"Clawed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. For, not to speak of other difficulties, there was one which it would have puzzled an older man than Perseus to get over. Not only must he fight with and slay this golden-winged, iron-scaled, long-tusked, brazen-clawed, snaky-haired monster, but he must do it with his eyes shut, or, at least, without so much as a glance at the enemy with whom he was contending. Else, while his arm was lifted to strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand with that uplifted arm for centuries, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... for! That's why we've pillowed our heads on the cushiony cactus and tramped through purling sands, and blistered our hands pullin' at eider-down ropes, and strained our leg-muscles goin' down, and busted our lungs comin' up, and clawed along the top edge of the world with nothin' but healthy climate between us and the bottom of the bottomless pit. Humph! That's what you call Santa Fe! 'The city of the Holy Faith!' Well, I need a darned lot of 'holy faith' to make me see any city there. It's just a bunch of old yellow ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... the thin hide rope stretched, while Leonard clawed and kicked at the ice with his toes, knees, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... who were about me, the survivors of the Indian wars were the most interesting. There were several of these old clapper-clawed fellows still living, with their more or less apocryphal tales of adventures they had heard of or shared. There was current a tradition—I have seen it in print—that there had been a fight between the Indians and whites where the government barracks ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... thing like a cat, only it went on two legs. It clawed up the chimbly, and the soot fell down, and Goody Corey set me to sweeping on't ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... know that I am on the trail of that scoundrel. There—I did not mean to burden you with my opinion of Hosley. I had intended to leave here quietly without saying a word about him. The secret has clawed at my heart so that I have not been able to keep it. And what matters it? You do not know him. I am satisfied that he has skipped to parts unknown, because he fears that officers are watching for him here. My, but ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... back. The lash whistled through the air behind him. As it fell there came a piercing cry. It was a woman's voice, and with a snarl like that of a tortured animal the old man struck down Nathaniel's arm and clawed his way back to the edge of the line. On the opposite side there was a surging in the crowd and as MacDougall raised his ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... less than half a second this was very respectable. Well, she clawed the flower-pot noiselessly, put her other hand on the door, cast a hasty glance at the means of retreat, and—things took another twist: she heard the rustle of a coming gown, and drew back again, and out came Lucy, and nearly ran over David, who was ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... not a patrician. Omar Ben eyed him in a sort of wondering awe. The stranger was a long-barreled, rumple-furred, devil-clawed street arab, of a caste—or no-caste—that battles for existence with the world—and beats it. On his tail were rings of missing fur, suggesting former attachments, not of lady friends, but of tin cans and strings. For further assets, he possessed one eye and a twisted smile. His present total liability ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... of Calandrino. The former, seeing the lady, started up in haste and taking to flight, made off to join Filippo, whilst Dame Tessa fell tooth and nail upon Calandrino, who was still on his back, and clawed all his face; then, clutching him by the hair and haling him hither and thither, 'Thou sorry shitten cur,' quoth she, 'dost thou then use me thus? Besotted dotard that thou art, accursed be the weal I have willed thee! Marry, seemeth it to thee thou hast not ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Poll;"—"Don't be foolish, Molly;"—"Out of the way, Sukey; we a'n't come to take away your fancy man;" with expressions of that sort, although the blood trickled down many of their faces, from the way in which they had been clawed. Thus we attempted to force our way through them, but I had a very narrow escape even in this instance. A woman seized me by the arm, and pulled me towards her; had it not been for one of the quarter-masters ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... wrenched myself and the shaft at once to one side, and he fell over, burying the axe head in the ground but an inch from the collier's foot. Yet had he not done with me, for, leaving the axe, he clawed the ashen shaft and dragged himself up along it, howling, not with the pain, but with madness, and I must needs smite him with my sword, for his dagger ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... attempt was made the bear suddenly clawed at it and tore it from the boy's hand before he could jerk it beyond his reach. So he was compelled to make ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... fast. That is how a cat of breeding loves to dine. Alas! many a day of intolerable prowling, many a black vigil, had taken the polish off the hundred-and-three. As a matter of fact they behaved abominably; they leaped at the scraps, they clawed at them in the air, they bolted them whole with staring eyes and portentous gulpings, they growled all the while with the smothered ferocity of thunder in the hills. No waiting of turns, no licking of lips and moustaches to get the lingering flavors, no dalliance. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... striking the brick walls each side, and she was muttering and howling like a young she-devil over it, her eyes all crazy and wild, and her hair hanging down her shoulders. Tipps flew and grabbed the baby, and then she turned and clawed him like a tiger-cat. But he's a strong man, and cool; he held the child back with one hand, and with the other he got hold of one of her wrists and gave it a grip,—just twist enough to make the other hand come after his; and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... such occasion, Clare started to his feet half-awake, roused by a terrific roar. Right up on end stood the couguar, flattening his front against the bars of the cage, which he clawed furiously, snarling and spitting and yelling like the huge cat he was, every individual hair on end, and his eyes like green lightning. Clatter, clatter, went his great feet on the iron, as he tore now at this bar now at that, to get at something out in ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... the conoscenti, and thrown the whole band into confusion, by impromptu variations of so frantic and startling a nature that one might well have imagined that the harpies or witches who inspired his compositions had clawed hold of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... strait but we're not dead, and daylight hath broken. Hold up thy face to the sky, man, and say 'I WILL win through this, so help me God!' and having said it, stick to it, even as Nero would have stuck to yon lion's throat until he was clawed away in shreds. Come, try it, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... must have been hanging down through the bars," explained Bert, "and the gobbler came along and nipped it. That made Snoop mad, and he got out and clawed the turkey." ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... in the house had gone to bed that night, Minx, the kitten, came out from behind the broom, and prancing up to the little pasteboard and wool dog that lay tipped over in the corner, pawed him about until he was as full of fun as herself. Then she jumped upon the table and clawed the three dolls out of mamma's work-basket, sending them ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... that fierce grip enlightened Tommy Ashe. He broke loose from Thompson by a trick known to every man who has ever wrestled, and clawed away to his feet. Thereafter he kept clear of grips. Quick, with some skill at boxing, he could get home two blows to Thompson's one. But he could not down his man. Nor could Thompson. They struck and parried, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... about a foot apart. It required quite a stride to get from one spike to the other; in fact the littler ones couldn't have managed it at all, had it not been for Clover and Cecy "boosting" very hard from below, while Katy, making a long arm, clawed from above. At last they were all safely up, and in the delightful retreat which ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... of Thunder, for whom Lei Tsu is often mistaken, is represented as an ugly, black, bat-winged demon, with clawed feet, monkey's head, and eagle's beak, who holds in one hand a steel chisel, and in the other a spiritual hammer, with which he beats numerous drums strung about him, thus producing the terrific noise of thunder. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... distort themselves into loathsome forms; and poisonous weeds rankle along the ground. Evil vermin are creeping along through them. Beside him Death is riding on a wasted pony; from behind the form of a devil stretches over its clawed arm toward him. Both horse and dog look strangely, as it were infected by the hideous objects that surround them; but the knight rides quietly along his way, and bears upon the tip of his lance a lizard that he has already speared. A castle, with its rich friendly battlements, looks ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... to forswear my bargain, I tucked the mewing kitten under my coat, where it clawed me unobserved by any jeering boy in the street. Passing Mrs. Cudlip's house on my way home, I noticed at once that the window stood invitingly open, and yielding with a quaking heart to temptation, I leaned inside the vacant room, and dropped Florabella in the centre of the old lady's ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... place by the side of the river, where it was cool, and we could look out on the water and a green bank opposite, and we thought we were going to have such a nice night; but the authorities changed their minds, and presently to our deep disgust a locomotive came puffing down the road, clawed us up, ran us back, and finally left us in the middle of innumerable tracks and switches just where all the freight trains came in and met. All night long they were arriving and going out. Cars loaded with cattle, ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... Beautiful Dog was at hideous disadvantage. He launched himself sidewise; he didn't even have time to howl. He fell over his own splay feet as he ran, butted into chairs and tables, twisted, turned, whirled, dodged, but always presented just the right spot to be clawed. He couldn't dash to the door and escape: the cats were too swift for him. They kept their bewildered victim circling around the middle ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... the winged creatures' long, clawed hands Chet was helpless. He was struggling vainly when they released their hold and he felt himself falling into a pit that, as far as he knew, was a bottomless abyss. He was still struggling to right himself in mid-air when ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... eyes were looking pleadingly up to her. Mavis loved all animals; in a moment the spaniel was in her lap, her arms were about its neck, and she was pressing her soft, red lips to its head. The dog received these demonstrations of affection with delight; although it pawed and clawed the only decent frock which Mavis possessed, she did not ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... but as a channel or a river- course for the flooding freshets of corn. It is so built that both railway vans and vessels come immediately under its claws, as I may call the great trunks of the elevators. Out of the railway vans the corn and wheat is clawed up into the building, and down similar trunks it is at once again poured out into the vessels. I shall be at Buffalo in a page or two, and then I will endeavor to explain more minutely how this is done. At Chicago the corn is bought and does change hands; and much of it, therefore, is stored ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the ships, it does not matter which) "late last night. Though these night-scenes are part of our daily living, a fresh eye would find them dramatic. We are awakened in the dead of night by a sharp steam-whistle, and soon after feel ourselves clawed by little tugs on either side of our big ship, bringing off the sick and wounded from the shore. And, at once, the process of taking on hundreds of men—many of them crazed with fever—begins. There is the bringing of the stretchers up the side-ladder between the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... and clawed his chin she examined him narrowly. Suspicion as to the object of his visit fixed her attention on ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... were evidences that he owed his being to the love of the god of the lake for one wearing the human form. He was shaped like a man—that is, he stood upright, and his feet and hands, and legs and arms, were fashioned like those of an Ottawa, save that the former were flat, and webbed and clawed like the paws of a white beaver(2). The head, which was placed upon a pair of shoulders similar to those of a man, resembled more nearly those heads which the hunter sees looking out of the cabins of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... went, leaving his majesty in a very uneasy state of mind. But he had nothing to fear from her, for although she did not cry, "Vive l'Empereur!" when he skated gorgeously by, she never revealed the fact that he was only a long-clawed griffin. ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... fronds brushed his face, and here and there his fingers sank into a patch of snow, but he found its chilly touch curiously pleasant, and once clawed up a handful and thrust it into his mouth. A numbness was creeping over him, his head felt curiously heavy, but he was scheming for his life with the instinctive cunning of a wounded beast rather than reason. There was now a sound behind him, but it was dulled by the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... this comfort," she continued, "that whatever has happened, it has been by no fault of mine, Mr. Bindloose; for weel I wot, before that bloodthirsty auld half-pay Philistine, MacTurk, got to speech of him, I clawed his cantle to some purpose with my hearth-besom.—But the poor simple bairn himsell, that had nae mair knowledge of the wickedness of human nature than a calf has of a flesher's gully, he threepit to see the auld hardened bloodshedder, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... it, but of both sexes, were about me in a moment, begging, tumbling, fighting, clamouring, yelling, shivering in their nakedness and hunger. The piece of money I had put into the claw of the child I had over-turned was clawed out of it, and was again clawed out of that wolfish gripe, and again out of that, and soon I had no notion in what part of the obscene scuffle in the mud, of rags and legs and arms and dirt, the money might be. In raising the child, I had drawn it aside out of the main thoroughfare, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... full gallop, had passed the wild-horse, and for miles beyond—still had he gone at utmost speed. Still close upon his heels had followed the ravenous and untiring wolves. Here and there were the prints of their clawed feet—the ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... saw the drama of his riding by night to the frightened household on the distant farm; pictured children standing at a window, waiting for him. He suddenly had in her eyes the heroism of a wireless operator on a ship in a collision; of an explorer, fever-clawed, deserted by his bearers, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... He clawed his way along the submerging boom-stick to its other end, where it was linked with its neighbor, and the combined buoyancy of both boom-sticks was ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... good deacon to Boston,—as he was about to return home, he goes to the bridge and bargains for two live lobsters, fine, active, lusty-clawed fellows, alive ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Wretch," and "the Wretch" knew him. "Oh!" "Ah!" passed like pistol shots; but not a word: even this strange meeting went for little, so awful was the moment, so great are Death and Fire. Edward clawed his rope to the bed; up to the window by it, dropped his line to fireman Jackson planted express below, and in another moment was hauling up a rope ladder: this he attached, and getting on it and holding his own rope by way of banister, cried, "Now, men, quick, for your lives." But ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... not heed him, so he flung himself upon his knees before her, and, seizing the haft of the broken spear, drive it deep into her and wrenched it round. Now she saw Umslopogaas and turned roaring, and clawed at him, tearing his breast and arms. Then, as he lay, he heard a mighty howling, and, behold! grey wolves and black leaped upon the lioness and rent and worried her till she fell and was torn to pieces by them. After this the senses of Umslopogaas left him again, ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... shot through the corridor of the car and the open compartments to the rear. There he clawed open the door and stepped ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... closing the discussion with a mighty yawn. 'I say, Spirit, take yourself off. Something is coming ashore, and were it old Nick in person I should be glad to see him and shake his clawed hand.' ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... set on a central thick leg having a three-clawed foot was in that chamber, covered with a cloth on which was worked a picture from the story of Ruth. But only puzzling bits of the latter were to be seen, for on the circumference of the table-cover ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... such as the wall-paintings pictured, something that had been made from the main stock of mankind, changed unthinkably into a creature who bore his tools of his trade in his own bone and flesh. Mole-men, men with short heavy arms and wide-clawed hands, made for digging through hard earth. They bore my friends away on their hairy-naked shoulders, and I stood too shocked to say a word. Three mole-men, accompanied by three tall, pale-white figures, figures inexpressibly alien—even through the heavy white robes—that moved with an ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... it with nose and head and paws, as hard as she could go, scraping quickly with her sharp-clawed little feet, throwing the earth behind till she nearly smothered her babies, and pushing her snout- like nose into the earth as hard and ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... wind dissolving at the morning hour when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in vain for the ground which he could no longer reach because the man did not let go of him. Rabbit ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... hold a babe, was a friend of Mrs. Cameron's who had died in childbirth. And then swiftly, unaccountably, all these gentle or genial influences were scattered as if by something hellish, something diabolic. The face of the sweet little woman became fiendish in line. Her lips snarled, her hands clawed like those of a cat, and out of her mouth came a hoarse imprecation. "I'll tear your heart out!" she snarled. "I'll kill you soul and body—I'll rip you limb from limb!" We all recoiled in amazement and wonder. It was as if our friend had suddenly ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... "Don't you remember that crows' eggs are a blueish green? That must have been a goshawk's nest. And a goshawk is the fiercest of all the hawks there are. It's no wonder your back is clawed. Come here and ...
— Sleepy-Time Tales: The Tale of Fatty Coon • Arthur Scott Bailey
... passed before the last clawed beast made its death rush. Meta and Poli waited expectantly for more, they were happily excited by this chance to deal destruction. Jason felt a little sick after the silent ferocious attack. A ferocity that the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... Close beside it he listened for a moment and then rapidly began to gather large rocks and pile them within the entrance. He had almost closed the aperture when the lion appeared upon the inside—a very ferocious and angry lion that pawed and clawed at the rocks and uttered mighty roars that caused the earth to tremble; but roars did not frighten Tarzan of the Apes. At Kala's shaggy breast he had closed his infant eyes in sleep upon countless nights in years gone by to the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... trying to daunt him, Led him confused in circles through the brake. He was forgetting his old wretched folly, And freedom was his need; his throat was choking; Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs, And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps. Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!' Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom, Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... shot forth a dusky arm and clawed the basket open, she showed no sign of fear, though Fletcher's hold upon her tightened to a grip. They seemed to be the only Europeans in all that throng, but that fact also she had forgotten. She could think of nothing but the crouching native before her, and the basket in which some living, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... instantly half a hundred hands clawed at the table to retrieve their stakes. For the one-eyed man had dropped not five ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... clawed at the noose around his neck; he tugged at the rope, he took a little slack, and half sitting up, gnawed at it. But it was green buffalo-hide, as thick as his thumb, and he might as well have gnawed wire cable. His teeth did not even ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... fight; and they scuffled, and huffled, and ruffled, and shuffled, and puffled, and muffled, and buffled, and duffled, and fluffled, and guffled, and bruffled, and screamed, and shrieked, and squealed, and squeaked, and clawed, and snapped, and bit, and bumped, and thumped, and dumped, and flumped each other, till they were all torn into little bits; and at last there was nothing left to record this painful incident except the cherry and seven small ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... marks on the steel door. The scratches were deep in the paint, and seemed to radiate toward the shiny nickel dial of the combination. "Scratches!" repeated Mr. Merkel, coming over to look. "No, I never noticed them before. Why, she is clawed up some," he admitted. "But I can't say that they haven't been there since I got the safe, which was just before the round-up. Yes, she sure is clawed up some," and he spoke as if some mountain lion had done the damage ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... whirlwind of hysteria shook the room. While the choir boys sprinkled holy water on the pontiff's nakedness, women rushed upon the Eucharist and, grovelling in front of the altar, clawed from the bread humid particles and drank and ate ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Janet's tent, Captain reached for the extreme point of the beast's extended tail. Like a flash, the brute doubled upon his pursuer, snapping fiercely as the hound dashed past. With a howl of rage and pain, Captain clawed the ground in his effort to recover himself, but before he could renew his attack, and just as the wolf was setting forth again, like a cyclone Queen was upon them. So terrific was her impact, that dogs and wolf rolled under the ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... digging at the time, night-work, up forward, in clay so glutinous it would not leave the shovels and had mainly to be clawed out by hand—filthy, back-breaking, heart-rending labour. On calling the roll one dawn I found ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... differs but little from the beaver. It is a thick, rounded, and flat-looking animal, with blunt nose, short ears almost buried in the fur, stiff whiskers like a cat, short legs and neck, small dark eyes, and sharply-clawed feet. The hinder ones are longest, and are half-webbed. Those of ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... grow to a great size. In the lower part of case 22 are specimens of those tortoises which sleep with their heads bent under the margin of their shell. In the last case devoted to tortoises, are those hard tortoises known as the three-clawed terrapins of Asia, Africa, and America. These are the strictly carnivorous family that feed in the water; and may be seen preying upon the human remains that float down the Ganges. Under these terrible epicures are the marine tortoises or turtles; and among them ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... hidden the upper part of the gully. And forthwith, with a sudden contraction of the heart, he saw the cave bear half-way down from the brow, and making a gingerly backward step with his flat hind-foot. His hind-quarters were towards Ugh-lomi, and he clawed at the rocks and bushes so that he seemed flattened against the cliff. He looked none the less for that. From his shining snout to his stumpy tail he was a lion and a half, the length of two tall men. He looked over his shoulder, and his huge mouth was open with the exertion of holding up ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... gave her in jest. But this nickname only met the peculiarities that lay on the surface, the eccentricities which each of us displays to his neighbors in social life. This woman, who, if closely studied, would have shown the most savage traits of the peasant class, was still the girl who had clawed her cousin's nose, and who, if she had not been trained to reason, would perhaps have killed her in ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... in wicked joy, He snaps his muzzle in the snows, His five-clawed feet Do scamper fleet Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows, Where Jane's bright ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... then Walthew's voice reached them and there was a hoarse and urgent tone in it. Springing up, they ran back along the trail and found Emile keeping off the dogs while Walthew bent over a dark object that lay half revealed in the clawed up snow. At first Harding saw only a patch or two of ragged fur that looked as if it belonged to an animal; then with a shock he caught the outline of a man's shoulder and arm. The rest of the party gathered round, breathless after their haste, and ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... death struggle, bit and clawed at the snow and bushes about it, and actually came almost to the feet of the shrinking girls; but they were safe from harm, for the shot had come just ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... much longer period was spent in the cackling consultation, which at length came to an end, not as before in their passing on to another place, but by the whole flock setting to, and with their great clawed feet scratching up the sand, which they scattered in clouds and showers ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Michael than the woman dropped her child, and with a wild shout threw herself upon them. The first poor devil whom she spotted lost a handful of hair—but as it was as red as fire it was no great sacrifice to the owner—the second had a piece of skin clawed off his nose, and the third reluctantly parted with a piece of flesh weighing nearly a quarter of an ounce, torn forcibly from his cheek. The police endeavored to keep her at arms' length without success—she broke down their defences, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... patting them, or you'll get your hands clawed up. Tigers do purr like fun when they are happy, but these fellers never are, and you'll only see 'em spit and snarl," said Ben, leading the way to the humpy carrels, who were peacefully chewing their cud and longing for the desert, with a dreamy, far-away ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... his hair formed a stiff ridge along his back while his teeth gleamed in a snarl. Something slipped over his head and despite his struggles, it twisted tightly around his neck. A strange odor made him sick and weak when he tried to breathe. His paws clawed in his attempts to tear the sack from his head, so that he could breathe and fight, but his legs grew limp, a noise sounded inside his ears, something seemed to be hammering at the top of his head. He made ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... argumentative. Then came Mr Jacob Bumble, a sleek fat— pated Scotchman. Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, a very handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural good—breeding and politeness. Again I clapper—clawed, according to the fashion of the country, a violent shake of the paw being the Jamaica infeftment to acquaintanceship, with Mr Percales, whom I took for a foreign Jew somehow or other at first, from ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... altogether is eight inches, for it extends four inches below the four-inch parapet above, and this lower portion is worked into a foliage enwreathing the sides. The whole height of the table from the feet of its four-clawed pedestal, is three feet two inches. This pedestal, or rather branching stem of polished oak—being of the sturdy contour of its original growth, with its superb ramifications supporting the precious slab above—shows ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... volatu undoso, opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which incline downward, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all other hook-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and ascending with ridiculous caution. All the gallinae parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... promptly slithered, burying itself for half its length; and Norah, taken altogether by surprise, executed a graceful header over the bow of the boat. The mud received her softly, and clung to her with affection; and for a moment, face downward among the reeds, Norah clawed for support, like a crab suddenly beached. Then, somehow, she scrambled to a sitting position, up to her waist in mud and water—and rocked with laughter. A little way off, the boat swayed gently on the ruffled surface ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... moment's pause and then the big dog appeared in the opening, struggling in Anton's strong, if clumsy, grasp. She clawed at the window-sill, not understanding what was happening, but Anton gave her a push, and half turning as she fell, Lassie struck the water all of a heap. The instant she was afloat, however, her natural swimming instincts asserted themselves and ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... never would 'a' posted it a tall. For there's no use denyin', Mrs. Lathrop, 't, 'f my visit to Cousin Marion sh'd lead to her askin' to borrow 's much 's a quarter, I sh'll bitterly regret ever havin' clawed her out from back o' that trunk-flap. There ain't no possible good 's c'n ever come o' lendin' money to them's ain't able to pay it back, 'n' I learned that lesson to my bitter cost once 'n' for all time when I had that little business with Sam Duruy. That ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... rumble deep in his chest had a new meaning now. Until last night and to-day he had not known a real hatred. He had fought other bears, but the fighting rage was not hate. It came quickly, and passed away quickly; it left no growing ugliness; he licked the wounds of a clawed enemy, and was quite frequently happy while he nursed them. But this new thing that was born ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... on foot, the game is new to begin, and that is not to be called a victory that puts not an end to the war. In the encounter where Caesar had the worst, near the city of Oricum, he reproached Pompey's soldiers that he had been lost had their general known how to overcome; and afterwards clawed him in a very different fashion when it came ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... as a long cylinder, expelled from the split hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in till he clashed hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharp edge parting the line close to the anchored end. He clawed blindly for a hold, found something he could not at that moment ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... black with a yell as Nicanor released the gray, and the two beasts leaped at each other and closed in the middle of the ring, rolling over. Men clawed over one another's shoulders to see better; at opposite sides of the ring the owners squatted, each urging on his animal with hisses and clapping hands. The light from the smoking lamps and candles fell upon the crowd, throwing into relief brutal faces, and eyes gleaming ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... upon the floor was pink and fawn; the chairs were covered with what used to be called Manchester stripe—very clean and pleasant-looking, and excellent for wash and wear. There was a pretty little table for tea and dinner, and a nice, round three-clawed one close by the mother's side—who was established in the only article of luxury in the room, a very comfortable arm-chair. There the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... with some assistance from Harriet, who clawed at the roots of the tree and pushed with her hands until she finally got to the top once more. Reaching there she got up and surveyed the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... thee. For it would be as reasonable to expect a grizzled painter like thee to be fond of getting a javelin inside thee as to expect a man whose wits have been sharpened on the classics to like having his handsome face clawed by a ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... did not come quickly enough and that they had "trained up" plenty of others. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was shot at once without a moment's delay. The wife came out with a little sucking child. She put the child down and sprang at the Germans like a lioness. She clawed their faces. One of the Germans took a rifle and struck her a tremendous blow with the butt on the head. Another took his bayonet and fixed it and thrust it through the child. He then put his rifle on his ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... at the same instant steel-like fingers seized his throat. A brown hand shot down with a keen blade and severed the strap about his waist and giant muscles lifted him bodily from his seat. Usanga clawed the air and shrieked but he was helpless as a babe. Far below the watchers in the meadow could see the aeroplane careening in the sky, for with the change of control it had taken a sudden dive. They saw it right itself and, turning in a short circle, return ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... trees, all but deserted, except by flies and half-starved cats. These unhappy creatures, left behind in the flight, were everywhere, and in front of the bake shop they crowded in literal scores—gaunt, mangy, clawed and battered from constant fights. It was hot, there was little to eat, and after hours of wrangling it appeared that our precious scratches of Turkish took us to the Gallipoli instead ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... First Course: soups, vegetables, legs of Pork, &c. [b] Second Course: roast Mutton, glazed Pigeons, Fritters, &c. [c] Serve a Pheasant dry, with salt and ginger: a Heronsewe with salt and powder (blanche?) [d] Treat open-clawed ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... shrieked Harry, forgetting himself. On which the Dragon clawed a handful of hair out of his head, and Harry screamed, and the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... rate, curving back her trunk and "roomping" out the perturbation of her spirit, she reared on her hind-legs, boosted herself upon the roof of the house, and clawed aft. This auto-shifting of cargo lifted the bow of the little schooner. Her jibs, swashing soggily about her bow, were hoisted out of the water, and a gust bellied them. On the pivot of her buried stern the Dobson swung like a top just as twin ledges threatened ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... said the captain, opening the door so briskly that Mr. Thomas started backward and came down heavily upon the toes of the devoted Tad. Mr. Simpson swore, Mr. Thomas clawed about him to gain equilibrium, and the dignity of the group ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a couple of seconds after that that the first slasher came in, shiny as heat-blued steel and waving four clawed tentacles that grew around its neck. It took me a second or so to get the sights on him. He stopped slashing immediately. Slashers are smart; you kill them and they find it ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... set her own weight on the trunk, testing it, and prepared to climb down and lead him out. At this, however, the youngster's nerve revived. With a joyful and understanding squeal, he rushed forward, sprawled and clawed his way over the tangle of branches, gained the firm trunk,—and presently found himself again beside his mother among the pleasant, moonlit berry-bushes. Here he was fondled and nosed and licked and nursed by the delighted mother, till his bruised little ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hours were burned into Sorez' mind forever. At her heels he had clawed his way up the steep hillside expecting at every step a spear thrust in his back. He tore his hands and knees, but, drawn on by a picture of the girl, moving shadow-like in the moonlight ahead of him, he followed steadily after. Pausing for breath once he saw the dark fringe of trees below ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... all candor that one of the most instructive and interesting "animal pictures" I have ever seen, including those done by Landseer, Rosa Bonheur, and Ernest Thompson Seton, was that little iron-gray, long-eared donkey lying on his back on the street and clawing the air with his hoofs. And he clawed fast, too—fairly sawed the air. For once in his life Turpentine, the snail paced, was in a hurry; for once he moved with more celerity than grace. It threw us into spasms of laughter to see him exert himself so vigorously to reverse his position—to get his feet down and ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... Major disclosed a most grievous grizzly bear, grizzly and bearish beyond conception, heraldic, regardant, expectant, not collared, fanged and clawed proper, rampant, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... canvas it seemed to him incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the reeling spar. Still, that banging, thrashing canvas must be mastered somehow, though it was snow-soaked and almost unyielding, and he clawed at it furiously with bleeding hands while twice the bowsprit raked a sea and dipped him waist-deep in. At length the other man flung him the end of the gasket, and they worked back carefully, leaving the sail lashed down, and scrambled aft to help the others who were making the big main-boom fast. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... to the lowest dependent of her bounty, Laura had secured the good-will and kindness of every body. With a mistress of such a temper, my lady's woman (who had endured her mistress for forty years, and had been clawed and scolded and jibed every day and night in that space of time), could not be expected to have a good temper of her own; and was at first angry against Miss Laura, as she had been against her ladyship's fifteen preceding companions. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... concern made itself felt finally. Mallow, who was the first to show signs of recovery, struggled to his feet and clawed blindly toward the automobile. He clung to it, sick and shaking; profanely ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... over his horse's withers as the laboring creature clawed tenaciously up the face of the rugged hill. His whole poise was that of sympathetic straining. Nor were his eyes a whit less eager than those of ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... infantry line, absorbing the scattered men of the first light contact line, halted at command under the mounting rifle fire of the enemy, halted and flung itself prone, while ready hands reached backward for intrenching tools, and the line scraped, clawed, scooped and burrowed into the fresh earth in shallow pits, and went about its business of returning ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... the Signorina fairly clawed, cat-like, to get through that wall of cowboys and across the street to where (believing Kid Barringer to be as far away as Fort Worth) she had left Minnie scarce half an hour before—while the old man shouted ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... herself had quite a different notion. At least, she went through an entirely different motion, which was not at all like offering the back of her neck for old Spot to seize. When Spot reached for her she clawed him furiously, with one paw after another, while she told him what ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... vessels were not entirely defenseless. Their iron-driven ultra-generators threw out screens of the Nevians' own formulae, screens of prodigious power to which the energies of the amphibians clung and at which they clawed and tore in baffled, wildly coruscant displays of power unthinkable. For minutes the furious conflict raged, while the inconceivable energy being dissipated by those straining screens hurled itself in terribly destructive bolts of lightning upon the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... hour passed. Outside the wind came up, and Amory started as the wet branches moved and clawed with their finger-nails at the window-pane. Tom was deep in his work, and inside the room only the occasional scratch of a match or the rustle of leather as they shifted in their chairs broke the stillness. Then like a ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Men fought with one another for a chance to strike, kick or spit in the face of their victim. It was an orgy of hatred and blood-lust. Everest's arms were pinioned, blows, kicks and curses rained upon him from every side. One business man clawed strips of bleeding flesh from his face. A woman slapped his battered cheek with a well groomed hand. A soldier tried to lunge a hunting rifle at the helpless logger; the crowd was too thick. He bumped them aside with the butt of the gun to get room. Then he crashed ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... and more than ever in the mood for joyous company, Gonzague turned to re-enter the supper-room, but the hunchback clawed at him and brought him to a halt. Gonzague stared at his follower in a bewilderment which the hunchback proceeded partially to ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... feathers as in the bird) consisting of twenty-one vertebrae, with the feathers springing in pairs from either side; it has biconcave vertebrae, like the fishes, amphibia, and reptiles; it has teeth in its jaws; and it has three complete fingers, free and clawed, on ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... a wiser and more benevolent part by their boy had they given him a scalping knife, without sheath, for a plaything, or a young bear, without a muzzle and chain, for a pet. The knife might have cut off a few of his fingers, and the bear might have clawed off some of his flesh, but the mischief done would have been slight, compared to that of letting him have his will ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... hind-feet and dragged violently down and across to the deep "hover" near his home. The salmon had at last outwitted the vole. The current was strong, and beneath its weight Brighteye's body was bent backwards till his fore-paws rested on the salmon's head. Mad with rage and fright, he clawed and bit at the neck of his captor. Gradually his strength was giving way, and for want of air he was losing consciousness, when, like a living bolt, Lutra, the otter, to save unwittingly a life that she had erstwhile threatened, shot from the darkness of the river-bed, and fixed ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... tunnel winds about in such a way that they never can tell from the looks of his doorway where it leads to; and there are no snakes in the wilderness to follow and find out. Occasionally I have seen where Mooween the bear has turned the stone over and clawed the earth beneath; but there is generally a tough root in the way, and Mooween concludes that he is taking too much trouble for so small a mouthful, and shuffles off to the log where the ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... more dreadfully affected than the pirates. The colour went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to their feet, some clawed hold of others; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... civility, he disfigured my papers, that no sooner came into his hands, but he fell upon them as a lion rampant, or the cat upon the poor cock in the fable, saying, Tu hodie mihi discerperis—so my papers came home miserably clawed, blotted, and blurred; whole sentences dismembered, and pages scratched out; several leaves omitted which ought to be printed,—shamefully he used my copy; so that before it was carried to the press, he swooped away the second part of the Life wholly from it—in the room of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... known birds having sharp chisel-like bills, sharply pointed and stiffened tail feathers, and strongly clawed feet with two toes forward and two back, except in one genus. Their food is insects and grubs, which they get by boring in trees, and from under the bark, clinging to the sides of trunks or the under side of branches with their strong curved ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... have clawed 'em a bit," admitted the man with the gun. "And perhaps it's jest as well I come along when I did. You folks live around here? Don't seem like ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... pain made him lose contact with that shadow. He looked down. From the gravel, from under rocks, gathered an army of blue-black, hard-shelled things, their clawed forelimbs extended, blue sense organs raised on fleshy stalks well above their heads, all turned towards ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... one hindrance and another, it was almost a quarter past five before daylight began to glimmer in the parlour. It found him on his knees—not in prayer, nor in thanksgiving, but eagerly feeling over the grey pile of rubbish and digging into it with clawed fingers. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... ye, boys, this country ain't no place fer a white man," he volunteered. "When y'ain't freezin' ye're burnin' up, an' that's what happens in hell!" He spat a stream of tobacco juice over the wagon wheel and clawed his beard, his brown face twisted quizzically. "God A'mighty ain't nowheres near here! He didn't come this fur West—stopped down to Rat Portage![1] Well, anyways, good luck to ye both; but ef ye don't git ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... tiger. One can lie in bed amid downy pillows and dream tigers as terrible as any in the pathless wild. I was a little girl when one night I tried to cross the garden in front of my aunt's house in Alabama. I was in pursuit of a large cat with a great bushy tail. A few hours before he had clawed my little canary out of its cage and crunched it between his cruel teeth. I could not see the cat. But the thought in my mind was distinct: "He is making for the high grass at the end of the garden. I'll get there first!" ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... with a choke in his throat. The white head rocked from side to side and the hands clawed the air. Then William Williams hunched forward and lurched from his chair ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... than they are to-day, the most famous and the most fortunate was the man who was known as Messer Griffo of the Claw. He was so nicknamed, I think, because of the figure on the banner that he flew—a huge dragon with one fiercely clawed foot lifted as if to lay hold of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... curiously like all other early mornings in his consciousness, and he could not alienate himself from the wonted environment. He stood talking on every-day terms of idle speculation with the familiar policeman, about a stray parrot in the top of one of the trees, where it screamed and clawed at the dead branch to which it clung. Then he went carelessly indoors again as if he were secure of reading the reporter's story of it in that next day's paper which he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... round to the light and pressing the beautiful silk coat in against her figure with little kicks at the skirt. "No; I didn't go; Joseph came round and told me. He didn't think the wound was very dangerous—necessarily. One of his hands was terribly clawed." ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... old tales." Asaki sounded almost wistful as the cat jumped to his knee and clawed for a hold on his chest belts. "But I do not believe that lions were ever so ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... at first he fought off his captor; then, as fear overwhelmed him, he became possessed of a phrenetic energy and struggled with the strength of two men. He struck, he bit, he clawed, he kicked. It was like the battle of a man with a beast—ferocious, merciless—while it lasted. They rocked about the cabin, heedless of the wounded man; the stove came crashing down and they trampled the pipe ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... boy, have we not got the house, and the furniture, and a hundred a year still; and have you not great talents, which will make all our fortunes?" says Mrs. Stubbs, getting up off her knees, and making believe to smile as she clawed hold of my hand ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... amorous fury of the creature striking the tumbler with resounding wings, not the glowing eyes, the strong, clawed feet, the Death's Head staring from its funereal black thorax that held the girl's attention. It was something else; something entirely different riveted her ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers |
