"Touchwood" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thicket of vines or a rare windfall. But in this glen, where the hill rains beat, there was no end to obstacles. The open spaces were marshy, where our horses sank to the hocks. The woods were one medley of fallen trees, rotting into touchwood, hidden boulders, and matted briers. Often we could not move till Donaldson and Bertrand with their hatchets had hewn some sort of road. All this meant slow progress, and by midday we had not gone half-way up ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... Old Touchwood here interposed, and by dint of coaxing and threats of joining himself to the gay company at the Spring, the irascible Meg was finally ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... has a mighty antique look about her, but she may still serve our purpose," he said. "But I'm not quite certain," he added, as he struck his fist against a plank, which crumbled away before the blow. A kick sent another plank into fragments. The whole boat was mere touchwood. ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... gully in the cliffs which led inland, and straightway explorers were sent to spy what manner of land it was whereon they had fallen. Within the very mouth of the narrow pass they came upon a small ship hollowed out of a tree gigantic, but it was rotten and dry as touchwood, and wasting into dust. Within the ship lay the bones of a man, stretched out as though he had died in sleep. Outside the ship lay the bones of two others. The faces of these were turned downward to the stones whereon they lay, but the man in the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... species of Agaricus, including the A. olearius of Europe, A. Gardneri of Brazil, and A. lampas of Australia, and besides the members of this genus, Thelaphora caerulea, which is the cause of the phosphorescent light sometimes to be seen on decaying wood—the "touchwood" which many boys have kept in the hope of seeing this light displayed. The milky juice of a South American Euphorbia (E. phosphorea) is stated by Martins to be phosphorescent when gently heated. But phosphorescence ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... north-east side showed a huge cavity which had been stopped with stone and lime. About half a century ago one-third came down, and in 1819 an arm was torn off and sent, I believe, to Kew. When we saw the fragment it looked mostly like tinder, or touchwood, 'eld-gamall,' stone-old, as the Icelanders say. Near it stood a pair of tall cypresses, and at some distance a venerable palm-tree, which 'relates to it,' according to Count Gabriel ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... or more's application of the process (which was by no means a gentle one), an unfortunate wretch, crushed almost to death by the closeness of his hiding-place, poked with a long stick till his ribs must have been like touchwood, and smoked the colour of a backwood Indian, was dragged by the heels into the daylight, ignominiously put into irons, and hurled into the guard-boat. This discovery nearly caused the detention of the vessel on suspicion of our being the accomplices of the runaway; but after ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... that has appeared for some time. Every now and then there is some mistaken or overcharged humour—but much excellent delineation of character, the story very well told, and the whole very interesting. Lady Binks, the old landlady, and Touchwood are all very good. Mrs. Blower particularly so. So are MacTurk and Lady Penelope. I wish he would give his people better names; Sir Bingo Binks is quite ridiculous.... The curtain should have dropped on finding Clara's glove. Some of the serious scenes with Clara and her brother are very ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... that as they had sat all the morning they should run all the afternoon, so they played Touchwood. And Martin was He. But an orchard is so full of wood that he had a hard job of it. And he observed that Jennifer had very little daring, and scarcely ever lifted her finger from the wood as she ran from one tree to another; and that Jane had no daring at all, and ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon |
