"Roost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... herself entirely on the side of the shopkeepers and bank clerks, and regarded all who slept late and had money to spend as her enemy and natural prey. And directly she had crossed the road at Holborn, her thoughts all came naturally and regularly to roost upon her work, and she forgot that she was, properly speaking, an amateur worker, whose services were unpaid, and could hardly be said to wind the world up for its daily task, since the world, so far, had shown ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... darkening the air with their myriads. As I sit a moment writing this by the bank, I see the black, clear-cut reflection of them far below, flying through the watery looking-glass, by ones, twos, or long strings. All last night I heard the noises from their great roost in a ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us discuss him no more. Your wish is ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... upon the reefs and beaches. Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour there flashed into my mind the reason of the name that they were called. For the noise of them seemed almost mirthful, as it out-topped the other noises of the night; or if not mirthful, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... each of the seventy-two motor-lorries keeping its distance like the ships of a fleet. Despatch-riders with blue and white armlets whizzed past on their motor-bicycles, and high overhead was the loud droning hum of the aeroplane going home to roost. The thunder of guns was clearly audible from the north-east. The D.A.A.G. turned to me and said, "It's Hill 60 again. My old regiment's up there. And to-morrow the casualty returns will come in. Good God! will ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Pipeclay Creek again lower down. He turned down the track towards the river, and at the junction left word at Lowe's—one of the old land-grant families. The dogs woke an old handy man (who had been "sent out" in past ages for "knocking a donkey off a hen-roost"-as most of them were) and Ben told him to tell ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... along whistling, past Dr. Gardner's house, past the deanery; they and the cathedral tower, rising above them, looked grey in the moonlight. He picked up a stone and sent it right into one of the elm trees; some of the birds, disturbed from their roost, flew out, croaking, over his head. In the old days of superstition it might have been looked upon as an evil omen, coupled with what was to follow. Ah, Charley! if you could only foresee what is before you! If Mrs. Channing, from her far-off sojourn, could but know what grievous ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... they entered their house. Then they would fly off to another tree at a distance, and make believe they had nothing to do with the one their nest was in. At last, they grew bolder; and, every evening at sunset, I saw the mother bird go into her nest while her mate went to roost. ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... sleepy one; so, if you please, I'll go to roost." And thus there was nothing more said about Lucy's beauty ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... words he biffed off; and I, having given him a minute or two to get out of the way, rose and made for the drawing-room. The tendency of females to roost in drawing-rooms after dinner being well marked, I expected to find Angela there. It was my intention to have a ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... name is wrongly spelt in the "Origin of Species."]) experiments on seeds "in a box in the actual sea.") that my observations on the effects of sea-water have been confirmed. I still suspect that the legs of birds which roost on the ground may be an efficient means; but I was interrupted when going to make trials on this subject, and ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... made me take that oath. I suppose she's head girl and that's why she rules the roost? Is she decent or does she keep you petrified? I don't know whether I'm expected to say 'Bow-wow,' or to listen in respectful humility when she deigns to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... the hour was the desire to put down by a strong hand the depredations of these lawless robber hordes. Not a house in the place but had suffered from them, not a farmer but had complaints to make of hen roost robbed or beasts driven off in the night. Others had darker tales to tell; and Will Ives clenched his fists and vowed that he would be glad indeed to see the day when he and Simon Dowsett might meet face to face in equal combat. But it would be impossible to ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hopes In a superior stench to lose his own: But faithful to the track, the unerring hounds With peals of echoing vengeance close pursue. 160 And now distressed, no sheltering covert near, Into the hen-roost creeps, whose walls with gore Distained attest his guilt. There, villain, there Expect thy fate deserved. And soon from thence The pack inquisitive, with clamour loud, Drag out their trembling prize; and ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... and I was not long in making acquaintance with it. I awoke to find, by the light of the lantern swung from the roost overhead, the dozen men in the loft awake and pulling on their boots. They had lain in their sodden clothes all night: but of their boots, I found, they were as careful as dandies, and to grease them would hoard up a lump ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... train pulled slowly into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summer population was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north to the south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for a certain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come—at the last moment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, 'She will, if humanly ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... venison in juice and flavour; my delicious veal, fattened with nothing but the mother's milk, that fills the dish with gravy; my poultry from the barn-door, that never knew confinement, but when they were at roost; my rabbits panting from the warren; my game fresh from the moors; my trout and salmon struggling from the stream; oysters from their native banks; and herrings, with other sea fish, I can eat in four hours after they are taken — My sallads, roots, and potherbs, my own garden yields in ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... are very shy and cunning; as is well known, they nearly always post a sentinel in some tree top to keep watch while the rest of the flock is feeding in the field below. In the fall and winter, large numbers of them flock, and at night all roost in one piece of woods; some of the "crow roosts" are of vast extent and contain thousands of individuals. Crows nest near the tops of large trees, preferably pines, either in woods or single trees in fields. Their nests are made of sticks and lined with rootlets, and the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... to them to hasten on; while the children, in noisy bands, chased the fowls about and pelted them with stones. In the churchyard a couple of scapegraces, a lad and a girl, were creeping along under the shelter of the wall in order to escape notice. Swarms of sparrows were retiring to roost beneath the eaves of the church; and, on the steps of the parsonage, a blue calico skirt had just appeared, of such spreading dimensions as ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... me that there was much pathos connected with their friendship. Both of them were bachelors and owned homes of more than passing historic interest on the Hudson. Irving called Kemble's residence at Cold Spring "Bachelor's Elysium," while to his own he applied the name of "Wolfert's Roost." In the spring of 1856 in writing to Kemble he said: "I am happy to learn that your lawn is green. I hope it will long continue so, and yourself likewise. I shall come up one of these days and have a roll on it with you"; and Kemble, upon another occasion, in urging ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... whose sensibilities had been wounded by the events of the evening, "I didn't cut no el'phant ner no cow, ner rob no hen roost neither, but I guess he won't starve 'fore mornin'," and with that he proceeded to fill up the stove and ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... timidly, carrying his head a little down as usual, and glancing uncomfortably about in a manner which used to make Drysdale say that he always looked as though he had just been robbing a hen-roost. Mary went forward to meet him, holding out ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... generally known, that this bird rarely roosts at the rookery, except for a few months during the period of incubation, and rearing its young. In the winter season it more commonly takes flights of no ordinary length, to roost on the trees of some remote and sequestered wood. The Elm is its favorite, on which it usually builds; but such is its attachment to locality that since the incident alluded to in the following Poem took place the Rooks have, many of ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... what that is," cried Fred. "Pigeons. I've often seen them fly into the holes of the rocks. They build in these places, and roost ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... To-day perhaps none had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird is forced by hunger to leave the covert of his cedars, since he, on the naked or white landscapes of winter, offers the most far-shining and beautiful mark for Death. I stepped across to the tree in which a pair of these birds roost and shook it, to make sure they were at home, and felt relieved when they fluttered into the next with the quick startled notes they utter ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... of that. Trust a woman to find a place where she can't ruin her hat. My word for it, Cecil, she's found a safe roost. I say, by Jove!" The duke was staring more intently than ever at the windows far above. "I have it! Isn't it rather odd that a house should be lighted so brilliantly at ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... for he never intermitted a muttered running-fire of the most horrible execrations that I ever listened to even in this hard-swearing country. Whether this ebullition of blasphemy comforted him at the moment I cannot say; but, if "curses come home to roost," a black brood was hatched that night, unless one whole page be blotted out from the register ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... scald. Alone of our House, he had the gift of the Dane in the flow of fierce song, and for him things lifeless had being. Stately tree, from which all the birds of heaven sent their carol; where the falcon took roost, whence the mavis flew forth in its glee,—how art thou blasted and seared, bough and core!—smit by the lightning ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pretty much everything he owned except what he had on. Lanier was not much better off. As to the origin of the fire, Bob merely said that he had turned the lights low in the sitting-room, and, obedient to "Shoe's" orders, had gone up to his roost, too wrathful and amazed over what had occurred even to think of sleep—to think, in fact, of anything but the colonel's words. So absorbed was he, as he slowly undressed, he never noted the sounds from below ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... the door to the turret chamber. Let the owls and bats have their quarters if they wanted to. There was plenty of room in that great castle for himself and chums to sleep without ousting, the happy family from their roost. ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... fig tree, which bears the most delicious figs. Every night the red rooster, the five hens, and the turkey go to roost in its branches, and every day its green boughs make a pleasant shade across ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... which began to be tossed about with a high wind. At last, when they were tired of watching his motions, and some of the boldest, now grown familiar with him and no longer chilled with fear, talked of stoning him from his roost, he cried out, pointing with his finger, "Look yonder!" They now beheld, in the direction he bade them look, far away on the foaming bosom of the Great Lake, something resembling a great, white fowl. It was moving very swiftly towards the land of the Narragansetts. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... filled the air; it was the continuous plunge of a cascade somewhere near at hand among the mountains. The air struck chill, but tasted good and vigorous in the nostrils - a fine, dry, old mountain atmosphere. I was dead sleepy, but I returned to roost with a grateful mountain feeling ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the ground when he shot. You could use a knuckle-dabster of fur or cloth to rest your hand on, but it was considered effeminate, and in the excitement you were apt to forget it, anyway. Marbles were always very exciting, and were played with a clamor as incessant as that of a blackbird roost. A great many points were always coming up: whether a boy took-up or edged beyond the very place where his toy lay when he shot; whether he knuckled down, or kept his hand on the ground in shooting; whether, when another boy's toy drove one marble against another and knocked both ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... was supported by a line of wooden stanchions. There were arm racks round the stanchions, containing muskets, cutlasses, and long, double-barrelled pistols. As I expected, there were several bee-skeps hanging from nails, or lying on the floor. I was in the smugglers' roost, perhaps in the presence ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... midnight, the bird of prey went straight to roost. At mid-day following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, in the character, not new to him, of a witness ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... him a wave of her hand. "Good-bye, Mr. M.M.!" she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked at her wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as curiously uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering to roost, and sunlight slanted on the dovecot, on their snowy feathers, and beyond in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. The click of billiard-balls came from the ingle-nook—Jack Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling, too, from an eucalyptus-tree, startling Southerner in this old English garden. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... way back they caught sight of a large number of good-sized birds perched thickly in a tree, apparently intending to roost there for the night. Having drawn their bullets, they loaded with small shot, and firing into the midst of the birds, they brought down a dozen, which proved to be ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... is completed,—we have all taken roost in the old Tower. My father's books have arrived by the wagon, and have settled themselves quietly in their new abode,—filling up the apartment dedicated to their owner, including the bed chamber and two lobbies. The duck also ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with an odd smile; 'I haven't turned gambler, I assure you. You've heard that I've joined the Pigeon Trap? That's what they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks' Roost. There are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title, and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I'm not one ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... moved from Chattanooga on the 6th of May, with the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Generals Thomas McPherson, and Schofield, upon Johnston's army at Dalton; but finding the enemy's position at Buzzard's Roost, covering Dalton, too strong to be assaulted, General McPherson was sent through Snake Gap to turn it, while Generals Thomas and Schofield threatened it in front and on the north. This movement was successful. Johnston, finding his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... there must be perches put up for the fowls to roost on. These should be placed one above another at the corner, and so disposed, that one range of birds does not sit quite under the other, for reasons which need not be explained. At the bottom of the fowl-house, but not under the perches, should be placed the nest boxes, from four to six, ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... talked till the sun went down And the chickens went to roost; And he seized the collar of the poor young man, And ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... matter in his astral and mental bodies similar to that of the thought-form he generated, is thrown into respondent vibrations, and suffers the destructive effects he had intended to cause to another. Thus "curses [and blessings] come home to roost." From this arise also the very serious effects of hating or suspecting a good and highly-advanced man; the thought-forms sent against him cannot injure him, and they rebound against their projectors, shattering them mentally, morally, or physically. Several such instances ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... "Spanish Voyages," "Conquest of Grenada," "Conquest of Spain," "Moorish Chronicles," and "Life of Mohammed." The influence of this historical research, too, you shall find in reading his romances: "Wolfert's Roost," "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," "Bracebridge ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... happy, and now set forth the beauty and harmony of the world, seen from the loftiness of the divine roost: below all was dark, unjust, sorrowful; seen from on high, it all became clear, luminous, ordered: the world was like the works of a clock, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... because the whole fire department of the neighboring village is, to a man, in love with the house-keeper's daughter, and is always on hand in force. The chickens are the envy and pride of the county, and there are so many of them that they have to take turns in going to roost. The pigs are the most intelligent of their kind, and are so happy they never grunt. In fact, everything is lovely and cheap, the only thing that hangs ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... days, and then pass on. As it was unnecessary to use hooks and lines to catch a few fish out of the multitudes which swarmed in the streams, so it was hardly worth while to waste powder and shot on the vast flocks of pigeons which visited New Jersey in those days. When they came to roost in the forests, they could be knocked down with poles and stones; and thousands and thousands of them were thus obtained by the men and boys, and very good ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... to Eastboro village, "I give you my word, Seth, they dummed nigh et me alive. They covered the horse all up, so that he looked for all the world like a sheep, woolly. I don't mind moskeeters in moderation, but when they roost on my eyelids and make 'em so heavy I can't open 'em, then I'm ready to swear. But I couldn't get even that relief, because every time I unbattened my mouth a million or so flew in and choked me. That's what I said—a million. Some moskeeters ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... presents; it is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I have led that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the cost of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye to your mistress! I am forgetting your ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced through underneath. A lesser beast, it ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the preceding evening, when the cock-partridge went to roost, there had been no suggestion of rain, but a bitter air from the northwest searching through the woods. The wise old bird, finding cold comfort on his perch, had bethought him of a trick which many a time before had served ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... ride to Agua Fria a little Indian girl had slipped like a brown shadow across the Plaza. Stopping at the door of the Exchange Hotel, she leaned against the low slab of petrified wood that for many a year served as a loafer's roost before the hotel doorway. Inside the building Jondo caught the clear twitter of a bird's song at daybreak, twice repeated. A pause, and then it came again, fainter this time, as if the bird were fluttering away through ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... in the long run," sighed the unwilling listener. "Mrs. MacD. rules the roost, unless ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... years before, I had spent a week in trying to beat through the Roost of Sumburgh under double-reefed trysails, I was at home in the weather; and guessing we were in for it, sent down the topmasts, stowed the boats on board, handed the foresail, rove the ridge-ropes, and ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... little world could still be distinguished by a few faint lights, winking more or less ineffectually through the leafless boughs, and the undiscerned songsters they bore, in the form of balls of feathers, at roost among them. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... her in the street; has constantly occasion to pass under her window, or to talk to some one opposite to it. He, of course, looks up; Pompilia looks down; the neighbours say, 'What of that?' The Count is uncomfortable, but he is only laughed at for his pains; the fox prowls round the hen-roost undisturbed. He wakes one morning, after a drugged sleep, to find the house ransacked, and Pompilia gone, and everyone able to inform him that she has gone with Caponsacchi, and to Rome. He pursues ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... bring every brooding failure carrion-crow in the Universe to roost on the top rail of your iron bedstead. Think success, look success, live success,—and success walks in at your front door, while everyone helps you along the same way with each thought he gives your apparent success, even if his thought ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... observed, and Mr. Gould has made the same remark to me, that the aboriginal parent must have been a species which roosted and built its nest on rocks; and I may add that it must have been a social bird. For all the domestic races are highly social, and none are known to build or habitually to roost on trees. The awkward manner in which some pigeons, kept by me in a summer-house near an old walnut-tree, occasionally alighted on the barer branches, was evident. (6/2. I have heard through Sir C. Lyell from Miss Buckley, that some half-bred Carriers kept during many years near ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... the back door stood a common pine bedstead, with an enormous bed upon it. How any bedstead held such a bed was remarkable; for Phillis believed there was a virtue in feathers even in the hottest weather, and she would rather have gone to roost on the nearest tree than to have slept on any thing else. The quilt was of a domestic blue and white, her own manufacture, and the cases to the pillows were very white and smooth. A little, common trundle bedstead was underneath, and on it was the bedding ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... bruised and sore now played on my poor countenance as if it had been a tambourine. It wasn't pleasant while it lasted, of course; but then it was all in the regular course of things, and had to be grinned at and borne; and besides it was a splendid training for me, when I came to be left ruler of the roost with young number four at my mercy. Poor number four! he had a hard time of it. He was a meek sort of fellow, and took a lot of bullying. I've a broken-backed lexicon to this day which often used to fly across the room at his devoted head, and which ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... end of a village a Fox one day went to have a peep at a hen-roost. He had the bad luck to fall into a well, where he swam first to this side, and then to that side, but could not get out with all his pains. At last, as chance would have it, a poor Goat came to the same place to seek for some drink. "So ho! friend ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Cherokee,' says Faro Nell, from her lookout's roost by his shoulder; 'give 'em a lecture on the perils ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... she seemed to care about as her reward was pilfering, and a crown put into her hand, gave her less pleasure than a halfpenny which she had stolen. Neither was it any use to dream of ruling her as the sole male, or as the proud master of the hen roost, for which of them, no matter how broad shouldered he was, would have been capable of it? Some had tried to vanquish her, but ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... be used; If we have Numbers, they must be united; If we have Strength, it must be all exerted; If we have Courage it must be inflamed, And every Art and Stratagem be practis'd: We've more to do than fright a Pigeon Roost, Or start a timorous Flock of running Deer; Yes, we've a strong, a warlike stubborn Foe, Unus'd to be repuls'd and quit the Field, Nay, flush'd with Victories and long Success, Their Numbers, Strength, ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... 'old hag', and is applied in that sense. In early boyhood we understood, from old diggers, that Mother Middleton—in common with most other 'old hands'—had been sent out for 'knocking a donkey off a hen-roost.' We had never seen a donkey. She drank like a fish and swore like a trooper when the spirit moved her; she went on periodical sprees, and swore on most occasions. There was a fearsome yarn, which impressed us greatly as boys, to the effect that once, in her best (or worst) days, she had ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... beautiful grove upon the top of a hill overlooking the city of Bombay and the sea, surrounded by a high, ugly wall, are the so-called Towers of Silence, upon which these hideous birds can always be seen, waiting for their feast. They roost upon palm trees in the neighborhood, and, often in their flight, drop pieces of human flesh from their beaks or their talons, which lie rotting in the fields below. An English lady driving past the Towers of Silence was naturally horrified when the finger of a dead man ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Roddy's bed was too short for her, and there was no ease in it, even had her mind and heart been at rest. All the fantasies she had beguiled from the boy's brain had come to roost in her own, with a hundred other vivid and painful impressions. The night, too, was fuller than usual of disquietude. The wind, which had been rising steadily, now tore at the shutters and rushed shrieking through the trees. There was a savage ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... employed in attaining the greatest success with this vegetable. In England, pigeon-dung and the cleanings of the pigsty are extensively employed. In this country the sweepings of the hen-roost are generally recommended. It should be remembered that all these are strong agents, and if brought in contact with the roots of any vegetable while in a crude, undiluted state, burn like fire, especially in our climate. What can be done ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... and fetch'd me a Piece of boil'd Mutton; for these Cacklogallinians, contrary to the Nature of European Cocks, live mostly on Flesh, except the poorer Sort, who feed on Grain. They do not go to Roost, but lye on Feather-beds and Matrass, with warm Coverings; for, at the setting of the Sun, there falls so great a Dew, that I was, in the Night, as sensible of Cold, as ever I was in ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... and saw the sun go down behind a yellow gullied hill. From afar up and down the valley came the lonesome "pig-oo-ee!" of the farmers, calling their hogs for the evening's feed. We heard the flutter of the chickens, flying to roost, and the night hawk heard them, too, for his eager, hungry scream pierced the still air. On a smooth old rock at the verge of the ravine the girl's brother stood, arms folded, looking out over the darkening low land, and from within the house, where Mrs. Jucklin sat alone, there ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... in the year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear, into an old gallery, that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... marked in a Spanish chart; but the frequency of the birds seems to evince, that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered: For the greatest part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out, that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening; for we never saw them early or late; and the hour of their arrival and departure ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... indefatigable interpreter. I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to this Scheme is that colonists already over sea will see with infinite alarm the prospect of the transfer of our waste labour to their country. It is easy to understand how this misconception will arise, but there is not much danger of opposition on this score. The working-men who rule the roost at Melbourne object to the introduction of fresh workmen into their labour market, for the same reason that the new Dockers' Union objects to the appearance of new hands at the dock gates, that is for fear the newcomers will enter into unfriendly competition with them. But no Colony, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... birdmen (war correspondentese for flying officers) tire of trying to be offensive on a patrol, and by now we are varying our rubber-neck searchings with furtive glances at the time, in the hopes that the watch-hands may be in the home-to-roost position. At length the leader heads for the lines, and the lords of the air (more war correspondentese) forget their high estate and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... nuther—thet is weakmindeder then thet she air a—she hev the mine uv a female, an' nachully not able ter hannel proppity. An' I haint sayin' she aint gettin' mighty well took keer uv by Lige, nuther. The last time I war theer she war roolin' the roost. She slep' in the bes' bed, an' et offen the bes' plate, an' had the bes' corn dodger an' shote; but what I air—that is what some air thinkin' about air whence Lige onct gits the hull er thet proppity in bulk, air hit goin' ter be thet away? Mine you, I aint ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... Cabot. "It's enough to give anybody the mulligrubs. Why in the world do you come over here and—and go to roost by yourself? Do you actually ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... empty air for a moment like a rotund fowl about to seek its roost. Suddenly he ran distractedly at an ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... when I had forgotten them, the Admiral sent for me. It was to show me, now without emotion, the two little visitors who had gone to roost in his room, perched upon a slender silken cord above his bed. They nestled closely together, two little balls of feathers, touching and almost merged one in the other, and slept without the slightest fear, sure of our pity. And those little Belgians sleeping ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... danger threatened us. Though we felt quite secure in our "roost" we could not remain there long. It was by no means comfortable, straddling the naked branch of a tree; but the comfort was a small consideration. We were both used to riding such a stock-horse, and as for Brace, he could have gone to sleep with only the flying-jib-boom between his legs, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... to tell a fellow how to live on wine, women and horses," exclaimed Douglas, "and then raise the devil when your chickens come home to roost. We all know Little Marion was born a month before ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... busy. Most of the nests appear to be fit for habitation. Work is suspended at sundown. They do not roost in the tree. Have not detected their resting-place; but it seems to be some ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Roman Roma. Romance (a novel) romano. Romance (music) romanco. Romantic sentimentala. Romp ludegi. Romp bubino, petolulo. Rood (crucifix) krucifikso, kruco. Roof tegmento. Roofing (material) tegmentajxo. Rook frugilego. Room cxambro. Room (space) spaco. Roomy vasta. Roost stangigxi. Rooster koko. Root, to take enradiki. Root-word radikvorto. Root (of trees, etc.) radiko. Root up elradiki. Rope sxnurego. Rosary rozario. Rose rozo. Rosebush rozarbeto. Rose-coloured rozkolora. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was "ungracious" in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she added with asperity, "that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself was not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate the complexity of English affairs. There were difficulties about his household. ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... to be 'fraid of her. She ain't crazy. She's only lettin' the birds that fly over your an' my heads settle down to roost. You and me, both of us, if we was situated jest as she is, might think of doin' jest what she's a-doin', but we won't neither of us do it. We'd let our best dresses hang in the closet, safe and sound, while we cut them up in our ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... should be seen to speak to, capable of the highest Acts of Friendship and Benevolence," one recognises the hand that made the sole good Samaritan in Joseph Andrews "a Lad who hath since been transported for robbing a Hen-roost." The account of the Terrestrial Chrysipus or Guinea, a burlesque on a paper read before the Royal Society on the Fresh Water Polypus, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it is supposed to be written by Petrus Gualterus ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... fowls were a drug. In the midst of all these fears, it began to be whispered about, that if any chickens were concerned in the motion, it was Cary's chickens; and that the attack, though nominally on the hen-roost, was in reality on the wood. It was now the depth of winter; snowy showers were succeeded by biting frosts; the very smoothness of the surface of the wooden pavement was against it; for as no steps were taken to prevent slipperiness, by cleansing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... opened the pan, threw out all the priming, leaving it with the pan open, so that it could not go off; in case they fell in with another of the wires. Rushbrook then proceeded to business, for he well knew that the gun would be set where the pheasants were most accustomed to roost; he put a small charge of powder in his fowling-piece, that, being so near, he might not shatter the birds, and because the noise of the report would be much less; walking under an oak-tree he soon discovered the round black masses which the bodies of the roosting pheasants presented between ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... up to roost on a cloud, but I didn't kick. Now they're tryin' to charge me for meals extry. Don't that twelve dollars ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... result. After some time she heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer entered the house. 'What luck had you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the woodpile,' said the old man, 'with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared, not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, and killed one—and he raised such a fearful smell I concluded it was best to let the other six alone.'" The Senators retired, and nothing more was heard ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... changes of life, God's attempts to lead him to yield himself up, and bow his will? And was not God striving with him now, in the anxieties which gnawed at his heart, and in his dread of the morrow? Was He not trying to teach him how crime always comes home to roost, with a brood of pains running behind it? Was not the weird duel in the brooding stillness a disclosure, which would more and more possess his soul as the night passed on, of a Presence which in silence strove with him, and only desired to overcome that He might bless? The conception of a Divine ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... house was dark and still as they approached it. No welcoming light in the dining-room windows, no open door, no shrill voice demanding to know where the wandering brother had been "all this everlastin' time." Even the hens had gone to roost. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... what Hungary wants, for she will then be head state of the Empire; not number two, as she is at present. Nothing would please her more than to see Austria broken up into a number of little States and Hungary ruling the roost. Well, these are my political remarks! It is a great blessing getting out of rifle fire, even for a minute. The constant strike of the bullets whirling round, or its scream as it ricochets over one's head, is very ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... jauntily. "I'm called from yer side to descend the companion ong route for higher spheres. Sounds like a contradiction that, but ain't so.—See you again when the docks 'as quitted this fond old floating 'earse of ours and took themselves back to their 'ereditary marble 'alls to roost." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... should not be carelessly hung on the hat rack in the royal hall for the flies to roost upon, but it should be thoroughly cleaned and put away as soon as the weather becomes too hot ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... tail and run; but that being one of those things not included in drill, and a British soldier having a good deal of the machine about him, Harry stands fast, and Chunder pulls up short, grinning rolling his eyes, and twisting his hands about, just for all the world like as if he was robbing a hen-roost, and wringing ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... with, he will be almost sure to get into mischief. One will want to boss the other, but they can generally be left to settle their own quarrels. In every pack there is a master hound who rules the roost, but if he degenerates into an intolerable bully, he may, not improbably, be killed and eaten by the others, an occurrence which Mr. Mills tells us took place in Mr. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... the way of a rabbit without setting a wire,' he said. 'But I have managed to get these by knowing where they roost.' ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Early in May, Sherman's Atlanta Campaign commenced, and, simultaneously, General Grant began his movement toward Richmond. In quick succession came the news of the bloody battles of the Wilderness, and those around Spottsylvania, Va.; at Buzzard Roost Gap, Snake Creek Gap, and Dalton, Ga.; Drury's Bluff, Va.; Resaca, Ga.; the battles of the North Anna, Va.; those around Dallas, and New Hope church, Ga; the crossing of Grant's forces to the South side of the James and the assault ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... he sat as if to challenge him to a race, and then went their way. I have seen it stated that these birds, when suddenly surprised by a hawk, will dive beneath the snow to escape him. They doubtless roost upon the ground, as do most ground-builders, and hence must often be covered ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... pretend that he had originally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant's identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens would come home to roost on him. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... world ants have been noticed to go on working during totality, whilst grasshoppers are stilled by the darkness, and earth-worms come to the surface. Birds of all kinds seem always upset in their habits, almost invariably going to roost as the darkness becomes intensified before totality. In 1868 "a small cock which had beforehand been actively employed in grubbing about in the sand went to sleep with his head under his wing and slept ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... humanitarianism of Mr. Tate induce him to give his money to science instead of to art? As well build a hothouse for swallows to winter in as a British Luxembourg; but science is a good old barn-door fowl; build her a hen-roost, and she will lay you eggs, and golden eggs. Give your money to science, for there is an evil side to every other kind of almsgiving. It is well to save life, but the world is already overstocked with life; and in saving ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... home with a fat hen slung across her shoulders. She had been down to Farmer Green's hen- house, right in the middle of the night, when Farmer Green and his family were asleep; and she had snatched one of the sleeping hens off the roost and stolen away with ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Authorities.)—It is now known that the battle was only skirmish. The rebels attacked a hen-roost in search ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... sort of constitution will suit us." But they will not break up: on the contrary, they are much more likely to extend the German community by incorporating German Austria. And as this would raise the question whether Hohenzollern or Hapsburg should rule the roost, the simplest solution would be to get rid of them both, and take the sooner or later inevitable step into the democratic republican form of Government to which Europe is visibly tending, though "this king business," as my American ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... said Fouchette, gaining her feet and lightly shaking her ruffled remains together, as if she were a young pullet that had calmly fluttered down from the roost. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... afore those new stores came it makes me nigh crazy. I'll go out with a card of matches some night and burn 'em down. Damn pirates! Callin' themselves good Cape Cod names—names that don't belong to 'em! Baker's Bazaar! Ugh! Rheinstein's Robbers' Roost would be nigher the truth. . . . Say, Zoeth, we mustn't hint a word to Mary-'Gusta about this. We've got cash enough on hand to pay her clearance charges up ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sward at the cliff-top Lie strewn the white flocks. On the cliff-side the pigeons Roost deep ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... gave directions to his friend. "Duck back into the restaurant, Bob. Get a pocketful of dry rice from the Chink. Trail those birds to their nest and find where they roost. Then stick around like a burr. Scatter rice behind you, and I'll drift along later. First off, I got to stay and talk with Miss Joyce. And, say, take along a ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... its number of waterfowl of the same species is the roost on the east cliffs of Bonaventure island. These have fortunately been rendered by Nature, thus far, inaccessible and the bird men have not yet found a way of getting among them. Yet, even so, there is constantly a great deal of reckless shooting at the birds simply for ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... used to say, Master Rupert, that curses, like chickens, came home to roost, and surely we have proved it's the case with blessings. Who would have thought that that little act of kindness was to save ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... doubt the pigeons roost among S. Mark's statuary and on convenient ledges in the neighbourhood; by day, when not on the pavement of the Piazza, the bulk of the flock are dotted about among the reliefs of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... stair leads into "Organ-grinders' Roost," in the garret. To "Organ-grinders' Roost" the detective ascends. If, reader, you have ever pictured in your mind the cave of despair, peopled by beings human only in shape, you may form a faint idea of the wretchedness ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... still for a little they walk out of the village, without saying a word to each other, and look towards the dark streak of the forest. The whole sky above the forest is studded with moving black spots, the rooks flying home to roost. The snow, lying white here and there on the dark brown plough-land, is lightly flecked with ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... all the flowers in the mead, Then love I roost these flowers white and rede, Such that men callen daisies in ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... room with the old man, and Nikita drove through the gate opened for him by Petrushka, by whose advice he backed the horse under the penthouse. The ground was covered with manure and the tall bow over the horse's head caught against the beam. The hens and the cock had already settled to roost there, and clucked peevishly, clinging to the beam with their claws. The disturbed sheep shied and rushed aside trampling the frozen manure with their hooves. The dog yelped desperately with fright and anger and then burst out barking like a ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy
... orders to note every movement of the Sioux, and having assigned Clayton to the minor duty of watching the south front and the flanks, Ray was moving cheerily among his men, speeding from cover to cover, suggesting here, helping there, alert, even joyous in manner. "We couldn't have a better roost, lads," he said. "We can stand off double their number easy. We can hold out a week if need be, but you bet the major will be reaching out after us before we're two days older. Don't waste your shots. Coax them close in. Don't ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... absolutely right. We have no authority to fire him, Skinner. Just think of a government that will permit such a ridiculous state of affairs as that to exist! Think of it, Skinner! We hire the man Peasley but we can't fire him—and in the meantime he'll roost in Cap'n Noah's cabin and run up bills on us and consume our groceries and draw master's pay until McBride arrives ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... scarcely thought of him, but to tell you the truth when he has been here on business I have involuntarily thought of a mousing cat, or the animal he is named after on the scent of a hen- roost. But of course I can be civil or even polite to him ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... back; There ain't no ifs n'r maybes. The boys'll fetch the'r wives an' kids; The gals, th'r men an' babies. The ol' place will be upside-down; An' me an' Mammy driven To roost out in the locus' trees— When ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Sylvester's day—St. Sylvester! Why, that is his birthday! Ungrateful friend, to give no thought to it! Quick! my coat, my stick, my hat, and let me run to see these two early birds before they seek their roost. ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... captain said, reaching out a hand to grasp the lad's and gazing with fatherly affection and pride into the handsome young face glowing with health and happiness, "she is the earliest young bird in the family nest. However, she seeks her roost earlier ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... Legend of Sleepy Hollow," that waited for Rebecca Gratz in the drawing room of her father's home about ten years later. Since the death of Matilda Hoffman, he had grown to be a very close friend of the Gratz family, never failing when in Philadelphia to visit their home where he might "roost," as he put it, in the large, comfortable guest room. He had never referred to his intimate conversation with Rebecca when she had tried to comfort him after Matilda's death; yet their mutual grief and confidence had created a strong ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... carved out of blue stone; trees with stems dark-veined as marble rose up to give rest to boughs which drooped the altered hues of their foliage like the feathers of peacocks at roost. Jewel within jewel they burned through every shade from blue to onyx. The white blossoms of a cherry-tree had become changed into turquoise, and the tossing spray of a fountain as it drifted and swung was like a column of blue fire. Where a long inlet ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... of temperature, and the soil being fertile exceedingly, the whole land is covered with a dense and rank vegetation. I have yet to find a square smig of it that is open ground, or one that is not the lair of some savage beast, the haunt of some venomous reptile, or the roost of some offensive bird. Crackers and Coons alike are long extinct, and these are ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... significance with which he spoke plainly indicated that, though Cervera may have ruled her own roost, there was but one chief of this gang, and ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... Baron Fagoni feeds well, bekase he's the cock o' the roost; but the poor Naygurs are not overly well fed, and the critters are up to their knees in wather all day, washing di'monds; so they suffer much from rheumatiz and colds. Och, but it's murther entirely; an' I've more than wance felt inclined ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... conical or pyramidal form, from one to four feet high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... entitled to their full blossom? Gustation was meant to be delightful; and cooking is certainly half as good as tasting. At times one may have longed for the old Roman custom of two meals a day, and going to bed at chicken-time, bringing the hour of roast near the hour of roost; but this was probably in families where there were three repasts, with lunch all the way between, and an incessant buying of cookies from the baker, lest the children should go hungry. After this surfeit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... cottage who could furnish any information as to the cause of its being thus deserted. I conjectured from the heaps of fagots which remained in the yard, from the hens and pigeons which returned of themselves to roost in the room, or on the roof, and from the stacks of hay and straw which stood untouched in the orchard, that the family had gone to gather in a late harvest in the high chalets of the mountain, and had ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... meal was dispatched, the chief warder paid me another visit to instruct me how to roost. Under his tuition I received my first lesson in prison bed-making. A strip of thick canvas was stretched across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running through those mysterious rings. A coarse sheet was spread ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... chiefly to keep off the sun. The men and women wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... never to be play'd, And there a summer-house that knows no shade; Here Amphitrite sails thro' myrtle bow'rs, There gladiators fight or die in flow'rs; Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn." ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... lived in Paris "with nothing but a troop of devotees around him, shallow persons without a spark of judgment, who greet him as the founder of a brand-new musical system, and completely turn his head." To a certain degree this judgment came home to roost in Wagner's later years in Bayreuth; but he was saved by the fact that, being a great musician, he also drew genuine musicians to him. If Bayreuth was crowded by strange beings of low intelligence who bowed low before Richard and found ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... the grandfather, moving slowly, came the Hondecoeters—Giles, Gybrecht, and Melchior. They led the party before the house was entered, by fading light, to see the curious poultry of the Burgomaster go to roost; and it was almost night when the supper-room was reached at last. The occasion was an important one to Sebastian, and to others through him. For (was it the music of the duets? he asked himself next morning, with a certain distaste as he remembered ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... hunt up the new girl we had to room with this year and here you aren't a new girl at all but one we've always known. Why I'm so tickled I'm foolish. Hug me Aileen or it will all seem like a dream and I'll wake up and find we've got to roost with someone like that stupid Electra Sanderson, or Petty Gordon, who can't do a thing but talk about that midshipman at Annapolis to whom she says she's engaged, and she's only just seventeen. She makes ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... whip-poor-will* from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... called in, he'll come home to roost like the rest of them," said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. "The people can't govern themselves,—only Bedloe doesn't know it. Some day he'll find ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the path along the plain there stands near the shrine a poplar with its crown of countless leaves, whereon often chattering crows would roost. One of them meantime as she clapped her wings aloft in the brandies uttered ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... cannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits of fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told. They scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls in a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves obscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they cannot show themselves, and they ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thus inflict the most abominable tortures every day. What could be a sadder sight than a tiger in a cage, save it be a forest monkey climbing dispairingly up a barked stump, or an eagle chained to its roost? How can man be benefitted and made better by robbing the seal of its arctic ice, the hippopotamus of its soft wallow, the buffalo of its open range, the lion of its kingship, the birds ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... now to deliver one more brief oration, which will infallibly secure me the plerophory of the jury and exalt my head to the skies as Cock of the Roost. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... a-calling, And those eyes can scarcely peep: It is little children's bedtime When the poppy goes to sleep. In the west the sun is sinking, And the chickens go to roost: And the poppy folds its petals That the beaming sun ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... House," the Duke answered sadly, "though I dare say George would be glad enough to see me. We always had a great deal in common, but all that is of no use. The Fitz does not like me and she is ruling the roost there again." ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Christmasnever mind the venison, boy, and remember Indian John; his yarbs are better than all the foreign intments. Here, Judge, holding up the bird again, do you think a smooth-bore would pick game off their roost, and not ruffle a feather? The old man gave another of his remarkable laughs, which partook so largely of exultation, mirth, and irony, and, shaking his head, he turned, with his rifle at a trail, and moved into the forest with steps that were between a walk and a trot. At each movement ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... west wind rushed triumphantly right through the building, swinging the lantern that hung from the roof, whisking the ostler's cap out into the darkness, blowing the rugs over the horses' heads, and sweeping a white hen off the roost into the watering-trough. And the cock raised a frightful screech, and the ostler swore, and the hens cackled, and in the kitchen they were nearly smothered with smoke, and the horses grew restless, and struck sparks from the stones. Even the ducks, which had huddled themselves ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... scared of you, Abby," relented Mrs. Black. "But I says to myself, 'I'm goin' to let Lydia Orr stand on her two own feet in this town,' I says. She can say what she likes about herself, an' there won't be no lies coming home to roost at my house. I guess you'd feel the very same way if you was ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... it is that she just fits into the scenery here, and I don't. You know, father, I never could wax enthusiastic over shooing the cows to roost and things ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... once came to the conclusion that they were plotting mischief; but he could form no idea of the nature of the plot—whether it was to rob a hen-roost on shore, or capture the wooden fort that frowned upon them from the heights above. He was sorry to see John permitted to enter this conclave of mischief; but because his brother apparently acquiesced in the plan, he hoped that no ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... seven, reading Plato, Sophocles, or Spinoza, with the accompaniment of a hunch of dry bread; then he joined Williams in a sail on the Arno, in a flat-bottomed skiff, book in hand, and from thence he went to the pine-forest, or some out-of-the-way place. When the birds went to roost he returned home, and talked and read until midnight." The great wood of stone pines on the Pisan Maremma was his favourite study. Trelawny tells us how he found him there alone one day, and in what state was the manuscript of that prettiest lyric, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... neighbour—though he was carried off from his allegiance in the late times by a d—d Presbyterian scoundrel, who calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long enough.—There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of Bridgenorth—neighbour Bridgenorth, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... touches the chords of truth, makes the heart respond to the tale. The raven would find sufficient for its carnivorous appetite in the floatage of the animal remains, on the briny flood, and would return to roost on the ark; but it was far different with Noah's bird, so long as the waters prevailed, there could be no pause for her weary wing, and the messenger would return to the ark. So soon, however, as the subsidence of the waters had permitted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... backwards, and, by a cunning contrivance, the act of bending the leg draws them all automatically together. So a hen closes its toes at every step it takes, as if it grasped something, and, of course, when it settles down on its roost, they grasp that tight and hold it fast till morning. But to birds that do not perch this mechanism is only an encumbrance, so many of them, like the plovers, abolish the hind toe entirely, and the prince of all two-legged runners, the ostrich, has got rid of ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... abrupt and guttural, mingling with others more clear and soul-piercing than ever human lips drew from reed or metal. It soon ended; up sprang the vocalists like a fountain of fire and fled away to their roost among the hills, then silence reigned once more. What brilliant hues, what gay, fantastic music! Were they indeed birds, or the glad, winged inhabitants of a mystic region, resembling earth, but sweeter than ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... for the urchin.' What is the one unfailing, all-sufficing trick? The proper and judicious use of spines. All of you would use spines if you could. Most of you do. Think of the bramble-thickets, think of the furze, the last resort of valiant stoat and viper, think of the holly, where the sparrows roost. ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... make up; they had to! There! Ma Sills certinly did rule the roost, and no mistake. She'd been a widder ever since the boys were a year old, so she had to do for herself and them, and she done it. She was a master hand; ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... started on uncle Alex again. Yes sir, dat's de way turkey buzzards does. Dey pukes on folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards looks like down till dey gits over three days old. You can go to a buzzard roost and see for yourself, but you sho better stay out'n de way of de old buzzard's puke. Dey sets around de little ones and keeps ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... "We'll have to roost here, sir, all night. There's no getting out of this cutting, nohow. Thank you, sir; I'll see ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... the question, and each one of them realized it. Their only safe course, indeed, was to remain hidden as they were in that cover till the night came again, when, tramp-like, they would take to the road once more, and, tramp-like, might rob some hen-roost to provide a meal for the morrow. Yet it was hard, and became harder still as the hours went by, to put up without even those scanty meals which had been accorded them ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... loose," said he, "and you know now what I meant when I said Chadron's chickens has come home to roost." ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... incoming tide warned me that no time was to be lost in returning to the horses, which were nearly a mile higher up the river. Although I ran part of the way, the mud creeks filled up so rapidly, there was some risk of my being cut off from the shore and having to take up a roost on the top of the mangroves until the tide fell; I had time, however, to observe that the head of the tide carried with it thousands of fish of great variety, amongst them a very remarkable one from three to six inches in length, in form resembling ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... sportsmen were returning from the Upper Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call. He was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said, 'he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a turkey on the ridge of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... perched on their Sunday roost in the gallery, until I thought of Jenny Lind, and Nilsson, and Sontag, and all the other warblers; but there came not one tear to my eye, nor one master emotion to my heart. But one night I went down to the African Methodist meeting-house in Philadelphia, and at the close of the service a ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage |
