"All fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising from the brick-work surrounding ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... Intercourse was in act of becoming normal and easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy—and for him, him, to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke, bringing him up to the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... worships fight, or not at all; and when to shame them I called myself a mountaineer, more used to climb than to ride, and vowed that I should esteem it an honour to follow such a knight as Bayard, were it on all fours, then cast they my burgher blood in my teeth. Never saw I the Kaisar so enraged; he swore that all the common sense in the empire was in the burgher blood, and that he would make me a knight of the noblest order in Europe to show how he esteemed ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... understand that horses and cattle could be justly counted only where property was to be the basis of representation. Yet the slaves, who were counted, were, in the eye of the law, either personal property or real estate, and were no more represented as citizens than if they also had gone upon all fours. Their enumeration, nevertheless, was carried, and it so increased the representative power of their masters that inequality of citizenship became the fundamental principle of the government. This, of course, was to form an oligarchy, not a ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... bad "take off," owing to the softness of the ground; this usually resulted in my falling with a splash into the middle. I think the most aggravating thing of all was to make a really good jump and land on the other side, just beyond the water-line, on all fours, only to find that I had not enough impetus to remain there, as the ground was sloping. Sometimes I was able to save myself by jabbing my stick into the ground, though, more often than not, this ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... but a few miles, before we fell in with a squad of as choice game as heart could have wished, three proper tall young vagabonds! profoundly engaged at all fours, in a log tippling shop, with cards as black as their own dirty hands, and a tickler of brandy before them! and so intent were the thieves on fleecing each other, that they took no manner of notice of us, but continued ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... who made the Out-of-doors And fashioned mutts to gambol on all fours, Grant us a respite from the city's stones! Grant us a grassy place to bury bones!—A grassy spot to roll on now and then, Oh, Lord of dogs who also fashioned men, Accept our thanks for this brief breath of air, And grant, Oh, Lord, a humble ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... especially Father Dan, who used to call me his Nanny and say I was the plague and pet of his life, being as full of mischief as a goat. He must have been an old child himself, for I have clear recollection of how, immediately after confessing my mother, he would go down on all fours with me on the floor and play at hide-and-seek around the legs of the big bed, amid squeals and squeaks of laughter. I remember, too, that he wore a long sack coat which buttoned close at the neck and hung loose at the skirts, where ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... away. I will not say he swore between his teeth, but he twirled his chair round, brought it down on all fours, both his elbows on his knees and ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... themselves whenever the line of march was halted for a moment. Little boys progressed painfully along with the rest, walking on their hands, with their feet thrown up into the air, or spinning along on all fours like wheels, or going through various other antics. And, contrary to anything that could have happened away from the open ports of China, there were many women in the parade, and girls too. They were on horseback, ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... at his prison bars as though to rend them from their sockets; he did not growl in an amazingly deep bass, as per inculcated schooling; he did not bare the yellow fang nor yet unsheathe the cruel claw. With apparent difficulty, rising on his all fours from where he was crouched in the rear left-hand corner of his den, Chieftain advanced down stage with what might properly be called a rolling gait. Against the iron uprights he lurched, literally; then, as though grateful for their ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... fierce an air, and are so hideous a sight, that I fear to look on you!' said she. And William laughed and begged Alexandrine to guide them through the garden, as they were not yet used to going on all fours, and might stumble. ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... roving party of the Sheriff's men. A fine stag had been struck down by one Of Will Stutely's fellows, and he and others had stepped forth from the covert to seize it, when twenty bowmen from Nottingham appeared at the end of the glade. Down dropped Will's men on all fours, barely in time to hear a shower of arrows whistle above their heads. Then from behind the friendly trees they sent back such a welcome that the Sheriff's men deemed it prudent not to tarry in their steps. Two of them, in sooth, bore back unpleasant wounds ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the vain endeavor to make out the curious object there in the grass. At last he rises on his hind legs, and stares long and intently. It seems as if he must recognize you, with his nose pointing straight at you, his eyes looking straight into yours. But he drops on all fours again, and glides silently into the thick bushes ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... that any people who will get down on all fours to worship the picture of their emperor and, at this period of the world's progress, ascribe to a mere human being the attributes of divinity, are certainly deficient in common sense, if not in civilization. However, for the purpose of insuring ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... she would shout. 'You are raking in the money and buying your wife silk handkerchiefs, but the poor farm labourers have to creep on all fours. It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski."[1] He is the devil's own son, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... thought to himself, "So much for domestic servitude. What a position for a handsome girl—creeping about on all fours!" ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... coules is easy, you need only let yourself glide down; but it is more difficult to get up again. You have to scramble up by catching hold of the hanging branches of the trees, and sometimes on all fours, by sheer strength. A whole mortal hour passed, and still the captain did not come, nothing moved in the brushwood. The captain's wife began to grow impatient; what could he be doing? Why did he not call us? Did the shot that we had heard proceed from an enemy, and had he killed or ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... man, a man on all fours, yet moving swiftly, a sight natural enough in the deer-stalking Highlands, but uncanny ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... September, Laupepa was secretly in Apia at the American consulate with two companions. The German pickets were close set and visited by a strong patrol; and on his return, his party was observed and hailed and fired on by a sentry. They ran away on all fours in the dark, and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa grappled and flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body. The second sentry (like the first) fired ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a few moments she paid no attention to it, being occupied in licking the trampled body of her young one with that amazing tongue of hers. At length, apparently convinced that the little one was quite dead, she brayed again piteously, dropping forward upon all fours, and made off slowly down the trail, walking with grotesque awkwardness on the sides of her feet. For two or three hundred yards she kept on, drawing a wake of crimson behind her; and then, apparently exhausted by her wound, she turned off among the canes, and lay down, close beside the trail, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... fours, Missie," said Slim Jim, addressing Cora with such earnestness that she could not repress a shiver. "He crawled on all fours like some bloomin' beastie, begging your pardon, Missie. We was all fair ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... filled me with compunction at having been brutal to so pitiful a creature, and I hurried to open the door for him. The animal clawed vigorously inside, and the instant I pushed back the ill-fitted slabs, it strained through and rushed on all fours to the fire. Madame de Ferrier fled backward, for what I liberated could hardly be seen ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Devil's books, Whist is the edition de luxe of them. Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive game of 'All Fours' has always held its own against it. I have known but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an amateur, but ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... different, for it was not still like the others, but went stopping and starting and scuttling like a crab over the grass—sometimes upright like a man and sometimes on all fours like a beast. At last it stood up and ran from tree to tree in a swaying, moving zigzag. I could see then that it was a man, but for the life of me I could not remember where I'd seen his like. Then another cloud slid ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... opposite that which she had climbed. She drew back hastily, ready to cry with vexation. It was not nearly so high or so steep; and on the slope of the hill a short distance away was set a little farmhouse, with smoke curling up from its rough stone chimney. She dropped to all fours in the tall grass and moved cautiously toward the edge. Flat upon her breast, she worked her way to the edge and looked down. A faintly lined path led from the house through a gate in a zigzag fence ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... thought he'd die. He was crazy as a loon. I watched with him one night and he talked every thing you could think of, about a grave hid away somewhere—under his bed, he seemed to think—and made me go down on all fours to look for it. I suppose he was thinking of his grandfather so lately buried. And then, he kept talking about Bessie and asking why she ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... into his neighbor with the most fearful cries, and hell itself seemed broke loose. The hour-glass and the Moulah of Oude had got me down and were pummelling me to death, when a short, thickset man came on all fours slap down upon them shouting out, 'Way, make way for the royal Bengal tiger!' at which they both fled like lightning, leaving me to the encounter single-handed. Fortunately, however, this was not of very ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Before her feet she low'rs, Walking, in thought profound, As 'twere, upon all fours. Her visage is austere, Her gait a high parade; At every step you ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the Indian, who had only an ax with him. Jack raised his rifle and fired, and as the bear dropped on all fours fired ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... whispered Weymouth, "the thing on the roof—the coughing thing that goes on all fours, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... what was the matter. Stonor thought she was dreaming. Then she began to cry in English: "Door! Door!" and to point to it. Stonor made for the door, but Clare with a cry clung to him, and Mary herself, scrambling on all fours, clutched him around the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... brushed by the Droll and passed through the door. Now when the second lover had gone forth and escaped, the Flesher arose and donning the ram's skin set its horns upon his head and began crawling out of the closet upon all fours, hands and knees, until he stood before the husband of his beloved, and said to him, "The Peace be upon you!" "And upon you be The Peace," returned the other, "What mayst thou be?" "I am Iskandar, Lord of the Two ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... long as you didn't say on all fours, it's all right," responded Roy in a weak attempt at a joke that focused three pairs of girlish eyes ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... trembling ponies as close to him as they dared, and yelled at the tops of their voices. The great brute sat up on his haunches and faced them, growling and snarling. One vaquero sent his rope flying through the air, and the loop settled over a big, hairy fore paw. Then the bear dropped on all fours and made a jump at the pony, which got out of his reach. Another Mexican threw a lasso and caught the bear's hind foot; and as he sat up again a third noose dropped over the other fore paw. Then ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... the passage on all fours, momentarily expecting to feel the claws of their enemy. Six arms and six legs revolved wildly. Jerry held grimly to the lantern, and it's friendly ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... the dormitory they passed into the children's day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at play—some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... spine and a hungry feeling under it. The horse would break away and bolt! But the case was desperate. Dave ventured an interrogatory "Cope, cope, cope?" The horse turned its head wearily and regarded him with a mild eye, as if he'd expected him to come, and come on all fours, and wondered what had kept him so long; then he went on thinking. Dave reached the foot of the post; the horse obligingly leaning over on the other leg. Dave reared head and shoulders cautiously behind the post, like a snake; his hand went up twice, swiftly—the first time he grabbed the inspector's ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... feared to be overlooked in a double sense; the small trees crouched and the whole plain seemed lying on its face, as men do when shells burst. The little path ran fearlessly forward; but it seemed to run on all fours. Everything in that strange countryside seemed to be lying low, as if to avoid the incessant and rattling rain of the Danish arrows. There were indeed hills of no inconsiderable height quite within ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... which were dimmed by the rain. The children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath Mother Chantemesse's colossal bed. There were also two or three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours. They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening into the Rue de la Lingerie, provided ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... what should have been the shelter of the woods, the gale had increased so that they gave less than the road had given. The trees rocked above him; leaves and dead twigs beat on his face, and at length the blast forced him almost to creep on all fours. It was dark, too, beneath the swaying boughs. But uppermost in his mind was fear for his love, lest the hut should have given way before the tempest, and she be lying ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... finer particles drifted freely, rising high in the air, while the larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand. I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees. When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope—thirty-five degrees in some places—made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... passing away and leaving no representatives of their greatness to future ages? On land at least that is very probable. Man, diminutive man, who, if he walked on all fours, would be no bigger than a silly sheep, and who only partially disguises his native smallness by his acquired habit of walking erect on what ought to be his hind legs—man has upset the whole balanced economy of nature, and is everywhere expelling and exterminating before him the great ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... was like thunder drowning him out. The troll-wife turned and went on all fours and poked up ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... conservative women, too, who used their powerful influence against them. It was in the salon of the delicate but ardent young Princesse de Robecq that Palissot was inspired to write the satirical comedy of "The Philosophers," in which Rousseau was represented as entering on all fours, browsing a lettuce, and the Encyclopedists were so mercilessly ridiculed. This spirited and heroic daughter-in-law of the Duchesse de Luxembourg, the powerful patroness of Rousseau, was hopelessly ill at the time, and, in a caustic reply ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Chunk could run on all fours as easily as in an upright position, and he made his way rapidly through the darkness. His first aim was to get his eye on Perkins and Mad Whately, from whom he felt that he and Scoville had the most to fear. He was now armed with a knife and short club, as well as a revolver, and was determined ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Virgilus, of the fearful destruction of the city of Troy, which was more terrible even than that of our own village, when a cry arose that our old neighbour Zabel his red cow, which he had bought only a few days before, had stretched out all fours, and seemed about to die; and this was the more strange as she had fed heartily but half-an-hour before. My child was therefore begged to go and pluck three hairs from its tail and bury them under the threshold of the stall; for it was well known that if this was done by a ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... grimacing and talking excitedly in his sibilant, whispering voice, crouched on all fours (he could not stand in that small space) and waited, three men of the guard on either side of him. I placed his menore on his head and gave him simple, forceful orders, picturing them for him as ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... the nearer object of making her so far self-supporting that, even if Western Europe is unable to help them, they may be able to crawl out of their economic difficulties, as Krassin put it to me before he left Moscow, "if necessary on all fours, but somehow or other, ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... of me, they threw themselves on all fours, their faces touching the floor. Good gracious! what can be the matter? Nothing at all, it is only the ceremonious salute to which I am as yet unaccustomed. They rise, and proceed to take off my boots (one never keeps on one's shoes in a Japanese house), wiping the bottom of my trousers and feeling ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... Crouching almost on all fours I sprang across the ray of light and gained the wall's shadow. There, as I drew breath, I heard the latch ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... very clean native compound: and the big native woman, with bare brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. "Your man's at home," said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete and marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson—at home—stood with his back to a native house built on posts and with its walls ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... for which he made off hot-foot; and forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and in three minutes was creeping along on all fours towards ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... observed in the approach to the house through the thin, winding paths that Barnes remembered from an earlier visit. They crept on all fours over the last fifty feet that intervened, and each held a revolver in readiness ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... end. To these are tied others horizontally, and the whole is thatched over with leaves of sugar-cane. The door-way is in the middle of one side, formed like a porch, and so low and narrow, as just to admit a man to enter upon all fours. The largest house I saw was about sixty feet long, eight or nine feet high in the middle, and three or four at each end; its breadth, at these parts, was nearly equal to its height. Some have a kind of vaulted houses built with stone, and partly under ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the child. Then Hal's powerful arm flung itself upwards, his two hands "boosted," and Freddy landed on the upturned canoe, gripping it with all fours and coughing ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... plains know to be an order that they are not to move away—and the animals at once began cropping the grass. For a short distance the men walked forward, and then, as they neared the brow over which Dick declared he had seen the horn, they went down on all fours, and finally, when close to the brow, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... closed my window, lingering for a last look at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf, all alone there in the night. But—was it a man? For the figure suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle, waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... another. If I haven't got the law of him, it's because he's too much of a sneak. He wasn't anything but a handsome sort of beast to begin with; and, what with drinking and the life he's led, he's grown into a sort of thing that had better go on all fours like Nebuchadnezzar than come nigh decent people on his hind-legs. Why has he let her alone all these years?" The speech was grimly dramatic. "Why, just because, first place, I believe another woman ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the same before his canvas. Anything that came to hand served him as a brush, an old brown stick wrapped up in cloth, a spoon—with the latter he executed that thrilling Massacre, May 2, 1808, in the Prado. He could have painted with a sabre or on all fours. Reckless to the degree of insanity, he never feared king or devil, man or the Inquisition. The latter reached out for him, but he had disappeared, after suffering a dagger-thrust in the back. When on the very roof of his ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... though it warn't over safe to come too near her heels—an everlastin' kicker. 'You may come out, John,' said she to her husband, 'it's only Mr. Slick;' and out came John from under the bed backwards, on all fours, like an ox out of the shoein' frame, or a lobster skullin' wrong eend foremost; he looked as wild as a hawk. Well, I swan, I thought I should have split, I could hardly keep from bustin' right out with ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... instinctively continuing to run with breathless speed, until, having gained a considerable distance away from any probable line of fire, I flung myself down upon the snow, and was somewhat startled at finding Zach very close upon my tracks, tearing along on all fours with a vague sense of danger of some kind, and looking, in his strange envelope, like an infuriated bull-moose in the act of charging a hunter. A shot struck the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... assistant, however, to give me valerian, which no doubt this profoundly hypnotized subject perfectly well heard, for she immediately went through the whole cat performance. She spat, she scratched, she mewed, she leapt about on all fours, and she was as thoroughly cat-like as had been ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... go round to the gate, but he surprised her by going down on all fours and crawling through a gap in the privet. He looked like a monstrous baboon shuffling towards her. When through, he stood up again, a shaggy lock of hair falling across his forehead, and looked at her with eyes that ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the time passed, till one day a man named Grec, a clansman of Luna the lord of Corann, as he ranged the woods hunting, came on a stony cavern in the side of a hill, and before it he saw wolf-cubs at play, and among them a naked child on all fours gambolling with them, and a great she-wolf that mothered them all. "Right," cried Grec, and off he goes to Luna his lord. "What wilt thou give me for the King's son?" said he. "What wilt thou have?" said Luna. So Grec asked for certain lands, and Luna bound himself to give them to him and ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... went down upon all fours, crawled to the edge, and peered into a velvety blackness. For a sickly moment he had courage neither to go on nor retreat, then he sat and hung his leg down, felt his guide's hands pulling at him, had a horrible sensation of sliding over the edge into the unfathomable, splashed, ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... time making believe to be a white sheep so successfully as never was. Or, stranger still, that a woman who has brought up a family of model daughters—daughters whom it would be no exaggeration to speak of as on all fours with your own, and who is quite one of the nicest and most sympathetic people your wife has to go to in trouble—this woman actually—actually—if this tale is true, was guilty in her youth ... there—that will do! Suppose we say she was no better than she should be. She hadn't even ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the town. This grill is high enough for Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... mad then! I got holt of him and give his head one good ram against the wall; and then when old Booby stepped up into the loft, I dropped down on all fours and run between his legs, and upset him onto Squashnose, and clum down the ladder and run home. That was every livin' thing I done, Mis' Tree, honest it was; and they blame it all on me, the lickin' Squashnose got, and all. ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... words, but, taking a firm hold on the back of the chair, he suddenly pulled it out from under Benson. So swiftly was the thing done that Jack went down on all fours on the porch. But, thoroughly aroused, and his eyes flashing indignantly now, that boy was quickly on his feet. Dan, however, with a satisfied grin, had dropped into ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... as we were about to turn back after you. They had no woodcraft. We heard them coming for a mile before we saw them, and as we had other business in hand we withdrew into the forest and let them pass. They were waddling rapidly along upon short legs, and now and then one would go upon all fours like Bolgani, the gorilla. They were indeed ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... passed a large building, with lights still twinkling in the windows. Presently the tall Highlander stood up and sniffed. Then motioning Waverley to do as he did, he began to crawl on all fours toward a low and ruinous sheep-fold. With some difficulty Edward obeyed, and with so much care was the stalk conducted, that presently, looking over a stone wall, he could see an outpost of five or six soldiers lying round their camp-fire, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... ye men, a full thousand years of age today, but I have never seen a dead creature, male or female or of ambiguous sex, revive after death. Some die in the womb; some die soon after birth; some die (in infancy) while crawling (on all fours); some die in youth; and some in old age. The fortunes of all creatures, including even beasts and birds, are unstable. The periods of life of all mobile and immobile creatures are fixed beforehand. Bereaved ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... canst stand!" repeated Fakrash, gently. "That is a long time truly, O thou litigious one!... On all fours, ungrateful dog that thou art!" he cried, with an abrupt and entire change of manner, "and crawl henceforth for the remainder of thy days. I, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... efforts women were brought up out of coal mines where they dragged trucks on all fours like brute beasts, by his protests little boys were saved from being forced to climb up inside chimneys risking their young lives and limbs that others ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... had the tone of benevolent farewell, and the bear, dropping on all fours, disappeared in the brush. Robert, whose fancy had been alive and leaping, returned to the camp rather pleased with himself, despite the fact that about three hundred pounds of excellent food ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "baboon," an ape or monkey trained to gather cocoa-nuts, a hideous beast on very long legs when on all fours, but capable of walking erect. They called him a "dog-faced baboon," but I think they were wrong. He has a short, curved tail, sable-colored fur darkening down his back, and a most repulsive, treacherous, and ferocious countenance. He is fierce, but likes or at all events obeys his owner, who ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... whether the unclean beast was tall enough to touch the cloth, or not. He questioned his children, who were present; but they were not quite certain. How, then, was he to settle the all-important point? Ingenious Brahmin! an idea struck him. Getting down on all fours, so as to be of the same height as the dog, he crawled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the first heroine who had. Adultery, with which we are fairly familiar, would have seemed a lesser sin. There may be extenuating circumstances for the adulteress. There were extenuating circumstances for Rochester. He could plead a wife who went on all fours. There were no extenuating circumstances for little Jane. No use for her to say that she was upset by the singing of the nightingale; that it didn't matter what she said to Mr. Rochester when Mr. Rochester was ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... me. He blew my hairs aside to take a better view of my face. He called his hinds about him, and asked them (as I afterwards learned) whether they had ever seen in the fields any little creature that resembled me. He then placed me softly on the ground upon all fours, but I got immediately up, and walked slowly backwards and forwards, to let those people see I had no intent to run away. They all sat down in a circle about me, the better to observe my motions. I pulled off my hat, and made a low bow towards the farmer. I fell on ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... were high enough for a person to stand upright. In one part of each the ground was strewed with willow branches, probably as a bed for the family. The door or entrance was about two feet and a half high, and had a covered way or porch, five feet in length; so that it was necessary to creep on all fours, in order to get into or out of these curious habitations. In the top of each hut there was a hole, about eighteen inches square, which served the threefold purpose of a window, a chimney, and occasionally ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... Instantly Tollman was on all fours retrieving, and the undignified posture had the advantage of serving to conceal the wild terror of his face; a terror such as may stamp itself upon the features of a man who cannot swim and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... attention was attracted by the shadow of something moving in the trench without, and a moment later the figure of a child appeared, creeping upon all fours, as, wide-eyed, and prompted by childish curiosity, a little girl crawled to the entrance of my hut and peered cautiously ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stronger colors the horrors of human society, from which our ignorance and weakness promise themselves so many consolations. No one ever spent so much wit in trying to make us stupid; when we read your book we feel like going on all fours. Nevertheless, as it is more than sixty years since I lost the habit, I am conscious that it is impossible for me to take it up again, and I leave this natural attitude to those who are more worthy of it than you and I. Nor can I take ship to go out and join the savages in ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... seemed at first, when Harkness saw the figure leap outward from the cliff. A second one followed. They landed on all fours upon a rock that ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the grass upon all fours, leaving a trail of blood behind him after Jane's spear had sent him crashing to the ground beneath her tree. He made no sound after the one piercing scream that had acknowledged the severity of his wound. He was quiet because of a great ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... heard rods away. Though these sounds did not reach the men, busy with the snow-shack, they did reach listening ears—a great white bear, wandering the floes in search of some sleeping seal, stood first on all fours, then on his haunches, to listen. Then, with many a misgiving and many a pause, he made his cautious way to the edge of that particular ice-flat where the plane rested. Thence, after more misgivings, ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... proper feeling in the man, Dr. P—— and I entered his winter abode, which he apologized for taking us to,—the illness of his "cara sposa" having prevented him changing his residence for the usual summer tent. Crawling on all fours through a narrow passage, on either side of which a dog-kennel and a cook-house had been constructed, we found ourselves in an apartment, the highest side of which faced us, the roof gradually sloping down ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... CARDS.—A complete and handy little book, giving the rules and full directions for playing Euchre, Cribbage, Casino, Forty-Five, Rounce, Pedro Sancho, Draw Poker, Auction Pitch, All Fours, and many other popular games ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... (Tartaglia's) Cardan never divulged before Ferrari unravelled Giovanni Colla's puzzle; but it was inevitable that it must be made known to the world as a part of the greater discovery (Ferrari's) which Cardan was in no way bound to keep a secret. The case might be said to run on all fours with that where a man confides a secret to a friend under a promise of silence, which promise the friend keeps religiously, until one day he finds that the secret, and even more than the secret, is common talk of the ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... was to hire a drove of ballet girls for parlor horses. He had a carriage constructed no bigger or heavier than a Japanese jinrickshaw, and to this hitched ten or twenty ballet girls in their birthday suits, walking on all fours, himself rider and driver. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... not venture to let the Masters Bruin go loose, but yoked them together, and had a rope fastened to them besides. Thus united they waddled on; not lovingly, for very often they grumbled and growled, and seemed to be making far from pleasant remarks to each other. They kept on all fours, it must be understood. Bears only stand on their hind legs when they have learned to dance, or are going to eat a man, or at all events are standing at bay. On reaching the end of the lake we found that a considerable portion of the day had been spent, but still we ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... up on all fours. The stairs were thickly carpeted. Gaining the top his strained ears detected the whisper of a sound that suggested ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... with a lurch he was upon it. There was a crackling of ash bows as the snowshoes were crushed in the ponderous embrace. And, seeing his chance, Connie darted forward, for the momentum of the bear's lurch had carried him on to all fours in the soft snow at the edge of the trampled space. As the huge animal struggled, belly deep, the boy brought the bit of his ax down with all his force upon the middle of the brute's spine. The feel of the blow was ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... with four or more tubular bones, consisting of the leg bones of large birds, each of the thickness of a finger and 4 or 5 inches in length. After the priest has fasted and chanted prayers for success, he gets down upon all fours close to the patient and with his mouth near the affected part. After using the rattle and singing most vociferously to cause the evil manid[-o] to take shelter at some particular spot, so that it may ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... once and starts right in, regardless of the fact that it does not understand the machinery. This one was weak but game; and it went down only to rise again. It went in for a course of Experience; and finally, having got the hang of things, it was balancing on all fours with fair prospects of success. Its status was a little uncertain,—like a sailor just landed on a continent which seems to have been drinking,—but still it was up and ready to try a step or two if necessary. But now the ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... a corner, which was his own, behind the piano. No one could disturb him there, for to reach it he had to go on all fours. It was half dark there, and the boy had just room to lie on the floor if he huddled up. The smoke of the tobacco filled his eyes and throat: dust, too; there were large flakes of it like sheepskin, but he did not mind that, and listened gravely, squatting there Turkish fashion, and widening ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... several of us crawled into a long hole to explore a cave in the woods. While laboriously making our way on all fours, carrying torches, we were suddenly horrified by fiendish hisses. Visions of snakes danced before our minds, the girls shrieked, the torches fell in our frantic scramble and we were left in Stygian darkness. A mocking, demoniacal laugh was heard, winged creatures ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... with his uncased rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our compartment to watch ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... afore Peter could understand wot 'e meant, but as soon as 'e did 'e started to look for 'em. Drink takes people in different ways, and the way it always took Peter was to make 'im one o' the most obliging men that ever lived. He spent arf the night crawling about on all fours looking for the clothes, and four or five times old Isaac woke up from dreams of earthquakes to find Peter 'ad got jammed under 'is bed, and was wondering what ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... passage. "Halloa, here, what's to pay out here? Here, you all—Mammy, Jimmy, Polly, Sukey—glad to see Mas'r?" he said, as he went shaking hands from one to another. "Look out for the babies!" he added, as he stumbled over a sooty little urchin, who was crawling upon all fours. "If I step upon ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... carfully is out-kast to contr vnknawen, Fer i{n}-to a fyr fryth ere frekes neu{er} comen. 1680 [Sidenote: He believes himself to be a bull or an ox.] His hert heldet vnhole, he hoped non o{er} Bot a best at he be, a bol o{er} an oxe. [Sidenote: Goes "on all fours," like a cow, for seven summers.] He fares forth on alle faure, fogge wat[gh] his mete, & ete ay as a horce when erbes were fallen, 1684 us he cou{n}tes hy{m} a kow, at wat[gh] a ky{n}g ryche, Quyle seuen sye[gh] were ou{er}-seyed som{er}es I trawe. [Sidenote: ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... sometimes digs a trench in the snow and lies in wait for the unsuspecting deer. When he shoots one, he immediately skins it, but takes care to leave the head attached to the skin; then ramming a pole into the head at the neck, he drapes the skin over the pole and getting down on all fours places the skin over his back and pretends to be a caribou. Thus he will approach the band, and should he tire of crawling along on his hands and knees he will even lie down to rest in sight of the deer, but he always takes care to keep down wind. In ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... dark and narrow that the hero soon found himself obliged to creep on all fours, and to grope his way. At last he perceived a faint light at a distance, and the cavern enlarged so much that he could now ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... What say you? A game or two? I can stake my pistoles—that is, sir, so far as a fourpenny bit goes. If ignorant of this French game, sir, cribbage or all fours?" ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this scene, Ethel lost very little time before she placed herself on the couch on all fours, and as Frank ordered his subjects, the two nieces fairly dragged their uncle by his prick, till they got him up behind Ethel, and planted the head of his fiery steed just within the lips of her ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... humiliation to mottle his already ruby visage to a semblance of purple, and now, as he attempted to rise with dignity, he was still further covered with confusion by the fact that his huge stomach made it necessary for him to go upon all fours before he could rise, so that he got up much after the manner of a cow, raising his stern high in air in a most ludicrous fashion. As he gained his feet he saw the girl turn her head from him to hide the laughter on ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... state, on the floor. "By Jove!" said Mr. Bensington, straining his stomach over the armchair with a patient disregard of the habits of this convenience, and then, finding the pamphlet still out of reach, he went down on all fours in pursuit. It was on the floor that the idea of calling it the Food of the ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... into the Park a snorting automobile leaped past them with muffler open. The horse upon which Beatrice rode was a young one. It gave instant signals of alarm, went sunfishing on its hind legs, came down to all fours, and bolted. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... morning received a special retainer, in the shape of half a quartern of gin, for the occasion; while in the usher's chair were ensconced two urchins of about fourteen years of age, smoking tobacco, playing at all fours, and drinking purl, with their legs diffused in a picturesque attitude along the writing-desk. One of the justices tried to command silence—till the Squire's commission to the usher should be read; but no sooner had he opened his mouth than the whole multitude burst forth as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... the game was taken up again. The sheep moved higher whenever I came too near them. Sometimes I dropped to all fours and gave an imitation of a playful pup; stopping to sniff loudly at a chipmunk's hole or to dig furiously with both hands. The sheep crowded forward appreciatively. Evidently they had a weakness for vaudeville. No acrobat, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... his seat; and it was not until after a couple of minutes' hard fight, during which the horse seemed to have been smitten with a notion that the proper equine mode of progression was upon its hind legs, and the use of the fore was to strike out and fence, that it condescended to go on all fours, while even then it was only to gain impetus for a series of stag-like bounds and attempts to dash off in any direction that ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... l'Inegalite, and the Lettre a D'Alembert sur les Spectacles, Rousseau pleads against the vices, the artificiality, the insincerities, the luxuries, the false refinements, the factitious passions, the dishonest pleasures of modern society. "You make one wish," wrote Voltaire, "to walk on all fours." By nature all men are born free and equal; society has rendered them slaves, and impounded them in classes of rich and poor, powerful and weak, master and servant, peasant and peer. Rousseau's conception of the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... was seen exerting itself most strenuously. They looked closer, when, behold, there was—what think you?—the cat, pawing away, first with her fore feet, and then with her hind; now touching one note gently, and then dancing with all fours across the keys. There was a solution of the enigma—a bringing to light of the ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... though the Makololo huts, which are kept tolerably clean, afforded them accommodation. The best sort of huts consist of three circular walls, having small holes to serve as doors, through which it is necessary to creep on all fours. The roof resembles in shape a Chinaman's hat, and is bound together with circular bands. The framework is first formed, and it is then lifted to the top of the circle of poles prepared for supporting ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... while he was sitting in a shed after the accident, he was surprised to see a person enter the door crawling on all fours, and half dead with terror. This it appeared was the surgeon, who had been sent for by the chiefs. He was horror-struck at the accident, but soon recovered himself on observing ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... that his own body acted as a lever, and for a moment it seemed that he was to be successful; but the Frenchman, with a violent execration, suddenly let go his hold on the knob, the door swung in, and Dan fell back on all fours upon the floor. By the time he had recovered himself for another dash, he was confronted by Jean, a disagreeable leer upon his unpleasant countenance and a cocked ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. An ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... they called Tikhon, having run to the stream, plunged in so that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on. The French who ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... narrow escapes in one of my walks with a gun in search of game. I came to a belt of jungle so dense that the only way to get through it was to creep on all fours along the tracks made by hyenas and smaller game; and as I was crawling along I saw close in front of me a deadly puff-adder; in another second I should ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... was for Division on Clause I. Still fact seems to run on all fours with what I remember RAIKES talking of just now. Yet, again, when one comes to think of it, can a bell run on all fours? Everything very strange. Shall ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... describing the terror of that dreadful moment. Our limbs stiffened, our power of speech ceased, and our hearts beat violently, and only a whisper of the same 'Ho hai!' was heard from us. In this state we crept on all fours for some distance back, and then ran for life with the speed of an Arab horse for about half an hour, and fortunately happened to come to a small village.... After this every one of us was attacked with fever, attended with shivering, in which deplorable state we remained till ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... are there," he said, his voice barely audible. "Beyond the curve in the bank. 'Twas God's mercy I had glimpse in time, or I would have walked straight into their midst. A stone dropping into the ravine warned me, and I crept on all fours to where I ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... largest brownie began champing his jaws and growling; then he 'pinned back his ears' preparing to come at me. Just as he was about to lunge forward I shot him in the chest. The arrow went deep and stuck out a foot beyond his shoulder. He dropped on all fours and before he could make up his mind what hit him, I shot him again in the flank. This turned him and feeling himself badly wounded he wheeled about and ran. While this was going on an old female also stood in a menacing attitude, but as the wounded bear galloped ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... we found that these were no other than penguins which had gone down on all fours, and were crawling among the bushes on their feet and wings, just like quadrupeds. Suddenly one big old bird, that had been sitting on a point very near to us, gazing in mute astonishment, became ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... dry, sandy pasture country, dotted with clumps of palms, round the trunks of which grew a dense jungle of thorns and Spanish bayonets. The armadillos were feeding in an open space between two of these jungle clumps, which were about a hundred yards apart. One was on all fours; the other was in a squatting position, with its fore legs off the ground. Their long ears were very prominent. The dogs raced at them. I had always supposed that armadillos merely shuffled along, and curled up for protection when menaced; and I was almost as surprised ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... terribly afraid of him, and whenever they passed him as he sat on his verandah, they would almost go down on all fours. He told me how on one occasion when he was sitting on the upper verandah of the Club Hotel in Suva with two of his servants squatting near by, the whisky he had drunk had made him feel so sleepy, that he nearly fell ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... the infection has passed away, when, after submitting to certain rites of purification, she is again free to mingle with her fellows."[79] The gradual change of this ceremony, from a getting rid of a dangerous supernatural infection to returning thanks for a natural danger passed, is on all fours with what takes place in other directions in relation to religious ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... were sharpened by love, at once took advantage of her opportunity. She crept on all fours towards the rock on which Alice lay, in such a manner that it came between her person ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... all in the United Provinces to be equally ignorant except the prince, the Advocate, and the recorder. Cruwel was then informed that if Neyen expected to discuss such grave matters with the prince, he must first send in a written proposal that could go on all fours and deserve attention. A week afterwards Cruwel came back with a paper in which Neyen declared himself authorized by the archdukes to treat with the States on the basis of their liberty and independence, and to ask what they would give in return for so great a concession as this renunciation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sediment at the bottom, to the time they walk out, the utmost earnestness prevails amongst them. Some of the poorer and more elderly persons who sit near the door are marvellous hands at dipping, sacred manipulation, and pious prostration. Like the Islams, they go down on all fours at certain periods, and seem to relish the business, which, after all, must be tiring, remarkably well. Considering its general character, the congregation is very orderly, and we believe of a generous turn of mind. The chapel is cleanly kept by an amiable old Catholic, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... to his feet in vain, and after one failure, remained on all fours, holding on. He surveyed the moonlit world to leeward, with the tails of his jacket streaming over his head. "There's something seriously wrong," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And what it is— ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... tooth today. I am very glad, for he is nearly nine months old and Mary Vance has been insinuating that he is awfully backward about cutting his teeth. He has begun to creep but doesn't crawl as most babies do. He trots about on all fours and carries things in his mouth like a little dog. Nobody can say he isn't up to schedule time in the matter of creeping anyway—away ahead of it indeed, since ten months is Morgan's average for creeping. He is so cute, it will be a shame if his dad never sees him. His hair ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... that I saw Diderot's "Father of a Family," and "The Philosophers" of Palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... heart stops for a moment. I can't find the latch. I am vaguely aware of beating something with my fists, and then the door gives, sticks, gives again and I stumble through and land on all fours the other side ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... perceiving how he had committed himself, he had slipped down in the pew, crawled on all fours to the door, and got out of the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... hundred—no, a thousand—what do I say? A million Indians with baskets long and wide on their backs and the baskets filled with gold! The baskets are so great and the gold so heavy that the Indians are bowed down till they go on all fours. Gold,—a mountain of pure gold and every Spaniard in Spain and a few Italians—golden kings—" When we had all we could get, up ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... Archangias. 'She must be sixteen now. She's growing up like a brute beast. I have seen her running on all fours in a ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... saw a dog and made quickly for him. The dog, seeing the strange creature approach, sought to frighten it by barking; but Romulus had seen similar animals before and had heard similar sounds; he could not be frightened by them. He went boldly towards the dog by long leaps on all fours. The dog, terrified by the strange-looking creature, ran away yelping and left Romulus with freedom and the ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... my wind to reach the Eden, a couple of miles from our starting-point, and we were on all fours part of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to have given up hope of standing erect, and began to move painfully on all fours across the snow to where a log of rotten wood was lying. Having reached it, he tried to raise it, but there was not the strength in his hands. He tried to fasten his teeth upon it, to drag it back with him; but his jaws seemed paralysed. Then he crept back ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Had it come on to blow so as to oblige the captain to shorten sail, the deuce a seaman durst have gone aloft to stow the canvas. The second mate, standing in the top, was in the act of lifting his rifle, when the monster, running on all fours out to the dizzy topgallant yard-arm, stood erect a breathless instant, poised—in human posture—a marvellous picture of the man-beast against the liquid blue, then sprang ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... him. Agreed to. Secondly, they were not cannibals—all their neighbours were, however. (I said I was pleased to hear it, no doubt someone had maligned them.) But they were all thieves, and I must take prompt action to prevent myself from being robbed—(here one of his wives crept to the door on all fours and asked her lord and master for a match, but was struck with great violence in the mouth with an empty salmon tin instead, for interrupting). To-morrow I should do as 'Parka' did the day he came to Kabaira. I must go down ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... tiny voice, which seemed to come from inside the fallen tree, Sandy Chipmunk was so startled that he leaped high into the air; and when he came down again upon all fours he found himself staring straight into Daddy Longlegs' ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... broken shale with much loose rubble. The soft sandstone farther along had eroded and there was a great deal of slack debris down which the horses slipped and slid, now on their haunches and again on all fours. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... that the other seemed to have wearied of the game. After plunging through the air and landing on all fours with his grasping hands closing on nothingness, the man had remained thus, as if dazed, for a second or so. Then he had felt the ground all about him. Then, bewildered, he had scrambled to his feet. Now he was standing, moveless, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... shout into the line of sharpshooters. The battalion commander shouts it at the same time. He wouldn't let any one rob him of the honor of advancing in the foremost row of riflemen. We crawl forward on all fours. After thirty meters, halt. Still nothing to be seen. The land rises in front of us. Fifty meters further; eighty; a hundred. At last we have a clear view ahead. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Tilbury. According to him, the design was that Ralegh should stop in France till the anger of Spain was lulled. After their departure a servant of Ralegh's rushed to Stukely with the news that his master was out of his wits, in his shirt, and upon all fours, gnawing at the rushes on the boards. Stukely sent Manourie to him. Manourie administered the emetic, and also an ointment compounded of aquafortis. This brought out purple pustules over the breast and arms. Strangers, and ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the lamp thrust out before him, began to crawl into the tunnel. As his heels disappeared, and only a faint light outlined the opening, I dropped upon all fours in turn, and began laboriously to drag myself along behind him. The atmosphere was damp, chilly, and evil-smelling; therefore, at the end of some ten or twelve yards of this serpentine crawling, when I saw Smith, ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... if you mean in the smart set. Jump about on all fours and pick up a woman's umbrella with your teeth, and bark. Anything else would be easier for you among chic people, where ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
