"Hoof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a more orderly and trim appearance than this magnificent line of British soldiers, drawn up before the acclivities of Aliwal. There was no wind, no dust. The sun was bright, but not so hot as might be expected in that climate, and the troops moved with noiseless foot, hoof, and wheel over the hard grass, as if it were a fairy scene, and the baton of the British chief were the wand of an enchanter, every movement of which called into gay and brilliant reality some new feature of the "glorious pomp and circumstance of war." Viewed from the British lines, the Khalsa ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not yet." Therewith, hurling looks of furious wrath at the poor woman, who was almost dead with terror, he drew his stiletto. "O God! O God!" she exclaimed, expecting her death-blow; but at this moment there was heard a rattle of arms in the street, and the hoof-strokes of horses. "The Marechaussee![3] the Marechaussee! Help! Help!" screamed Martiniere. "You abominable woman, you are determined to ruin me. All is lost now—it's all over. But here, here—take this. Give ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way. [U] Air listens, like the sleeping water, still, To catch the spiritual music of the hill, [101] 370 Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep, Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep, The echoed hoof nearing the distant shore, The boat's first motion—made with dashing oar; [102] Sound of closed gate, across the water borne, 375 Hurrying the timid [103] hare through rustling corn; The sportive outcry of the mocking ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... spirit came again, and, as they all agreed, brought with it seven devils worse than itself. One of the servants now lighted a large candle, and placed himself in the doorway between the two chambers, to see what passed; and, as he watched, he plainly saw a hoof striking the candle and candlestick into the middle of the room, and afterwards making three scrapes over the snuff, scraped it out. Upon this the same person was so bold as to draw a sword; but he had scarce got it out, when he felt an invisible hand had hold of it too, and ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... went under. I remember that Madame was lolling listless in the garden, daintily arrayed in fine linen, trying to talk to Mr. Mason, when a sound startled us. It was the sound of swift hoof ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... when the final figures were in. A hundred other herds were prospering, and the Eskimo and Lapps were full-cheeked and plump with good feeding and prosperity. A third of a million reindeer were on the hoof in Alaska, and the breeders were exultant. Pretty good, when compared with the fact that in 1902 there were less than five thousand! In another twenty years there would be ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... very wonderful. Marocco could walk on his hind legs, and even dance the Canaries. At the bidding of his master he would carry a glove to a specified lady or gentleman, and tell, by raps with his hoof, the numbers on the upper face of a pair of dice. He went through, indeed, much of what is now the regular "business" of the circus horse. In 1600 Banks amazed London by taking his horse up to the vane on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. Marocco ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... it is the only Alpine flower which actually pierces snow, though I have seen gentians filling thawed hoof-prints. Crocuses are languid till they have had sun for a day or two. But the soldanella enjoys its snow, at first, and afterwards its fields. I have seen it make a pasture look like a large ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... Vision, when White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador, A continent, adrip with streams which, then, Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken, Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore, Comes Hope's ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... his suffering was undeserved and unjust, Job had the audacity to say to God: "O Lord of the world, Thou didst create the ox with cloven feet and the ass with unparted hoof, Thou hast created Paradise and hell, Thou createst the righteous and also the wicked. There is none to hinder, Thou canst do as seemeth good in Thy sight." The friends of Job replied: "It is true, God hath created the evil inclination, but He hath also given man the Torah as a remedy against ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... perplexity. Her fright disappeared entirely, giving place to intense excitement. "No, no—it can't be—and yet I wonder if it IS!" she cried. "Oh, I wonder if it could be!" She opened her lips to cry aloud, then hesitated. She started towards the tents, then paused, and for many moments after the hoof-beats had died out she stayed undecided. Surely she wished to give the signal, to force the fierce pursuit. What meant this robbery, this defiance of the law, of her uncle's edicts and of McNamara? They were common thieves, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... huntsman had gathered his pack and gone; The last late hoof had echoed away; The horn was twanging a long way on For the only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... They listened like grown-ups to the prattle of a child. And the stars, like gods in silver armour sitting afar in halls of black marble, seemed to hear and disdain the little gnat-like voice, as they heard Vessons' defiant 'Never will I!' and Mrs. Marston's woolly prayers, and Reddin's hoof-beats. All man's desires—predatory, fugitive, or merely negative—wander away into those dark halls, and are heard no more. Among the pillars of the night is there One who listens and remembers, and judges the foolishness of man, not by effects, but by motives? And does that One, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... all one negative, and under the unexpectedness of it and the amazement of it her questioning eyes slowly filled with sudden, uncontrollable tears, so that she had to lower them, and look steadily at the hoof-marks in the road while she waited ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... fringed forehead and his pearly horns; Light on his back the sportive damsel bounds, And, pleas'd, he moves along the flowery grounds; Bears with slow step his beauteous prize aloof, Dips in the lucid flood his ivory hoof; Then wets his velvet knees, and wading laves His silky sides, amid the dimpling waves. While her fond train with beckoning hands deplore, Strain their blue eyes, and shriek along the shore: Beneath her robe she draws her snowy feet, And, half reclining ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... other's hand. The Englishman's teeth gleamed for an instant between his seared mustaches as he heeled his mount into a canter along the back of the ridge. Five minutes later the knoll dipped again into the plain and at the foot of it Billinger stopped his horse for a second and pointed to fresh hoof-marks in the prairie sod. Philip jumped from his horse ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... hoof-beats came from down the pike, sounding like the vomitings of a Gatling gun. A horse streaked its way toward them. Crimmins darted into the underbrush bordering the pike. The horse came fast. It flashed past Garrison. Its rider was swaying in the saddle; swaying with white, tense face and sawing ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... in the condition of the few animals left alive there—"on the lift." Indeed, the beef was so poor that the soldiers were in the habit of saying, with a faint facetiousness, that they were living on "half rations of hard bread and BEEF DRIED ON THE HOOF." ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of a horse showed in the bare, hard sand. The hoof-marks were large, almost oval, perfect in shape, and manifestly they were beautiful to Lin Slone. He gazed at them for a long time, and then he looked across the dotted red valley up the vast ridgy ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... companions, like Fitz James, and is the only one in at the death. To commemorate his triumph he frames a basin for the spring whose waters were stirred by his victim's dying breath; he plants three stone pillars to mark the creature's hoof-prints in its marvellous leap from the mountain to the springside; and he builds a pleasure house and an arbour where he comes with his paramour to make merry in the summer days. But Nature sets her seal of condemnation upon the cruelty and vainglory of man. "The spot ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed—as he always shows sooner or later—his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorely perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told, a little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemy of Souls touched ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... that standest meekly by, With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye, Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed; I may not mount on thee again,—thou'rt sold, my Arab steed! Fret not with that impatient hoof,—snuff not the breezy wind,— The farther that thou fliest now, so far am I behind; The stranger hath thy bridle-rein,—thy master hath his gold,— Fleet-limbed and beautiful, farewell; thou'rt sold, my ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "the horse was not running when it turned out and it did not stop here in fright. The horse was entirely quiet here. The hoof marks would show any alarm in the animal, and, moreover, if it had stopped in fright there would have been an inevitable recoil which would have thrown the wheels of the vehicle backward out of their track. ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... lord. Don't mind turning your back to her head: I'll look after her teeth; you mind her hind hoof," said Malcolm, with her head in one hand and the stirrup in ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo for evermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... means the poison was brought, adduce one Hagnothemis as their authority, who, they say, heard king Antigonus speak of it, and tell us that the poison was water, deadly cold as ice, distilling from a rock in the district of Nonacris, which they gathered like a thin dew, and kept in an ass's hoof; for it was so very cold and penetrating that no other vessel would hold it. However, most are of opinion that all this is a mere made-up story, no slight evidence of which is, that during the dissensions among the commanders, which lasted several days, the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired skill as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the town. He was not to be taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without any go to them, that suit a country-parson, nor yet by the "gaanted-up," long-legged animals, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... my hurry I let the rope slip through my hands so fast they were sore for a week afterwards. But I didn't feel it then. I should hardly have felt it if I had cut them in two, for as my feet touched the ground in the darkness I heard the stamp of a horse's hoof and the jingle of a bit—not much of a sound, but it went through my heart like a knife, along with the thought that I was a free man once more; that is, free in a manner of speaking. I knew we couldn't be taken then, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to be the last battle, I shouldn't mind a scratch myself," put in a voice from the darkness, "even if it's nothing more than a bruise from a horse's hoof. By the bye, Montjoy, did you see the way Stuart rode down the Zouaves? I declare the slope looked like a field of poppies in full bloom. Your cousin was in that charge, I believe, and he came out ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... or drays. The horses in Paris, and in the country, are nearly all plain shod, with no heels or toes to act like a pick to break up the surface. Sometimes even one sees draught-horses with great flat, iron shoes extending out beyond the hoof in all directions. ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... about her lameness, and got out to look her over. He felt of her muscles, and carefully scrutinized her for swelling or swinney or splint or spavin or thoroughpin. Then he lifted one foot after another, and cleaned out about the frog, tapping the hoof all over for soreness. Down deep beside the frog of the foot which she had favored he found ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... over a five-barred gate would have been an easy exploit, compared with clearing one of these monstrous barriers. I might add, also, from experience, that leaping a log is a feat of considerable danger. There is no room for "topping;" and should the iron hoof strike, there is nothing that will yield. On the other side, the rider has the pleasant prospect of a broken neck—either for himself or his horse. Not being in any particular hurry, I took the matter quietly; and wound my way ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... came a sense of furtive watchful hostility, the same shadow of unseen things that seemed to lurk in the wooded combes and coppices. From behind heavy doors and shuttered windows came the restless stamp of hoof or rasp of chain halter, and at times a muffled bellow from some stalled beast. From a distant corner a shaggy dog watched her with intent unfriendly eyes; as she drew near it slipped quietly into its kennel, and slipped out again as noiselessly when ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... got squiffy but once—that was in the holidays," said Stalky, reflectively; "an' it made me horrid sick. 'Pon my sacred Sam, though, it's enough to drive a man to drink, havin' an animal like Hoof for house-master." ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... strange in the fact that Ward had observed and recognized Blue's tracks coming into the gorge. She would have observed and recognized instantly the tracks made by his horse, anywhere. Those things come natural to one who has lived much in the open; and there is a certain individuality in the hoof-prints of a horse, ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... slowly, in silence the gypsies approached the shore. Again they halted. Murdo was probing the ice with his stick. We could see that the feet of the horses were wrapped in bags, and instead of being shod each hoof was in a cushion made of straw. As Murdo felt his way, a noise at first as of the tearing of paper, but more distinct with every moment, came from ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... stopped and looked around her, at the strange shadowy room hung with its old embroideries and latticed with its ancient screening. "This room makes it all so real, somehow," she murmured. "I didn't believe it all when the dragoman told me—probably because he showed me the mark of the horse's hoof in the stone of the parapet! I thought it was all ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... word that it was an inferior structure although so amazingly effective from below; they had looked studiously down upon the city and tried to distinguish its minarets and towers and ancient gates, they had viewed with proper quizzicalness the imprint in the stone parapet of the hoof of that blindfolded horse which the last of the Mamelukes, cornered and betrayed, had spurred ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... for work, always hungry, always ready to lie down and roll, and always lazy. But when he heard the rush of the brumbies' feet in the scrub he became frantic with excitement. He could race over the roughest ground without misplacing a hoof or altering his stride, and he could sail over fallen timber and across gullies like a kangaroo. Nearly every Sunday we were after the brumbies, until they got as lean as greyhounds and as cunning as policemen. We were always ready to back White-when-he's-wanted ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... happens to be moonlight, you can see them slipping over the snow, making for the waterfall as fast as they can hoof it, but none of them look back—and if they were all your dearest friends you couldn't catch a glimpse of their faces—unless, I suppose, you had the gumption to start off by sitting up at the waterfall and waiting ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... side the brink the lichens were torn away where the sharp hoofs had cut down to solid earth. Thirty feet away, well over the farther bank and ten feet below the level where I stood, the fresh earth showed clearly among the hoof-torn moss. Far below, the river fretted and roared in a white rush of rapids. He had taken the jump, a jump that made one's nostrils spread and his breath come hard as he measured it with his eye. Somewhere, over in the spruces' shadow there, he was hiding, watching me no ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, even ruder than those of Shakespeare's house,—though, perhaps, not so strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is the little original window, of only four small panes, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... give them certain information with regard to Lady So-and-so, whom they have long wanted to know? Occasionally, I have been so taken in as to give permission to the writer to call on me, and almost always I have bitterly repented. The wily one—no matter how wily—cannot conceal the cloven hoof for long, and he has either tried to thrust himself into the bosom of my family, or has written to my neighbours declaring himself to be my dearest friend; and when, in desperation, I have shown ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... was riding slowly around the boulder marked "Palace Hotel, Rates Reasnible," that he came upon the place where a horse had stood, on the side best sheltered from the storm. Deep hoof marks closely overlapping, an overturned stone here and there gave proof enough, and the rain-beaten soil that blurred the hoofprints farthest from the rock told him more. Lone backed away, dismounted, and, stepping carefully, went close. He could ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... heavy drawbridge fell That o'er the moat was hung; And, clatter, clatter, on its boards The hoof of courser rung. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the times in which we live, is conceivable; but I, my dear fellow, have not the mythological bandage over my eyes.—Well, then consider your position. For fifteen years you have been tossing in the literary world; you are no longer young, you have padded the hoof till your soles are worn through!—Yes, my boy, you turn your socks under like a street urchin to hide the holes, so that the legs cover the heels! In short, the joke is too stale. Your excuses are more familiar ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... each hoof of them all began loudly to bawl; The very mule smiled; the cock crew; "Little Spotty, my dear, you're a favorite here," They cried. "We all said it was you, We were so glad to give you your due." And ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Fury, blast Engender'd brute, without the wit Of brute, or mouth to match the bit Of man—art satisfied at last? Who, when thunder roll'd aloof, Tow'rd the spheres of fire your ears Pricking, and the granite kicking Into lightning with your hoof, Among the tempest-shatter'd crags Shattering your luckless rider Back into the tempest pass'd? There then lie to starve and die, Or find another Phaeton Mad-mettled as yourself; for I, Wearied, worried, and for-done, Alone will ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... hoof-prints mark the rock, When swift he left the plain; I heard deep down the echoing ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... very solemn and dignified now, paused for each reply, there came ever nearer and ever louder the ringing of the hoof-beats. Once he stole a hurried glance through the window which gave on the turnpike. Not half a mile away, their figures black against the sky-line, fiercely lashing their tired horses to fresh effort, were three desperate riders. The couple before him did ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the weight on it," she said, "but it's clumsy. Them men has all they kin lug an' I'm a goin' ter hoof it erlong wid this, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... you take to teach me?" said Jacob; for he saw that the stranger had a horse's hoof instead of a foot, and he did not like his looks, ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... dispatched on horseback, one day, to the neighboring village, strict instructions being given him to ride carefully in the middle of the track, as, treading in the deep snow, the horse might "ball,"—an expression applied to taking up snow in the hollow of the hoof, which causes the animal to stumble. An unusually long time elapsed before the messenger made his appearance from his mission, and then he was seen making his way painfully through the snow, leading the horse after him by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... school, that I half expected to see my initials in brass-headed nails on his backbone), and went up a thousand rugged ways, and looked down at a thousand woods of fir and pine, and would on the whole have preferred my mule's keeping a little nearer to the inside, and not usually travelling with a hoof or two over the precipice—though much consoled by explanation that this was to be attributed to his great sagacity, by reason of his carrying broad loads of wood at other times, and not being clear but that I myself belonged to that station of life, and required as much room as they. He ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... horse alert to obey his will, fretting with dilated nostril and pawing hoof at their ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... warning from quarter soever, but from peaceful feeder was instantaneously wind-like fleer, his great horns thrown back over his shoulders, and his four legs just touching the ground with elastic hoof, or tucking themselves almost out of sight as he skipped rather than leaped over rock and gully, stone and bush—whatever lay betwixt him and larger room. Great joy it was to his two guardians to see him, and great game to watch the motions of his discomfited ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... an atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the sidewalk only to be moulded into the impress of somebody's patched boot or overshoe. Thus the track of an old conventionalism was visible on what was freshest from the sky. But when we left the pavements, and our muffled hoof-tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and were effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, then there was better air to breathe. Air that had not been breathed once and again! air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by the rules of modern warfare, and its application solved a question of policy which otherwise might have been fraught with serious difficulty. In the presence of arms the Fugitive-slave Law became null and void, and the Dred Scott decision was trampled under the iron hoof ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of the nearest mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared in the moonlight not twenty paces from him. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So, up to the housetop the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of toys,—and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound; He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... fact, I am in favour of anything that will, or may, interfere with the tedious toil of Deer-stalking. Mr. BRYCE's Bill, I am afraid, will do no good. People want Access to Mountains when they cannot get it; when once they can, they will stay where the beer is, and not go padding the wet and weary hoof through peat-hogs, over rocks, and along stupid and fatiguing acclivities, rugged with heather. Oh, preserve me from Deer-stalking; it is a sport of which I cherish only the most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... I sold Hornblower Longmeadow and the cottages, I certainly found him all right. All the same, he's got the cloven hoof. [Warming up] His influence in Deepwater is thoroughly bad; those potteries of his are demoralising—the whole atmosphere of the place is changing. It was a thousand pities he ever came here and discovered that clay. He's brought in the modern ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... English he explained that he was trying to fashion a light metal plate that could be easily placed between a horse's shoe and the hoof, to protect the frog of the foot from nails picked up on the road. With all soldiers wearing hobnailed boots, the roads were full of those sharp bits of metal which had caused serious losses of horseflesh ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... fomentarius (L.) Fr.,] is hoof-shaped, smoky in color, or gray, and of various shades of dull brown. It is strongly zoned and sulcate, marking off each year's growth. The margin is thick and blunt, and the tube surface concave, the tubes having quite large mouths so that they can be readily seen, the color when mature ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... get from carrying panniers. You are supposed to be a pannier, and the careful animal doesn't want to brush you off against the rocks. See this creature of mine; he has that hind hoof slipping over the precipice all the while. But he'll not slip; he's as sure- footed as a chamois, and has no more taste for tumbling off the cliff than you have. These mules are wonderfully intelligent. ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... distance away there came to her the sound of a horse's hoof-beats, short and hard, galloping over the stones. It was a sound that arrested the attention, awaking in her a vague, apprehensive excitement. Almost involuntarily she drew nearer to the window, peering ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... and said, "Here we are," and they saw the slender spire of a pagoda dart above the low trees ahead. A few steps again carried them from the forest path they were following to a narrow track deeply printed with the hoof-marks ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... not when Death or disaster comes, Mightier than battle-drums To summon us away. Death bids us say farewell To all we love, nor stay For tears;—and who can tell How soon misfortune's hand May smite us where we stand, Dragging us down, aloof, Under the swift world's hoof? ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... tap-tap of a hammer, and a keen, pungent scent as of something burning, warn us that we are in the vicinity of the Royal smithy. A handsome grey carriage-horse is being shod, one hoof doubled up between the farrier's legs, as that worthy, with quick taps, drives in a long nail, and makes the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... reply. "Landed there on ship from round the Horn last week. Got paid off but some sneak thief in the boarding house I was stopping at got my roll. So I had to hoof it." ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... Lacedaemon, or is now in Venice. Wherefore Machiavel seems to me, in attributing the peace of Venice more to her luck than her prudence, of the whole stable to have saddled the wrong horse; for though Rome in her military part could beat it better, beyond all comparison, upon the sounding hoof, Venice for the civil part has plainly had the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... will tell you, scholar, that unless the hook be fast in his very gorge, 'tis more than probable he will live, and a little time, with the help of the water, will rust the hook, and it will in time wear away, as the gravel doth in the horse-hoof, which only leaves a ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... for such things as racks, furniture legs, handles and thermometer mounts the leg skin attached to the hoof should be left six or more inches in length while for ink wells, ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... the hoof-pocked frozen clay. Aaron analyzed the contours of the hills for watershed and signs of erosion. He studied the patterns of the barren winter fields, fall-plowed and showing here and there the stubble of a crop he didn't recognize. When ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... down to sleep shortly afterwards. An hour before daylight they were in the saddle. Hunting Dog rode ahead on the line he had followed the day before. As soon as it became light Tom kept his eyes fixed upon the ground, but it was only now and then, when the Indian pointed to the print of a horse's hoof in the sand between the rocks, that he could make them out. The two Indians followed the track, however, without the slightest difficulty, the horses ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... upon the subject. So with the greatest readiness he struck straight out behind and took Saunders what he himself called a "dinnle on the elbuck." Nor was this all, for the razor suddenly levered upwards by Birsie's hoof added another and entirely unprofessional wrinkle to ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... idle talk, that I have both lands and goods far away in England, and you bid me begone to them. Well, if you turn me out I must go, for I cannot stay alone in the veldt without a house, or a friend, or a hoof of cattle. But then I tell you that when Suzanne is of age I shall return and marry her, and take her away with me, as I have a right to do if she desires it, for I will not lose everything that I love in the world at one stroke. Indeed nothing but death shall part me ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... my life before, and only yest'day wife had a hull pan o' doughnuts took off from the back steps where she'd set 'em to cool, why I'm of the opinion pretty strong that Bandy Leg Mountain will bear lookin' into. So I'll call Peter an' Jed, an' we'll hoof ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... doesn't deserve it," said Saxe, who also made a point of giving the unfortunate cretin an object which set his eyes rolling with delight every time it was taken out. This was a large knife with a collection of odds and ends stored in the handle: toothpick, lancet blade, tweezers, screwdriver, horse-hoof picker, and corkscrew, the latter being, as Saxe said, so likely ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... stately mound, etc. Persian tradition says that a large monument, in shape like the hoof of a horse, was placed over the spot ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... which they appeared before me were manifold: one was like a beautiful woman, but she had one foot like an ass's hoof; and another like a man without a head, and a flame of fire coming out of his neck; another like a great dog. These two I bound together, and the dog kept watch over the headless man, and the flame of fire that came from his neck gave light to the workmen ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... heard it no more; the bird had flown away. Then, still listening, she caught a different sound—the loud hoof-beats of horses being ridden at furious speed towards the hamlet. Listening intently to that sound she heard, on its arrival at the hamlet, a sudden, great cry as if all the men gathered there had united their voices in one cry; and she stood ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... circumstances, be done. The proper course to pursue, and I say so from long experience, is to stop the team at once, and let all the traces out to a length that will allow the swingle-tree to swing half way between the hock and the heel of the hoof. In other words, give him room enough to step, between the collar and swingle-tree, so that the swingle-tree cannot touch his legs when walking at his longest stride. If the above rule be followed, the animal will not be apt ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... information on the point, but there is reason to believe that a steak from the wild horse of the time was something admirable. There is a sort of maxim current in this age, in civilized rural communities, to the effect that those quadrupeds are good to eat which "chew the cud or part the hoof." The horse of to-day is a creature with but one toe to each leg—we all know that—but the horse of the cave man's time had only lately parted with the split hoof, and so was fairly edible, even according to ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... hatchet, which he had fetched out of the village early in the morning), I caught sight of a loaf as long as my arm which a raven was pecking, and which doubtless one of the Imperial troopers had dropped out of his knapsack the day before, for there were fresh hoof-marks in the sand by it. So I secretly buttoned the breast of my coat over it, so that none should perceive anything, although the aforesaid Paasch was close behind me; item, all the rest followed at no great distance. Now, having set the springes ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... feet, when we found that a sharp stone had wounded its hoof. We extricated it with considerable difficulty, and when we again moved on the animal walked with as much pain as before. Nothing could make it move on. We were therefore compelled to encamp at the ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... still to sit at ease, An island Queen amidst thy subject seas, While the vext billows, in their distant roar, But soothe thy slumbers, and but kiss thy shore? To sport in wars, while danger keeps aloof, Thy grassy turf unbruised by hostile hoof? So sing thy flatterers; but, Britain, know, Thou who hast shared the guilt must share the woe. Nor distant is the hour; low murmurs spread, And whispered fears, creating what they dread; Ruin, as with an earthquake shock, is here, [5] There, the heart-witherings of unuttered fear, ...
— Eighteen Hundred and Eleven • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
... wild plain of far extent, 430 And bounded by a forest black[263]; And, save the scarce seen battlement On distant heights of some strong hold, Against the Tartars built of old, No trace of man. The year before A Turkish army had marched o'er; And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod, The verdure flies the bloody sod: The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, And a low breeze crept moaning by— 440 I could have answered with a sigh— But fast we fled,—away!—away!— And I could neither sigh nor pray; And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain Upon the courser's bristling mane; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Helhest,' said the other, who shortly after died. It is said that in the cathedral at Roeskilde, there is a narrow stone on which, in old times, people used to spit, because a Helhest was buried there. The word 'hel' is from 'hael,' a heel, because the horse lacked one hoof or heel. The legend appears to have existed in the Roman times, as they called ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... dar to keep de Yankees from a-gittin' it. Dey driv' de waggins in de pines and us unload de jewels and things and den dey would drive de waggins out de wood. When de waggin done got plum away us would take dry pine needles and kivver up all de waggin tracks and hoof prints after us had done raked de dirt smooth over dem. We stayed wid de silver and stuff and drink coffee and eat black crus'; dat de sweetnin' bread dat us had durin' de war. Couldn't git no sugar den. Sometime we used sassafras tea as we ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... sense of corporate existence that raises man above the brutes." All which lowers the influence or the sacredness of this memory is debasing. The corrupting of this memory "is the impoverishment that threatens our posterity;" and this "new famine, a meagre fiend, with lewd grin and clumsy hoof, is breathing a moral mildew over the harvest of our human sentiments." That eager yearning of the nineteenth century for truth and reality, for something more than traditions and national memories, which displays itself in reforms and revolutions ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Well, after we had left all our provisions with them, we started for the fort again, just keepin' as much as would drive off starvation; for, you see, we thought that surely we would git something on the road. But neither hoof nor feather did we see all the way (I was travellin' with an Injin), and our grub was soon done, though we saved it up, and only took a mouthful or two the last three days. At last it was done, and we was pretty well used up, and the fort two days ahead of us. So says I to my comrade—who had been ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... most of him to-night!" He turned his horse, lifted his hat. Stafford did likewise. They parted, and Cleave presently heard the rapid hoofbeat overtake the Silver Hill coach and at once change to a slower rhythm. "Now he is speaking with her through the window!" The sound of wheel and hoof died away. Cleave shook Dundee's reins and went on toward Lauderdale. Judith Cary—Judith Cary—There are other things in life than love—other things than love—other things than love.... ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the trail. It had seen a lot of use, but less in recent weeks. There were sharp hoof-prints of the animal he had caught, larger hoof-prints, vague pad-marks of various sizes, but nothing that looked human. The trail went under a charred tree trunk at a height that was not comfortable for a man, and the spacing of the steps around ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... obeyed, and presently the hoof-beats of the ruddy charger that bore the Prince resounded on the road that led to the Palace of ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... hae me believe, daddy, that gien ye had kent by mark o' hiv (hoof) an' horn, that the cratur they laid i' yer lap was a Cawmill—ye wad hae risen up, an' lootin it lie ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... struggling to keep back the tears when a horse's hoof beats sounded under the trees and ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... you want to walk the rest of the way, same's I'm cal'latin' to. I'm goin' to unharness the horse and put him under the shed here and then hoof it over to the village and get somebody to come and help. You can come along if you want to, but it'll be a tougher v'yage than the ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... mind while the mare was negotiating about five miles, and wearing much of the wool off Mahdi, and not a little cuticle off Mr. Crips; but he was saved the dread ordeal he anticipated by another disaster. The mare caught a hoof in a rut and came down heavily, and presently Nickie recovered consciousness, lying on his back, blinking at the blue sky, gratified to find ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... to hold up anything so small as a hoof, so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... did not shoot the wolf among the cattle. There was not a horn nor a hoof to be seen when ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... a flood of sound, and a porter stood regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truck-load of lighted lamps blazed along ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... buffaloes, sheep and goats, that pour into the village. Each beast well knows his master and his crib, and turns in at the familiar gate to the stable under the house, or by the side of the hut; and there all spend the night. Not a hoof is left out in the field; the last belated stragglers come in while the gleam of amber still edges the night-blue sky behind the black horizon. Then the silent fields lie under the brightening moon, glittering with ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... are the very transcript of what had past betwixt God and his own soul. He spoke and wrote his experimental knowledge, and did both speak and write because he believed He did earnestly contend for the articles of faith and truths of religion, and could never think of parting with one hoof, or the least grain of truth, being persuaded, that Christian concord must have truth for its foundation, and holiness for its attendant, without which it will decline into a defection, and degenerate into a conspiracy against religion. As to the duties of Christianity, he enforced the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... combined with its blinking vision, had earned for it the euphonious title of Owlface. Both master and steed must have travelled hard and far, for both were covered with dust and mud from top to toe, from mane to hoof. Mr. Beckendorff seemed surprised at meeting Vivian, and pulled up his pony as he ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Nora, and then climbed on to the little steed himself; and as soon as they were properly seated the little man said "swish," and away went the steed, galloping over the sea without wetting hair or hoof. But fast as he galloped the nine little pipers were always ahead of him, although they seemed to be going only at a walking pace. When at last he came up rather close to the hindmost of them the nine little pipers ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... should be straight; a line dropped from the point of the shoulder to the ground should divide the knees, canon, fetlock, and foot into two equal parts. When the animal is formed in this way the feet have room to be straight and square, with just the breadth of a hoof between them (Fig. 241). ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... right, son," he said. "We'll 'tend to P. Casey, soon's we've 'tended to you. You need fixin' if you're goin' to take us to him. You'll have to hoof it till we cut fair trail. Sam, fetch me some adhesive, will you? An' then saddle up; Pronto fo' me, a hawss fo' yoreself an' rope a ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Delawares, and his aide, Chief Wingenund, arrayed two hundred warriors and marched from the eastward to join the four hundred Wyandots of Chief Half King and Chief Shaus-sho-to, and defend the Sandusky. In the south the Shawnees of Black Hoof and Black Beard and all, prepared. The Miamis rallied from the west. The white captains, Alexander McKee and the Girty brothers, urged the warriors on. A messenger to the British father at Detroit brought back promise of ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... being black, except the spot in the middle which is white. The rhinoceros is much smaller than the elephant, and resembles the buffalo from the neck downwards, and excels all other creatures in extraordinary strength. His leg is all one thickness, from the shoulder to the foot, and the hoof is not cloven. The elephant flies from the rhinoceros, whose lowing is like that of an ox, with something of the cry of the camel. His flesh is not forbidden, and we have eaten of it; There are great numbers of this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... in mountain glades Retired (believe it, after years!) Teaching his strains to Dryad maids, While goat-hoof'd satyrs prick'd their ears. Evoe! my eyes with terror glare; My heart is revelling with the god; 'Tis madness! Evoe! spare, O spare, Dread wielder of the ivied rod! Yes, I may sing the Thyiad crew, The stream of wine, the ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas, too. And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... that we find it making so much trouble for us. The "bummers" and "boodlers" do not find the subject beneath their notice; the Master who inspires them is wide awake and—for a creature that divides the hoof—extremely intelligent. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... Venetians, commanded by Morosini, are so well known, that I have thought it unnecessary to repeat them; but it is impossible to recall them without a shudder, as the reflection is forced on one, of what must have been their fate whose wickedness caused an explosion which could scatter, as a horse's hoof may the sands of the sea-shore, the giant masses which for ever bear witness to the power of that mighty agent we have evoked from the earth for our mutual destruction." At the west end of the Acropolis, by which ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... that resistance was hopeless. Doors opened silently as we passed, and grim fellows, in corslets and padded coats, peered out. The clank of arms and murmur of voices sounded continuously about us; and as we passed a window the jingle of bits, and the hollow clang of a restless hoof on the flags below, told us that the great house was for the time a fortress. I wondered much. For this was Paris, a city with gates and guards; the night a short August night. Yet the loneliest manor in Quercy could scarcely have bristled with more pikes and musquetoons, ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Island than in Massachusetts. Madam Knight gives a glimpse of Connecticut slave life in 1704, and of awkward table traits in both master and slave as well, when she says that the negroes were too familiar, were permitted to sit at the table with the master, and "into the Dish goes the black Hoof as freely as the white Hand." Hawthorne ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... before you go. Let me see; luckily you've got your dust-coat on, and you needn't take that off; it'll do splendidly to hide your coat and waistcoat. I'll lend you a blue tie, which will at once transform your upper man entirely. But you show the cloven hoof below; the trousers will surely betray you. They're absolutely inadmissible under any circumstances whatsoever, as the Court Circular says, and you must positively wear a coloured pair of Herbert's instead of them. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... hard," says Ray, who is bending over the prostrate form of Captain Wayne. "If it were storming or blowing, or something to deaden the hoof-beats, I could make it easier; but ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... peaceful and confiding portion of the State into a military camp; which outlawed from pity the unfortunate beings whose brothers had offended; which barred every door, penetrated every bosom with fear or suspicion; which so banished every sense of security from every man's dwelling, that, let but a hoof or horn break upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be driven to the heart, the husband would look to his weapon, and the mother would shudder and weep upon her cradle? Was it the fear of Nat Turner, ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... enormous: what a team to drive; and on such a road, untrodden before by hoof or wheel! Two Empresses that cordially hate one another, and that disagree on this very subject. Kaunitz and his Empress are extremely skittish in the matter, and as if quite refuse it at first: "Zips will be better," thinks ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... groves and knee-deep meadows, of countless springs and canyons of mystery, whence gold was washed in the freshets; and over all, eloquent, insistent, appealing, the note of the meadow-lark cutting clearly through the hoof-beats of the herd and the ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... to allow of anything beyond gentle exercise; but even at quarter-speed, that wonderful hind-action was very remarkable. Watching those clean, sinewy pasterns shoot forward—well outside of the fore hoof-track—straight and swift as Mace's arm in an "upper-cut," you marvel no longer at the mile-time which hitherto has ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... fisherman sings in his boat as he examines the floats of his stake-net, hand over hand. A white gull hovers close above him, and a dark one above the horsemen, fit emblems of peace and war. The slightest sounds, the rattle of an oar, the striking of a hoof against a stone, are borne over the water to an amazing distance, as if the calm bay amid its seeming quiet, were watchful of the slightest noise. But look! in a moment the surface is rippled, the sky is clouded, a swift change comes over the fitful mood of the season; ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... milking by this time. But her temper was such that she was milking unkindly, and Crummie felt it. Also she had not forgotten, in her slow-moving bovine way, that she had been kicked. So in her turn she lifted her foot and let drive, punctuating a gigantic semi-colon with her cloven hoof just on that part of the person of Mistress MacWalter where it was fitted to take ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Dr. Ripley rushed from his surgery with the determination that she should not effect an entrance into this stronghold of his if hard driving on his part could prevent it. He did not even wait to light his lamps, but sprang into his gig and flew off as fast as hoof could rattle. He lived rather nearer to the Squire's than she did, and was convinced that he could get there ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... saddle and fell to the floor of the canyon. His horse came to a snorting stop, reins dangling, all four legs braced. The hoof-beats instantly were stilled. A silence, complete and sinister, reigned in ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... obvious—he was aware of this even in the novel excitement of the chase—that a chappie couldn't hoof it at twenty-five miles an hour indefinitely along a main thoroughfare of a great city without exciting remark. He must take cover. Cover! That was the wheeze. He ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... to breakfast," interposed Halliday, the lawyer. "There's a straight day's work before us, gentlemen," he added, "and we can't do anything here. Orangemen, let's hoof it." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that one was as distinct as the other. Nevertheless, Frank pressed on with scarcely any hesitation, until he again reached a depression where the soft ground failed to show the slightest impression of shoe or hoof. ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... and picked up a quirt that they say don't belong to our outfit. But it's a very ordinary quirt and might belong to almost anybody. Of course, they found a good many hoof marks, but they were so mixed up with the marks from the other horses they couldn't ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... recovered or cured. "Lord bless you, Sir," replied the man, "I tried at more than fifty places, but nobody would take them in at any price, as they all said they would not have them at a gift, and that they should not tread a hoof upon any of their lands on any account, as the foot rot was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... to Virbius, but to fame Unknown, through life in Latin woods he strayed. Thenceforth, in memory of the deed of shame, No horn-hoof'd steeds are suffered to invade Chaste Trivia's temple or her sacred glade, Since, scared by Ocean's monsters, from his car They dashed him by the deep. Yet, undismayed, His son, young Virbius, o'er the plains afar The fleet-horsed ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... breed of horses is ascertained; but by what mark couldst thou know that the dam of this colt was a buffalo?" The man replied, "My lord, the mark is visible in the colt itself. It is not unknown to any person of observation, that the hoof of a horse is nearly round, but the hoof of a buffalo thick and longish, like this colt's: hence I judged that the dam must certainly have been a buffalo." The sultan now dismissed him graciously, and commanded that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... and sat down afar off, saying, "I will have nothing to do with yonder dish." Then Jawan the Kurd put out his hand (which was very like a raven's claws,[FN311] scooped up therewith half the dishful and drew out his neave as it were a camel's hoof,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... over the leaves of the pamphlets, and hastily did she scatter them through the floor, when the hasty clatter of horses' feet, heard in the courtyard, called her to the window, exclaiming, "It is Leicester!—it is my noble Earl!—it is my Dudley!—every stroke of his horse's hoof sounds like ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... broke bright and clear over us. Started at seven, the poor horses scarcely able to draw one leg after the other, the Roan having worn his hoof down the quick was exposed and raw, and he walked with difficulty. At a mile and a half we ascended an eminence, and to the eastward, saw a magnificent sheet of water to which we moved, and at five miles reached a low ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... he had to push apart the brake-canes and press through with bowed head. Nothing met him in the path. Now and then there were faint signs underfoot as if wheels might have crushed the ragged turf long weeks before. Now and then the print of a hoof was seen in the black soil, but a spider had made it her home and spread across it her silken snares. If he halted and hearkened, he heard far away the hawk screaming to his mate, and maybe, looking up, caught a glimpse of him sailing in the upper air with the sunlight glowing in his ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... just old man Don's weakness for cattle; he can't look a steer in the face without falling in love with him. Now, I've received before when by throwing out one half the stock offered, you couldn't get as uniform a bunch of beeves as those are. But you go right ahead, Tom, and be sure that every hoof you accept will dress five hundred pounds at Fort Buford. I'll simply sit around and clerk and help you count and give you a good chance ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... looked-for trail was seen. At length, just as Arlington's pioneering eye lit upon the shining surface of a lazy brook, a dozen yards away, Jetty suddenly halted, put nose to the ground and began to paw. The animal had found a path, scarcely discernible, yet a practicable road marked by hoof-tracks. The course of it was along the edge of the small stream flowing westerly. "Manifestly the rational thing to do now is to follow the new-found trail, which, in all probability, is the right road to Natchez, or if not, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... joined a horse regiment, and was undergoing the necessary practice in the riding school. After a particularly desperate attempt to unseat its rider, the horse managed to entangle a hoof in one of ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... block, the chances were the prisoner could not have made out the indistinct form of the stranger anyhow. Five or ten minutes of such scrutiny of his man was all Uncle Tobe ever desired. In his earlier days before he took up this present employment, he had been an adept at guessing the hoof-weight of the beeves and swine in which he dealt. That early experience stood him in good stead now; he took no credit to himself for his accuracy in estimating the bulk ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... know, walk on two toes, and if their feet are not trimmed they get sore from traveling so much. I suppose nature intended sheep to climb over the rocks and wear their hoofs down that way. They have a queer foot. Did you know that there is a little oily gland between the toes to make the hoof moist, ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... seen in China at the present day, are made with very peculiar sleeves, shaped like a horse's leg, and ending in what is an unmistakable hoof, completely covering the hand. These are actually known to the Chinese as "horse-shoe sleeves"; and, encased therein, a Chinaman's arms certainly look very much like a horse's forelegs. The tail ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... base, basement; plinth, dado, wainscot; baseboard, mopboard[obs3]; bedrock, hardpan [U.S.]; foundation &c. (support) 215; substructure, substratum, ground, earth, pavement, floor, paving, flag, carped, ground floor, deck; footing, ground work, basis; hold, bilge. bottom, nadir, foot, sole, toe, hoof, keel, root; centerboard. Adj. bottom, undermost, nethermost; fundamental; founded on, based on, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... breath of life, threatens, for the moment at least, to put back the hands of the clock that tells the progress of civilisation. The Emperor of all the Russias, this wicked enemy of the human race, has succeeded in raising his hideous flag on Port Arthur, and planting his iron heel and cloven hoof on the heathen Chinese—filthy, degenerate creatures, who, it must be admitted, are fitting companions for the tallow-eating, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... now my wife, do strive Wi' me in life, an' we do thrive; Two sleek-heaeired meaeres do sprackly pull My waggon vull, at Meldonley; An' small-hoof'd sheep, in vleeces white, Wi' quickly-panken zides, do bite My thymy grass, a-mark'd vor me In black, T. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... is, that this active creature needs no help from its horns. Its hoofs are sufficient to carry it along the very narrowest ledges; and the immense leaps it can take either upward or downward, can be compared to nothing but the flight of some creature furnished with wings. Its hoof, too, is sure, as its eye is unerring. The chamois never slips upon the smoothest rocks—any more than would a squirrel upon the branch ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Deeply pondered and reflected: "While he seems a man in semblance, And a hero in appearance, Yet his height is but a thumb-length, Scarce as lofty as an ox-hoof." 130 ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... it, her head pillowed upon her arm, her eyes gazing through the fountain mist and down the emerald slopes to where ran the elmwood avenue. She gazed in idleness, through half-shut eyelids, wrapped in lullabies and drowsy warmth. Hoof-beats between the elms troubled her not. When through the mist of falling water and the veil of drooping leaves she saw riding towards the house a youth clad in blue, the horse and rider seemed but figures ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the other; in the smallest part may be the subtlest nerve. And hence the universal magnetism of Nature. But man contemplates the universe as an animalcule would an elephant. The animalcule, seeing scarcely the tip of the hoof, would be incapable of comprehending that the trunk belonged to the same creature,—that the effect produced upon one extremity would be felt in an instant by the other.) Centuries passed, and lives were wasted in these discoveries; ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... reached the edge of the wood and stood debating a moment, they were disturbed by the distant sound of hoof beats. ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the cloven hoof, I am happy to say, notwithstanding the favorable verdict of the French savans on the flavor and nutritious properties of horse-flesh. The femurs and tibias of frogs are not visible here. At this point I will quote in extenso from Wilkinson's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... towards the end of the pursuit went dead lame, and he dismounted in order to see if he could do anything to its hoof. He found a sharp stone tightly jammed in the shoe, and was struggling to get this out when the troop again moved forward. Not doubting that he would overtake them in a minute or two, and fearing that unless his horse was relieved of the stone it would become so lame that ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... sheep-dogs suddenly abandoned the pose into which he had lured them with such difficulty, and made for the studio door. There in the street was Nell Dromore, mounted on a narrow little black horse with a white star, a white hoof, and devilish little goat's ears, pricked, and very close together ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fleeing, and Clarence dashed in pursuit. Following the sound, for the shrubbery hid the fugitive from view, he passed the last wall of the casa; but it soon became evident that the unknown had the better horse. The hoof-beats grew fainter and fainter, and at times appeared even to cease, until his own approach started them again, eventually to fade away in the distance. In vain Clarence dug his heels into the flanks of his heavier steed, and regretted his own mustang; and when at last he ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... scale has come also a diminishing number of breasts in the female. Whether those on the front of the body should persist, or those on the rear, depends upon other factors in the life of the animal. Hoofed animals, perhaps because their best weapon is the hoof and they can there best protect their young, have retained them in the rear of the body. In the group of animals known as the primates, including monkeys, apes, and man, the habit of holding the young in the arms for protection has determined the persistence of the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... flame and instant abyss of blackness, horses' heads vaulting into sight, spurts of warm blood upon the brow, the bullet rushing like a blast beside the ear, all the terrible tempest of attack, trampled under the flashing hoof, climbing, clinching, slashing, back-falling beneath cracking revolvers, hand to hand in the night, both bands welded in one like hot and fusing metal, a spectral struggle of shuddering horror only half guessed by lurid gleams ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the murk plodded the water haulers and emigrants and freighters, animals and men alike befloured and choked. The dust cloud rested over Benton. It fumed in another line westward, kept in suspense by on-traveling stage and wagon—by wheel, hoof and boot, bound for Utah and Idaho. From the town there extended northward a third dust line, marking the stage and freighting road through the Indian country to the mining settlements of the famous South Pass ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... it by this time, when who should ride up but old Safety First Timmins. They spring the food whale on Safety with much flourish. They show him the pictures and quote prices on the hoof—which are low, but look what even a runt of a yearling whale that was calved late in the fall would weigh on the scales!—and no worry about fences or free range or winter feeding or water holes; nothing to do but ride round on your private steamboat with a good orchestra, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... usual barred and bolted, for the indoor servants were not yet up; but her keen ears had detected the sound of voices and the pawing of a horse's hoof ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... behind, he rode away on the outlaw's trail. Over pastures, through ravines, across rivers, under forest arches dim as twilight, they hurried on, a pack of hounds yapping in advance, a broken branch, a trampled bush, a hoof-print in the margin of a stream also giving proof that they were on the right path; a herder, who had seen the ruffian pass, likewise testifying to the fact, and giving his service to the company; and so they came to a clearing, where they found the marauder's ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... duties to take the "express matter," letters and gold dust, to Oro Fino in time for the Walla Walla express Monday morning. As the express started at 6 o'clock I had to get up early, besides it was deemed safest to "hoof down the trail" before daylight. The trail was a mere foot path cut through the bull pines, in the shadow of which imagination more than once pictured a lone robber. But I always carried my revolver in my hand and, though a boy, I was almost as good a shot ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... expected to find wheat and corn fields, and a good deal of grass, as we advanced into Georgia at that season of the year. The problem then was to deliver at Chattanooga and beyond one hundred and thirty car-loads daily, leaving the beef-cattle to be driven on the hoof, and all the troops in excess of the usual train-guards to march by the ordinary roads. Colonel Anderson promptly explained that he did not possess cars or locomotives enough to do this work. I then instructed and authorized him to hold on to all trains that arrived at Nashville from Louisville, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... warships may lie at their moorings, swinging wide on the unforgetting tide, lanterns may hang high in the belfry of the Old North Church tower, hurried knocks and calls of defiance and hoof-beats of fast-galloping steed may echo and echo again, borne on the night-wind of the dim Past, but you heed ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard |
