"Skulk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assembled round my bed. Corri had a brandy bottle and glass with him, and insisted I should take a dram. "Ay," said Dr Johnson, "fill him drunk again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and skulk to bed, and let his friends have no sport." Finding him thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get up, he very good naturedly said, "You need be in no such hurry now." I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I found an effectual cure for my head-ach. When ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... are her safeguards. The daughter of a poor laborer would demand all this as a matter of course, and shall the beautiful Zell Allen, who has had scores of admirers, have all this reversed in her case, and be compelled to skulk away from the home in which she should be openly married, to hunt up a man at night who has made the pitiful promise that he will marry her somewhere at some time or other, on condition that no one shall know it till he ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... are the tenets of the modern nullification school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free discussion—that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth? Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us—of that Union proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—of that Union never to be divided by any act whatever—and ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much disheartened, and would ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... suddenly very much alone. Here was one of his kind with whom he would like to pass the time of day—smoke with him and if circumstances permitted, drink with him, and swap the gossip of the range. Instead, he must skulk in the thicket like a coyote until the man passed. A great wave of self-pity swept over him. He, Jack Purdy, was an outcast. Men would not drink with him nor would women dance with him. Even at ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... have made fifty thousand this last year in Timbuctoo bonds, must I convert it all into a house, so large that it will not hold me comfortably,—so splendid that I might as well live in a porcelain vase, for the trouble of taking care of it,—so prodigiously "palatial" that I have to skulk into my private room, put on my slippers, close the door, shut myself up with myself, and wonder why ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... there ought to have been six when I was promoted, so the whole duty fell heavily on me. The rest had been wounded at some time or other before, and then never pushed on much to get back to their regiment; many when recovered preferring to skulk in the hospitals in paltry situations such as doorkeepers or ward-masters, so getting a little extra pay, and then, as I shall again have occasion to show, being too ready to make their appearance when the war was over. Fortunately, however, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... wail of families torn asunder at the auction-block; no one of our fair rivers that has not closed over the negro seeking in death a refuge from a life too wretched to bear; thousands of fugitives skulk along our highways, afraid to tell their names, and trembling at the sight of a human being; free men are kidnapped in our streets, to be plunged into that hell of slavery; and now and then one, as if by miracle, after long years returns to make men aghast ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... where he is, my dears; he must be found,' said the Jew greatly excited. 'Charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring home some news of him! Nancy, my dear, I must have him found. I trust to you, my dear,—to you and the Artful for everything! Stay, stay,' added the Jew, unlocking a drawer with a shaking hand; 'there's money, my dears. I shall shut up this shop to-night. You'll know where ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... with a price set upon his head, and so large a number, including the authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, "It is perfectly well understood that I will not be taken." Much of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... youths of both sexes under seventeen, and the Education Acts not being sufficiently strong to lay hold of their dirty, idle, travelling tribes to educate them—except in rare cases—they are allowed to skulk about in ignorance and evil training, without being taught how to get an honest living. No ray of hope enters their breast, their highest ambition is to live and loll about so long as the food comes, no matter by whom or how it comes so that they get it. In ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... It did not matter what sort of day it was, whether the sun shone with its summer intensity, or whether the snow fell in thick flakes—whatever the condition of the outside world, out all the working women had to go. None could skulk behind; all had to ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... soldier loads his musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned him once. The soldier would not stop. The ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... degrees. We began to entertain hopes of his ultimate recovery. But alas! in an evil moment, through the influence of bad companions, he fell, and for some time we lost sight of him. A long time afterward we caught a glimpse of his bloated, sin-stained face, just as he was turning to skulk away to avoid recognition. Where this poor human wreck is now leading his miserable existence we cannot say, but have no doubt he is haunting the dens of iniquity and sin in the cities, seeking to find a little momentary pleasure in the gratification of his appetites and passions. A ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... respectable boarding house for students, doing average well. At rare intervals, however, he lapsed into his old ways. During such occasions he kept to the river side of the town. Sober, he was good-natured and obliging; drunken, he was sullen, with a disposition to skulk out of sight and be alone. His daughter Dennie had her father's good-nature combined with a will power ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... nothing. The rascals could skulk about by night, tear up rails, and hide them where they might be found by a man with half an eye, or half-destroy a bridge; but there was no shoot in them. They have not faith enough in their cause to risk their lives for it, even behind a tree or from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually clapperclawing with some outcast ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... bad heart. See what a wrong you have purposely done us. If your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this? If you are indeed a god, come out across the line, and let us try issues together. Don't skulk like a coward in your hut and within your taboo, but come out and fight us. We are not afraid, who are only men. Why are you afraid ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... sermon, preached by a metropolitan bishop before an asylum for the blind, the halt, and the legless, on "The Moral Dangers of Foreign Travel." But still they were infinitely mischievous, considered as pretences under which Northern men could skulk from their duties, and as sophistries to lull into a sleepy acquiescence the consciences of those political adventurers who are always seeking occasions for being tempted and reasons for being rogues. They were all the more influential from the circumstance that their show of argument was backed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... separated, and all the rest of you will board with me. Lads, I'll depend upon you to carry that craft. I know what privateersmen are like, when they see cold steel in their faces. They'll come on boldly enough at first, but when once beaten back, they'll turn tail like hounds, and skulk for shelter below." ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. To make a sailor shoulder a handspike, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... navy was the defence to which the nation was wont deservedly to trust; some that they were needless, because no other nation was in a condition to attack us; others that they were disgraceful, because it was un-English and mean to skulk behind stone walls, and because Lycurgus had refused to trust to stone walls for the safety of Sparta; and one member, the chief spokesman of a new and small party, commonly known as the "peace-at-any-price party," boldly denounced the members ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah seemed likely soon again to become a waste and desert place. It was a boast of theirs, that they could take any fort that could be fired; and round these places of refuge they would skulk and lurk with the greatest patience for a week at a time, quite content could they but get a single shot at such of the garrison as dared to show themselves beyond shelter of the walls. Sometimes, suddenly darting from their hiding-place, they would pounce ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... won't do for them to stay there. The Abolitionists will ferret 'em out, and be down there with their devilish habeas corpus. I want you to go on board 'The King Cotton,' take the captain aside, and tell him, from me, to remove them forthwith from Castle Island, keep them under strong guard, and skulk round with them in the best hiding-places he can find, until a ship passes that will take them to New Orleans. Of course, I need not caution you to be silent about this affair, especially concerning the slaves being mortgaged ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... and he condescended to answer with a low chuck, after which I could get nothing more out of him. This demure taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, and to me very engaging. The fellow will neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low branch, and looks at you,—behaving not a little as if you were the specimen and he the student! And in such a case, as far as I can see, the bird equally with the man has a right to ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... oft with my triumph's crown'd. Witness these arms unwillingly I wear, Unwillingly I come to wage this war, Compell'd by injuries too great to bear. Banisht my country, while I make the flood, That laves the Rhine, run purple all with blood. While the Gauls, ripe our Rome to re-invade, I force to skulk behind their Alps afraid: By conquering my banishment's secur'd. Are sixty triumphs not to be endur'd? A German conquest reckon'd such a fault? By whom is glory such a monster thought? Or who the vile supporters of this war? A foreign ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... cooed a dove, "O nightingale, what's the use, You bird of beauty and love, Why behave like a goose? Don't skulk away from our sight, Like a common, contemptible fowl: You bird of joy and delight, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... this unlooked-for deficiency of game, he will find himself beset with "varmints" innumerable. The wolves will entertain him with a concerto at night, and skulk around him by day, just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into badger-holes; from every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... butterfly and humble-bee Come to the pleasant woods with me; Quickly before me runs the quail, The chickens skulk behind the rail, High up the lone wood-pigeon sits, And the woodpecker pecks and flits. Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... manner in which the apostles published their testimony to the world bears every mark of truthfulness. Deception and forgery skulk, and try to spread themselves at first in holes and corners, but he that doeth truth cometh to the light. Had the apostles been conscious of falsehood, would they have dared to assert that Jesus was risen from the dead in the very streets ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... once more they freely eat; Then light their pipes; and now each other greet With warm "Good night!" but, ere they have departed, Their host thanks them, from gratitude warm-hearted. Now all are gone, save two, who skulk behind, Of the younger son; and, if I am not blind, A couple of bright girls I failed to mention, Are not quite unaware of their intention. But this is not my business, so I'll pass To other things, and let ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... — You know I have observed, for some time, that the public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation: every rancorous knave every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half a crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportment depends upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at the girls as ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... great prairies of the temperate zones of both divisions of the continent, and in the colder regions of the Hudson's Bay territory they are among the best known of wild animals. They frequent the mountains, they gallop over the plains, they skulk through the valleys, they dwell everywhere—everywhere the wolf seems equally ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... hill, called Corryarack. Up this mountain wall the road is carried in seventeen sharp zigzags; so steep is it that the country people call it the 'Devil's Staircase.' Any army holding the top of the pass would have an ascending enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of Highlanders, accustomed to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to rush down the most rugged hillsides with the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... and the proudest man I ever knew when the faintest shadow of vassalage was sought to be cast upon him, he valued independence in others, and his wide experience taught him that the friend who would not hesitate to stand up firmly against him when he thought him wrong, would be the last to skulk from his side in the hour of danger, and from the defence of his memory ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... the thicket, and suggested firing a few shots into it. We all had long-range guns, the distance from bank to bank was over two hundred yards, and a fusillade of shots was accordingly poured into the motte. To my surprise we were rewarded by seeing fully twenty Indians skulk out of the upper end of the cover. Every man raised his sights and gave them a parting volley, but a mesquite thicket, in which their horses were secreted, soon sheltered them and they fell back into the hills on the western side ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... (felis lynx), and the wild cat, both skulk through the Pyrenean forests; the former now only rarely seen. Along the naked cliffs leaps the "izzard," which is identical with the chamois of the Alps (antelope rupicapra); and in the same localities, but more rarely seen, the "bouquetin," or "tur" ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... world as well as in the next. I often tell them so. That is why I took orders. What do you suppose Wentworth suspects when he says Alington has suggested a discreditable reason for your being in the di Collo Alto villa that night, and that he is not going to allow you to skulk behind a woman any longer? He will be here directly to extort what he is pleased to call 'the truth.' What are ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... nobody—captain, bosun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers ahead; but just to mind Him and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel, or hang on by the leeward earing for that matter. For, you see, what does it signify whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I didn't skulk? or rather," and here the old man took off his hat and looked up, "so long as the Great Captain has His way, and things is done to His mind? But how ever a man like you, goin' to the college, and readin' ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... he thought, when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other God ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in London, in craven alarms, Have all run away from the summons to arms; They haven't the pluck of a pigeon—I'll go And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk in Soho!" ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... of all were thus set at rest. They had no fear of prairie-wolves; which, though fierce enough when attacking some poor deer or wounded buffalo, are afraid of anything in the shape of man; and will skulk off, whenever they think the latter has any intention to attack them. This, however, is seldom the case, as the prairie hunter does not care to waste a bullet upon them; and they are often permitted to follow, and squat themselves unmolested around the hunter's camp, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... The 'exempts' amounted to a hundred and eighty. As there was a growing suspicion about many of these last, Carleton paraded them for medical examination at the beginning of March, when, a good deal more than half were found quite fit for duty. These men had been malingering all winter in order to skulk out of danger; so he treated them with extreme leniency in only putting them on duty as a 'company of Invalids.' But the slur stuck fast. The only other exceptions to the general efficiency were a very few instances of cowardice and many more of slackness. The ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... I must confess that I was entirely at a loss. I could not move a foot across the deck without being discovered, since it was merely the fact that I was in the lee of the cabins and in the deeper shadows of the dawn that enabled me to skulk where I was. Yet I was reluctant to go back without having carried the search a stage further. It was obvious from the calm which reigned among the mutineers that the Prince and his following were either dead or prisoners. Which had been their fate? The shadow of ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... sluggish wash of water under foot, and a stretch of dreary flats behind. Belated locomotives shrieked to each other across the river, and the wind bore down the current the roar and rage of the dam. Shadows were beginning to skulk under the huge brown bridge. The silent mills stared up and down and over the streams with a blank, unvarying stare. An oriflamme of scarlet burned in the west, flickered dully in the dirty, curdling water, flared ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... was desperate and simple. It was neither more nor less than this: I knew the house and every turn and passage in it, and when the hour should strike I said I should go down and skulk among the guests, and at the crucial moment find or seize a weapon and fling myself upon this bridegroom as he should kneel before ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... he said, and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... get their things and repair immediately to a cabin at a short distance, and there remain quiet, without a light, which they did with all possible haste. The men were terrified at this bold act of their leader; and many with dismay at the thought of resistance, began to skulk behind fences and old buildings, when he opened the door and requested every slave to leave who felt unwilling to fight. None were urged to remain, and those who stood by ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... not,—only something must be done, And that at once," said I, in tones which made The old man turn to get a look at me. I hailed an omnibus, and there we parted.... What if I write Charles Lothian a letter? Nay, I'll not skulk behind a sheet of paper, But face to face say what I have to say. This very evening must I call again. Let a firm will bear ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... filch, peculate, purloin, poach, abstract, rob, defraud, pirate, plunder, crib, pillage, rapine loot, thieve, embezzle, peculate, plagiarize; insinuate, creep furtively, go stealthily, sneak, slink, skulk; ratten. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... "Well, BE a skulk, if you want to!" he declared. "I've set out to see this thing through, and I'm goin' to do it. Only," he muttered, as he entered the downstairs vestibule, "I wish I didn't feel quite so much as if I ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had come when I could no longer skulk behind a printing press. That bulwark had been torn down, and now I must literally open my mouth for the dumb, or be one of those dogs spoken of in Scripture who would not bark. The resolve to speak at that meeting had come in an instant as a command ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... The weakest moonlight—yes, even starlight—would make them stand out in the darkness like tombstones. A few days more and we shall be in the cannibal country. And it is an old trick of those eaters of men to skulk along the shore by night, watching a camp until all are asleep, and then sneak up with spears ready. A rush and a swift stab of the spears into those white nets, and you are dead or dying from the poisoned points. I would no more sleep under a white ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... affections of my countrymen.... Do not, I beseech you, impute my lingering in Europe to any indifference to my own country or my friends.... I am determined not to return home until I have sent some writings before me that shall, if they have merit, make me return to the smiles, rather than skulk back to the ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... feet with the agility of a boy, his nose bleeding and a stone in each hand. The timid flock looked all aghast, while the audacious offender, so far from having shown any disposition to skulk, stood shaking his head and threatening, as if he had a mind to follow up the dastardly attack. The squire let fly one stone, which grazed the villain's head and killed a lamb. With the other he crippled a favorite ewe. The ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... people who contribute most to the victory should profit the least by it; not that I am an advocate for plunder—on the contrary, I would much rather that all our fighting was for pure love; but, as every thing of value falls into the hands of the followers, and scoundrels who skulk from the ranks for the double purpose of plundering and saving their dastardly carcasses, what I regret is, that the man who deserts his post should thereby have an opportunity of enriching himself with impunity, while ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... even furnishing them with the very bone and sinews of war, that they may compass their unholy ends, and effect the ruin which will give to her another fat colonial province. While the more wily French emperor, looking to our possible success, and anxious for a subterfuge beneath which he may skulk in that event, and so escape the retribution which will assuredly fall upon his head, has really outwitted his island rival, in his Mexican expedition, whereby he hoped to 'kill two birds with one stone,' securing, in either event, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 3 Charles wrote to James, without address or news, and to Bulkeley. 'Now my friend must skulk to the perfect dishonour and glory of his worthy relations, until he finds a reception fitting at home or abroad.' On the back of ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... moment longer on statistics, and show that it has increased the value of property in every city that has had a park, by bringing houses all about the parks, and by detaining as inhabitants of the city, to be taxed in the city, those men who skulk in small towns to throw the burden of the expense of their own city on those who stay behind. [Applause.] All we want to do to-night is to say to the city government that we are in earnest about this matter, and that we want the work ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... and affiliated centres. In the conduct of details Spartan self-restraint was everywhere manifest. Members were urged to be brief in their remarks and business-like in their methods. Officials must give a solemn promise not to skulk, or make off, owing to persecution; and members were warned that noisy declamation was not a proof of zeal but might be a cloak for treachery. Above the chairman's seat was suspended a card with the words—"Beware of Orators." One would like to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... boiled their children, nobles hunted on dunghills for food. Their delicate complexions were burned black, and famine turned them into living skeletons. Then, on a long summer day in July came the end. The king tried to skulk out by a covered way between the walls, his few attendants deserted him in his flight, he was caught at last down by the fords of the Jordan, carried prisoner to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah away up in the north beyond Baalbec, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the nuns what it was that brought them there, and, for a fact, there was no mistake in my surmises. So promptly issuing the annual allowances to them, I now come to report to you, worthy senior, that your creditors have gone, and that there's no need for you to skulk away. But I've had some tender pheasant prepared; so please come, and have your evening meal; for if you delay any longer, it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... contents, which I immediately communicated. When he heard that part of it in which he says he had written to his landlord in Deal, he cried, "Body o' me! that was old Ben Block; he was dead before the letter came to hand. Ey, ey, had Ben been alive, Lieutenant Bowling would have had no occasion to skulk so long. Honest Ben was the first man that taught him to hand, reef, and steer. Well, well, we must all die, that's certain—we must all come to port sooner or later, at sea or on shore—we must be fast moored one day: death's ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... and partly know, that all the chimney-sweepers' boys, where Members of Parliament chiefly lodge, are hired by our enemies to skulk in the tops of chimneys, with their heads no higher than will just permit them to look round; and at the usual hours when members are going to the House, if they see a coach stand near the lodging of any loyal member, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... attitude that seemed to weaken the administration in a time of stress, but with Lincoln it was a matter of conscience and he met it fairly without evasion or any sort of coloring. And later when Douglas accused him of being unpatriotic he replied that he had not chosen to skulk, that he had voted for what he thought was the truth, and also reminded his hearers that he had always voted with the rest of the Whigs for the necessary supplies to carry on the war after it had been commenced. He would have liked renomination, but Judge Logan was ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... sweep away the wreck, to rebuild on the foundation of one hope, which all the legions in hell cannot shake. Between you and me the battle has only begun, and nothing but your death or my victory will end it. You have your revenge; I intend to enjoy mine. Though he burrow as a mole, or skulk in some fastness of Alaska, I will track and seize that cowardly miscreant, and when the law receives its guilty victim, you shall be freed from suspicion, freed from prison, and most precious of all boons, you shall ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... with the lanthorn, had marked the fellow skulk behind the haystack, when he himself was going out to snare rabbits. He had seen our advertisement of Watts' person, and knew that we were then at a public house some miles off. He came to us—conducted us to the spot—we heard voices—showed up the glim—and saw our man. Hodge, you ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... objections in his way; calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument: for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... lazy, good-for-nothing boy taken, himself off to now, I wonder, and the weeds I left him to pull in the garden not half done yet; but it's just like him, as soon's my back's turned to skulk off in this way. I'll put a stop to this work one of these days, see if I don't. Its likely he's hiding in some out-of-the-way corner with a book in his hand as usual." These and many other angry words came harshly ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... respect for the Word or its ministers. A bit farther I met a boy carrying a load of turnips. To him, too, I was faithful, and he went on, taking, without knowing it, a precious leaflet with him in his bag. Glorious work! If Wesleyans will but go on claiming even the highways for God, sin will skulk yet."' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fights or pays, exercise his just and equal right in their election. Submit them to approbation or rejection at short intervals. Let the executive be chosen in the same way, and for the same term, by those whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of a council behind which to skulk from responsibility. It has been thought that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not know that this is true, and if doubtful, we should follow principle. In this, as in ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... something to be done on deck, and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. "Where's that skulk, Chips?" shouted Jermin down ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... were now heard. Even those who had shown an inclination to skulk, laboured away with might and main. In a few more hours ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... understand it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, and be ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... trying to reconcile these people to the Sioux, who were the bogie-men of the plains, and who conducted themselves in every affair of peace or war with the arrogance of incontestable power. Not death itself could extinguish the hatred that was felt for them by the weaker tribes, compelled to skulk ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... manicured from the hour of their birth. And yet—is it possible? Lurking among all this modern splendour of vegetation, as though ashamed to show their faces, may be discerned a few lowly olive trees. Well may they skulk! For these are the Todas and Veddahs, the aboriginals of Monte Carlo, who peopled its sunny slopes in long-forgotten days of rustic life—once lords of the soil, now pariahs. What are they doing here? And how comes it that the eyesore has not yet been ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... hearing these words, knew at once that he was a young gentleman belonging to the family in which she served, and she did not skulk out of sight, as she had done in the first instance; but with a gaze sufficient to kill, she fixed her two eyes upon Chia Yuen, when she heard Chia Yuen interpose: "What about over the portico and under the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he might be able to skulk in by the back door and thus avoid their attention, but as this was impossible, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and worked his way slowly toward the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... heard the same consul, when spakin to a gintleman, say that the law was only an abuse of power, to put money into the pockets of yourself and a few like ye. And whin meself and Flin put the irons on a big nigger that the captain was endeavoring to skulk by keeping him in the forecastle of the ship, he interfered between me and me duty, and began talking his balderdash about the law. Sure, with his own way, he'd have every nigger in the city an abolitionist in ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... is Grant's tool, and Grant is here," I answered soberly, "I am ready to make a guess at what is up." The recollection of the Captain's threat at the summer-house instantly recurred to memory. "Here, you lads, skulk down into these bushes, while I try that balcony. That is the library, isn't it, Eric? I thought so; I've been under guard there twice. The window shows no light, but some one is in the room beyond. Give me a leg up, Tom, and stand close so you ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Thrice he swung it so that I might not mistake the sound, and that was the last I saw of him, hugging his five arrows, with the moon gone pale like a meal-cake, and the tame wolves that skulk between the huts for scraps, slinking off as he spoke ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... he came home haggard and blue in the lips to tell Leonora that he must fly. There were days when he returned from the chase, or rather from the skulk, elated, youthful, his pockets full of money and his imagination afire with hopes of substantial wealth. But his course was steadily downward, his methods steadily farther and farther from the line of the law. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... love like a thief, you have crucified my pride. I hate you! Go back to the dregs and lees of life, skulk in your tavern, forget, what I shall never forget, that so base a thing as you ever came ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... nick him, While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him, Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, Me'll fight you, begar, if you'll come from your door!" Our case is the same; if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you rant and you roar, Through the horrible ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... but because his manhood felt a call upon it not to skulk in obscurity from an open enemy, Septimius at once stood forth, and confronted the same handsome young officer with whom those fierce words had passed on account of his rudeness to Rose Garfield. Septimius's fierce Indian blood stirred ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... those that were hammering at the door with the handles of their swords, 'come out at once and skulk there no more, for know ye well thou art so beset ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... not, nor attempt 345 With all the utmost valor that he boasts To force a pass; dogs shall devour him first. To whom brave Hector louring, and in wrath. Polydamas, I like not thy advice Who bidd'st us in our city skulk, again 350 Imprison'd there. Are ye not yet content? Wish ye for durance still in your own towers? Time was, when in all regions under heaven Men praised the wealth of Priam's city stored With gold and brass; but all our houses now ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to be urged in favor of mountain ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... as they were until recently—conditions, however, now much bettered: "These alleys, running from nowhere to nowhere, alongside cellars where the light never enters and where nothing can live but beast-men and beast-women and rats; behind foul rookeries where skulk the murderer and the abandoned tramp; beside hideous plague-spots where the stench is overpowering—Bottle Alley, where the rag-pickers pile their bags of stinking stuff, and the Whyo Roost where evil-visaged beings prowl about, hunting for prey; dozens of alleys winding in and out and intersecting, ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Christians worshipped in the Catacomb, one man, no worse than the rest, though no less foolish, will have pointed to its mouth, and said, 'Obscene rites are practised in that darkness. The devotees of an execrable creed skulk there out of sight.' Not till the time was ripe, did lightning split the face of the rock, and lay bare ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... leave you here alone and skulk about from hiding-place to hiding-place like a criminal?" ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... meeting with a Servant of the House, were directed to Signior Claudio's Chamber, where they were no sooner entered but Aurelian came into the House. A Servant who had skulk'd for him by Hippolito's Order, followed him up into the Chamber, and told him who was with Claudio then making Enquiry for him. He thought that to be no Place for him, since Claudio must needs discover all the Truth to his Father; wherefore he left Directions with the Servant, where ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... Billiard regretfully, freeing the pretty little ball wrapped so snugly in his coat, and watching it skulk away after its two brothers. "We had some ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the desert were now in an awkward predicament; for although they had been safe from the peccary, the cougar could climb a tree like a squirrel. A noise, however, disturbs him from his meal, and swinging the dead animal on his back, he begins to skulk away. But he is interrupted before he can reach cover; and as the new-comers prove to be twenty or thirty peccaries, summoned to the field by the dying screams of their comrade, he has more to do than to ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... deevil. You let me go I keel you," shrieked Pedro. But the words, that would have made the bear cringe and skulk a few hours before, held no terror for him. He was master now, and this man who had clubbed and prodded, sworn at, and outraged him, was a pigmy in his arms. His powerful jaw too was close to the man's neck. One crunch would make ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were amongst us we might kill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant yelling of madly ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of the winter has driven a number of wolves to hover about the Settlement in search of provisions; they are perfectly harmless however, as they are met singly, and skulk away like a dog conscious of having committed a theft. But in packs, they kill the horses, and are formidable to encounter. In the pursuit of buffaloes and the deer on the plains, they are known to form a crescent, and to hurry their prey over precipices, or upon the ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... evening, of which you will hear, that what happened there was to have its hold on Julianna Colfax, who had not then been thought of as coming into the terrible clutches of that which has followed us like a skulk ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and Marion will probably be richer - on your showing, who are never sanguine - ten years ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... Prestonpans, and he had catched a bullet with his ankle over in the north at Culloden. So it was no wonder that he liked to crack about these times, though they had brought him muckle and no little mischief, having obliged him to skulk like another Cain among the Highland hills and heather, for many a long month and day, homeless and hungry. Not dauring to be seen in his own country, where his head would have been chacked off like a sybo, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... shield, which private malice bears, Is ever blazon'd with some public good; Behind that artful fence, skulk low, conceal'd, The bloody purpose, and the poison'd shaft; Ambition there, and envy, nestle close; From whence they take their fatal aim unseen; And honest merit is ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... the Doggerbank hero, That made "Hogan Mogan" to skulk? Poor Keith's gane to hell to be fuel, The auld rotten wreck of a Hulk. And where is our King's Lord Lieutenant, Sae fam'd for his gratefu' return? The birkie is gettin' his Questions To say ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... if it had been ten years back, instead of at present, I should have been ready enough to change our plans. But what is the use of going to sea now? The French and Spanish navies skulk in harbor, and the first time our fellows get them out they will he sure to smash them altogether, and then there is an end to all fighting. No, Peter, it looks tempting, I grant, but we shall see ten times ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... in the Cornish tin-mines. You may pick the Welsh emigrants, Cornish miners, out of the throng passing the windows, any day. They are a trifle more filthy; their muscles are not so brawny; they stoop more. When they are drunk, they neither yell, nor shout, nor stagger, but skulk along like beaten hounds. A pure, unmixed blood, I fancy: shows itself in the slight angular bodies and sharply-cut facial lines. It is nearly thirty years since the Wolfes lived here. Their lives were like those of their class: incessant labor, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... replied the other, sulkily. "No thanks to you for having to skulk like a fox. As I told you in my letter, the police are after me, and if I cannot get out ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... splendid prospects—not likely indeed! Such an idea never entered the mind of one of the sable gentlemen who surrounded me; and as soon as his majesty fell asleep, I was left free to go about wherever I pleased. Just then it pleased me to skulk backward behind the great barracoon, and a little further still into the thick woods beyond. For this point I took a diagonal line that led me back to the river bank again—only at a considerable distance below the "factory"—and, having now got beyond earshot of the negro crew, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... him in Flanders after this, whence he went to Rome to the head quarters of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and warpaint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... companion; "you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... forsaken her old Quarters to, and he no more knew where to find her then he did his Trull. His Children were took care of by his Wife's Relations, or else they must have gone a begging. Whilst he being threatned with a Goal for Mortgaging his Lands twice over, was fain to Skulk about, and to play least in sight: Thus he that but a while ago profusely spent his Money on a Whore, was now reduc'd to that condition that he wanted Bread: Whilst both the Bawd and Whore which he had wasted all upon, forsook him without ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... head, like an exasperated and harassed brute, "ah, show yourself, will you?" He brought the rifle to his shoulder and covered point after point along the range of hills to the west. "Come on, show yourself. Come on a little, all of you. I ain't afraid of you; but don't skulk this way. You ain't going to drive me away from my mine. I'm ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... lad, my heart grieves for thee, but it's like this: the moment I see her, and just as I was a-goin' to mention your name, my heart it up and it says, says it—"Dick, you've fell in love with her yourself," it says; "be honest and sailor-like—don't skulk under false colours—speak up," it says, "take her, you dog, and with ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... have, by their supineness and want of public spirit, contributed towards the bringing of this ruin upon themselves and upon you. They have skulked from their public duty. They have kept aloof from, or opposed all measures for a redress of grievances; and indeed, they still skulk, though ruin and destruction stare them in the face. Why do they not now come forward and explain to you the real cause of the reduction of your wages? Why do they not put themselves at your head in petitioning for redress? This would ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... misfortune, are those who may be boldest to run aloft when well taught; and if these British hearts are won young, and tutored right, and trained loyal, and warmly clothed in true blue jackets, we shall not have so many shipwrecks where cheap foreigners skulk as the ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... forgot us, too; and as we weren't in a listening-post where you're relieved as regular as if at H.Q., I could almost see us staying there till the regiment came back. In the long run, it was the loafers of the 204th, come to skulk about looking for fuses, that mentioned us. So then we got the order to fall back—immediately, they said. That 'immediately' was a good joke, and we got into harness at once. We untied the legs of the Boches, led them off and handed them ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... got your birds safely inside, catch them quietly and quickly, and having pinioned them, take them, if possible, to a cage with some part of it projecting out into the water. You, of course, feed them regularly, and are careful to give them some artificial cover to skulk in, as for some time the pain of the wound and the fright they have had makes them terribly shy. This cage, once constructed, is most useful for such work, and can be built at trifling cost, and the size I would recommend ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... action, and that they cannot get over the feeling. But what part of you is afraid? Your flesh, which is afraid of pain, just as a beast is of the whip. Then your flesh perhaps says, Run away—or at least skulk and hide—take care of yourself. But next, if you were a coward, the law would come into your mind, and you would say, But I dare not run away; for, if I do, I shall be shot as a deserter, or broke, and drummed out of the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... very last of these, he ascended the front stoop and knocked loudly upon the door. There was no reply, and while he was waiting for some one to answer his summons, Hal managed to skulk up behind the other buildings and ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... 200 A lawful fame, and lazy happiness, Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free, And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, He stood at bold defiance with his prince; Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulk'd behind the laws. The wish'd occasion of the plot he takes; Some circumstances finds, but more he makes; By buzzing emissaries fills the ears 210 Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears Of arbitrary counsels ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... cannot find The meed that stills the inexorable mind; 215 So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal name it masks, Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 220 While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, Shall win man's praise and woman's love, Shall be a wisdom that we set above All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 225 A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... shuffling, young villain! Sit there and skulk, while the others do the work, would ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... prison-walls. It is a holiday, and the day is fair and balmy; but the chill and sadness cannot be shaken off, as we look around us. The sunshine seems almost to be a mockery in this place where fellow-men are caged and guarded like wild beasts, and skulk about with shaved heads, clad in the striped uniform of infamy. Merciful God! is this what thy creature man was made for? ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... not very much water where we camped, but still ample for my time. The grass and herbage here were splendid and green. When the men found I would not allow them to skulk about the camp, and apparently desired no intercourse with them, some of them brought up first one, then another, and another, and another, very pretty young girls; the men leading them by the hand and leaving them alone in the camp, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... in Suite L. Go to it—that's the shortest way to put Roebuck and Dominick out of business. Face 'em and they'll skulk." ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... the open, thinking, as she did so, how, if there had been any one to defend the fort, they would have been obliged to skulk from bush to bush, taking advantage of every scrap ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... circumstances," replied his father, looking searchingly into his face. "If my boy was mean enough to skulk out of the house at night, when I supposed him to be abed and asleep, it is just possible that I might not consider him ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... "Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, "if I ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... housemaid in cap and apron thrust a plaintively meowing cat from the portico into the street. Trotter quickened his steps, tingling, abashed, shaken with an inordinate and ridiculous sense of guilt. He felt that he wanted to keep out of the light, that he ought to skulk in the shadows until he was free of the weight on his arm. He hurried on until he became desperate, determined to end the farce at any hazard. So, as he passed a building where a house front was being converted into a low-windowed shop face, he dropped ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... answer was again lost to Tamar, and probably some question, but the reply to this question was clear. "It is his day to go,—the garrison can't live without provision,—if he don't go to-day, we must skulk another twenty-four hours,—we must not venture with him, there will be murder!" then followed several sentences in such broad slang, as Tamar could not comprehend, though she thought she understood the tendency of these words, which were mixed with ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... shower had the sound of rain in springtime. From every side they were startled by noises they could not place. Strange movements and rustlings caused them to peer sharply into the shadows; footsteps, that seemed to approach, and, then, having marked them, skulk away; branches of bushes that suddenly swept together, as though closing behind some one in stealthy retreat. Although they knew that in the deserted garden they were alone, they felt that from the shadows they were being spied ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... so many men refined by literature skulk in obscurity? The boy goes to a good school, becomes imbued with the love of letters, and then, when he is come to man's estate and should be seeking the Forum in order to display his talents, he suddenly changes ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... swarm (it has taken me a full quarter of an hour to recall the right word, but I have it at last)—a pride of lions. Why a number of lions are called a "pride," a number of whales a "school," and a number of foxes a "skulk" are mysteries of philology into which ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... though he had been bred to this and was never in any state from which he could reasonably hope better, yet was he so restless and uneasy at those hardships which he fancied were put upon him, that he chose rather to rob than to labour; and leaving the farmer in whose service he was, used to skulk about Bushey Heath, and watch all ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats—that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a man ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... sneak off and hide himself from the light of day, in a lumber garret, whence there was no drawing him forth but by the sound of the chopping-knife, as if chopping up his victuals, when he would steal forth with humble and downcast look, but would skulk away again if any ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... having ruined her reputation by a base and cowardly plot concocted with a wicked old woman, who would blast the whole family if she could, because M'Loughlin transported her felon son; you, now, like a paltry clown as you are, skulk out of the consequences of your treachery, and refuse to give satisfaction for the diabolical injury you have inflicted on ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... allow me to prefer my calling to yours," said the soldier, curtly. "You can do as you like with your running-gear; I recognize no authority but that of the minister of war. I have my orders; I shall take the field with veterans who don't skulk, and face an enemy you want ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... cowardly wolf stood at bay. The sharp crack of the distant rifle still smote upon the air and the loud howl still went up over the forest around. The first faint streaks that deck the sky at morn, the fresh breath of coming day caught the keen scent of the bloody prowlers, and they began to skulk off. The drover gave the retreating cowards a farewell shot from his pistols, tumbled a lank, grey demon over, and the wolf howl soon died ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... between the pair for the better part of an hour—what time the unwinking sun, vertically overhead, deprived them of so much as the sight of their own shadows, and drove the very crows with wings adust to skulk in the furrows. The shrilling of crickets, the stumbling hoofs of an overtaxed horse, and the creaking of saddle and girth made a din in the deadly stillness of this fervent noon, and, since there was no other sound to be heard, it is ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... they who skulk aside, As to get out of reach, And in their clothing strive to hide ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce |
