"Croak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good nature, they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still another King. Jupiter, displeased with all their complaints, sent a Heron, who preyed upon the Frogs day by day till there were none left to croak upon the lake. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... more reasons than one; if there is a bad reason, Elder Semple will be sure to croak about it. I could wish that just now ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... reeds, where I set up what I took to be a Numidian crane, and, just beyond the river growths, some splendid oleanders gave an effective splash of scarlet to the surrounding greens and greys. In the waters of the marsh the bullfrogs kept up a loud sustained croak, as though they were True Believers disturbed by the presence of the Infidels. The N'fiss is a fascinating river from every point of view. Though comparatively small, few Europeans have reached the source, and it passes through ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... of living: he breathes, or rather swallows air, and must, as he swims about with his beautifully webbed feet, come to the surface of the water now and then, or he would die. I am sure you know the frog well enough, and you may even have heard the harsh croak from which it has its name, as you have passed some damp meadow or weedy pond, on a summer evening. But I wonder whether you know frogs' eggs when you ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... The Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow, The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow, And hoot of Owls,—all join the soul to harrow, And grate the ear. We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing, As if all creatures thou ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... hear their merry croak From river, pond, and stream; O, now I know that Spring has come, And ...
— The Tiny Picture Book. • Anonymous
... a muscle, or say a word. "I guess he's dead, ain't he doc?" I would hear in Jim's voice, and the doc would say there was a little life left, but not enough, to swear by. Then the doc would say, "You better come in about 10:30 tomorrow, as we bury them all at that hour, and I guess he'll croak by that time." I tried to speak and tell them that I was alive, and that I was going to get well, but it, wasn't any use. I was tongue-tied. Again I would hear the sweet rustle of a dress, and feel a warm hand on my head, and I ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... on," said the page, "for you will be presently interrupted; the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will wing to roost presently.—This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... I kenn'd that the inn was forsaken, That nae tread o' footsteps was heard on the floor; Oh, loud craw'd the cock whare was nane to awaken, And the wild raven croak'd on the seat ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... don't say it Leave him alone. It's not bad enough to croak over. Here, Gaddy, take the chit to Bingle and ride hell-for-leather. It'll do you good. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... cheek, for aught his lord may say. Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the lying Greeks: Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave Licinius speaks. Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies will crowd; Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud; Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see; And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him fixedly). I hear a raven's croak; I feel The icy breath of some strange body when Thou standest burning by my side, thou fool! ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... with meaching ways at any time and in anybody," said the thin croak, made more husky by snuff, a pinch of which she held between thumb and finger, the joined digits punctuating her strictures. "And she's one of the fair-and-softy sort. A pleasant word to this one, and a smile to that, and always recollecting who is sick, and who is away from home, and ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... honest man and faithful as a dog. My grandfather had taken a liking to him, and when he quitted the sea Krok followed him, and became his man and served him faithfully. He could neither read nor write at that time, and his only vocal expression was a hoarse croak like the cawing of a crow, and this, combined with ample play of head and hand and facial expression and hieroglyphic gesture, formed his only means ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... command: the birds crowded on the gibbet; not one was on the corpse. They were talking among themselves. The croaking was frightful. The howl, the whistle and the roar, are signs of life; the croak is a satisfied acceptance of putrefaction. In it you can fancy you hear the tomb breaking silence. The croak is night-like ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... had a marvellous table with glass legs; a third swore that he had made a telephone in 1860, but did not know what it was until he saw Bell's patent; and a fourth told a vivid story of having heard a bullfrog croak via a telegraph wire which was strung into a certain cellar in ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... strikers, and he thought of going to Doane and explaining about these agitators, but when he read a broadside alleging that even on their former wages the telephone girls had been hungry, he was troubled. "All lies and fake figures," he said, but in a doubtful croak. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... as in the library, the presentations were numerous: Col. Rhodes was represented by a glossy Saguenay raven. I listened, expecting each moment to hear it, like Poe's nocturnal visitor, "ghostly, grim and ancient," croak out "nevermore!" ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... for it was still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton, the bo'sun, the swabbers were at work in the waist and forecastle. Despite the heat and the stagnant air, one of the toilers found breath to croak ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... again, and this time he located its source correctly. Seated on the crumbling maintop of the ship was a huge, evil-looking bird of the kind called "Gallinazos" in South America. The carrion creature eyed the newcomer with a red malevolent eye and again gave voice to its harsh croak—the sound that had so startled ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... for miles and miles like a great stony sea. A more barren desert you cannot conceive. Innumerable boulders, relics of the glacial period, encumbered the track. We could only go at a foot-pace. Not a blade of grass, not a strip of green, enlivened the prospect, and the only sound we heard was the croak of the curlew and the wail of the plover. Hour after hour we plodded on, but the grey waste seemed interminable, boundless; and the only consolation Sigurdr would vouchsafe was, that our journey's end lay on this side of some purple mountains that peeped like the tents of ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... frog had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... meaning; nor, in fact, did he appear to take much note of the sense of what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its profit. His sister's voice, too, naturally harsh, had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled melancholy; ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is a very extraordinary man. I have now twice seen him. Without any thing of politeness, his manners are pleasing, though their freedom is out of the common; and his conversation, though in a half-uttered, half-Cornish, half-croak, is interesting. There is a strange contrast between his genius, which is not confined to painting, and the vulgarity of his appearance, —his manners, and sometimes of his language. You will however ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... house-fronts, a street without people in it, he felt better. He let his body lean against the iron post of a gas-lamp, stuck his hands in his trouser-pockets and stood there looking at the paving-stones. Now he was damned if he would take another step, he would rather croak here like a beast; then they would have to take him up and know that ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... finished striking six the next morning, Dennis and Maisie were in the stable-yard. Tom was there, pumping water into a pail, and Jacko the raven was there, stalking about with gravity, and uttering a deep croak now and then. Jacko was not a nice character, and more feared than liked by most people. He was a thief and a bully, and so cunning that it was impossible to be up to all his tricks. In mischief he ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... pine that, rocking no sweet rest, Swings no young birds to sleep upon the bough, But where the raven only comes to croak— 'There lives no man ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... is like unto this Frog, As like as is the puppy to the dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride. And though this world is that which he doth love, He mounts his head as if he lived above. And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... getting up, walking about, and smoking, and he, good-naturedly, kept awake on my account. The night was wondrously calm and beautiful, so calm and quiet that there was not the slightest surf on the outer reef, and the only sound that broke the silence would be the croak of some night-fishing bird, as it rose, prey in bill, ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... and anger. What had woke us all up so suddenly? The morning was just breaking, and my frogs, though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out; and with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning song. As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began to croak as loud as ever they could. The noise their united concert made, seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach, quite deafening. Well might the Germans look angry: they wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the Indians, the red sort, owned it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... raven-croak came through a slit of the pantry-door; "keep off the Carmodys' land! Mind now what I'm tellin' you!" ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... hundred' (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), 'militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks' feathers on their heads then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their eyes—how could they help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; "I've come to you," says he, "honourable sir," ... (fancy his thinking to surprise me with that! ... I know I'm honourable without his telling me!) "I have ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... long and loud before daylight; another that he had seen a corpse candle as he went homewards the previous evening; a third that she had seen her mistress all in white at her bedside, looking beautiful; a fourth that she had heard a raven croak; in short, if sighs and wonders could kill poor Mrs Prothero, there was little chance for her life. Where every one was usually so busy, so full of energy and spirit, there was more than a Sabbath calm. They were ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... was beginning to croak, which, taken together with a dawning passion for socks, ties, and brilliantine, was an unmistakable sign of growing up; Russell was preternaturally thin and looked all arms and legs; while Tim had forsaken knickers for full-fledged trousers, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... reflections on life, was regarding her own case, and had arrived at the conviction that in order to preserve herself from the mockeries of life, she was not in a position to do anything else but simply "croak"—to ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... girls come and sing to me so prettily, so sweetly! They want to be singers! Singers, my dear, with chests like paper dolls and throats like plucked spring chickens! Bah! They are good for nothing, they catch cold, they give a little croak and they die. Strength is everything. Let me see your throat! No! You will never croak! You will never die. And your arms? Look at mine. Yes, yours will ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... said, "I don't want to croak, nor for other people to believe what I say; but it seems to me that that black fellow's kicking out of the ranks means a good deal; and I take it that he is excited with the news that he has somehow ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... fools who see only the pleasant side? Are they alone the visionaries who see the best rather than the worst? It is strange that the critics see only weakness in the "pleasant- spoken," and only truth and safety in those who croak. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... experiment. In each poem there are what must be judged definite errors against taste in detail—Poe's taste was never very sure—but the skill of the long voluptuous lamentation, broken at equal intervals by the croak of the raven, and that of the verbal translation, as if into four tones or languages, of the tintinabulation of the bells, is so extraordinary, so original, and so closely in keeping with the personal genius of the writer, that ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... about the marshes of Cocytus, where they croak furiously. They are all to a man against ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... were hot, as in the jungle. When the Indians had lit their little "light Wood" candles these huts must have been delightful places, full of jolly talk and merry music. Outside, by the river-brink, the frogs would croak; and, perhaps, the adventurers heard "the shriekings of Snakes and other Insects," such as scared Lionel Wafer there about a century later. Those who ventured out into the night were perplexed by the innumerable multitude of fireflies that spangled the darkness with their ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work—certainly that was "good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that The Quarterly Review, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to mature," and to warn him that as he had "risen like a rocket," ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... in the woods! Silence! Deep silence! Save for the chortle of the night-jar, the tap of the snipe's beak against the tree-trunks, the snores of a weary game-keeper, the chirp of the burying-beetle, the croak of the bat, the wild laughter of the owl and the boom, boom of the frog, deep silence reigned. The crescent moon stole silently above the horizon. Wonderful, significant is that silent, stealthy approach of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... another rancher, surnamed Crosby, hatchet-faced, slow of speech, who spoke, "Ain't that question a bit superfluous, pard? We're all with you—that is, as many as you want, I reckon. None of us ain't cats, so we can't croak but once—and that might as well be now ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... as the witch sat there, a harsh voice began to stir in her throat, and then words came out of her, and she sang in a crow's croak: ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... thrush, and we laughed together, Laughed till the woods were all a-ring ; And he said to me as he plumed each feather, "Well, people must croak, ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... said Hen suddenly. His voice shook with excitement. "Say, you don't want to croak yet. I got to tell you: the Weasel said to tell you that he had bit. Understand? He has bit. See?" Hen paused ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes—the cloud— And mists that spread the flying shroud; And sun-beams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past; But that enormous barrier holds ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "I've got to hold still, and take it. Life will do the doing. I don't want to croak, but remember my word, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... intensely, though I fear I must have wearied our dear, charming host, by my incessant questions about the names of the trees and shrubs, and of the habits and ways of the thousands of birds. It was all so new and so delightful to me,—the green gloom, the hoarse croak of the ka-ka, as it alighted almost at our feet and prepared, quite careless of our vicinity, to tear up the loose soil at the root of a tall tree, in search of grubs. It is a species of parrot, but with very dingy reddish-brown plumage, only slightly enlivened ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... at the free speech of Pasquin, proposed to have him thrown into the Tiber, thinking thus to stop his tongue; but the Spanish legate dissuaded him, by suggesting, with grave Spanish wisdom, that all the frogs of the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the fatal secret ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. Moses, whose life had been preserved by the water, was kept from poisoning his savior with the reptiles. At first only a single frog appeared, but he began to croak, summoning so many companions that the whole land of Egypt swarmed with them. Wherever an Egyptian took up his stand, frogs appeared, and in some mysterious way they were able to pierce the hardest of metals, and even the marble palaces of the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... to be sure," said Harry, "and they keep up such a talking; it is like a hail-storm all the time; you never heard any thing like the way crows can scold. If one crow is caught stealing, all the rest caw and croak at him, till he very nearly goes into fits, and then they all fly at him till he hasn't a feather left; I read all about ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... he said, and taking Eve's hand, he went to a great baulk of timber lying below the wheels of a paper-mill. "Let me breathe the evening air, and hear the frogs croak, and watch the moonlight quivering upon the river; let me take all this world about us into my soul, for it seems to me that my happiness is written large over it all; I am seeing it for the first ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... "Croak, you old raven—you'll be embarrassed when we fill your money-box," she replied, gayly. "You should have an ideal, ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... "It is the croak of a raven newly alighted in the tree above us," replied Richard. "The sagacious bird will ever attend the huntsman in the chase, in the hope of obtaining a morsel when they ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, and he could only observe that ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... says to a raven "Croak," and to a hen raven, "Droop thy tail and turn it this way as a lucky sign," is an imitator of the ways of the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... ask a question; for in the ability to ask is involved ability to reach an answer. The serious student is occupied with problems which the doctors have never been able to entertain, and he knows that their discourse is not addressed to him. If you have not wit to understand what I seek, you may croak with the frogs: you are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... stand up, and we encouraged her with a feeble and discordant howl. A great sea came running up aft and hung for a moment over us with a curling top; then crashed down under the counter and spread out on both sides into a great sheet of bursting froth. Above its fierce hiss we heard Singleton's croak:—"She is steering!" He had both his feet now planted firmly on the grating, and the wheel spun fast as he eased the helm.—"Bring the wind on the port quarter and steady her!" called out the master, staggering ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of the frog species, which lie concealed in silent repose during the day, raise, after sunset, their far-sounding voices. The violet colored throat-bladder (Cystignathus silvestris, Tsch.) maintains his loud, uniform croak beneath the bushes, or penetrates into the huts of the inhabitants. The trapichero, or sugar-mill frog, is a large species, almost half a foot in length. Its croak resembles very much the grating sound caused by the working of a sugar mill, for which reason the natives have given ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... old thief himself says—he might have held his infernal croak. I hate to make sail with a croak astern; 'tis as bad as a crow ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... is lost in the distance. The forest is once more filled with the cadences of its invisible nocturnal life—the metallic whirr of the crickets, the feeble, monotonous croak of the tree-frog, the rustle of the leaves. From time to time all this suddenly stops short and then begins again, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... theion]. Olymp. ii. 159. Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... Thorolfsson's warehouse. While not tall he was neither stunted nor crippled, and easily kept pace with Thorolf. As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink skal[1] with his friend in his own lodging, the croak and sputter of German talk sounded in the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... gliding slow through mist and bush, The hermit gains yon rock, and stands To gaze upon our slumbering bands. Seems he not, Malise, like a ghost, 95 That hovers o'er a slaughtered host? Or raven on the blasted oak, That, watching while the deer is broke, His morsel claims with sullen croak?" ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Thus to the holder spoke:— 'Ha! how do you do, Sir Raven? Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one! So black and glossy, on my word, sir, With voice to match, you were a bird, sir, Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days.' Sir Raven, overset with praise, Must show how musical his croak. Down fell the luncheon from the oak; Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:— 'The flatterer, my good sir, Aye liveth on his listener; Which lesson, if you please, Is doubtless worth the cheese.' A bit too late, Sir Raven swore The rogue should never ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... heavy wings and croak of alarm flew up a great heron from a marshy pool, and in a moment all was forgotten as I unhooded my hawk—one that Olaf had given me from the Danish spoils at Canterbury. Then the rush of the long-winged falcon, and the cry of the heron, ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... fierce-eyed owl did on them scowl, The bat played round on leathern wing, The coal-black wolf did at them howl, The coal-black raven did croak and sing, And o'er them flap ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... alone. The birdcage and dog musical-box in the illustration are of this kind. In the inside of the box under the dog is a little cogged wheel, which, when the handle is turned, rubs against pieces of metal and produces the musical sounds. The bird's song, or rather, croak, is caused by air rushing through a sort of parchment tissue when the floor of the cage is compressed. The train, carman, cart, and trailer are made almost entirely by means of moulds, though some parts have to be fitted together by hand. First ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Lady Selina Jemima Townsend as she appeared when afraid. Afraid—of what? Why, a poor tiny reptile, a harmless frog, that had jumped into her hat full of daisies, with a croak, as much as to say—"How do you do? Good morning, Lady Townsend; I am glad to see you down in the country." But what do you think she did? Why, the little lady scampered away as fast as she could to her governess, in whose dress she hid her face, crying,—saying she had seen "a nasty horrid ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... heron, both of which were in the hotel garden. The heron looked very ill and weak, and used to remain in the same spot for a long time, standing first on one leg and then the other, the duck lying a little distance off. When the heron wished to walk about it gave a feeble croak, and the duck would immediately join it, and the two commenced walking round the garden. When the heron was tired, it gave another croak, and the two companions stopped their walk. The only time that the duck left the heron entirely was for its meals, as the two birds were ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... desolation. It pains the eye to see the stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat; and never to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of rotten trunks, of elm and pine and sycamore and logwood, steeped in its unwholesome water; where the frogs so croak at night that after dark there is an incessant sound as if millions of phantom teams, with bells, were traveling through the upper air, at an enormous distance off. It is quite an oppressive circumstance, too, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... croak, or my son's voice? No matter which; I'll to the grave and hide me. Earth open, or I'll tear thy bowels up. Hark! he goes on, and blabs the deed ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... slow towards a mother an' wife like what mine be, after near a month from 'em; but let's have your news, Billy, an' doan't croak, for God's sake. Say all's ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... A tendency to croak caused a certain roughness in his speech, but his voice was not disagreeable, and what he said, although conveying little ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... execute a deed of conveyance assigning to me, with no restrictive covenants, the freehold of one of those mills, for I have coveted a mill ever since I succumbed to the enchantments of Lettres de mon moulin. True, Flanders is not Provence, and the croaking of the frogs, croak they never so amorously, among the willows in the plains below is a poor exchange for the chant of the cigale. But these mills look out over a landscape that is now dearer to me than Abana and Pharpar, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Portion, on their Wedding-Day, which he celebrated with all the Cost and Mirth that his Estate and Sorrow would permit: Sorrow for the Loss of his Son, I mean, which still hung upon him, and still hover'd and croak'd over and about him, as Ravens, and other Birds of Prey, about Camps and dying People. His Melancholy, in few Months, increas'd to that Degree, that all Company and Conversation was odious to him, but that of Bats, Owls, Night-Ravens, &c. Nay, even his Daughter, his dear and only Child, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... "Croak 'em, of course. But don't make no noise doin' it. Better use a blackjack. We're not sure about ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvelous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have a predilection for them. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Croak-croak-croaker-croak!" cried Grandpa in his deepest bass voice. "You let Bawly go!" And, would you believe it, his voice sounded like a cannon, or a big gun, and that fish was so frightened, thinking he was going to be shot, that ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... had evidently been waiting at the transmitter. The husky croak which had so amazed Galusha was ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... complained of this robbery of night and sleep in the night. They were so tired, so tired, they said: and so did the muffawully patter of their poor feet. The lambs said most; and the sheep agreed with a husky croak. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... this challenge, Let us fly to the Ford, When the raven shall croak O'er my blood-dripping sword. Oh, woe for Cuchullin! That sword will be red; Oh, woe! for ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... she not an estray upon the world? Shall she not—as well first as last—wander forth, homeless as she is, into the night? And true to these despairing thoughts, she hurries away farther and farther from the town. The frogs croak monotonously in all the marshes, as if in mockery of her grief. On some near tree an owl is hooting, with a voice that is strangely and pitifully human. Presently an outlying farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the voice. "You'll be dead pretty quick an' out of it. Go ahead and croak, but don't make so much noise about it. You're interruptin' ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... scene, something that the wilderness alone can witness. It was shown in the fierce, eager glance of every brown face, the rapt attention, and the utter silence, save for the multiplied breathing of so many. A crow, wheeling on black wings in the blue overhead, uttered a loud croak, astonished perhaps at the spectacle below, but no one paid any attention to him, and, uttering another croak, he flew away. A rash bear at the edge of the wood was almost overpowered by the human odor that reached his nostrils, ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his breath, James sat up and listened attentively. Once or twice he thought he heard the sound of a dip of a paddle, out on the lake, but he could not be sure of it; while from time to time he heard the croak of a frog, sometimes near, sometimes at a distance along the shore. He would have thought little of this, had not a slight pressure of Jonathan's hand, against his foot, told him that ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... "I hope to croak if there wasn't two of 'em with the stren'th of eight," rejoined Phelan, wiping his dripping forehead and rolling his eyes. "An' they chloroformed me an' stuffed me into the chest. ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... five thousand dollars, and I got five thousand dollars. That's mine, anyhow. It's in that bag there. I'm working on a new set of tools now in my shop. I'm going to get that money back from the two thieves who stole it from me by law. I'll take it by force, the way they took it. If I can croak them both in the fight—well, there'll be two thieves less to rob honest ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... frog croaked away lustily, but no one listened to him. "The jury must vote by ballot," he said as he finished the last croak. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... power, live in letters for no other reason than because they coupled their names with that of Erasmus by reviling him. Let the critics take courage—they may outwit oblivion yet, even though they do nothing but carp. Only let them be wise, and carp, croak, cough, cat-call and sneeze at some one who is hitching his wagon to a star. This way immortality lies. Erasmus was a monk who flocked by himself, and found diversion in ridiculing monkery. Also, he was the wisest man of his day. Wisdom is the distilled essence of intuition, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... sun and the soft breeze, an unwonted heaviness pervaded the male-bird's body. Formerly he used to fly or roost, croak or sit silent, fly swiftly or slowly, because there were causes both around and within him: when hungry he would find a hare, kill, and devour it; when the sun was too hot or the wind too keen, he would shelter from them; when he saw a crouching wolf, he would ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... first we were frightened. But when we found out what had happened we laughed and laughed. We laughed more when we heard a voice croak, 'Come quick! Come quick! Polly's sick! ...
— Five Little Friends • Sherred Willcox Adams
... than a repayment there, turning and, pointing to Callicles, the money-lender. Being still clamored upon and importuned, he told them this tale. A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing the same music, once more made a stop. "For," said he, "you may croak till you are tired, but you shall make ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... reason Such monsters should be loose; I'm trembling all over, But that is of no use. Johnny. I Must go to school, The bell is going to stop; That terrible old toad, If only he would hop. Toad. I Must cross the path, I can hear my children croak; I hope that dreadful boy Will not give me a poke. A hop, and a start, a flutter, and a rush, Johnny is at school, and ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... model of domesticity. The sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if he did not, like the illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled the Prison Ordinary in comforting the condemned. Had it only been his fate to die on the gallows, how unctuous had been his croak! ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the man, his voice sounding like the croak of a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... chiding I pray, forego; * Nor drive me to death or injurious blow: How e'er can I hope to bear fray and fight * Who quake at the croak of the corby-crow? I who shiver for fear when I see the mouse * And for very funk I bepiss my clo'! I loveno foin but the poke in bed, * When coynte well knoweth my prickle's prow; This is rightful rede, and none other shows * Righteous as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... raven croak about the past which is so distant and almost forgotten? More than one of our people has been a Minister in France and ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... I don't want to croak, either, but who can tell? We are now in the waters where the sea wolves have been busy enough ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... officers has seen active service in the front line trenches. Yesterday was visiting day in camp; after drill, as pretty a "Jane" as I have seen in this neck of woods asks one of 'em did he croak a Fritz, while on the other side? "I sure did," sed he "with this mighty rite hand." Whereupon, this "bunch of peeches" grabs his hand and kisses it. Skinny 'lowed as how he would have told her he bit ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... Soaked clover. Hail, thunder; Wind, wet, Squelch, squash; Gingham yet, Mackintosh; Lawns afloat, Paths dirt; Top-coat, Flannel shirt; Lilacs drenched, Laburnums pallid; Spirits quenched, Souls squalid; Tennis "off," Icy breeze; Croak, cough, Wheeze, sneeze; Cramped cricket, Arctic squall; Drenched wicket, Soaked ball; Park a puddle. Row a slough; Muck, muddle, Slush, snow; Hay-fever (No hay!) Spoilt beaver, Shoes asplay; Lilies flopping, Washed-out roses; Eaves dropping, Red noses; Pools, splashes, Spouts, spirts; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... set at naught our successes, and that it depends on their will only to make peace or war. The wheel that is to crush Napoleon is in motion, and no human hand can arrest it. Let the trubsalsspritzen, as your excellency says, croak: public opinion in Germany and throughout Europe speaks louder, and it clamors for war, and we shall have it. For this reason your excellency ought not to despond, nor prevent us from celebrating your birthday in a worthy manner. Your whole army longs to present its congratulations to you, and ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... thirsty, when all of a sudden they arrived at the margin of a pool. Unfortunately, however, the sides of the pool were very steep, and the ass of the Cogia, on seeing the water, not being able to restrain himself, ran forward to the pool. Just as he was falling in, the frogs of the pool began to croak violently; their voices frightening the ass, he ran back. The Cogia, however, seized hold of him, and exclaiming, 'Bravo, ye birds of the pool!' he took out a handful of aspres, and flung them into the pool, saying, 'Here's something for sweetmeats: ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... heart be like unto the bullet of my big gun, and obey me! When I throw up in the air this cigarette, thou shalt run and plunge into the river, but not into the depth; lie hidden in the reeds of the bank until thou shalt hear a frog croak thrice and then once. Come out and go to the frog, and be not afraid, for thou shalt see me in ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... may croak as dismally as they may desire and predict that the earth will again shudder and quake and imperil if not destroy any city man may attempt to create on the now dismantled and disfigured site. But San Francisco will as surely be rebuilt as the sun rises in heaven. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... I murder anybody?" he gasped finally in a hoarse croak. "You'll have to prove it to me that I am ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... hand in his pocket. "Would you now?" he added, apparently addressing himself to a large frog who sat upon a stone, looking so wise and grandfatherly that it really did seem quite proper to consult him. At all events, he gave his opinion in the most decided manner, for, with a loud croak, he turned an undignified somersault into the brook, splashing up the water at a great rate. "Well, perhaps it wouldn't be best on the whole. Industry is a good teacher, and money cannot buy happiness, as ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... again. She was a country girl, it is true; but her laugh was as sweet to hear as the ripple of the waters among the stones. The laugh of anybody tells very much of what he is, making revelations undreamt of often by the laugher. A harsh croak does not come from a mind at peace, nor an empty clangour from a heart full of sensitive happiness; nor a coarse laugh from a person of refined sensibilities, nor a hard laugh from a tender spirit. Moreover, people cannot dissemble successfully in laughing; the truth comes out in a startling ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... in a bad temper, and this evening, as Crocker remarked carelessly, he was "more ornery than ever." The rest seemed to pay no attention to the lanky, dark man with the narrow head, round, black eyes, and rasping voice. But Bent would croak: "Whitman's struck nothin'; thar ain't no gold in Garotte; it's all work and no dust." In this strain he went on, offending local sentiment ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... evil croak. There will be time enough to discourse with danger when it comes. Besides, I would know it blindfold, and the night doth bear no token of either ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... was Soane or Callan who was poor old Grogram's "quite irresponsible person," when I caught the sound of Gurnard's name. I turned irritably away. I didn't want to hear that fool read out the words of that.... It was like the warning croak of a raven in ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak In symphony austere: Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud, And mists that spread the flying shroud, And sunbeams, and the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... don't know, partner," said Jack in a wholesome, optimistic tone. "It looks a little dark, but just wait a minute or so before you croak—after all, the thing may not be so bad—it doesn't pay ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... of "Romeo and Juliet," which had been playing to crowded houses, taking ten pound twelve the day, was fairly smothered off the boards. Nick was eager to be out in all this blindman's holiday; but, "Nay," said Carew; "not so much as thy nose. A fog like this would steal the croak from a raven's throat, let alone the sweetness from a honey-pot like thine—and bottom crust is the end of pie!" With which, bang went the door, creak went the key, and Carew was off to the ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... raven's croak, the low wind choked and drear, The baffled stream, the grey wolf's doleful cry, Were all the sounds that mariner could hear, As through the wood he wandered painfully; But as unto the house he drew anigh, The pillars of a ruined shrine he saw, The once ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... back to life and made the arms of the Cervantian wind-mill turn and the frogs of Aristophanes croak. But oh, shade of Yorick! how the sap, the ichor, the sharp authentic tang, that really tickles our sensibilities, has thinned out and fallen flat during the centuries. My hearers have smiled and tittered perhaps—with ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... knife in its sheath, rose from his blanket, and walked slowly in the direction of the voice. Passing Kelly without seeing him, he confronted Meyer, his hand on his pistol. There was not the slightest tremor in the hoarse, low croak with which he asked, "What's the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... autumn. The leaves in the forest turned yellow and brown; the wind caught them so that they danced about, and up in the air it was very cold. The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snowflakes, and on the fence stood the raven, crying, "Croak! croak!" for mere cold; yes, it was enough to make one feel cold to think of this. The poor little Duckling certainly had not a good time. One evening—the sun was just setting in his beauty—there came a whole flock of great handsome birds out of the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... because they will interest Dodo and Nat the most easily, as they do you. Then we will talk about the birds that only croak and call; then the cannibal birds; next those that coo, and those that scratch for a living. Then we must leave dry land and go close to the water to find the birds that wade; and finally, we must go to the lake or sea itself for the birds that swim ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... fragrant gardens of the house, where the doves were murmuring fondly among the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically sailing came the harsh croak of frogs. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... they'll put you in the lockup for six months or a year. And let me tell you, our lockup is no joke! Likely you'll get on the chain gang, and then, God help you! If they don't take a fancy to you, they're liable to croak you any time. Now, I'd like to see you get out of this easy, and here's what you'd better do. You own up to the crime, and I'll have a word with the judge, so he'll let you off with a short sentence in a place where they treat men right, and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... to pick up again her kind old friend. She at least had never divorced him, and her horrid little filial evidence in court had been but the chatter of a parrakeet, of precocious plumage and croak, repeating words earnestly taught her, and that she could scarce even pronounce. Therefore, as far as steering went, he must for the hour take a hand. She might actually have wished in fact that he shouldn't now have seemed so tremendously struck with her; since ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... protect the corpse from the dingo, or native dog. That the ravens and other carrion-eating birds should make a banquet upon the body of the dead man does not seem to trouble the survivors in the least, and it often happens that the traveler is told by the croak of the disturbed ravens that the body of a dead Australian is lying in the branches over ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... cocks attend him, As blust'ring bullies to defend him. At once the ravens were discarded, And magpies with their posts rewarded. Those fowls of omen I detest, That pry into another's nest. State lies must lose all good intent, For they foresee and croak th' event. My friends ne'er think, but talk by rote, Speak when they're taught, and so to vote. When rogues like these (a Sparrow cries) To honour and employment rise I court no favour, ask no place, From such, preferment is ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... eyes wandered to the Colonel's face. The laughter stopped with a dry croak. He saw that his old master and friend was serious, and reaching for one of the goblets he ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... want any shavelings here,' he grumbled. 'They're enough to make one croak. Mind, doctor, no priests, and no physics when I go off, or we shall quarrel. Let him come in, however, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... tropic nights their sonorous, bell-like booming can be heard coming up from the marshes, and when they are unseen, the song of the bull-frogs would suggest creatures full of solemn dignity. The croak of their lesser brethren is less impressive, yet there is no escape from it on those evenings when the dragon-flies' iridescent wings are folded in sleep, and the birds in the branches are still, when the lilies on the pond ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... and everywhere sharply reprove princes, priests, and people for breaking it. The prophets, so far from seeking popularity, are foolhardy enough to denounce the bonnets, hoops, and flounces of the ladies, and to cry, Woe! against the regular business of the most respectable note-shavers,[142] to croak against the march of intellect, and shake public confidence in the prosperity of their great country,[143] to ally themselves with fanatic abolitionists, and introduce agitating political questions into the pulpit; ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson |
