"Breast-high" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... madness Every plunging pike. Fill the lake with wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky. Hark! The brave North-easter! Breast-high lies the scent, On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent. Chime, ye dappled darlings, Through the sleet and snow. Who can over-ride you? Let the horses go! Chime, ye dappled darlings, Down the roaring blast; You shall see a fox die Ere an hour be past. Go! and rest to-morrow, Hunting ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... up. Hobson pulled up to look at him for a minute. I got down and went to the wall, knowing that it afforded perfect security. Black Jack came up slowly, as if he meant no mischief. I leant over the wall, which was breast-high, and poked fun at him. In an instant, like a flash of light, he came at me. I saw his great claw over my head, and almost before I could jump back, a couple of heavy stones were driven violently off the top of the wall. ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the Priests at dusk, When the white mist rose up breast-high, and choked The voices in the houses of the dead: — "Yabosh and Kysh avail not. If the Horse Reach the Unlighted Shrine we surely die. Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief, Taman!" Here rolled the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... raving and the wild tide races, The Blue Men ere breast-high with foam-grey faces; They'll plunge along with fury while they sweep the spray behind, O, they'll bellow o'er the billows ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... rose clear and bright behind the one tall palm tree that overhangs the tomb of Sheykh Gibreel. He is a saint of homely tastes and will not have a dome over him or a cover for his tomb, which is only surrounded by a wall breast-high, enclosing a small square bit of ground with the rough tomb on one side. At each corner was set up a flag, and a few dim lanterns hung overhead. The 200 men eating were quite noiseless—and as they rose, one by one washed their hands ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... mile away. Imagine a stream seventy yards broad divided by a pebbly island, running over seductive "riffles" and swirling into deep, quiet pools, where the good salmon goes to smoke his pipe after meals. Get such a stream amid fields of breast-high crops surrounded by hills of pines, throw in where you please quiet water, long-fenced meadows, and a hundred-foot bluff just to keep the scenery from growing too monotonous, and you will get some faint notion of the Clackamas. The weir had been erected to pen the Chenook salmon from going further ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... western wall there stood in the centre the factory itself, a good log building of somewhat spacious size; its big room, divided by a breast-high solid railing, with a small gate in the middle, serving as office and general receiving-place. Beyond the railing, in the smaller space toward the north, there stood the great wooden desk of the factor, its massive book of accounts always open ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... for the minister, Miss Caroline gave him a brief, low-toned order, which he hurried away to execute. Within ten minutes, and before Miss Caroline had finished telling how altogether beautiful she found Arcady of the Little Country, Clem returned, bearing breast-high a napkin-covered tray, from which towered twin pillars of glass, topped with fragrant leafage and pierced each by a yellow straw. This tray he placed upon the table beside the poems of Lord Byron, and the minister permitted himself an oblique look thereat, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... a light in the office. Bannon stepped into the doorway, and, with a suppressed word of impatience, stood looking at the scene within. The desk that Peterson had supplied for the use of his clerk was breast-high from the floor, built against the wall, with a high stool before it. The wall lamp had been taken down; now it stood with its reflector on the top of the desk, which was covered with books and papers. A girl was sitting on the ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... at once, large-looming from his wave, Out leaned, chin hand-propped, pensive on the ledge, A sea-worn face, sad as mortality, Divine with yearning after fellowship. He rose but breast-high. So much god she saw; So much she sees now, and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... come so near Vincennes that they dared not fire a gun for fear of being discovered; besides, the floods had driven the game all away; so that they soon began to feel hunger, while their progress was very slow, and they suffered much from the fatigue of travelling all day long through deep mud or breast-high water. On the 17th they reached the Embarras River, but could not cross, nor could they find a dry spot on which to camp; at last they found the water falling off a small, almost submerged hillock, and on this they huddled through the night. At daybreak they heard ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a few breast-high bushes and crawled into their thin shade and lay down; before him he spread out the Quigley storekeeper's map. This he studied with thoughtful eyes. The storekeeper had said it would be no trick at all for a man like Howard to make the trip, but he had meant Howard on horseback. On foot ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... became visible behind it, and Seaforth pushed forward when the mounted figures came sweeping down the mountain side. Here and there they swung wide round a fallen tree, but they rode straight through raspberry-canes and breast-high fern, and Alice Deringham wondered when she saw that one of them was a girl. She had left her hat somewhere in the bush, her hair streamed about her, the skirt was blown aside; but she held on with set lips and two vivid spots of colour in her warm-tinted ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... all crowding, crystal silentness, Above all noise, a silver solitude . . . Hatred and cark and care, what place have they In yon blue liberality of heaven? How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will rise Breast-high thence, some ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... of the pass the snow lay very deep, and we followed the course of a small stream which cut through it, the walls of snow being breast-high on each side; the path was still frequented by yaks, of which we overtook a small party going to Tibet, laden with planks. All the party appeared alike overcome by lassitude, shortness and difficulty of breathing, a sense of weight on the stomach, giddiness and headache, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... a round, grass- roofed affair, with white-washed walls of sun-dried brick. For about four-fifths of the circumference the wall was barely breast-high, the roof being supported on wooden pillars bricked into the wall, as well as by the huge pole that propped it ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all clad with scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. The horsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the few tender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They looked eastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was not Dowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing was nearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjari encampment will be convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks, make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Turk, Jamshid Khan, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Charans of Murlah, recording their exemption from dind contributions, and that there should be no increase in duties, with threats ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Eskimo threw up his arm and poised the harpoon. For one instant the surprised animal raised 25 itself breast-high out of the water and directed a stare of intense astonishment at the man. That moment was fatal. Annatock buried the harpoon deep under its left flipper. With a fierce bellow the brute dashed itself against the ice, endeavoring in its ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... being washed off. The anchors were then to be taken up on the rail, which kept all hands on the forecastle for an hour, though every now and then the seas broke over it, washing the rigging off to leeward, filling the lee scuppers breast-high, and washing chock aft to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... every direction, and the heavy logs were dragged without loss of time to the prescribed line, where they were piled upon each other in double walls, which were filled in rapidly with earth; and thus, in an inconceivably short space of time the men had defences breast-high which would turn a cannon-shot. In front, for some distance, too, the timber had been felled and an abatis thus formed. A few hours after the arrival of the troops on the line marked out by Lee, they were rooted behind excellent breastworks, with forest, stream, and abatis ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... our last word on board the Sarah. We four, with our four packets, lowered ourselves softly into a skiff, and left that ship behind us as silent as the grave, only for the moaning of some of the drunkards. There was a fog about breast-high on the waters; so that Dutton, who knew the passage, must stand on his feet to direct our rowing; and this, as it forced us to row gently, was the means of our deliverance. We were yet but a little way from the ship, when it began to come grey, and the birds to fly abroad upon the water. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about the room, peering curiously at its rather primitive fittings. Around three sides extended a breast-high shelf, carved and cut by many a jack-knife, and beneath it a narrower one where books and slates were stowed. In front were rows of backless benches for seats, and in the centre of the room an open stove shaped like ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... out of the water, and in time, for a small avalanche of cakes rattled down upon the place he had just left. The rising water had forced the ice up till it stood breast-high above the island ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... or nulla, was crossed by a bridge immediately behind the rebels' position. Nicholson advanced from a side-road, which brought him on their right with the nulla flowing between him and them. Even at the ford the water was breast-high, and it was with much difficulty and not without a good deal of delay that our troops crossed under a heavy fire from the serai. It was getting late, and Nicholson had only time to make a hasty reconnaissance. He decided ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... at last and tramped through the heather and ferns and the breast-high golden-rod, stumbling among the rabbit holes with which the ground was riddled, towards the house which stood in a hollow in the centre of the Island. And I stared hard at it, for I had never ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... easy reach of the plate, the batter should hold his bat ready to hit a breast-high ball. It is easier to hit a low ball when expecting a high one than to hit a high ball when a low one was expected, for the reason that it is easier to drop the bat quickly and swing underhand than it is to elevate it and chop overhand. When the ball is pitched ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... obeyed, and together they led the animal between them, wading farther into the lake, with the water gradually getting deeper, when as it grew breast-high Ned ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... across the open space, as though something hidden by the tall growth were cautiously moving there. Apart from the peculiar motion of the grass, however, nothing was to be seen, which was not surprising, since the growth down there was breast-high; but a little farther on, where the village herd had been turned out to graze, it was not so long. The oxen were there now, at the far side of the patch of short grass, lying down asleep in charge of a couple of ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... loss for another instance; however, I have just received from a friend, who took interest in the subject, a sketch of something almost identical from the disused chapel at Chillon in the Canton Vaud. Of this I have not the measurements, but it stands about breast-high. It is there called a "prie-dieu," and is said to have belonged to the Dukes of Savoy, but the size is very unusual for such a use. I send sketches of each of the subjects of my Query, {102} and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... were so close to the water's edge that it was dangerous to open them in a seaway, besides which the space between decks was so low that it was with difficulty they could be worked, while the upper-deck had only a light breast-high bulwark. From the length of the lower-deck guns they could not be easily run in, while the 12-pounders on the main-deck were so old and their vents so large that ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... cluster of breast-high rocks, and before moving took a look round. Judge then of my astonishment and delight at the second glance to perceive about a hundred yards away a brown object, looking like an ape in the half light, meandering slowly up the margin of the water towards me. Every ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... and half of the boat's crew, were desperately wounded: That at last they cut the rope, and ran off under their foresail, still keeping up their fire with blunderbusses, each loaded with eight or ten pistol balls, which the Indians returned with their arrows, those on shore wading after them breast-high into the sea: When they had got clear of these, the canoes pursued them with great fortitude and vigour, till one of them was sunk, and the numbers on board the rest greatly reduced by the fire, and then they returned ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... panic of 1893 bicycle makers prospered. It was estimated in 1896 that no less than $100,000,000 had been spent in the United States upon cycling. A clumsy prototype of the "wheel" was known in 1868, but the first bicycle proper, a wheel breast-high, with cranks and pedals connected with a small trailing wheel by a curved backbone and surmounted by a saddle, was exhibited at the Centennial. Two years later this kind of wheel began to be manufactured in America, and soon, in spite of its perils, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... still; and the war-conch will sound in the hills, and my home will be inclosed in camps, before the year is ended. And all at once—mark you, how Mayne Reid is on the spot—a strange thing happened. I saw a liana stretch across the bed of the brook about breast-high, swung up my knife to sever it, and—behold, it was a wire! On either hand it plunged into thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where it goes and get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I know no more than—there it is. A little higher the brook began to trickle, then to fill. At last, as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me do," said Gerard; and drawing his huge knife, he cut at every step a hazel shoot or two close by the ground, and turning round twisted them breast-high behind him among the standing shoots. Martin did the same, but with a dogged hopeless air. When they had thus painfully travelled through the greater part of the coppice, the bloodhound's deep bay came nearer and nearer, less and less ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade |
