"Crouch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their whiskers and pomp And sleek little brides. Yet others come visiting me Than grey seal or bird; Men come in the night from the sea And utter no word. Wet weed clings to bosom and hair; Their faces are drawn; They crouch by the embers and stare And go with the dawn To sleep in my garden, the swell flowing over them Like a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... while towards the opposite side of the room. I looked in the same direction. Out of the darkness gleamed two fiery, golden orbs, two eyes that moved slowly to and fro, backwards and forwards, as though the Thing were prowling round and round. Now it seemed to crouch as though ready to spring, and I could hear the savage growling as of some ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... sometimes stalks its prey, and sometimes lies in wait for it beside a game-trail or drinking pool—very rarely indeed does it crouch on the limb of a tree. When excited by the presence of game it is sometimes very bold. Willis once fired at some bighorn sheep, on a steep mountain-side; he missed, and immediately after his shot, a cougar ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... they live; the ptarmigan in its summer dress is mottled and tinted exactly like the lichens which cover the stones of the higher mountains; while young unfledged plovers are spotted so as exactly to resemble the beach pebbles among which they crouch for protection, as beautifully exhibited in one of the cases of British birds in the Natural History Museum ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... is not relaxed we shall see the father regain the surface alone, and crouch in the sand near the mouth of the burrow. Retained by duties in the performance of which her companion can be of no assistance, the mother habitually delays her reappearance until the following day. When she finally emerges the father wakes up, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the local priests attempted to deduce from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the domains and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows us with what ease the scribes could forge official documents, when the exigencies of they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished with rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in national affairs are the signs of decadence in States and precede convulsions or paralysis. To bully the weak and crouch to the strong, is the policy of nations governed by small mediocrity. The tricks of the canvass for office are re-enacted in Senates. The Executive becomes the dispenser of patronage, chiefly to the most unworthy; and men are bribed with offices instead of money, to the greater ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... mark of himself; and as he would not have deserted them, only the arrival of the farmer had averted a tragedy in the sumac. He did not learn to use caution for himself; but after that, if a gun came down the shining river, he sent a warning "Chip!" to his mate, telling her to crouch low in her nest and keep very quiet, and then, in broken waves of flight, and with chirp and flutter, he exposed himself until he had lured danger ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... other two new ones. Lake and another man came to lunch. This afternoon and evening we have been doing more work on the emplacements. I am getting a bit tired of these trenches; they are much too dangerous, and I hate suddenly having to crouch against a traverse when a big shell comes and crouches on the other side of it. I shall now retire to my little couch. ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... earthy, sing the sons of earth. Yet who, of all that see the gray morn rise, Lifts not his latch and hails with eager eyes My Songs, yet sends them guerdonless away? Barefoot and angry homeward journey they, Taunt him who sent them on that idle quest, Then crouch them deep within their empty chest, (When wageless they return, their dismal bed) And hide on their chill knees once more their patient head. Where are those good old times? Who thanks us, who, For our good word? Men list not now to do Great deeds and worthy of ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... with long practising.' He was very particular about the position of his hands when playing, and as a rule he kept his body quite still. When conducting, however, his movements were constant and curious. At a pianissimo passage 'he would crouch down so as to be hidden by the desk, and then, as the crescendo increased, would gradually rise, beating all the time, until at the fortissimo he would spring into the air with his arms extended, as if wishing to ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... Adventurer's bridge deck and a fusillade of shots swept across the forty or fifty yards dividing the boats. Steve and Wink had dropped below the rail, while, in the cabins, the others were taking good care to crouch beneath the level of the ports. Some eight shots were fired, but, although several took effect on various parts of the bridge, the fact that the Adventurer was now plunging around in a half-circle at a full twelve miles ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was looking for. Pat even then, I found, kept away from the road I was to have taken. After going a little way I thought that I saw some figures through the gloom. Pat thought so too, for he pulled at my coat-sleeve, and whispered to me to crouch down. I did so for some time, and then again we pushed on. Pat led the way till we got into a road I knew, leading direct to my quarters. He then told me to hurry on, and before I had time to put my hand in my pockets to give him some ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... could distinguish, amidst the howling of the wolves, a strange sound, differing altogether from the voices of the latter. It was a kind of continued snort, uttered in a low and querulous tone; and when uttered, it always caused Jeanette to start, and Marengo to crouch closer to them. Could it be the voice of the cougar? or, more fearful thought still, the snort of the grizzly bear? The latter was not unlikely. They were now in a region where these fierce animals are to be met with; and just in ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... and atmospheric effects can provide him with novelty, for most of Holland is like that. He has the formula. Nor is it necessarily new to him if he knows England well, North Holland being merely the Norfolk Broads, the Essex marshlands about Burnham-on-Crouch, extended. Only in its peculiarity of light and in its towns has Holland anything that we have not ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... forward; she seemed to crouch as if she wanted to get out of sight. Christina suddenly stopped and looked at her for an answer. Anna fingered her splashed apron; she tried to speak, but a lump rose in her throat, and she could not see for the hot tears that would, against her ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... avoided the blow. His footwork was excellent and McGuffey remarked as much to Captain Scraggs. But when Tabu-Tabu put up his hands after the most approved method of self-defense and dropped into a "crouch," McGuffey ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... people, who pass up and down in boats, averting their eyes, pressing their hard, labor-grimed hands against their sweating foreheads, and lowly louting in blind awe to these whited bricks. Even the naked children hush and crouch, and lay their little foreheads against the bottom of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... flew, and we urged him on; There was one chance left, and you have but one, Halt! jump to the ground, and shoot your horse; Crouch under his carcase, and take your chance, And if the steers in their frantic course Don't batter you both to pieces at once, You may thank your star; if not, good-by To the quickening kiss and the long-drawn sigh, And the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, is there not acceptance? But if thou doest not well, Does not sin crouch at the door? And to thee shall be its desire, But ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie: There I crouch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer Merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... mouths. Their mother saw that they would soon be ready to go out into the world, and she began to teach them the things they needed to know. She took them outside the nest each pleasant day and gave them lessons in running and gnawing, and showed them how to crouch down on the brown earth and lie still until danger was past. After she had told them many things, she would ask them short questions to make ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... drear mood Of envious sloth, and proud decrepitude; No faith, no art, no king, no priest, no God; While round the freezing founts of life in snarling ring, Crouch'd on the bareworn sod, Babbling about the unreturning spring, And whining for dead gods, who cannot save, The toothless systems shiver ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the woe that has been and the woe that is to come, passes in pictures across her inner sense. In a series of broken ejaculations, not sentences but lyric cries, she evokes the scenes of the past and of the future. Blood drips from the palace; in its chambers the Furies crouch; the murdered sons of Thyestes wail in its haunted courts; and ever among the visions of the past that one of the future floats and fades, clearly discerned, impossible to avert, the murder of a husband by a wife; and in the rear of that, most pitiful of all, the violent ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... eye and flushing cheek Told the clansmen's fierce emotion, and they harder drew their breath, For their souls were strong within them, stronger than the grasp of death. Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet sounding in the pass below, And the distant tramp of horses, and the voices of the foe; Down we crouch'd amid the bracken, till the Lowland ranks drew near, Panting like the hounds in summer when they scent the stately deer. From the dark defile emerging, next we saw the squadrons come, Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... of the hills; with these, at least, man has nothing to do, nor ever will have anything to do. As we approached the bottom of the lake, and of the beautiful valley in which it lies, we saw one hill that seemed to crouch down like a Titanic watch-dog, with its rear towards the spectator, guarding the entrance to the valley. The great superiority of these mountains over those of New England is their variety and definiteness of shape, besides ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a secret aching for distraction; and she was surprised how well they took it—how, indeed, they seemed to like it, as though they knew that they were doing her good. In one cottage, where she had long noticed with pitying wonder a white-faced, black-eyed girl, who seemed to crouch away from everyone, she even received a request. It was delivered with terrified secrecy in a back-yard, out of Mrs. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 25 degrees to the top of the cliff which closes in the tail end of the valley and you can see the Turkish hand grenades bursting along the crest, just where an occasional bayonet flashes and figures hardly distinguishable from Mother earth crouch in an irregular line. Or else they rise to fire and are silhouetted a moment against the sky and then you recognize the naked athletes from the Antipodes and your heart goes into your mouth as a whole bunch of them dart forward suddenly, and as suddenly disappear. And the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... two administrations. Several numbers of the Guardian containing that dissertation were requested for the Government House, and ... were sent to England.... But when both my position and myself stand virtually ... impugned by proclamation, I am neither the sycophant nor the renegade to crouch down under unmerited imputations, come from whence they may, even though I should suffer imprisonment and ruin ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... looked upon as a defence, it ought to be considered as an aggravation of the guilt; inasmuch as it is, beyond all doubt, at least a far more manly thing to inflict an injury upon an enemy face to face, and under the influence of immediate resentment, than to crouch like a cowardly assassin behind a hedge and coolly murder him without one moment's preparation, or any means whatsoever of defence. This is a description of crime which no man with one generous drop of blood in his veins can think of without shame and indignation. Unhappily, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... monkey. As the latter neared the windfall Suma suddenly seemed to divine her intentions and sped on ahead, crossed the creeper-covered barrier and started up the tree the branches of which formed the far side of the aerial bridge. She had just time enough to crouch on the thick butt of a limb that overhung the passageway when the rustling of the leaves announced the arrival of Myla. A dark form emerged from the wall of trees opposite her and ran nimbly onto the swaying ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... design and of purpose suppressed He did his work, but he had not his reward Matter that men may rather pray for than hope for Not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch Others that do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks Peace-at-any-price party The busy devil of petty economy Thought that all was too little for him Weary ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... little distance, till they were sure they could not be seen from the pass; then they dismounted, tethered their horses, and slipped cautiously back to crouch among some dense bushes among the rocks within a few yards of the path by which any one coming up the gap ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... soundless. The curiosity of the fox now prevailed over his suspicion. The shadow had not menaced him, and his vulpine intelligence told him that he was not concerned in the drama now about to unfold itself. He was merely a spectator, and, as he looked, he saw the shadow glide back and crouch beside the sleeping man. Then a second shadow came and ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the end of it, the finest he had ever seen, and hoped that not many would be blown down during the night. "Such a storm as this only happens once in ten years. Good God, listen!" Like a savage beast the wind seemed to skulk, and to crouch.... It sprang forward and seized the house and shook it. Then it died away, and there was stillness for ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Medway, and the Thames, Britannia long will wear like steel, But Albion's cliffs are out at heel; And Patience can endure no more To hear the Belgic lion roar. Give up the phrase of haughty Gaul, But proud Iberia soundly maul: Restore the ships by Philip taken, And make him crouch to save his bacon. Nassau, who got the name of Glorious, Because he never was victorious, A hanger-on has always been; For old acquaintance bring him in. To Walpole you might lend a line, But much I fear he's in decline; ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... sergeant had held up a hand once more. This was the signal to advance. Now, as the men moved forward, the formation was not kept. Each for himself reached the crater in his own way and time. Down in this basin men could crouch without fear of being seen should ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... recognized each favorite spot! There was the cluster of trees which crowned a promontory overlooking the St. Lawrence where he and Le Gardeur had stormed the eagle's nest. In that sweep of forest the deer used to browse and the fawns crouch in the long ferns. Upon yonder breezy hill they used to sit and count the sails turning alternately bright and dark as the vessels tacked up the broad river. There was a stretch of green lawn, still green as it was in his memory—how everlasting are ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... might have been so thoughtlessly unkind as to make a habit of these wants, had not chance prepared a very rude conclusion to my pleasure. By some swiftness or dexterity the lad captured a squirrel in a tree top. He was then some way ahead of me, but I saw him drop to the ground and crouch there, crying aloud for pleasure like a child. The sound stirred my sympathies, it was so fresh and innocent; but as I bettered my pace to draw near, the cry of the squirrel knocked upon my heart. I have heard and seen much of the cruelty of lads, and above all of peasants; but what I now beheld ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... playing with his spectacles, as in the morning. He knelt in a corner, against one of his rough bookcases, bowed to the ground as though a mountain had come upon him unawares, and now and then he beat his forehead against the parchment bindings of his favourite folio Muratori, as certain wild beasts crouch on their knees and with a swinging of slow despair strike their heads against the bars of their cage many ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... What could he mean by these words? No actor on earth could dissemble like this. His whole manner was utterly unlike the manner of a man just detected in a terrible crime. He seemed rather to reproach me, indeed, than to crouch; ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... foreigner, celebrate it in foreign strains; for no longer do I crouch in fear under ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... of the earliest forms of superstition. The anthropologist calls it "fetichism" when he finds it among primitive peoples. When the same notion is propounded by advanced thinkers, we call it "advanced thought." We attribute to the Thing a malignant purpose and an irresistible potency, and we crouch before it as if it were our master. When the Thing is set going, we observe its direction with awe-struck resignation, just as people once drew omens from the flight of birds. What are we that we should interfere with the ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... and even the governor and his party doffed their caps in acknowledgment. At the camp we were favored with a special exhibition of horsemanship. By a single twist of the rein the steeds would fall to the ground, and their riders crouch down behind them as a bulwark in battle. Then dashing forward at full speed, they would spring to the ground, and leap back again into the saddle, or, hanging by their legs, would reach over and pick ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... attention to were he was leadin' me," said Barling, "what I wanted to find out was what he was up to! Presently he turned in at a gate. I was closer up than I meant to be, and he swung in so sudden that I had to drop quick and crouch behind the masonry of the front garden wall. My leave pass must a' dropped out o' my pocket and through the railin's into ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... keep close to the bank, two on each side. When we pass the guards above we must crouch down in the water and stay against the bank. We must go very slow. Waves or movement of the water will ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... fleshed, and not perhaps youthful yeoman, was attended with vast fatigue, and almost certain failure. An organised enemy may be found: not so, naked and scattered blacks, undistinguishable from the trees of the wood; who could crouch in a gulley—creep almost as rapidly as a dog. The appearance of apathy, in reality resulted from the uselessness or danger of action; nor can it be a matter of surprise, that men expelled from ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... vain for the sunrise? I tried to picture my own emotions as the truth was slowly borne in upon me that some unprecedented calamity had silently and without any premonition befallen the whole world of men. Would one crouch in a terror of apprehension? I could not see it that way. I believed that I should be trembling with a furious excitement, stirred to the very depths by so inspiring and adventurous a miracle. I had forsaken my speculation and was indulging in the philosophical ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... the devil; but Buell's policy is that of the amiable idiot. There is a better policy than either. It will neither steal nor maraud; it will do nothing for the sake of individual gain, and, on the other hand, it will not crouch to rebels; it will not fear to hurt the feelings of traitors; it will not fritter away the army and the revenue of the Government in the insane effort to protect men who have forfeited all right to protection. The policy we need is one that will march boldly, defiantly, through ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... smell is intolerable; but turn from it, if you can, unless I give the word. Bolt this yam!—it is done. Carry me across yon field!—off we go. Stop!—it's a dead halt. There, I've trained you enough for to-day; now, sirrah, crouch down in the shade, and be quiet.—I'm rested. So, here's for a stroll, and a reverie homeward:— Up, carcass, and march.' So the carcass demurely rose and paced, and the philosopher meditated. He was intent upon squaring the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. Then the coats would be unbuttoned, and the bull's-eyes discovered; and in the chequering glimmer, under the huge, windy hall of the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate young gentlemen would crouch together in the cold sand of the links, or on the scaly bilges of the fishing-boat, and delight them with inappropriate talk. Woe is me that I cannot give some specimens!... But the talk was but a condiment, and these gatherings themselves ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... Clinging to his sleeve she pleaded for pardon, as only a woman can do who has done no wrong. There was an ugly look on Iemon's face as he turned on her. Frightened, she would have fled. Instead she could only crouch like a dog under the blows he showered on her. Then with a violent kick in the groin he rolled her ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... from Ninfield, a clean breezy village on the hill overlooking Pevensey Bay, with a locked church, and iron stocks by the side of the road. It is stated somewhere that at "that corner of Crouch Lane that leads to Lunford Cross, and so to Bexhill and Hastings," was buried a suicide in 1675. At how many cross roads in Sussex and elsewhere does one ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... full low crouch'd he, And he doff'd his cap, and he bended his knee, "Now lithe and listen, Sir Bray, to me: Lady Alice sits lonely in bower and hall, Her sighs they rise, and her tears they fall. She sits alone, And she ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... through a narrow and tortuous street, - a street terminating, a little be- yond it, in the walk beside the river. An elegant Gothic doorway is let into the rusty-red brick-work, and strange little beasts crouch at the angles of the windows, which are surmounted by a tall graduated gable, pierced with a small orifice, where the large surface of brick, lifted out of the shadow of the street, looks yellow and faded. The whole thing is disfigured and decayed; ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... bed with what he regarded as a vicious fighting-crouch. For he was too sleepy to be afraid. "I did! What you going to do about it?" More mildly, as a fear of his own courage began to form, "I ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... tastes so congenial to his own, who was so willing to hunt or fish with him—who could train a hawk as well as Phil Royle, the falconer—diet a fighting-cock as well as Tom Shaw, the cock-master—enter a hound better than Charlie Crouch, the old huntsman—shoot with the long-bow further than any one except himself, and was willing to toss off a pot with him, or sing a merry stave whenever he felt inclined. Such a companion was invaluable, and Nicholas ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... We had two dogs on the last ship I was in. A clap of thunder would send them flying down the companion into the cabin, and they would crouch in some dark corner in a state of absolute terror. They would do just the same if cannon were fired in salute, or anything of that sort. I suppose they thought that ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... But there was no shelter for them there, as it had ceased to be an abiding place, because their dead and wounded comrades were piled in it clear up to the brink, and there was no place for them to stoop or crouch to escape the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... difference, and take them to the residency," said Bob; and as the boat touched the shore they stood back for the girls to leap in, and then crouch down with their arms around each other's neck, sobbing with joy as they felt that now ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope; to pine on fear and sorrow; To fret the soul with crosses and with cares; To eat the heart through comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... over the white man's shoulder. The safari, at the sight of the two dropping to a crouch, had stopped as though petrified, ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... was a stolen tyde— The Lord that sent it, He knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide The message that the bells let fall: And there was naught of strange, beside The flight of mews and peewits pied By millions crouch'd on the old ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... go gathering acorns, large, fine acorns, a precious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object of veneration. Silently she would crouch filling the pannier. And far off she would hear the sound of Giovanni chopping wood, of Ciccio calling to the oxen or Pancrazio making noises to the ass, or the sound of a peasant's mattock. Over all the constant speech ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the convict murderer turned pale at the sound, and at the sight of the glowing eye-balls his ugly teeth clattered against each other. Nevertheless, the instinct of self-preservation made him crouch low, deadly knife in hand, to ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... recognized. Without windows there would be no ghost stories, for how could the rain beat on the pane, or the wind come in short gusts through the cracks? Neither would there be melodrama, for how could the heroine crouch on the floor if there were no sudden flashes of lighting or falling snow to gaze at through the window? What poems have been written by just looking through a window; and as for literature in general, who does not remember the window in Thrums? The first ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... we marched, through vaults of flowery smilax, where lianas with strange and gorgeous blossoms snared our feet in their twining ropy stems. Enormous bats fluttered in our faces, rattlesnakes rattled around us, and bears and carcajous—those little tigers that crouch on the branches of trees, and leap without warning on their prey—made the latter part of our journey full of strange perils and difficulties. For after travelling for twenty-seven days, we crossed the Alleghany mountains, and got into a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... longest and finest street in Leyden. It has no canal running through it, and the houses, painted in every variety of color, have a picturesque effect as they stand with their gable ends to the street; some are very tall with half their height in their step-like roofs; others crouch before the public edifices and churches. Being clean, spacious, well-shaded, and adorned with many elegant mansions, it compares favorably with the finery portions of Amsterdam. It is kept scrupulously neat. Many of the gutters are covered ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Cornelius became wildly jovial in response, and it was almost more than he could stand, he says, to hear his little squeaks of false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink, and suddenly catch hold of his chin and crouch low over the table with a distracted stare. The girl did not show herself, and Jim retired early. When he rose to say good-night, Cornelius jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out of sight as if to pick up something he had dropped. His good-night came huskily from under the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... were not likely to get through without trouble. The settler at once came to a halt and prepared to make the best defence possible. The animals were gathered near the wagon, where Mr. Clarendon made his wife crouch down to escape the flying bullets, and, loaded gun in hand, he waited the attack ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... Very tiny things suddenly become important. The sky is green and opaque Down there where the blind hills glide. Tattered trees stagger into the distance. Drunken meadows spin in a circle, And all the surfaces become gray and wise... Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars— ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... savage way; bounding into furze bushes, chasing the rabbits into their holes; and then, as if apologising for this wild getting rid of a superabundance of animal spirits kept low in the mournful old house, he would come as soon as she sat quietly down, crouch close up to her, and lay his head on her knee, to gaze up in her face, blinking his eyes, and not moving again perhaps for ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... have lost his footing not too far above. Accompanied by a miniature landslide of stones and earth, a figure slid down several yards away. Shann waited in a half-crouch, his looted blaster covering the man now getting to his feet. There was no mistaking the familiar uniform, or even the man. How Ragnar Thorvald had reached that particular spot on Warlock or why, Shann could not know. But ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... way. My poor horse stood as near the fire as he could, without any food, and shivering, and I was constantly standing up and clapping my arms and stamping my feet if the fire got low, then, when a bit warmed, I would crouch inside my den and sometimes I dozed, only to waken up from sheer cold and resume my exercise. After some hours I had the satisfaction to notice that the snow had ceased falling, and a brighter night, with frost, had set in. This was pleasant, as the probability of being snowed ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... I knew that it came from the head-lights of an approaching motor-car. Next moment the hum of the engine fell on my ears, and suddenly the whole roadway became illuminated, so suddenly, indeed, that I had only just time to crouch down in order to ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... meadow and over the hill, Over the heath and heather, I seek for the spot where the dawn-wind sleeps, And slips from its night-bound tether. Is it here? Is it there? Pray tell me where The morning zephyrs tarry, That I may bide Where they crouch and hide, And sip of the ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... Garou would not stir at the call of his new master. Sorrow was the only feast in which he seemed inclined to indulge, and he continued to crouch near the body of the Canadian as impassible and motionless as if he was no ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... tiresome duties, and laborious functions of government; but he blessed the Lord that henceforward no more homage was to be paid, no more court to be made, but to him alone, to whom they were justly due. Disdaining as he did the servile adoration usually paid to a minister, he could never crouch before the power of the two Cardinals who succeeded each other: he neither worshipped the arbitrary power of the one, nor gave his approbation to the artifices of the other; he had never received anything from Cardinal Richelieu but an abbey, which, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... generous nature, and every time he was deceived thought it an exceptional case and no rule for future conduct. And presently the lady would make him sleep upon her knees and a young man would come with a pair of scissors and crouch under her mantle and cut off his locks and drop them into a shallow round box upon the floor, as in Carpaccio's picture in Milan, and she would ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... black crow flapping overhead with ragged wing has a cheery tone. All living creatures feel the tingle and throb of the great tide of life that sweeps in with the returning sun. See yonder two dogs, how they frolic, how they crouch and wheel and charge and roll each other over and pretend to bite. "Pure mongrels," both of them, and as happy as if they were the most aristocratic of Irish setters! See near by the tree full of flowers that has lasted the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... many a time," Steve told them. "Sometimes the old frog will crouch down like a cat sneaking up on a sparrow, and then make a fling up at the bright thing, which I reckon he thinks must be a juicy sort of a bug. As soon as he feels the barb of the hook he tries to climb up the line and jump all around like a trapeze performer. But only a cruel fellow ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Fitzurse, The running down the chase is kindlier sport Ev'n than the death. Who knows but that thy lover May plead so pitifully, that I may spare thee? Come hither, man; stand there. (To Rosamund) Take thy one chance; Catch at the last straw. Kneel to thy lord Fitzurse; Crouch even because thou hatest him; fawn upon him For thy ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... arranged their carts in a circle, putting the shafts of one into the wheels of the next, so fastening them together. Then they dug a hole in the centre of this fortification and in it put the women and children. They threw the earth in little mounds, behind which they could crouch and shoot. By morning the fortification was complete. The sentries, who had been watching all night, now gave warning that a band of Indians was approaching. Thirty of the hunters mounted and rode ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... begun, if quietly approached and touched, they open their bills and take food as readily from a man as from the parent bird. But if while being thus fed the parent returns and emits the warning note, they instantly cease their hunger-cries, close their gaping mouths, and crouch down frightened in the nest. This fear caused by the parent bird's warning note begins to manifest itself even before the young are hatched—and my observations on this point refer to several species in three widely separated orders. When the little prisoner ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... went she would go. She glanced at the weapon on the sideboard, but left it behind her, and presently stood at her friend's side. They dared not look over the wall, for fear of being seen; they were obliged to crouch behind it. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... cannot believe it! I will go to them; it cannot be too late; I will say to them that I would rather have died than appealed to them if I had known that this was to be the terrible result. And Calabressa—why did he not warn me? Or is he one of the blood-thirsty ones also—one of the tigers that crouch in the dark? Oh, signore, if they are all-powerful, they are all-powerful to pardon. May I not go ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... hand, which Eben surmised contained the articles his father had purchased for Jess at the store. When once again upon the wharf, they stood and talked for a few minutes. What they said Eben could not make out, but presently he heard his father calling his name. This caused him to crouch lower upon the ground, fearful lest he should be observed. One of the quarrymen then spoke and motioned his hand in the direction the boy had gone. Eben heard the amused laughter which followed, and he fully comprehended ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... stoop, hide, crouch, when about to rain : Kiddi kit mya warra. To go a long distance : Maran dugon bordeneuk. To cut up an animal of any kind for roasting : Dedayah killa, kuirderkan, ki ti kit. To cover up, to keep warm : Borga koorejalah kunah. For roasting : Ki ti kit. To cut ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... themselves sole regents of the air (Another war with Heaven as though they meant to make) Did seem in great disdain the bold affront to take, That any petty hill upon the English side, Should dare, not (with a crouch) to veil unto their pride. When Wrekin, as a hill his proper worth that knew, And understood from whence their insolency grew, For all that they appear'd so terrible in sight, Yet would not once forego a jot that was his right, And when they star'd ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... judging from the footmarks, wild animals were in the habit of passing. These men would take cover wherever they could, breaking off branches of trees for purposes of concealment where growing reeds, shrubs or grass did not suffice. They would lie or crouch about five yards from each other, in three lines about ten ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... The bashful maiden's cheek appeared, For Douglas spoke and Malcolm heard. The flush of shame-faced joy to hide, The hounds, the hawk, her cares divide; The loved caresses of the maid 520 The dogs with crouch and whimper paid; And, at her whistle, on her hand The falcon took his favorite stand, Closed his dark wing, relaxed his eye, Nor, though unhooded, sought to fly. 525 And, trust, while in such guise she stood, Like fabled Goddess of the wood, That ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... growl like a dog, and compass the city" (or "go their rounds in the city"). One sees them stealing through the darkness, like the troops of vicious curs that infest Eastern cities, and hears their smothered threatenings as they crouch in the shadow of the unlighted streets. Then growing bolder, as the night deepens and sleep falls on the silent houses: "Behold they pour out with their mouth, swords (are) in their lips, for 'who hears'?" In magnificent contrast with these skulking murderers fancying themselves ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... shone so brightly that the children in the garden did not break off their hide-and-seek, and now and then Raoul suspended the murmur of his song, absorbed in the fate of some little elf gliding from one black shadow to crouch in another. He was himself in the deep shade of a magnolia, over whose outer boughs the moonlight was trickling, as if the whole tree had been ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... feverish and irritable. Every now and then she would throw off the bed-clothes, and sit up with her hands round her knees, a white and rigid figure lit by the solitary candle beside her. Then again she would feel the chill of the autumn night, and crouch down shivering among the bed-clothes, pining for a sleep that would not come. Instead of sleep, she could do nothing but rehearse the scene with Ellesborough again and again. She watched the alterations in his face—she heard the changes in his voice—as she told ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... picking my way among the trees. Fir and oak are in the wood. In the oak I could walk straight with my chin in the air, facing anything to come; in the fir the little branches scratched at my neck and eyes, and I had to crouch low and ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... a gruesome experience. To tell the truth, I was almost more afraid that I should suddenly come upon the body of poor Eccles lying across our pathway, than of hearing the terrible roar of the wounded tiger and seeing him crouch to spring upon us. Expecting him, as I did, at every second, it would be hard if I could not get in my shot before he could get in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... himself upright, he had straightened to a half-crouch when, just beyond the big green-masked boulder, he saw that which held him petrified in his pose. There, in a huddle among the shrubs, where he would never have seen it except for the chance shifting-about of his gaze, was the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... shifted to Mormon's big body, stiffening to the crouch that prefaced shooting. He faced toward the trees again, flinging his last ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... some days he was possessed by a morose anticipation of being brained at any moment—an anticipation, however, which did not seem to interfere with his appetite. He would clutch eagerly all the food offered him, and crouch, huddled over it, with his face to the rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and bestial noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable kindness, he began to develop an anxious gratitude and docility. On A-ya's ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... study window, on his way indoors, a motion inside made him stop. He was just in time to see Lady trot into the room, crouch playfully, and then spring full ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... building; so that it was not unusual for a sergeant and several men to enter the south door of Rat Hell in the daytime, while the diggers were at labor in the dark north end. During these visits the digger would watch the intruders with his head sticking out of the tunnel, while the others would crouch behind the low stone fenders, or crawl quickly under the straw. This was, however, so uninviting a place that the Confederates made this visit as brief as a nominal compliance with their orders permitted, and ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... heights, their artillery overwhelmed the first which they had abandoned to us. The viceroy was obliged to conceal his panting, exhausted, and thinned lines in the hollows of the ground, and behind the half-destroyed entrenchments. The soldiers were obliged to get upon their knees, and crouch themselves up behind these shapeless parapets. In that painful posture they remained for several hours, kept in check by the enemy, who stood in check ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... wrongs: Awful victors, they misguide Whom they will destroy, And their coming triumph hide In our downfall, or our joy: They reach no term, they never sleep, In equal strength through space abide; Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep, The strong they slay, the swift outstride: Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods, And rankly on the castled steep,— Speak it firmly, these are gods, All are ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... a revolver in his hand, followed by the yellow dog, with every tooth showing, and swings open the door. No one there! But as the man opened the door, that yellow dog, that had been so chipper before, suddenly begins to crouch and step backward, step by step, trembling and shivering, and at last crouches down in the chimney, without even so much as looking at his master. The man slams the door shut again, but there ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... they gained on him. It was a desperate race to keep out of their reach. At last they are just back of the wagon. What can be done? The next moment the wolves may jump on the uncovered vehicle. The children, horrified, crouch near their trembling mother. Suddenly the father, driven to despair, seizes one of the little children and flings it among the pack of wolves, hoping that by yielding them one he may save the rest. ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... little bride passed sadly into the castle, and timidly sought the chamber where the Black Earl was gone to crouch by the glowing fire. ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... vain. con fess: to own; to admit. coun cil: a small body called together for a trial, or to decide a matter. court ier (court' yer): an attendant at the court of a prince. crime: a wicked act punishable by law. crouch: to ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... with you the joys of life. No, not before I am cured, can I give you my whole self, can I call myself your husband. Into the desert, therefore, to some oasis in its very heart, we shall ride, and there crouch our camels and establish ourselves as husbandmen. I shall even build you a little home like your own. And you will be to me an aura of health, which I shall breathe with the desert air, and the evening breeze. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Chico's strong point, and the present extremity did not inspire him with sagacity. He knew the way as little as his masters did, and would only dance about in an unmeaning way, and when ordered home crouch in abject entreaty. Jock grew impatient and threatened him, but this only made him creep behind Armine, put his tail between his legs, hold up his little paw, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Crouch down and fire!" ordered Tom. "Low down and they'll throw over our heads." It was done on the instant, and the four ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... of religion, of virtue—you repulsed, drove him away, imprisoned him.' I should be harder than he was, for I should say to you—'Sire; it is for you to choose. Do you wish to have friends or lackeys—soldiers or slaves—great men or mere puppets? Do you wish men to serve you, or to bend and crouch before you? Do you wish men to love you, or to be afraid of you? If you prefer baseness, intrigue, cowardice, say so at once, sire, and we will leave you,—we who are the only individuals who are left,—nay, I will say more, the only models of the valor of former ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shepherd stands among his ewes That with their lambs are unafraid Of him and keen-eyed dogs; They crouch close in about his feet Whene'er the coyote's cry Or bear's low growl Falls tingling on the timid ear. Himself thrusts gun to elbow-place And peers amid the dust-dressed sage And scented chaparral so dense, To glimpse the fiery eyeballs ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... the shades from Hell) Begone, foul visitants to upper air! Back to your dens! nor stain the sunny earth By shadows thrown from forms so foul—Crouch in! Proserpine, child of light, is ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... as I did crouch there, hidden, I saw something come very quiet out of the bushes that did grow beyond the fire-hole; and it was great, and crept, and was noways coloured but by greyness in all its parts. And the glare from the fire-hole did ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... line advanced, the elephants marching shoulder to shoulder, and thus bearing down everything before them, as I determined to take the jungle backwards and forwards in this close order lest the wary tiger might crouch, and escape by ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... to charge when he sprang up. She knew his eyes so little as to think he displayed regard for rather than respect for my command. She could not see that he begged me piteously to know why he must crouch there at a couple of strange inconsequential feet and see the good ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... her head to escape the sand that filled her eyes and nostrils and beat upon her cheeks so unmercifully. She thought perhaps the tempest would abate soon and she slipped from the saddle to crouch close to the body of the horse for protection. Instead of decreasing, the gale rose to a hurricane. It was as if the whole sand plain was ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... been travelling, heedless of roads and tracks, across a champaign country, and the slope up to the top of Yarlet Bank now lay before us. I led the way, skulking behind such poor cover as the gaunt hedgerows provided, and, when only a hundred paces from the top, I asked her to crouch down, awaiting my signal to advance, while I crept forward on my hands and knees to the edge of the road which here climbed the brow of the hill through a deep cutting, along either margin of which ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the little tunnel, shoved his way out. The walls pressed him; they seemed in a moment to close after him as he gained the outer glowing darkness.... There was only a narrow slit in the dwindling cliff to mark the tunnel entrance. Lee had the wits to crouch in a fairly open space as he stared at the dwindling trees, the little hills, all shrinking. Franklin must be around here somewhere. Franklin doubtless would ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... its cold and venomous fang, Crouch in this den. And thou wouldst leave it! Thou! more cunning than Falsehood, More viperous ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... more and more uneasy. Here was a grand hunt going well forward and he not a part of it. Instead he had to crouch among bushes and flatten himself against the soil like an earthworm, while the twanging of the bows made music, and the ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler |
