they would crawl up out of the darkness and slide by, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... I could take it," said the young man with a swift, slanting smile. "And at least I can crawl upon my stomach at your feet, and pull my forelock and heap dust upon my head.... God bless you!" And he returned the ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... weary, never so in woe, Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers; I can no further crawl, no further go; My legs can keep no pace with my desires. Here will I rest me till the break of day. Heavens shield Lysander, if they ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Mahon. 'Then the game's up,' he said. 'We had better stop this towing, or she will burst out suddenly fore and aft before we can clear out.' We set up a yell; rang bells to attract their attention; they towed on. At last Mahon and I had to crawl forward and cut the rope with an ax. There was no time to cast off the lashings. Red tongues could be seen licking the wilderness of splinters under our feet as we made our way ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... when down he went with a scream, and I heard no more of him. But I needn't dwell on the horrors of that night; you had a strong taste of them yourself. About daybreak I was flung like a spent ball on to a sandy beach. I had just strength to crawl a few yards further up, and then collapsed. It seems some Indians carried me away, and nursed me back to health, but for weeks I was wild as a loon. They searched the coast, but found nothing, and I concluded you were at the bottom of the sea. Then I got a passage to Pisco in a coasting brig, ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... imparted to me noble designs (I remember them), high political conceptions. They are brilliant, they are grand, doubtless; but—shall I say it to you?—such vague projects for the perfecting of corrupt societies seem to me to crawl far below the devotion of love. When the whole soul vibrates with that one thought, it has no room for the nice calculation of general interests; the topmost heights of earth ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... are nearly half fishes (amphis, double, and bios,life). The Amphibia have two lives: one in the water, which is their true life, and where they are in their element; the other upon land, where they can only crawl; for their paws, which are but half developed, are destined to perform the office of fins, and the hinder ones are extended flatly behind them, and act like a fish's tail. They are divided into two families, the seal and the walrus. The first feed on fish, and have the same internal ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... choked with the thick smoke, which, however, was less painful than the blast from the icy sea. The smoke escaped with difficulty, because the roof was still covered with firm snow, and the door was merely a hole to crawl through. At last, however, they got the fire to the state of red embers, and succeeded in obtaining a plentiful supply of tea and food: after which their limbs being less stiff, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... have told, The ancient people were restor'd anew From seed of emmets) than was here to see The spirits, that languish'd through the murky vale Up-pil'd on many a stack. Confus'd they lay, One o'er the belly, o'er the shoulders one Roll'd of another; sideling crawl'd a third Along the dismal pathway. Step by step We journey'd on, in silence looking round And list'ning those diseas'd, who strove in vain To lift their forms. Then two I mark'd, that sat Propp'd 'gainst each other, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... man no man can monkey with. I'm a man that'll go through. I'm stained with crime. I've waded through seas o' blood. Nothin' in heaven or earth or hell can stop me. A month from now rubes like you'll be glad to crawl at my feet—an' wipe their dirty mugs on the hem o' that there woman's skirt.—Now listen,' says he. 'Get the hell into that there box o' yourn ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... comrades at the lower bridge, when they saw the new course taken by their expected prey. Much valuable time had thus been gained by the pursued, time which they needed sadly enough, for, despite their frantic rowing, their unwieldy craft would barely crawl across ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis |
