"Hoof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well supplied and admirably equipped. Owing to the activity of his cavalry, coupled with the fact that the Confederate horses were at this time attacked by a disease which affected both tongue and hoof, his information was more accurate than usual. He knew that Longstreet was at Culpeper, and Jackson in the Valley. He saw the possibility of separating the two wings of the enemy's forces, and of either defeating Longstreet or forcing him to fall back to Gordonsville, and he ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in its tone, and it seemed to be trying to form words. I hastened then, crossing more wolf tracks on the way, and then I struck the trail of many men and a few horses; but these were not Eric's, for the hoof marks were rather those of ponies than of his tall steeds. I followed that track, for it seemed to lead toward the weary voice that I heard, and so I came to a circle of great oaks with a clear space of many paces wide between them, and there I ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... road, till they could have been recovered or cured. "Lord bless you, Sir," replied the man, "I tried at more than fifty places, but nobody would take them in at any price, as they all said they would not have them at a gift, and that they should not tread a hoof upon any of their lands on any account, as the foot rot ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... commence this Exhibition by inviting your inspection of the wonderful live 'orse with five legs. (To the depressed Cart-horse.) 'Old up! (The poor beast lifts his off-fore-leg with obvious reluctance, and discloses a very small supernumerary hoof concealed behind the fetlock.) Examine it! for yourselves—two distinct 'oofs with shoes and nails ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... small trees or saplings, standing up about six inches from the ground. You could hardly imagine anything better devised for catching a horse's foot. But even worse than the risk of a horse stumbling over a stump, was the thought of his putting his hoof down on one of the more sharply pointed stumps, often not more than the thickness of a big walking stick. It would have pierced ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... piece of ice out of the water cooler, and just as he clapped it on Pa's back I burned a piece of horses hoof in the candle, and held it to Pa's nose, and I guess Pa actually thought it was his burning skin that he smelled. He jumped about six feet and said, 'Great heavens, what you dewin,' and then he began to roll over a barrel which I had arranged for him. Pa thought he was going ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... instant, startling the brute with a yell as I did so, and upsetting the canoe between us. There was a splintering crack behind me as I struck out for deep water. When I turned, at a safe distance, the bull had driven one sharp hoof through the bottom of the upturned canoe, and was now trying awkwardly to pull his leg out from the clinging cedar ribs. He seemed frightened at the queer, dumb thing that gripped his foot, for he grunted and jumped back and thrashed his big antlers in excitement; ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, On the last verge, rears amain; And he hangs, he rocks between—and his nostrils curdle in— And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off; And his face grows ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... thy house." Not an hoof must be left behind; God will not lose the very dust of his people: Of all that thou hast given me have I lost nothing, but will raise it up at the last day (John 6:39). God therefore was careful not only of Noah, but of all that were in his house; because they were ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plain-song. But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed, Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith. There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything, Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cart-wheel Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... and near, came to her strained senses, as if her silent chamber were a whispering gallery. The clock struck twelve, and in the silence that followed she missed the music; but voices, talking and laughing, were coming down the lane. There was the clink of a horse's hoof on the stones; now it was lost on the turf; and now they were all trooping noisily past the house. She buried her head in her pillow, and tried to bury with it the consciousness that she was wondering if Evesham were there, laughing with ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... and contractors of camels, horses, and trains complete did not wait to be solicited; the competition between them was too lively for dignity. Hither and thither shepherds drove fatted sheep in flocks, selling them on the hoof. In shady places sandal merchants and clothiers were established; while sample tents spotted the whole landscape. Hucksters went about with figs, dates, dried meats and bread. In short, pilgrims could be accommodated with every conceivable necessary. They had only to cry out, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... mountain-track May hear their hoof-beats pass, And catch a glimpse of brown and black Dim shadows on ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... swift-moving motor cars swarming like twentieth-century pilgrims toward the mecca of cool breezes and comfort. There were proud limousines; comfortable family cars; trim little roadsters; noisy runabouts. Not a hoof-beat was to be heard. It was as though the horseless age had indeed descended upon the world. There was only a hum, a rush, a roar, as car ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... shoe with a view to adapt it especially to Army use. Our design has been to make a shoe that any Army farrier can apply in a cold state without the use of any other tool than a knife to prepare the hoof, and a hammer to drive the nails. Our success in this attempt has been so complete that we are now using the pattern designed especially for Army use in all our ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... Deeply pondered and reflected: "While he seems a man in semblance, And a hero in appearance, Yet his height is but a thumb-length, Scarce as lofty as an ox-hoof." 130 ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... mesquite grass of the west. Ben Tatum's steeds may have been swifter, and he had a good lead; but if he had heard the punctual thuds of the hoofs of those trailers of ours, born in the heart of feudland, he might have felt that retribution was creeping up on the hoof-prints of his ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... riddle is that?" she inquired. "I will tell you. In the great North Sea lies a dead dog-fish, that shall be your roast meat, and the rib of a whale shall be your silver spoon, and a hollow old horse's hoof shall be your wine-glass." When the Devil had gone to bed, the old grandmother raised up the stone, and let out the soldier. "Hast thou paid particular attention to everything?" "Yes," said he, "I know enough, and will contrive to save myself." ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... had worn away to near its close, and I was contemplating the unpleasant prospect before me of passing the night in my very uncomfortable quarters, when the sound of hoof-strokes reached my ears. Looking out through the opening, upon the plain, I saw a party of about a dozen Indians riding leisurely up the valley, evidently one of the hunting parties on their return. They were nearly a mile from our position, but in these elevated regions sounds can ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... can just follow Comrag's tracks," she said, pointing toward the spot where the hoof-prints emerged from the brush. "You'd better leave your rifle here," she added with some asperity, "You might take a fancy to shoot Comrag if he ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... enormous: what a team to drive; and on such a road, untrodden before by hoof or wheel! Two Empresses that cordially hate one another, and that disagree on this very subject. Kaunitz and his Empress are extremely skittish in the matter, and as if quite refuse it at first: "Zips will be better," ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... from the point of the shoulder to the ground should divide the knees, canon, fetlock, and foot into two equal parts. When the animal is formed in this way the feet have room to be straight and square, with just the breadth of a hoof between ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... when his horse stumbled, and, in recovering itself, clumsily kicked a great stone with such force that he shattered it to a hundred pieces, and then stood on three legs, awkwardly swinging his hoof in a way that horses have when the bone has been jarred. In a moment the colonel dismounted, and felt the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... he called jovially. "I hear that at last you're taking an interest in skirts—other than on the hoof." And he offered young T. A. a large, dark cigar with a fussy-looking band encircling its middle. Young T. A. looked at ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... fore feet of a fine 4-year-old horse, weight 1350, are rather spongy and grow down faster than the hoof, sometimes causing slight lameness. He is not on soft pasture, but is stabled all the time. Now have bar shoes on him. What treatment do ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... all the gold, or welded it, or smelted it, all into one piece. You know the first Spaniards down there, under a leader named Pizarro, were a gang of robbers and cut- throats. They went through the country like the hoof-and-mouth disease, and killed the Indians off like cattle. You see, the Indians had lots of gold. Well, what the Spaniards didn't get, the surviving Indians hid away in that one big chunk on top the mountain, and it's been waiting there ever since ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... leaves, must have been a majestic tree. A huge stone lay amongst others near it, and this was pointed out by our guide as the identical stone thrown by Rolando in his anger when his horse's foot slipped over the rock at the edge of which we stood. The print made by the hoof as it slid along the surface is clearly visible to poetical eyes, and this is one of the numerous Pas de Roland so celebrated in the Pyrenees, where the great hero's course is ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... by Xenophon and Lena Rivers, was drawn in profile, very erect on his slender, nervous legs. He appeared, on the side nearest the observer, to be pawing the ground impatiently with his hoof, a movement which seemed to be facilitated by his rider, who, drawn in a three-quarters view and extending her hand, allowed the reins to fall over the shoulders of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... philosopher of that superior race which will succeed to man would at once see in those relics all his characteristics and all his history; would say, comparing his thumb with the talons of an eagle, the claws of a tiger, the hoof of a horse, the owner of that thumb must have been lord over creatures with talons and claws and hoofs. You may say the monkey tribe has thumbs. True; but compare an ape's thumb with a man's: could the biggest ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a trick they get from carrying panniers. You are supposed to be a pannier, and the careful animal doesn't want to brush you off against the rocks. See this creature of mine; he has that hind hoof slipping over the precipice all the while. But he'll not slip; he's as sure- footed as a chamois, and has no more taste for tumbling off the cliff than you have. These mules are wonderfully intelligent. Observe ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... upright on their four feet during the greater part of the day to browse has given origin to a thick hoof which envelops the extremity of the digits of their feet; and as their toes are not trained to make any movement, and because they have served no other use than as supports, as also the rest of the leg, the most of them are short, are ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... dry-cracking weed slanted up and down to nowhere and nothing with desolate perpetuity. The snowfall was light and dry as sand, and the bare ground jutted through it at every sudden lump or knoll. The column moved through the dead polar silence, scarcely breaking it. Now and then a hoof rang on a stone, here and there a bridle or a sabre clinked lightly; but it was too cold and early for talking, and the only steady sound was the flat, can-like tankle of the square bell that hung on the neck of the long-eared leader of the pack-train. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... because I had a special portable light all to myself, "when I wanted to play cards." Aha! do we see the cloven hoof now? Was I to play cards in the dark? Those who know me best know that I am all fair and above-board, and no hole-and-corner gambling for me. And what tale has he to tell? Why that "Another night, not using his special light at the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... in the swamp," she said suddenly. On came the galloping horses. Bles looked up in surprise, then silently turned into the swamp. The horses flew by, their hoof-beats dying in the distance. A dark green silence lay about them lit by mighty crimson glories beyond. Miss Taylor leaned back and watched it dreamily till a sense of oppression grew on her. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... He struck harder at the Storbuk as he bounded over the rougher snow, and vainly tried to control him. He lost his head in fear. He got out his knife, at last, to strike at the wild Buk's hamstrings, but a blow from the hoof sent it flying from his hand. Their speed on the road was slow to that they now made: no longer striding at the trot, but bounding madly, great five-stride bounds, the wretched Borgrevinck strapped ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... infantry, as they changed their positions during the battle. In the cornfield artillery had been stationed, and moved about as often as the enemy obtained its range. Hardly a hill of corn is left in its pristine luxuriance. The little that escaped the hoof or the wheel, as the guns moved from place to place, was nibbled by hungry horses during the bivouac subsequent to the battle. Not a stalk of wheat is upright; not a blade of corn remains uninjured; all has fallen long before the time of harvest. Another harvest, in which Death was ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... went merry and well with me on my celestial quest, the tip of my wand missed a star, and on the instant I knew I had been guilty of a great crime. And on the instant a knock, vast and compulsive, inexorable and mandatory as the stamp of the iron hoof of doom, smote me and reverberated across the universe. The whole sidereal system coruscated, reeled and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... have heard nothing of it till now, and I think that it may be but idle talk, that I have both lands and goods far away in England, and you bid me begone to them. Well, if you turn me out I must go, for I cannot stay alone in the veldt without a house, or a friend, or a hoof of cattle. But then I tell you that when Suzanne is of age I shall return and marry her, and take her away with me, as I have a right to do if she desires it, for I will not lose everything that I love in the world at one stroke. Indeed nothing but death shall part me from Suzanne. Therefore, ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... the golden Prince, 'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and of all that he giveth me I will lose nothing—no, not a hoof nor a hair. I will not, therefore, grant him, no, not the least corner of Mansoul to dwell in; I will have all ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... won the riffle; we won't lose a hoof. All the men are doing first-rate too. This 'ere's my old campin'-ground, but there's been an Indian ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... because heat, when I was led by force of circumstances to employ it, never went below the surface. It is more than probable that you have heard of me; well, for you I will open a window in my cloud; look at me, observe me well; have I a cloven hoof, or a tail at the end of my spine? On the contrary, am I not a model of the most inoffensive of householders in the Saint-Sulpice quarter? In that quarter, where I have enjoyed, I may say it, universal esteem for the last twenty-five years, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... them to bring in every hoof they could spot and get over that ridge by ten o'clock. He had a nervous dread of the storm breaking before noon, and his heart was set on getting that never-to-be-successfully-faked blizzard scene. Realism ruled him absolutely, now that he was actually producing ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... fact, a splendid animal, instinct with life from his thin flaring nostril to his small hoof; black as a raven, his highly groomed skin took the polish of ebony, and showed the play of his powerful muscles, and, one might say, almost the nervous currents that thrilled his fine texture. His ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas, too. And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... Empress herself to let me hold her in her chair within two yards of the stage, whence she could view the whole performance. Fortunately no accident happened, only once a fiery horse, pawing with his hoof, struck a hole in my handkerchief, and overthrew his rider and himself. But I immediately relieved them both, and covering the hole with one hand, I set down the troop with the other as I had taken them up. The horse that fell was strained in ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... States cavalry has the best trained war horses in the world; many of them actually understand the complicated commands of their masters. These horse soldiers have the insignia, U. S., branded on the hoof of the left forefoot, and the other animals in camp, on ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... And at noon, through the lane from the farm-house, I see him slowly plod; In the strong frame, chewing his cud, he patiently stands, but see! The bands have been placed around him—he struggles to be free: But John and Timothy hammer away, until each hoof is arm'd, Then loosen'd Brindle looks all round, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Not through rage, you know, but curiosity. They think a man and his horse are one, and if they meet a chap afoot, they run him down and trample him under hoof, in the pursuit of knowledge. But," adds George, "here's the lower bench of the foothills, and here's Altascar's corral, and that White building you see yonder is ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... His horse's hoof struck into a patch of leaves, heaped beneath a cottonwood, and from the rustling his ears, warmed by the old liquor, caught the first bars of a tune he had known in his youth; and lifting high his voice ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... as grigs upon it until Sundown (for I took a fancy to you the first minute I set eyes upon you), and even then there are two ways out of the hobble, without twisting your weasand. I have a pair of pistols, and as I love you like a brother, will share anything with you; and we will pad the hoof betwixt this and Deptford, and see whether we can meet any fat Kentish hop-grower on his way to the Borough Market with more money than wit—a capital plan, any way, seeing that if you fail, the Sheriff will hang you for nothing, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... just what the girls did. Their sleds whizzed past the runaways, one sled, on which Hattie Jenson rode, almost grazing a hoof. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... music was over, I was shown through the convent. There were, as usual, the stock marvels: a hole through which you looked and beheld a—shall I call it sacred?—picture of Satan with horns and hoof complete; a small plot of ground, where used to grow the thorns on which St Benedict was wont to roll himself in order to quench the desires of manhood, and where now grow the roses into which St Francis transformed the said thorns, in honour of his brother saint. The monk who showed ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... night's lodging in their cottages. Full of wrath and despair he turns into the forest where he is accosted by a wild looking being who laughs at his impotent rage and offers his help. Hans, perceiving the cloven hoof and the horns, at once recognizes the Devil in this queer fellow, and is at first unwilling to follow his advice; but the Devil is artful and insinuating, and at last Hans is induced to make an agreement with him by which he engages himself as Stoker {391} in the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... original. The geta is a wooden sandal, or clog, of which there are many varieties,—some decidedly elegant. The komageta, or "pony-geta" is so-called because of the sonorous hoof-like echo which it makes on ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... look after me as I rode along, forming an avenue of silent but very stately spectators; and to my fancy, for my fancy was highly excited that night, the rustling of the young leaves upon them whispered the name of Olivia. The hoof-beats of my mare's feet upon the hard roads echoed ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... believe, daddy, that gien ye had kent by mark o' hiv (hoof) an' horn, that the cratur they laid i' yer lap was a Cawmill—ye wad hae risen up, an' lootin it lie whaur ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... have turned any one's head but Joan's. We moved between emotional ranks of grateful country-people all the way. They crowded about Joan to touch her feet, her horse, her armor, and they even knelt in the road and kissed her horse's hoof-prints. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... the Landin' might act. Thar's a lawyer thar named Haines, as sharp as a steel trap, who tended ter all the ol' Jedge's business, an' Joe he don't wanter run foul o' him. Thet's why we tied up ter the shore below town, in the mouth o' thet crick, an' then hed ter hoof it up yere in the dark. Of course we got the law with us, but we wanter pull this job off an' not stir up ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... To buy less and produce more, in order to make our farms self-sustaining. To diversify our crops and crop no more than we can cultivate. To condense the weight of our exports, selling less in the bushel and more on hoof and in fleece; less in lint and more in warp and woof. To systematize our work, and calculate intelligently on probabilities. To discountenance the credit system, the mortgage system, the fashion system, and every other system tending ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... oxen from wearing down their hoofs, anoint the bottom of the hoof with liquid pepper before ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... bells showed that the harness was being got ready; this tinkle soon developed into a continuous jingling, louder or softer according to the movements of the horse, sometimes stopping altogether, then breaking out in a sudden peal accompanied by a pawing of the ground by an iron-shod hoof. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... at the door, And a word that shall echo for evermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... ponderous but sudden shift of bull psychology, indignation rose in his bosom. He stopped himself so short that his fore-hoofs plowed two long furrows in the soft earth; whirled, lifted his muzzle, and bellowed. One fore-hoof tore up the dirt and showered it over his back. He dropped to his knees and rubbed the ground with his neck in sheer abandonment to the joy of his own abandoned wickedness. He rose up in the hollow which he had dug, lowered his horns, and glowered at the youth, who ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... the meantime Abricotina made the best of her good fortune, and betook herself to her heels, not knowing which way she went. But Leander, missing her, called out to his horse Gris-de-line; who, by two kicks with his hoof, rid himself of the two ruffians who had pursued him: one of them had his head broken; and the other, three of his ribs. And now Leander only wanted to overtake Abricotina; for he had thought her so handsome that he wished to see her again. He found her leaning against ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... word—or exclamation, which-ever it may be—viz, 'Whoa!' Then I rush down-stairs and down the street, returning in a few minutes. 'Dang them mules,' I says; 'they done run away and busted the doubletree and two traces. Now I got to hoof it home, for I never brought no money along. Reckon we'll talk about that ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... horses dived into the gale as swimmers dive into a breaker. It beat their eyes shut with wind and driven water, and, as they slid down the harp-pitched city streets, the flood banked up against each planted hoof till it split in folds above ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... trails, crossing the northern range soon after the Civil War, brought a market to the cattle country. Inevitably the men of the lower range would seek to reach the railroads with what they had to sell—their greatest natural product, cattle on the hoof. This was the primary cause of the great northbound drives already mentioned, the greatest pastoral phenomena in ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... come along. When he'd slouched off, I began to hanker for the money, went after the jumper to see if I could raise his price, missed him and came back again, but I struck his tracks in the mud beside a creek, with another man's hoof-marks behind them. Well, next morning that jumper was found in the river with no money in his wallet, and the boys looked black at me until I had an interview with Mr. Shackleby. He'd fixed the whole thing up good enough ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... such as they have to climb to get through here, just to ask 'em how the weather is where they come from, or what time it is, or to send a message to the engineer's beautiful daughter. Guess you'll have to wait for Number Sixteen, Mister, or, if you're in too big a hurry, hoof it. It's only eighteen miles to the next ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... effect to a more technically regular meter. In many poems the meter is indissolubly fused with the pictures, the ideas, the events. Take, for instance, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," where the hurry-skurry of the verse is in complete harmony with the quaint, rapid tale. The hoof-beats of galloping horses is heard all through "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." The slow march, the stately chant, are rhythmically present throughout "A Grammarian's Funeral." In "The Flight of the Duchess" ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... torn from the arm of the just, The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave, The claymore for ever in darkness must rust, But red is the sword of the stranger and slave; The hoof of the horse, and the foot of the proud, Have trod o'er the plumes on the bonnet of blue, Why slept the red bolt in the breast of the cloud, When tyranny revell'd in blood of the true? Fareweel, my young ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of delirium when the pulses hammered hot in rhythm to the old song of Carnival, when one seemed to have reached the very apex of living, to have grasped in one evening the message of this revolving world. There were nights, festive with hoof and harness bell. There were cheery nights of homeward walks from the City office at six o'clock, under those sudden Octobral dusks, when, almost at a wink, London is transformed into one long lake of light. There were nights of elusive fog and bashful lamp ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... them winds that get you here," said he, "they let out when you're least expecting it and we'd be on to the rocks and done for. I'm not saying if we had a boat crew we mightn't try, but we're under-handed. No, we'll have to hoof it if we go." ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... tongue, that William Prynne will sooner lend an ear than he to anything else. His measure of talk is till his wind is spent, and then he is not silenced, but becalmed. His ears have catched the itch of his tongue, and though he scratch them, like a beast with his hoof, he finds a pleasure in it. A silenced minister has more mercy on the Government in a secure conventicle than he has on the company that he is in. He shakes a man by the ear, as a dog does a pig, and never loses ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... are the disappearance of powerful fangs from the mouth of man, the loss of power in the wings of barnyard fowls; and, vice versa, as new uses for a member arise, its structure changes to meet the new needs. An example of this is the transformation from the hoof of a horse through the cloven hoofs of the cow to the eventual development of highly expert fingers in the monkey and man. Emerson assumed the doctrine of evolution to be sufficiently established by ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... suddenly swept away in a spate of oaths and protestations. Suddenly, looking in the officer's unmoved face, they realised the uselessness of words, turned and ran between the gateless posts, out upon, away over, the dusty, hoof-tracked, wheel-scored veld. And their ungainly hurry and awkward gestures of terror somehow reminded the peering Bough Van Busch of an engraving he had seen by chance in a Dopper Bible, in which Lot and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... be got by wasting time, and I worried myself into a state of feverish nervousness by thinking that this man Hinge was probably a true and genuine fellow, and that I had missed my chance with him. It was the clattering of a horse's hoof in the back yard of the inn that awoke me from my reverie, and looking out I saw Brunow in the act of dismounting. He waved his hand to me, and surrendering his horse to a hostler, entered the house. I heard Hinge ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... hill, (it was at least Four roods of sheer ascent), Sir Walter found Three several hoof-marks, which the hunted beast Had left ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... attractively imperfect sympathies. Nordau, working himself into a mighty wrath because mystery is left out of his soul, gathering adjectives about his loins, stalks this little fluttered modern world, puts his huge, fumbling, hippopotamus hoof upon the Blessed Damozel, goes crashing through the press. He is greeted with a shudder of delight. Even Matthew Arnold, a man who had a way of seeing things almost, sometimes, criticises Emerson for lack ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof, so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... foot nor hoof had passed or even sounded in the distance. There was scarcely a whisper of the trees; an ordinary approach could have been heard for hundreds of yards, a stealthy one for tens. Langholm had heard nothing, though his ears were pricked. And ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... a-gittin' it. Dey driv' de waggins in de pines and us unload de jewels and things and den dey would drive de waggins out de wood. When de waggin done got plum away us would take dry pine needles and kivver up all de waggin tracks and hoof prints after us had done raked de dirt smooth over dem. We stayed wid de silver and stuff and drink coffee and eat black crus'; dat de sweetnin' bread dat us had durin' de war. Couldn't git no sugar den. Sometime we used sassafras ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... as he looked after him, and then applied himself to his work with redoubled energy. Above ten minutes had elapsed, the shoe was made, 189fitted to the hoof, and the process of nailing on nearly concluded, but still Oaklands did not return. I was tying my horse's rein up to a hook in the wall, with the intention of seeking him, when I heard the noise of wheels in the lane, followed immediately by the clatter of a horse's ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... his name, I knew I was speaking to a gentleman. I apologised for my rough rejoinder, and the governor, dismounting, then explained to me the mystery of the ring. Just above my horse's hoof, and well concealed under the hair, was a stout silken thread, tied very tight; this being cut, the horse, in a moment, got ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... sure enough, there stood a being who might very easily be mistaken for a new arrival from the bottomless pit. Such, however, it was evident he was not. Though he was black enough, in all conscience, he had neither horns, hoof, nor tail, and he was redolent rather of 'bacco than brimstone; a queer old hat, in the band of which was stuck an unlighted candle, covered a mass of matted red hair; his eyes were glaring and rimmed with red; and there was a gash in his face where his mouth should have been. A loose flannel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... longed to make herself known to him, and would have uttered her wish; but, alas! words were wanting. At length she bethought herself of writing, and inscribed her name— it was a short one—with her hoof on the sand. Inachus recognized it, and discovering that his daughter, whom he had long sought in vain, was hidden under this disguise, mourned over her, and, embracing her white neck, exclaimed, "Alas! my daughter, it would have been a less grief to have lost you altogether!" While he thus ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Wal. straight home while he went on looking, and we went back with three of the men. But you know what that country is, all hills and gullies, and the scrub's so thick you can scarcely get through it in places. We found one or two hoof marks, but that was all. If he's not home to-night we're going out at daybreak with every hand ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... nothing in these our Waters; and though you would reduce it into a Massie Body, you cannot; for it will remain as a pale yellow Earth, and sometimes it will run together in the form of Horn, or of a white Horse Hoof, which you can by no Art reduce ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... that places where some foul sin has been committed are cursed. We see a weak natural correspondence in the devastating effect of war, as expressed in the old saying that no grass would grow where the hoof of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... to kidding about it by this time, when who should ride up but old Safety First Timmins. They spring the food whale on Safety with much flourish. They show him the pictures and quote prices on the hoof—which are low, but look what even a runt of a yearling whale that was calved late in the fall would weigh on the scales!—and no worry about fences or free range or winter feeding or water holes; nothing to do but ride ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... when he was riding slowly around the boulder marked "Palace Hotel, Rates Reasnible," that he came upon the place where a horse had stood, on the side best sheltered from the storm. Deep hoof marks closely overlapping, an overturned stone here and there gave proof enough, and the rain-beaten soil that blurred the hoofprints farthest from the rock told him more. Lone backed away, dismounted, and, stepping ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... steep hills Send to the lake a thousand rills; In summer tide, so soft they weep, The sound but lulls the ear asleep; Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and he gave up the chase, wondering where the horse would go. Stumbling along the slippery trail, he cursed his clumsiness. A chill sweat gathered on his face. His legs trembled and he was forced to rest frequently. Crossing a stream, he stooped and drank. Then he toiled on, eagerly scanning the hoof-prints ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... find any anchorage, and soaring away after Ideas, Beliefs, Revelations and such like,—into perilous altitudes, as I think; beyond the curve of perpetual frost, for one thing. I know not how to utter what impression you give me; take the above as some stamping of the fore-hoof." ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... It is always difficult to judge either distance or location by sound, when the wind is blowing. The horse hoofs sounded about a quarter of a mile away. I know not how far they really were. Very soon I could see the black moving mass coming quietly along the road. The duffle hoof-wraps made a dull plodding noise near at hand. Nearer the unknown rider came, suspecting nothing. I could see him bent forward, peering out ahead. I could even take stock of him, dark though it was. He was a not very tall man, wearing a full Spanish ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... pointed forward and said, "Here we are," and they saw the slender spire of a pagoda dart above the low trees ahead. A few steps again carried them from the forest path they were following to a narrow track deeply printed with the hoof-marks of cattle. ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... said he, feeling of his head (the hoof had scraped, instead of smashing), "slightly disfiggered, ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... me how to say good-morning and good-night to her, which is by lifting my right hoof for her to shake; and also how to say good-bye; I do that with my left foot—but only for practice, because there hasn't been any but make-believe good- byeing yet, and I hope there won't ever be. It would make me cry if ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... my terror, and shrill is my cry of despair. The foemen roll forth from their camp as a billow, and onward they bear! Their horsemen are swift in the forefront, the dust rises up to the sky, A signal, though speechless, of doom, a herald more clear than a cry! Hoof-trampled, the land of my love bears onward the din to mine ears. As a torrent descending a mountain, it thunders and echoes and nears! The doom is unloosened and cometh! O kings and O queens of high Heaven, ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... it seemed that sixty thousand souls were crowded into the city limits. Every house, every estaminet, every barn, every stable was filled to its capacity with folk who had fled in despair before the cloven hoof ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... Philip, "I'm reduced to the painful and spectacular expedient of just grazing the heels of your fiery steed with Dick's racer all the way back to Sherrill's and matching up his hoof-beats on the shell-road with a devil's ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... which she broke by saying, "If you've not got the corkscrew there's one on my pocket-knife." He used it, telling himself that it spared turning on the gas again in the other room, and she stood behind him murmuring, "Yon's not a bad knife. Four blades and a thing that takes stones out of a horse's hoof...." ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Diendl" ("God would have it so, maiden"); and then he added in dialect, "It was a beautiful creature. I missed it in the reckoning last night. After mass I strode far and wide searching it, until an hour since I found the body hanging by a hind hoof from a cleft in the Auvogl Nock. See, it has broken its leg in its struggles. Ah, poor beast! A solitary, cruel death, und hast ma g'nomma mei Ruah" ("and it has taken ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... the air of Glauce and well the strain of Pyrrhus, and the praise of Croton I sing, and Zacynthus is a goodly town, and Lacinium that fronts the dawn! There Aegon the boxer, unaided, devoured eighty cakes to his own share, and there he caught the bull by the hoof, and brought him from the mountain, and gave him to Amaryllis. Thereon the women shrieked aloud, and the neatherd,—he ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... still looked upon them as interlopers, and grudged them every stick and stone, and hoof and claw. If they had never come into the family all would have been his. Whatever they had they had snatched ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... might have been her fate had not those ruffians who had laid hands on her fallen into the sorry error of holding their single adversary too lightly. They heard the thud of the gallant Stefano's fall, and they never doubted that mine was the body that had gone down. They heard the rapid hoof-beats of my approach, yet, they never turned their heads to ascertain whether they might not be mistaken in their firm conviction that it was Messer Stefano ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... directions, Easy Money picked its way down the slope of the ridge and re-entered the forest. Not long afterward it stepped onto what was euphemistically referred to in that day and age as a "highway" but which in reality was little more than a wide, hoof-trampled lane. As Mallory's entire plan of action was based on boldness, he spurned the shadows of the bordering oaks and beeches and encephalopathed the rohorse to keep to the center of the lane. He met no one, ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... analyse the beautiful and heroic side of the occupation of Belgium, rather than to dwell on its most sinister aspects, we should recognize, in this last manoeuvre, the lowest example of human brutality and hypocrisy, the double mark of the German hoof. ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... awful storm-cloud, the heathen came down upon the Christian few, the thunder of hoof-beats waked the echoes of Roncesvalles, and the hard earth reeled with ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... for a single stroke! And when Roland had cut it, he dashed through it and across the chasm, his horse making a clean jump to the French side of the mountains. That no one might ever doubt this, the horse thoughtfully left the mark of one iron-shod hoof clearly imprinted in the rock just where he cleared it, and where it is still shown to the curious and the ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... the way of a celebration at the blacksmith-shop of Webber, had been more than merely spread; it had almost been flooded over town. Long before the hour of ten, scheduled by common consent for church to commence, Webber was sweeping sundry parings of horse-hoof and scraps of iron to either side of his hard earth floor, and sprinkling the dust with water that he flirted from his barrel. He likewise wiped off the anvil with his leathern apron, and making a fire in the forge to take off the chill, ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... messenger. Mounted upon her fleet steed Hofvarpnir (hoof-thrower), she would travel with marvellous rapidity through fire and air, over land and sea, and was therefore considered the personification of the refreshing breeze. Darting thus to and fro, Gna saw all that was happening upon earth, and told her mistress all she ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... silenced the guns of the Citadel. Within Saladin's walls are to be seen Joseph's Well—some 300 feet deep; the costly mosque of Mehemet Ali with its dome and twin minarets; two or three smaller and older mosques; and, on the wall, the hoof print of the escaping ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... was easy to speak of Mr. Van Torp as the central figure in a cause celebre: newspapers love the French language the more as they understand it the less; just as the gentle amateur in literature tries to hide his cloven hoof under the ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... beyond it without meeting any fresh traces. He was about to return, when it occurred to him that, if the tracks of the three riders reappeared anywhere, it would be at the head of the bridge. And there, sure enough, he found the hoof-prints of three horses, which were undoubtedly those he sought, for one of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... flings them to the end of the world, and off they all go with the princess. The Devil wakes and goes after them, but first he must find his shoes—though what need he could have for shoes it is not easy to say; but mayhap the Devil of the Albanians is minus horns, hoof and tail! This gives the fifth hero time to erect his impregnable tower before the fiend returns from the end of the world. When he comes to the tower he finds all his skill is naught, so he has recourse ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... this is nothing towards it. Is it possible you came so near me as Bedford and would not see me? Seriously, I should not have believed it from another; would your horse had lost all his legs instead of a hoof, that he might not have been able to carry you further, and you, something that you valued extremely, and could not hope to find anywhere but at Chicksands. I could wish you a thousand little mischances, I am so angry with you; for my life I could not imagine how I had ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... days in a room thick with smoke. There are also the tarantula and casampulga spiders. Of the first, which is a shocking-looking soft fat creature, covered with dark hair, it is said that the horse which treads on it instantly loses its hoof—but this wants confirmation. Of the scorpions, the small yellowish coloured ones are the most dangerous, and it is pretended that their bite is most to be apprehended at midday. The workmen occasionally ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... century, then (or from 280 to 390)—we need not care much which of Ahenobarbus's cows was brindled, or which had the crumpled horn, or which broke off the coltsfoot bloom with lazy ruthless hoof. As to the fifth,—we need not try to row the quinqueremes of history beyond that Gaulish waterfall. We need not bother with the weight Dolabella claims for the trout he says he caught up there: that trout has been cooked and eaten these twenty-three hundred years. Away beyond, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... pointing to the soil moistened by the stream that ran from the source, "the horses have gone along this little valley by the side of the stream—here are their hoof-marks—and come out again higher up beyond this ridge of the mountain. Yes: I know. The valleys join again there beyond where we were to-day, and I ought to have known it," he cried, stamping ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... novel sight to the Venetians to see trees planted in the open air, while hedges and lawns appeared as if by magic. The entire absence of verdure and vegetation, and the silence which reigns in the streets of Venice, where is never heard the hoof of a horse nor the wheels of a carriage, horses and carriages being things entirely unknown in this truly marine city, must give it usually a sad and abandoned air; but this gloom entirely ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... and presently the hoof-beats of the ruddy charger that bore the Prince resounded on the road that led to the Palace of ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... in gold-dust and Jeff's weight was a handicap. Nevertheless he flew forward like the wind. Presently he fell to listening. A certain hoof-beat in the rear was growing more distinct. A bitter thought flashed through his mind. He looked back. Over the hill appeared the foremost of his pursuers. It was the blacksmith, mounted on the fleetest horse in ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... was thinking of these things as his machine wound up the picturesque road. Just before him was a long, heavy grade, and as he took it with open muffler the chugging of his motor drowned the sound of pounding hoof beats ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... viii., p. 37.).—Ale-hoof means useful in, or to, ale; Ground-ivy having been used in brewing before the introduction of hops. "The women of our northern parts" (says John Gerard), "especially about Wales or Cheshire, do tunne the herbe Ale-hoof into their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... look there!" said Davy Crockett, pointing a long finger. "We'll need food in that Alamo place, an' behold it on the hoof!" ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... huntsman had gathered his pack and gone; The last late hoof had echoed away; The horn was twanging a long way on For the only hound ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various |
