"Urchin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... third glass rises a little winged urchin, who cannot certainly be called an angel child, for there is goblin blood in his veins, and he has the spirit of a goblin—not wishing to hurt or harm you, indeed, but very ready to play off tricks upon you. He'll sit at your ear and whisper ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... yearns through the bright spacious noon, Beyond the farthest isle, whose filmy shape Floats faint on the sea-line. I, scooping grains up with the frail half-shell Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... that snub-nosed, freckled-faced urchin with the ragged pants, as he seems to be displaying a fine amount of ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... first make a statement totally at variance with the truth, and then ask a question," answered the young naturalist, looking up from his occupation, but apparently not well pleased at being interrupted. "That is the Echinus esculentus, or sea-urchin. Just let me finish knocking off this magnificent anemone, and I'll ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... turned around sharply, feeling justly incensed. Of course, he knew what it was—some good-for-nothing urchin finding a vent for his excited feelings. His parlor-maid, who was never in any hurry to open the door,—she had once kept him waiting ten minutes when he had forgotten his latch-key,—would certainly take no notice of this unseemly noise, but he, James Tapster, would himself hurry out and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... three ha'pence for tuppence,' came a lumbering old horse, urged into an unwonted canter. Three kiddies bestrode the ancient, and as they swung along they sang snatches of Kipling's 'Recessional,' to an old hymn-tune that lingers in the memory of us all. As they drew near to me the foremost urchin suddenly reined up. The result was disastrous, for the ancient 'propped,' and the other two were emptied out on the track. From the dust they called their brother many names that are not to be found in school books; but he, laughing, ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... Patrolman Dennis Patrick Murphy, who was standing on post on Washington Street in front of Nasheen Zereik's Embroidery Bazaar talking to Sardi Babu, saw a red-headed, pug-nosed urchin come flying ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... catch, but there was a boy trying to catch them. He was on the opposite bank; had crawled down it, only other boys can tell how, a barefooted urchin of ten or twelve, with an enormous bagful of worms hanging from his jacket button. To put a new worm on the hook without coming to destruction, he first twisted his legs about a young birch, and put his arms round it. He was after a big one, he informed ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... way to do a thing, Simeon Holly found it—and did it. The fact that, this morning, he had allowed, and was still allowing, the sacred routine of the day's work to be thus interrupted, for nothing more important than the expected arrival of a strolling urchin, was something Larson would not have believed had he not seen it. Even now he was conscious once or twice of an involuntary desire to rub his eyes to make sure they were ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... Thackeray could have described the weakness of Pip. Exactly what George Eliot and Thackeray could not have described was the vigour of Trabb's boy. There would have been admirable humour and observation in their accounts of that intolerable urchin. Thackeray would have given us little light touches of Trabb's boy, absolutely true to the quality and colour of the humour, just as in his novels of the eighteenth century, the glimpses of Steele or Bolingbroke or Doctor Johnson are exactly and perfectly true to the colour and quality of their humour. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his nurse. That functionary was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brained girl, lately taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as she was called, from the village school to be trained as nurserymaid. Madam ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... happened that little Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over his wine, heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire; and, as good fortune would have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy just as the poor little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log; when Esmond, rushing forward, tore the dress off the infant, so that his own hands were burned more than the child's, who was frightened rather than hurt by this accident. But certainly 'twas providential that a resolute person should ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... 4a3b4c3b(?), 5: An urchin puts a bumble-bee in his pistol pocket and goes fishing. He sits down, the bee turns the trick, and ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... tiny urchin spoke,— "My daddy's Giles the ditcher; I water fetch, and, oh! I've broke ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... the press grew dangerous. An urchin intercepted Kincaid to show him the Callenders, who, with distressed eyes, pointed him to their carriage ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... rich, mamma," Jansoulet, when he was a mere urchin, used to say to his mother whom he adored, "I'll ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... their departure for California. The great excitement over the gold discoveries was thus felt in Milan, and these wagons, laden with all the worldly possessions of their owners, were watched out of sight on their long journey by this fascinated urchin, whose own discoveries in later years were to tempt many other argonauts into the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of the window again, and stuck out her tongue like an impudent urchin. "A pair of smarties," she scoffed. "Come home and fret our ears with your college ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... tease her. Observe that, when out with the nurse-maid, each little one runs up to her with the new flower it has gathered, to show her how pretty it is, and to get her also to say it is pretty. Listen to the eager volubility with which every urchin describes any novelty he has been to see, if only he can find some one who will attend with any interest. Does not the induction lie on the surface? Is it not clear that we must conform our course to these intellectual instincts—that we must just systematise ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... the tangled wood-walks play, Where no rude urchin paces near, Where sparely peeps the sultry day, And light dews freshen ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... some of the furniture out, I heard tell," continued the Chester urchin, "and he got hurted some way. He's lying there like he was dead. I just couldn't stand it any more, ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... a flesh-wound in the flank, and no vital part was touched. It was enough for me, however, poor Urchin,—enough to make me tumble down in a dead faint; and when I came to myself, I found that I had been removed to the bar-room down-stairs, where I made one of nineteen Blacks, all prisoners to the King for stealing his Deer, and all bound ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... naughty boy," exclaimed Madame de Villefort, snatching the mutilated book from the urchin's grasp, "you are positively past bearing; you really disturb the conversation; go, leave us, and join your sister Valentine in dear ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you pay my feelings a great compliment in thinking them weak enough to be shocked by such an urchin as that!" She turned with an air of satirical defiance to little Jacob, and began to question him directly. "Come!" she said, "I mean to know all about this. You naughty boy, when did you see ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... others pricked me with pins, or the points of compasses. These arguments were not without effect. I sprang from my seat, and endeavoured to escape along a double line of benches, thronged with boys of all ages, from the urchin of six or seven to the nondescript of sixteen or seventeen. It was like running the gauntlet; every one, great or small, pinching, kicking, or otherwise maltreating me, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Lady Eveline was visible, to the delight of all, and especially of the faithful Rose, who, regardless of the risk of personal harm, fluttered around her mistress's place of confinement, like a bird robbed of her nestlings around the cage in which the truant urchin has imprisoned them. Precaution was necessary to remove the stone, lest falling inwards it might ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... school to the mid-day meal, Dexie noticed Mr. Plaisted sauntering toward the house, twirling his light cane and looking as if he thought himself the pink of perfection. But what was it that was fluttering in the breeze behind him? Some urchin—exasperated, no doubt, by Plaisted's immaculate appearance—had fastened to his coat-tails a bunch of dirty rags, and as Dexie watched him from the window, she was convulsed with laughter as she saw him ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... Justice" that I have ever witnessed. A little boy was being taken to the magistrate, or to prison (probably for picking a pocket). The achievement of this feat had been entrusted to two soldiers in full uniform, who were solemnly marching, one in front of the poor little urchin and one behind, with bayonets fixed, of course, to be ready to charge in case he should ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... I have a vision with me Of a home upon a hill; And my heart is sad with longing And my eyes with tear-drops fill. I would be the care-free urchin That I was so long ago When across the sun-lit meadows Rover with me used to go Yonder where the graceful lindens Threw their shadows far and cool, And the waters waited for me ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... bare-footed urchin that he was his uncle Algernon, and that he should come to Norgood Hall, and live with him, and have plenty to eat and drink, and pretty clothes to wear, and a nice pony of his own to ride, and a sweet little fellow of his own age to play with, he lifted the astonished and delighted child ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... length of the Nancy Bell—the thresher could not have exceeded thirteen feet; and as for girth, the former was in proportion like a portly, Daniel-Lambert sort of man put by the side of a starving street urchin of seven. The only advantage the thresher apparently possessed was in its eyes, which, when one could get a glimpse of them, looked like those of a hawk; while the unwieldy cetacean had little tiny optics, not much bigger than those of a common haddock, which were placed in an unwieldy lump of a ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... other disciples seek the cave where their master lies, they find him, to their astonishment, alive. Then Tsaddik remembers that even children urged their offering upon him, and concludes that some urchin or other contrived to make it "stick;" and he anxiously disclaims any share in the "foisting" this crude fragment of existence on the course of so great a life. Hereupon the Rabbi opens his eyes, and turns upon the bystanders a look of such absolute ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... these veteran shapes bizarre, At whom the urchin laughs and gapes. They were the day, of which we are The evening, and ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... so that we might respect its customary or projected use. A great point, that, in Where to Plant What. I once heard of a school whose small boys were accused of wantonly trampling down some newly set shrubs on the playground. "Well," demanded one brave urchin, "what made 'em go and plant a lot of bushes right on first base?" And no one was ready with an answer, for there is something morally wrong about any garden that will rob a ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the early afternoon that Norvin Blake received a note from a coal-black urchin, who, after many attempts, had finally succeeded in penetrating to ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... . . Master Cheever is a very good subject for a sketch, especially if he be portrayed in the very act of executing judgment on an evildoer. The little urchin may be laid across his knee, and his arms and legs, and whole person indeed, should be flying all abroad, in an agony of nervous excitement and corporeal smart. The Master, on the other hand, must be calm, rigid, without anger or pity, the very personification of that immitigable law whereby ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these poor devils of Medici 100 Have given their hearts to—all at eight years old. Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 'Twas not for nothing—the good bellyful, The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, And day-long blessed idleness beside! 105 "Let's see what the urchin's fit for"—that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do! They tried me with their books; Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! Flower o' the clove, 110 All the Latin I construe is "amo," ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... had the kind man cleared the way through the crowd for his young companion, and conducted him within a few yards of the spot where William Tell stood, than the urchin drew his hand away from his new friend, and running to his father, flung his little arms about his knees, sobbing, "Father, dear father, pray forgive me this once, and I will never ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... inland when they foresee a storm; of dolphins, which seek the shallower waters; of the edible sea-urchin, 'that honey of flesh, that dainty of the deep,' who anchors himself to a little pebble to prevent being dashed about by the waves; of birds, who change their dwellings when winter draws nigh; of beasts, who adapt their lair to the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... with the vendors of poultry, of fish, or of vegetables. Every vegetable must be carefully selected by her own hands and laid aside into her special basket, which was in the anxious charge of a small coloured urchin. While she felt the plump breasts of Mr. Dewlap's chickens, she would inquire with flattering condescension after the members of Mr. Dewlap's family. Not only did she remember each one of them by name, but she ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... singular passage," Paul continued—"so much so as to need elucidation. 'I have taken the child with me to get the picture from the jeweller, who has mended the ring, and the little urchin knew it ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... convinced, that for my bantling I desire neither rattle nor bells; neither the lullaby of praise, nor the pap of patronage, nor the hobby-horse of honour. 'Tis a plain-palated, home-bred, and I may add independent urchin, who laughs at sugar plums, and from its little heart disdains gilded gingerbread. If you like it—so; if not—why so; yet, without being mischievous, it would fain be amusing; therefore, if its gambols be pleasant, and your gravities permit, laugh; if ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... and crying quietly. He did not dare say a word. It was well for him he did not. Clare, perplexed and anxious about the baby, was in no mood to accept annoyance from Tommy. But the urchin remaining silent, the elder boy's indignation began immediately ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... quarter-master, whose real name or nickname (I forget which) was Billy Magnus, appeared over the gangway hammocks, holding the missing urchin in his immense paw, where it squealed and twisted itself about, like Gulliver between the finger and thumb of the Brobdingnag farmer. The mother had just strength enough left to snatch her offspring from Billy, when she sank down flat on ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... drowned in the sea," said the clergyman. "It might be suitably placed on many of the memorial slabs in the church yonder," he continued, waving his hand towards the casement that looked on the churchyard. "But your sea-urchin—" ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... collar of his coat, there was an air of delicacy about his person that seemed to render him unsuited to such an office; and more than once was Captain Erskine, who followed immediately behind him at the head of his company, compelled to call sharply to the urchin, threatening him with a week's drill unless he mended his feeble and unequal pace, and kept from under the feet of his men. The remaining gun brought up the rear of the detachment, who marched with fixed bayonets and two balls in each musket; the whole ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... to Albert the old; I dwelt with thee by the river, where wine was sold, And thy mother, I trow, hight Claudena. That a wild-fire bren thee, Celestina! CEL. But thy mother was as old a whore as I. Come hither, thou little fool, let me see thee: Ah, it is even he, by our blessed lady! What, little urchin, hast forgotten me? When thou layest at my bed's-feet, how merry were we! PAR. Ah, thou old matron,[54] it were alms thou were dead! How wouldest thou pluck me up to thy bed's head, And embrace me hard unto thy belly! And for thou smelled'st oldly, I ran from thee. CEL. A shameful ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... gone after pa," lisped a little urchin in the kitchen. "Man wants to see him. What for funny man ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... does not gain much when he exchanges the tyranny of the home for the tyranny of the school. The schoolmaster is naturally a despot, but he is a despot, limited. To make up for any advantages accruing from the master's limitations, the urchin has to put up with the bullying of the big boy. Possibly there are teachers who have human feelings, as far as the small boy is concerned. We read of such persons in books like "Tom Brown's Schooldays," but it must not be forgotten that these books are works of fiction. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... we have alluded. There was a father, a gentleman who had scarcely attained the middle age, with an eye in which spirit, intelligence, philanthropy, and, at that moment, paternal fondness were equally glowing. He tossed in his arms, with paternal pride, a laughing urchin of some three or four years, who rioted in the amusement which brought him, and the author of his being, for a time seemingly on a level. A fair Venetian dame, with golden locks and glowing cheeks, such as Titian loved to paint ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... deploring, and was again swallowed up. At breakfast, the child being pitied, I ventured to speak about it, and was laughing and sympathizing in perfect good faith, when Mathews came in, and I found that the little urchin was he. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... from those around, and the pleasures and pains received along with them, or after them, have been by frequent repetition made stronger, and their adjustments better. The dim sense of pain and the vague glow of delight which the infant felt, have, in the urchin, severally taken shapes that are more definite. The angry voice of a nursemaid no longer arouses only a formless feeling of dread, but also a specific idea of the slap that may follow. The frown on the face of a bigger brother, along with the primitive, indefinable sense ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... and clerks and shop-boys are great customers. Among these people, there ought to be a good crop of monetary sensations. In success, the little man-boy sees a grand vision of cheap cigars, and copper and paste jewellery; for the urchin early initiated in practical London-life, thinks of such things, and worse, when the country lad of the same age would dream of nothing beyond kites, fishing-tackle, or perhaps a gun. Molly, the housemaid, has her prospects of unbounded ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... Spartan mother combined with it," continued Mrs. Duncombe. "When Bob was a little urchin, he once, in anticipation of his future tastes, committed the enormity of riding on a stick on Sunday; so she locked him up till he had learnt six verses of one of Watts's hymns about going to church being like a ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... finished his story, I became aware that he had another listener in the shape of a little urchin, clad in a brightly coloured gown, which reached to the ground, and who wore, perched on his closely-shaven head, a small tarboosh. He had appeared from some corner of the shop, and now sidled up to Halil, his bright black eyes fixed ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... is no fit abode for a student. This boarding system operates badly in many ways. The nature of the blue nose is still leavened with that dislike of coercive measures inherited from their former countrymen, the Yankees. It extends to their children, and each little black-eyed urchin, on his wooden bench and dog-eared dilworth in hand, must be treated by his teacher as a free enlightened citizen. But even without this, where is there in any country a schoolmaster daring enough to use a ratan, or birch rod, to that unruly darling from whose mother he knows his evening ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... her; and when Mrs. Byron, who was a short and corpulent person, and rolled considerably in her gait, would, in a rage, endeavour to catch him, for the purpose of inflicting punishment, the young urchin, proud of being able to out-strip her, notwithstanding his lameness, would run round the room, laughing like a little Puck, and mocking at all her menaces. In a few anecdotes of his early life which he related in his "Memoranda," though the name ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... said he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, "ponies is often skittish. Keason why one should be, an' another not, I can't comprehend. P'r'aps it's nat'ral, p'r'aps not, but howsomediver so 'tis; an' if it's more nor above the likes o' me, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... footpath in April lies the Mole, disembowelled by the peasant's spade; at the foot of the hedge the pitiless urchin has stoned to death the Lizard, who was about to don his green, pearl-embellished costume. The passer-by has thought it a meritorious deed to crush beneath his heel the chance-met Adder; and a gust of wind has thrown a tiny unfeathered bird from its ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... carried me thus far when I became aware of a small, furtive figure, dodging from one patch of shadow to another. Leaning from the window, I made out the form of a somewhat disreputable urchin, who, dropping upon hands and knees, proceeded to crawl towards me over the grass with a show of the most ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... character of the place have been felt even by the natives, who have called it Sogoton (properly, a bay in the sea). In the very hard limestone, which is like marble, I observed traces of bivalves and multitudes of spines of the sea-urchin, but no well-defined remains could be knocked off. The river could still be followed a short distance further upwards; and in its bed there were disjointed fragments of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... present such familiar forms as the crinoid, the starfish, and the sea urchin. The structure of echinoderms is radiate. Their integument is hardened with plates or particles of carbonate ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... pure indulgence, took me up, and put me toward the child, who presently seized me by the middle and got my head in his mouth, where I roared so loud that the urchin was frighted, and let me drop, and I should infallibly have broke my neck, if the mother had not held her apron under me. The nurse, to quiet her babe, made use of a rattle, which was a kind of hollow vessel filled with great stones, and fastened by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... things must come to an end, and so did this party. One by one the little guests said good-bye, and after they had gone the little family of children and elders was left alone. Though it was past eleven, the little urchin Charlie insisted on clambering on to Mr Drift's knee, to hear one last story, and the little girls besieged their uncles, and put their arms round their necks, and besought their intercession with mamma to gain them another ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... utters his complaints in a voice raised considerably above the natural key; and agonising pain vents itself in either shrieks or groans—in very high or very low notes. Beginning at his talking pitch, the cry of the disappointed urchin grows more shrill as it grows louder. The "Oh!" of astonishment or delight, begins several notes below the middle voice, and descends still lower. Anger expresses itself in high tones, or else in "curses not loud but deep." Deep tones, too, are always ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... seemed to exasperate the farmer even more than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business of clacking with great ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... an exceedingly fat woman, a native of Valladolid, in Old Castile. "Have you any other family," I demanded, "besides these daughters?" "Two sons," she replied; "one of them an officer in the army, father of this urchin," pointing to a wicked but clever looking boy of about twelve, who at that moment bounded into the room; "the other is the most celebrated national in Madrid: he is a tailor by trade, and his name is Baltasar. He has much influence with the other nationals, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... legs apart taking the comfortable warmth into his bones. "No further than from this fire to my bed," and he listened with enjoyment to the rain which cracked upon the window like a shower of gravel flung by some mischievous urchin. He was not suffered to listen long, for the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... by counting that he would have enough without disturbing his beloved gold-piece, and the shop-keeper strapped the three articles on his back, drawing the grater around to his side, and the happy Fritz set out for the depot, when a street urchin slipped up behind him and blew a shrill blast upon the trumpet. Fritz turned quickly and at that moment he heard a call, "Pixy! Pixy!" and the dog turned joyously and looked back at a tall policeman who laid his hand upon the shoulder ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... — N. infant, babe, baby, babe in arms; nurseling, suckling, yearling, weanling; papoose, bambino; kid; vagitus. child, bairn [Scot.], little one, brat, chit, pickaninny, urchin; bantling, bratling^; elf. youth, boy, lad, stripling, youngster, youngun, younker^, callant^, whipster^, whippersnapper, whiffet [U.S.], schoolboy, hobbledehoy, hopeful, cadet, minor, master. scion; sap, seedling; tendril, olive branch, nestling, chicken, larva, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... by the way, in which the obstinate and masterful spirit of the ungentle sex often begins to show itself in nurseries of a far more polished description;—from that moment may Jesse's wanderings be said to commence. Disobedience lurked in the habit masculine. The wilful urchin stood, like some dandy apprentice, contemplating his brown sturdy legs, as they stuck out from his new trowsers, already (such was the economy of the tailor employed on the occasion) "a world too short," and the first use he made of those useful supporters was to run away. So ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... of the miller's evidence; it was all he knew: and the next witness called was the boy David Ripper, popularly styled in the neighbourhood young Rip, in contradistinction to his father, a day-labourer. He was an urchin of ten or twelve, with a red, round face; quite ludicrous from its present expression of terrified consternation. The coroner sharply inquired what he was frightened at; and the boy burst into a roar by way of answer. He didn't know nothing, and hadn't seen ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... letters were written by one Osbaldistone, a schoolmaster, and were directed to Williams. Mention was there made of "a little great man;" and in another passage, the same person was denominated "a little urchin." By inferences and constructions, these epithets were applied to Laud; and on no better foundation was Williams tried anew, as having received scandalous letters, and not discovering that private correspondence. For this offence, another fine of eight thousand pounds was levied ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... have learnt to associate with the Duchess of Urbino illustrate that of his middle time. The dignity and rhythmic outline of Eros in the Danae of Naples have been given up in favour of a more naturalistic conception of the insinuating urchin, who is in this Venus and Cupid the successor of those much earlier amorini in the Worship of Venus at Madrid. The landscape in its sweeping breadth is very characteristic of the late time, and would give good ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... and sorrow until the crone seemed like to burst with fury. At last he broke into a fit of shrill laughter, the first sound he had uttered, made a macaronic gesture, and capered off with the airiest gambols and antics, like a very devil's kid. A street-urchin teasing an old woman is no new sight, but the nimbleness, spirit, grace and gentleness of this young Pickle, the impossibility of guessing what he would do or where he would be next, and the fine dramatic rage of the beldame, who looked like one of Michael Angelo's Fates, kept us ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... grow too fast beneath our feet. No one molested us. The king, indeed, would sometimes stand alone for half an hour to see the boys at cricket; and heartily would he laugh when the wicket of some confident urchin went down at the first ball. But we did not heed his majesty. He was a quiet, good-humoured gentleman, in a long blue coat, whose face was as familiar to us as that of our writing-master; and many a time had that gracious gentleman bidden us good morning, when we were hunting for mushrooms ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... or eight inches thick at Wingerworth in Derbyshire over the iron-beds, which is replete with shells of fresh- water muscles, and evidently obtains its dark colour from them, as mentioned in note XVI. Many nodules of flint resemble in colour as well as in form the shell of the echinus or sea-urchin; others resemble some coralloids both in form and colour; and M. Arduini found in the Monte de Pancrasio, red flints branching like corals, from whence they seem to have obtained both their form and their colour. Ferber's Travels ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... she rushed into the chamber, leading in Uctred. He had been discovered on removing some of the huge piles of timber again from the hill, where, under a curiously-supported covering of beams and other rude materials, he lay, seemingly asleep. The urchin looked as malicious and froward as ever, even when ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... him. There were instants when Dutton would have abjectly held out his hand if he had been told to do it. He had been invited to witness the evolutions of the graduating class in history and oratory, and the moisture gathered in his honest blue eyes when a panic-stricken urchin faltered forth— ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... "Getting you a sea urchin." Edna had rolled her sleeves to the shoulder and was plunging her arm into the water. She brought ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... the first time this urchin, your favourite, has shown his impudence by twisting other people's words," ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... consumptive tendencies he sent at his own expense to Margate. The boy recovered, grew up to be a man, and christened his eldest son "Gordon," in memory of one who, he used to say, had "saved both his body and soul." Another story is told of a case in which Gordon handed over a dirty little urchin to one of his lady friends, with the remark, "I want to make you a present of a boy." Under good influences the lad grew up until he became a respectable member of society. Years after, when he was earning ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... said one half-naked urchin, stuck up in a small tree, growing just out of one of the banks over which the horses were to pass; "shure thin, Playful's an illigant swate baste entirely. I'll go bail there's nothin 'll come nigh ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... She did not dare look round lest he should think she encouraged him, but she knew all the same that he was keeping on her heels. Along Fleet Street he kept close to her and on Ludgate Bridge where the traffic was blocked by the crowd gazing into the Fleet river at some urchin's paddling in the muddy stream he spoke to her. She hadn't the least idea what he said, ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... What I want to emphasise is that the examination for these valuable positions is either classical or mathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world would have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the street unless he could "settle Hoti's business" or elucidate [Greek: P] or do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what was—must we say is?—thought of science in certain academic circles. Of course it may ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... important experiments on the subject of the development of eggs without fertilisation in recent years, prior to these discoveries as to the frog's egg. A favourite subject for such inquiries is the sea urchin (Echinus of different kinds). The female sea urchin, or sea egg, like its close allies the star fishes, lays a great number of very transparent minute eggs (each about the 1/200th of an inch in diameter) in sea-water, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... at night Can wake more fright Than lions at midday. An urchin small Torments us all Who tread his ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... his own way about by his acute sense of touch; the youngest—a teething, not consumptive, baby—fast asleep; and even the recalcitrant "Matildy Jane" tolerably pleasant and good-natured beneath the fascinations of a handsome, sturdy urchin four years old, who, undaunted by her hard face and snappish voice, insisted upon following her around, and "helping" her in her manifold occupations. He was a boy who did not know how to be snubbed, and had fairly won his way with his ungracious aunt, by sheer persistence in ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... to reconcile us to our hard lot. Benjamin was now a tall, handsome lad, strongly and gracefully made, and with a spirit too bold and daring for a slave. My brother William, now twelve years old, had the same aversion to the word master that he had when he was an urchin of seven years. I was his confidant. He came to me with all his troubles. I remember one instance in particular. It was on a lovely spring morning, and when I marked the sunlight dancing here and there, its beauty seemed to mock my sadness. For my master, whose ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... ardent longing for anything, the ardour of pursuit, which increases the value of the object so much above its real value. The politician, who has been manoeuvring all his life does not perhaps feel more pleasure in grasping the coronet which he has been in pursuit of, than the urchin does when he first possesses himself of a nest which he has been watching for weeks. This would, indeed, be a dreary world if we had not some excitement, some stimulus to lead us on, which occupies our thoughts, and gives us fresh courage, when disheartened by the knavery, and meanness, and selfishness ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... for a present, vindico me ab illis solo contemptu, I lie still and sleep, vindicate myself by contempt alone. [4025]Expers terroris Achilles armatus: as a tortoise in his shell, [4026]virtute mea me involvo, or an urchin round, nil moror ictus [4027]a lizard in camomile, I decline their fury ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Echinopsis, the Sea-urchin cactus, is another queer dwarf type. The flowers seem much too large for the plants, being sometimes half a foot long. They are lily-shaped and rose pink or white, according ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... artistic value. For some time afterwards he worked in harmony with his fellow-student of a literary turn, whose noble brass-plate inscribed "Mr. Albert Smith, M.R.C.S., Surgeon-Dentist!" once brought upon the artist, says Percival Leigh, the candid chaff, of a vulgar street-urchin. "Good boy!" said Leech, appreciating the attention and rewarding it with a penny. "Now go and insult somebody else." He drew furthermore upon the stone, and distinguished himself in "Bell's Life in London"—the paper to which several of the most eminent comic artists ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... is vastly dependent upon circumstances. Whang-shing is born in the Celestial Empire; and the chances are that the fellow will go the length of pinning his faith to Confucius. Yonder squalid urchin, turning out of Saffron Hill or some other sweet-scented purlieus, has been cradled on the ragged lap of professional mendicancy; and there is a strong probability that he will come to a misunderstanding with the police one of these fine days. The mild-eyed priest who just passed you, was born ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... anticipations. It was a sort of un-Christmas tree with fishing-pole branches, from which dangled articulated figures, bodied like men, but with heads of foxes, tortoises, and other less likelybeasts, —bewitching objects in impossible evolution to a bald-pated urchin who stood gazing at it with all his soul. The peddler sat with his eyes riveted on the boy, visions of a possible catch chasing themselves through his brain. I watched him, while the crowd behind stared at me. We made ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... Colin said, "that you fed the angel-fish with sea-urchin. I don't see how they can eat it with their tiny mouths, I should think the spines would get ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the subject, and said to his master, "I marvel, senor, at the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess's handmaid; he whom they call Love must have cruelly pierced and wounded her; they say he is a little blind urchin who, though blear-eyed, or more properly speaking sightless, if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... John hated them for their wealth and for their name, and for the sake of the house they desecrated with their presence. He remembered a Proudfoot he had seen at school, not known: a little, whey-faced urchin, the despicable member of some lower class. Could it be this abortion that had climbed to be an advocate, and now lived in the birthplace of Flora and the home of John's tenderest memories? The chill that had first seized upon him when he heard ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of nature to the most sordid youth, the gift of expectancy. There were fairies and ogres and pirates and Indians in costumes that needed only the proper imagination to make them convincing. If by any chance a wistful urchin arrived in his rags alone, Mr. Demry promptly evolved a cocked hat from a newspaper, and a sword from a box top, and transformed ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... the swimming. A little urchin would hang to his pony's long tail, while the latter, with only his head above water, glided sportively along. Finally the animals were driven into a fine field of grass and we turned our attention to ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... would address a question to one of the family, or suppress by a glance the giggling of the lads at the lower end of the table. Joseph's presence there rather encouraged hilarity, for he was a merry urchin, and stood not in the same awe of his father as did his comrades. Kindness was the law of the house, but it was the kindness of thorough discipline. Neither the master nor the mistress believed in the liberty that brings ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... parallel to the one-thousand-foot wall of Horn Bluff meeting several boulders stranded on the ice, as well as the fragile shell of a tiny sea-urchin. The promontory was domed with snow and ice, more than one thousand two hundred feet above sea-level. From it streamed a blue glacier overflowing through a rift in the face. Five miles on our way, the sledge passed from frictionless ice to rippled snow and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... writ, Vanessa much esteemed his wit, And called for his poetic works! Meantime the boy in secret lurks. And while the book was in her hand, The urchin from his private stand Took aim, and shot with all his strength A dart of such prodigious length, It pierced the feeble volume through, And deep transfixed her bosom too. Some lines, more moving than the rest, Struck to the point that pierced her breast; And, borne directly to the heart, With pains ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... boatswain's call, the cheering cry! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides, Or school-boy midshipman, that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe, as good or ill betides, And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides." ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to see if there were any sharks in the neighbourhood; but all around was deep, clear, green water. He kept hold of the cable, however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's way, until a little, wicked urchin, who used to wait on the warrant-officers' mess, a small meddling snipe of a creature, who got flogged in well behaved weeks only once, began to taunt my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me, And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch, Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' the mire, 5 Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark Out of my way, unless he bid 'em: but For every trifle are they set upon me; Sometime like apes, that mow and chatter at me, And after bite me; then like hedgehogs, which 10 Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... shoulders; small black boys learned on their back little brothers equally inky, and, gravely depositing them, shook hands. Never had I seen human beings so clad, or rather so unclad, in such amazing squalid-ness and destitution of garments. I recall one small urchin without a rag of clothing save the basque waist of a lady's dress, bristling with whalebones, and worn wrong side before, beneath which his smooth ebony legs emerged like those of an ostrich from ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... half sardonic, half kindly jest which a certain sort of pedagogue sometimes throws off, for the consolation of a recently-caned boy; and that Sterne's vanity, either then or afterwards (for it remained juvenile all his life), translated it into a serious prophecy. In itself, however, the urchin's freak was only too unhappily characteristic of the man. The trick of befouling what was clean (and because it was clean) clung to him most tenaciously all his days; and many a fair white surface—of ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... clapboards and crazy casements. A feeble, struggling light from within showed the inmates were stirring as the man in the overcoat gave a loud, careless thump on the trembling door, which was opened by a pale, gaunt-looking urchin, clad in garments bearing patches of ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... except such as the two butchers now and then crammed into their mouths, or distributed to the numerous and eager by-standers for still more immediate consumption. Of these morsels the children came in for no small share, every little urchin that could find its way to the slaughterhouse running eagerly in, and, between the legs of the men and women, presenting its mouth for a large lump of raw flesh, just as an English child of the same age might do for a piece of sugar-candy. Every now ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... through lovely scenery, on one of the loveliest mornings I ever saw. We stopped at the hut of an old Highland woman, who was "terribly glad" to see us, and gave us some milk; and we came up with a sturdy little barefooted urchin of eight years old, carrying a basket. "What's your name?" we asked. "Mr. Crazier," was the ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... rendered me only more suited to the service in which I was enlisted. Honest Roger, the red-haired coachman, would have looked like a clown in a pantomime, in front of a fashionable equipage; and Simon the footboy, who slouched at my back, would have been mistaken for an idle urchin surreptitiously enjoying a ride. But on my unsophisticated dickey and footboard no one could doubt but that Roger and Simon were in their proper places. The rector died; of course he had nothing more to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... lad, of very small stature, who had a kind of charge of the poultry under the old henwife; for in a Scottish family of that day there was a wonderful substitution of labour. This urchin being sent for from the stubble-field, was hastily muffled in the buff coat, and girded rather to than with the sword of a full-grown man, his little legs plunged into jack-boots, and a steel cap put upon his head, which seemed, from its size, as if ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "Soft and sweet urchin, still red with the lash Of rein and of scabbard of wild Kuzzilbash, What lack you for changing your sob— If not unto laughter beseeming a child— To utterance milder, though they have defiled The graves which they shrank ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... men-at-arms exchanged glances at first pitying, and then sterner, as the longest-booted man said, "Beware, my noble lord; the urchin doth but feign madness to escape from our clutches. Shall ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... just what I am, if it ain't fine talk," yawning loudly, and before she could correct him again, the urchin made a grimace of defiance, and fled up the stairs to his bed in ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... with splendid eyes, under dark bushy brows, fine ascetic features, grizzled hair, and a habit of carrying a scythe over his shoulder which gave him the look of 'Old Father Time,' out for the mowing of men. The other was the little son of a neighbouring parson, an urchin of eight, who had succumbed to an innocent passion for the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "some foreigners bestowed upon him the title of the Magician of Italian painting, for in him were renewed those celebrated illusions of antiquity. He painted a basket of grapes so naturally that a ragged urchin stretched out his hand to steal some of the fruit. Often, in comparing the figures of Guido with those of Guercino, one would say that the former had been fed with roses, and the latter with flesh, as observed by one of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... which this bulky volume of obscene doggerel was published, Wycherley formed an acquaintance of a very singular kind. A little, pale, crooked, sickly, bright-eyed urchin, just turned of sixteen, had written some copies of verses in which discerning judges could detect the promise of future eminence. There was, indeed, as yet nothing very striking or original in the conceptions of the young poet. But he was already skilled in the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... desire to slay the urchin, and hurried away to reach the prison of Bicetre before the band from the Abbaye arrived there. Unfortunately he came down by a side street upon them when they were within a few hundred yards of the prison. His great hope was that he might succeed in penetrating with ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... offers of help were but thin veils to a coarse curiosity and a desire for petty pilfering. Mildred shuddered at the people about her, and was cold and brief in her words. As it was, Fred nearly brought on general hostilities by resisting a shock-headed little urchin who had not the remotest regard for the principles of MEUM and TUUM. As the sun declined the general verdict of the neighbors was, "They thinks themselves too foine for the loikes o' ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... at a stable-boy until the terrified urchin hung his head in awe, respect, and admiration. The great militaire was not superior to humanity, and even this triumph elated him. He set forth, therefore, on Fodder, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... never relaxing the slapping stride of our loose gallop, we go straight ahead, never turning aside, except for a laugh at those who flounder in the swamps we sneer at. But we confess honestly, we fear the little, brother, the small urchin who, with nankeen trousers and three rows of buttons, performs the part of Cupid. He strikes real terror into our heart; he it is who, with a cunning wink or sly smile, seems to confirm the soft nonsense we are weaving; by some slight gesture he seems to check off the long reckoning ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Selim always keeping ahead with the guides, with whom he was apparently engaged in an interesting conversation. I was already beginning to feel somewhat tired, when a voice from the palanquin desired me to take out one of the children, as the little urchin had a fancy to be carried instead of being cooped up within it. Unwilling to disoblige the lady, I obeyed; so, placing the child on my shoulder, we again moved on—though, as I dragged my weary limbs along, I felt very much ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... given no leisure for deciding the question, for an active urchin had whispered a word of caution which led the feminine general to direct a piercing glance toward him, and hasten to conclude her arrangements. The line broke up into little groups, though most of the men went singly, and all tramped over the little ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Mr. B. who died recently on an improved plan. In correcting the position of the adjective clauses in the two examples above, observe the caution for the phrase modifiers, Lesson 41. He was an independent small farmer. The mind knows feels and thinks. The urchin was ragged barefooted dirty homeless and friendless. I am some tired. This here road is rough. That there man is homely. pshaw i am so Disgusted. Whoa can't you stand still. James the gardener gave me a white lily. Irving the genial writer lived ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances been bodily removed—by the Morlocks as I judged. The place was very silent. The thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case, presently came, as I stared about me, and very quietly took my hand ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, "It don't matter, sir, for I've got ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... naked who could pay. I have a friendly feeling yet For him, for I can ne'er forget The jacket blue which first I wore In the old cherished days of yore, That jacket which I don'd with pride. Caused me to feel a man beside The urchin in the pinafore Which I had just arisen o'er; In Daniel Fisher's shop 'twas made— Headquarters of the fig-leaf trade.— In that most ancient grand device Which had its rise in Paradise. I see as on I hurry past, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy package of grocery. It caused him to tremble and stop. Charles inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place of destination. Finding ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... they all had been told to keep away from the ditch at the bottom of the field; but, notwithstanding this injunction, one little urchin, of the name of Jarvis, seeing a flower in the hedge on the opposite bank, which he wished to gather, crept nearer and nearer ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... leapt within him as he heard the words. It was so unexpected; it seemed almost too good to be true! Then suddenly the thought of his ragged clothing swept across his mind, and the tears started to his eyes. Surely, they would never admit such an urchin as he to the famous choir-school! Reutter, however, did not seem to heed his untidy state, and Haydn took heart of hope that after all this might be remedied. In the letter which he wrote to his parents, asking for their consent, he included an appeal for money ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... the nightcap?' sang out a shrill voice from below, as a boy with a basket on his arm went down the street. He drew back from the window, realising that he was a sight for all admirers. Tossing the end of his cigarette in the direction of the cheeky urchin, he settled himself again in the arm-chair before ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... household. The Stonewall Brigade would hardly have been surprised had they seen their general surrounded by ponderous volumes, gravely investigating the teaching of departed commentators, or joining with quiet fervour in the family devotions. But had they seen him running down the stairs with an urchin on his shoulders, laughing like a schoolboy, they would have refused to credit ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Unparalleled Urchin," he announced, "right as a trivet. Here, let's make a little camp." He pulled around a settee, established the frightened but quiet mother and the big-eyed child on it, drew up a chair for himself next to ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... his heels," cried Swinton, laughing; "he has fallen into an ant-eater's hole, depend upon it; that mischievous little urchin ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as if he were connected with her in some way. She did not miss a single Thursday and always arrived with her hands full of the last week's desserts, and with cakes and fruit and sweetmeats she had bought. She would kiss the urchin, inquire for his health, and feel to see if he had his knitted vest under his blouse; she would notice how flushed he was from running, would wipe his face with her handkerchief and make him show her the soles of his ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... them over and stood smiling benevolently as the small boy, with both arms clasped round the bag, went off hugging it to his bosom. Another urchin, who had been regarding the transaction with speechless envy, caught his eye. He beckoned him to him and, with a few kind words and a fatherly admonition not to make himself ill, presented him with ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... to the Lyric Theatre and have that poor little hungry urchin haunting me all through the show. I don't believe he's had anything to eat all day. Just see how he looks in that window, it's pathetic. Poor little fellow, he may be starving for all we know. I'm going to give him twenty-five ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... men lined up rapidly. Stanford tried an end play. No gain. Diemann stood back of the team at one side of the goal; he was struggling hard to be calm, but he did a strange thing. He seized a small megaphone from the hands of an urchin beside him, and just as they lined up after Stanford's unsuccessful trial at end, he stepped to the white goal line and raising the funnel to his lips shouted in a voice audible to ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... shining ripples to the barelegged urchin who catches crabs; it breaks in blue billows against the ship, and sends the fresh salt spray far in over the deck. Heavy leaden seas come rolling in on the beach, and while the weary eye follows the long hoary breakers, the stripes of foam wash up in sparkling curves over ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the Piazza del Popolo and stopped near some ragamuffins who were playing a game, throwing coins in the air. A tattered urchin had written with charcoal on a wall: "Viva Musolino!" and below that he was drawing a heart pierced ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... last we stood at our mother's knee. Do you think, Sir, if you try, You can paint the look of a lie? If you can, pray have the grace To put it solely in the face Of the urchin that is likest me: I think't was solely mine, indeed: But that's no matter,—paint it so; The eyes of our mother—(take good heed)— Looking not on the nest-full of eggs, Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, But straight through our faces ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... let me hear the lady speak!' addressing herself, in no very gentle voice, to a little urchin of about a year old. She apologetically continued to Margaret, 'He's always mithering me for "daddy" and "butty;" and I ha' no butties to give him, and daddy's away, and forgotten us a', I think. He's his father's darling, he is,' said she, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... all gazed upon him. They wondered and marvelled. "Come, boys!" cried Folloman, Conchobar's son, [2]"the urchin insults us.[2] Throw yourselves all on yon fellow, and his death shall come at my hands; for it is geis among you for any youth to come into your game, without first entrusting his safety to you. And do you all attack him together, for we know that yon wight is some ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... living creature animates the scene. The residents close their doors, and leave down the folds of green paper that deck each small window of their houses, and abandon the world to sundry pedestrians, who are forced by cruel necessity into the scorched street an occasional bare-footed urchin on his way to the grocery shop with a deformed pitcher to be filled with molasses, or a spare woman or two gabbling at the counters or doors of the miserable shops that follow one another in dingy succession through ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... some platters and spoons. Maggie trembled a little, and was afraid the tears would come into her eyes. Meanwhile the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently came running up the boy whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping,—a rough urchin about the age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensible chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she should begin to cry before long; the gypsies didn't seem to mind her at all, and she felt quite weak among them. But ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to be sent to Cambridge, and educated for the learned professions. Old Master Cheever has lived so long, and seen so many generations of school-boys grow up to be men, that now he can almost prophesy what sort of a man each boy will be. One urchin shall hereafter be a doctor, and administer pills and potions, and stalk gravely through life, perfumed with assaf[oe]tida. Another shall wrangle at the bar, and fight his way to wealth and honors, and in his declining age, shall be a worshipful member of his Majesty's council. A ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and to our various inquiries, the hopeless response of "Ha niel Sassenach," was the only answer we could extract. The Bailie, however, found (in his experience) a way to make them speak English. "If I gie ye a bawbee," said he to an urchin of about ten years old, with a fragment of a tattered plaid about him, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... now so full. There before him, bright and clear as ever, were the scenes of his boyhood—the school-forms defaced with many a rude cutting of names and dates, the master knitting his shaggy brows and tapping meaningly with his ruler upon the awful desk while some white haired urchin floundered through an ill-learned task and his classmates tittered at his blunders. Dear old classmates! How their faces shone and gladdened as they chased the bounding football! How merrily they flushed and glowed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... rather mere brook. We brought from home the provisions furnished us by our gardens, to which we added those supplied us by the sea in abundant variety. We caught on these shores the mullet, the roach, and the sea-urchin, lobsters, shrimps, crabs, oysters, and all other kinds of shell-fish. In this way, we often enjoyed the most tranquil pleasures in situations the most terrific. Sometimes, seated upon a rock, under the shade of the velvet sunflower-tree, we saw the enormous ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre |
