"On all fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stalk. They would get the scent immediately and be off. There was nothing for it but to hurry on, while I rained anything but good wishes on these fellows' heads. The gully was not so deep as I had expected. Its sides were just high enough to hide me when I crept on all fours. In the middle were large stones and clayey gravel, with a little runnel soaking through them. The reindeer were still grazing quietly, only now and then raising their heads to look round. My "cover" got lower and lower, and to the north I heard the mate. He would presently succeed in ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... day he was no more called bare Wagtail, but Mr. Wagtail, much to the amusement of visitors, who, hearing the name gravely uttered, as it soon came to be, saw the owner of it approach on all fours, with a ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... invasion would be stopped with certainty. Half way to Bukowitza there burst on us a terrific thunderstorm, with torrents of rain. One bolt struck so near us that the concussion knocked my perianik down, and my horse jumped up on all fours as I never saw a horse do before, but neither was touched by the lightning, and we arrived at the first house of Bukowitza drenched and tired, having knocked the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... fours, Missie," said Slim Jim, addressing Cora with such earnestness that she could not repress a shiver. "He crawled on all fours like some bloomin' beastie, begging your pardon, Missie. We was all fair scared, an' ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... front door on all fours. It was locked of course. He went around to the back; there were two doors here, both locked. He went from window to window. All of them had panes missing, but within each window the heavy shutters were closed and barred. He thought of cellar windows, sometimes they were ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... native compound: and the big native woman, with bare brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. "Your man's at home," said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete and marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson—at home—stood with his back to a native house ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... different matter. It's only three miles to the Stickles'. But the road will be bad to-night, for the wind's across country, and the drifts there pile fast and deep. But I shall go if necessary, even if I have to crawl on all fours. I won't have to do that, though, for Dexter will take me through ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... come back to your room last night, Harlan. You weren't afraid of this old chap, were you? Didn't think I'd be running around the room on all fours, eh, or climb the wall, or growl and ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Herne came up, and, dismounting, called off Dragon, who was about to take the place of his wounded companion. Drawing a knife from his girdle, the hunter threw himself on the ground, and, advancing on all fours towards the hart, could scarcely be distinguished himself from some denizen of the forest. As he approached the hart snorted and bellowed fiercely, and dashed its horns against him; but the blow was received by the hunter upon his own antlered ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... So down the village on all fours, groaning like a Dutch brig in a cross-sea, went our Albert Edward. He crawled into the dark barn and, having no smaller change, contributed a two-franc bill to the forepaw and told Sandy about his awful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... Thompson would be able to administer clysters, that were ordered for some, in that situation; when I saw him thrust his wig in his pocket, and strip himself to his waistcoat in a moment, then creep on all fours under the hammocks of the sick, and, forcing up his bare pate between two, keep them asunder with one shoulder, until he had done his duty. Eager to learn the service, I desired he would give me leave to perform the next operation of that kind; and he consenting, I undressed myself ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... waited till all was still, and when the sentry at the door was pacing up and down, and his footsteps on the stone landing would help to dull any noise he made, he would slip out of the window, drop on to his toes, and then go down on all fours, and creep along close to the wall beneath the windows, right for the piazza-like place, and along beneath the arches, making not for either of the entrance gates, but for the private garden. There he would be stopped by the wall; but there was a corner there with a set ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... occasions, when he was playing with his little master, and skipping from bough to bough on the large trees that sheltered his home, he bounded from a branch to the roof of a three-storied house adjoining, and running across, jumped from one of the angles to the court below, landed on all fours, stopped a second or two to decide if he were really alive or not, then quietly trudged home to his cage. If he wanted a change, Dick had odd ways of showing himself dissatisfied with his condition. ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... above him, he saw a flat white thing, and all around him were enormous strange objects. Craning out still farther he over-balanced himself and fell thud! upon a hard, polished flat plain. He tried to scramble to his feet, but the ground under him was so slippery that he could only crawl gingerly on all fours ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... said more, but the words on her tongue were suddenly changed to tender bleatings; and even as Zora stood looking at her, she crouched down on all fours, dwindled in size, was enveloped in white fleece, and ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... The darkness, of which so much had just turned into water, had thinned down a little. There It was! But I did not hit upon the notion of Mr. Burns issuing out of the companion on all fours till he attempted to stand up, and even then the idea of a ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... dark form moving along, but it went on all fours. Could it be the creature that had uttered the sound? Presently it approached a small tree and then reared itself, and I saw what looked like a man of gigantic form, with a huge head, and prodigiously long arms, holding on to the tree. He ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... surprise and disappoint their parents by being unable to understand a word said to them in Mechlenberg. An English-speaking foreigner, it is true, would find himself equally nonplussed among the Yorkshire wolds, or in the purlieus of Whitechapel; but the cases are not on all fours. Throughout Germany it is not only in the country districts and among the uneducated that dialects are maintained. Every province has practically its own language, of which it is proud and retentive. An educated Bavarian will admit to you ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... and there. But after he had gone a little way, it got so narrow that he found it difficult to secure a foot-hold. At this point the ridge became so attenuated that the youth saw at the first glance that it was impossible to proceed in an upright position; he therefore crept along on all fours, or sat astride the ridge and urged himself on ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... repeating, rifle. It was he who had brought down the camel with a well-judged shot through the lungs, and, with the same venomous accuracy, he now sent a bullet through von Kerber's breast. The stricken man dropped on all fours, and glared up at his murderer. Then, nerving himself for a supreme effort of hate, he raised his own revolver and fired three times at Alfieri. Twice he missed, owing to the restiveness of the horse, but the third shot hit the Italian in ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... said, 'I am, ye men, a full thousand years of age today, but I have never seen a dead creature, male or female or of ambiguous sex, revive after death. Some die in the womb; some die soon after birth; some die (in infancy) while crawling (on all fours); some die in youth; and some in old age. The fortunes of all creatures, including even beasts and birds, are unstable. The periods of life of all mobile and immobile creatures are fixed beforehand. Bereaved of spouses and dear ones and filled with sorrow ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... their beds. Moses! Why, Lord Rothschild's great-grandfather, a few score times removed, must have known Moses, talked with him. Babylon! It is a modern city, fallen into disuse for the moment, owing to alteration of traffic routes. History! it is a tale of to-day. Man was crawling about the world on all fours, learning to be an animal for millions of years before the secret of his birth was whispered to him. It is only during the last few centuries that he has been trying to be a man. Our modern morality! Why, compared with the teachings of nature, it is but a few days old. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... cages Where one in haught disdain his long whip lashes And one, with growls as when the thunder rages, Against the man's throat murderously dashes,— Where now the crafty conquers, now the strong, Now man, now beast, lies cowed the floor along; The animal rears,—the human on all fours! One ice-cold look of dominance— The beast submissive bows before that glance, And the proud heel upon his ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... continued to exist in misery upon that rotten mattress, which in three days soaked up water like a sponge. I could hardly stir because of my broken leg; and when I had to get out of bed to obey a call of nature, I crawled on all fours with extreme distress, in order not to foul the place I slept in. For one hour and a half each day I got a little glimmering of light, which penetrated that unhappy cavern through a very narrow aperture. Only for so short a space of time could I read; the rest of the day and night ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... regiments disporting themselves in the tepid waters of the James. But no reader can possibly understand what enjoyment it afforded, unless he has slept on the ground for fourteen days without undressing, and been compelled to walk, cook, and live on all fours, lest a perpendicular assertion of his manhood should instantly ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... of a whole tribe of the murtherin' villins creepin' up on all fours, loike so minny big rats towards us, and didn't they turn tail an' scamper off ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... the floor. "By Jove!" said Mr. Bensington, straining his stomach over the armchair with a patient disregard of the habits of this convenience, and then, finding the pamphlet still out of reach, he went down on all fours in pursuit. It was on the floor that the idea of calling it the Food of ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... historical probability, not to say certainty, that he is the direct descendant of some naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient to make him a little more cunning than the Fox, and by so much more dangerous than the Tiger? Or is he bound to howl and grovel on all fours because of the wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once an egg, which no ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish from that of a Dog? Or is the philanthropist or the saint to give up his endeavours to lead a noble life, because the simplest ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... Mr. Blyth quotes as authority for this trivial name a passage from MAJOR FORBES' Eleven Years in Ceylon; and I can vouch for the graphic accuracy of the remark.—"A species of very large monkey, that passed some distance before me, when resting on all fours, looked so like a Ceylon bear, that I ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... of Siam, shall respect and follow the laws and customs of the country in all points'—conceding not only interterritoriality to the fullest extent; but making it the duty of American traders to creep on all fours when in the presence of a high functionary of that kingdom, and to become orthodox Buddhists! Inadvertently, no doubt, going farther than Joel Barlow, who thought it expedient in his treaty with Tripoli (1797) to insert a sort of disclaimer against ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... smiled at us after we had crawled on all fours into the hut and PRONAMED at the feet of this enlightened soul, while the kerosene lantern at the entrance flickered weird, dancing shadows on the thatched walls. His face, especially his eyes and perfect ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... was feeding hungrily, only her hind quarters showing out of the underbrush. I watched her awhile, then dropped on all fours and began to creep towards her, to see how near I could get and what new trait I might discover. But at the first motion (I had stood at first like an old stump on the ridge) a fawn that had evidently been watching me all the time from his hiding sprang ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... brought up out of coal mines where they dragged trucks on all fours like brute beasts, by his protests little boys were saved from being forced to climb up inside chimneys risking their young lives and limbs that others ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... have given images of transition from infancy to manhood: Dryden,—for the Hind is Dryden himself on all fours! and Wordsworth, in his own ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... of a bare two seconds for him to swing himself over the stern and to land on all fours in the bottom of the boat. The narrow craft careened dangerously under such treatment. But she righted herself, and by the time he had fairly landed upon the cleated bottom. Brice was on his feet and making for the prow. He was ready now for any ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... boy a swing, one holding to the feet the other the shoulders of the lad. When they let go, Tad sailed several feet through the air. Quick as a cat in his movements Tad turned over before he landed, going down on all fours. He thought he was going to strike on the hard ground. Instead he landed at the bottom of a deep pool of water cold as ice it seemed to him. He went in all over. Not expecting anything of this sort the boy was not holding his breath. The result was that he got a mouthful of water. He ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... sucking current seized him, was convinced that his hour had come, and a quick relief was his first sensation. Then Diana's wistful eyes flashed before him and he began to fight the Colorado. As his head emerged from the water, he saw the Na-che land on all fours from the top of a wave upon the overturned Ida, then whirl away. He began to swim with all his strength. The mud forever suspended in the Colorado weighed down his clothing. But little by little he drew ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... up the moss that covered the ground in patches. The rebels at once saw that the game was up in this quarter, though they kept up a bold front and seldom stopped firing except when they were dodging back into new cover. In doing this they rarely exposed themselves, either creeping on all fours or else running a few yards in the shelter of the thicket and then throwing themselves flat on the ground again, bobbing up only when they raised their heads ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one, rising on its legs, toddled through the snow—toddled on to the open door of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... minutes past three an uninteresting performance called the "bear dance" began. A man entered on all fours; his face was painted white; he wore around his loins and over his shoulders pieces of some dark pelt which may have been bear skin, but looked more like the skin of a black sheep. The fire had now burned low and the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... the covered wagon. He came down on all fours, he was in such a hurry; but he was up again ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... clock mender pollutes the city of Tangier with his presence. Ye know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses bear the stones and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. Now, therefore, send the Christian dog on all fours, and barefoot, into the holy place to mend the clock, and let him go as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... l'Inegalite, and the Lettre a D'Alembert sur les Spectacles, Rousseau pleads against the vices, the artificiality, the insincerities, the luxuries, the false refinements, the factitious passions, the dishonest pleasures of modern society. "You make one wish," wrote Voltaire, "to walk on all fours." By nature all men are born free and equal; society has rendered them slaves, and impounded them in classes of rich and poor, powerful and weak, master and servant, peasant and peer. Rousseau's conception ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... baron,—if every man, who deserves to have a charge such as this brought against him, was not permitted to look up—it is a doubt whom we might not meet crawling on all fours. [he accidently taps ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... often unrecognized, except as an element blended with all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting to be on all fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... what good are all our efforts in the cause of constitutions or of revolutions if one cannot even approximately estimate what humanity really requires? Perhaps in this liberty of which we dream lie the germs of future degeneracy, and man, having realized his ideal, will go back, walking once more on all fours? Thus, all would have to be recommenced. And if I care for nothing but myself, what then? What do I gain by it? The most I could do would be to get fame by my talents and achievements, intoxicated by the respect of my inferiors, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... changed my tactics. On losing my bullocks I would go to the nearest accommodation house, and stand occasional drinks to travellers. Some one would ere long, as a general rule, turn up who had seen the bullocks. This case does not go quite on all fours with what I have been saying above, inasmuch as I was not very industrious in my limited area; but the standing drinks and inquiring was being as industrious as the ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... housemaid bending over some piece of work, is to realize the difference. In few, very few operations is it necessary to-day that men should bend their backs, but in how many household processes is the worker expected to get down on all fours? The free-born American rebels. Perchance it is the unconscious protest over a four-footed ancestry, or it may be that disuse has really weakened the spinal column. Whatever the cause, the fact remains. It is not the idea of work, of service, but of bending the back to work that ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... "this is a veritable temple of peace. I arrived here literally on all fours. Miss Abbeway has proved to me quite conclusively that as a democratic leader I have missed ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lit the candles on the Christmas tree and distributed the toys to the children, and a little while afterwards Philpot—who had got a funny-looking mask out of one of the bon-bons—started a fine game pretending to be a dreadful wild animal which he called a Pandroculus, and crawling about on all fours, rolled his goggle eyes and growled out he must have a little boy or girl to eat ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... uphill never try to climb steeper than is easy. If the Skis are slipping back, you are going too steep and should turn off and traverse instead. No time is saved by too steep a climb; the man who goes easily gets to the top first, while the other clambers up almost on all fours, gets hot and exhausted and has gained nothing. If I am leading an elementary run uphill, I can soon pick out the experienced runners by the line they take and the pace at which they climb. The puffing, panting, stumbling people, who forge ahead, ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... from so suddenly? From there, from behind the mound of earth that had been thrown up near the peat pit. She had been creeping on all fours plucking berries; a pail that was almost ft 11 hung on her arm, and in her right hand she carried the wooden measure and the large bone curry-comb with which she stripped off ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... on all fours into a room, and found the air fresh. They rose, holding each other's hands. They leaned together against the dark walls and breathed slowly, and finally their diaphragms seemed to be released and they breathed more deeply. By a hand signal they ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... It must have been a considerable change for any one accustomed to the life of careless, easy-going, glittering Vienna in the old days. Even Sir Fitzhardinge confessed that during the winter gales he had frequently to make his way on all fours from the stairs from the Underland to Government House, to avoid being blown over the cliffs. Lady Maxse hung an extra pair of pink muslin curtains over every window in Government House, to shut out the sight of the wintry ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... and shouted all together:—"She's going!" Forward the forecastle doors flew open, and the watch below were seen leaping out one after another, throwing their arms up; and, falling on hands and knees, scrambled aft on all fours along the high side of the deck, sloping more than the roof of a house. From leeward the seas rose, pursuing them; they looked wretched in a hopeless struggle, like vermin fleeing before a flood; they fought up the weather ladder ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... a picture of despondency. Suddenly something struck the wall beyond him very sharply, and then rattled on the floor at his feet. It was an arrow; he saw the white feather. A chill ran through him—they meant then to assassinate him from the outside. He crouched. No more missiles came. He crawled on all fours, and took up the arrow; there was no head to it. He uttered a cry of hope: had a friendly hand shot it? He took it up, and felt it all over: he found a soft substance attached to it. Then one of his eccentricities was of grand use to him. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... ground the Orang always goes laboriously and shakily on all fours. At starting he will run faster than a man, though he may soon be overtaken. The very long arms which, when he runs, are but little bent, raise the body of the Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much the posture of a very old man bent down by age, and making his way along by the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... door that separated the control nest from the hold of the little prison tender ship. The other five men had withdrawn to the other side of the cabin and were watching listlessly the big, ragged, barrel-chested Martian crouching on all fours against the side of the cabin and ferociously baring ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... out her second wish; but she felt herself pushed in a strange way. Ben was on all fours in front of her, and now he pushed her back, back. His neck was so long that while his head was still among the chocolates, at the far corner of the room, his feet were now ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... at last I came to myself and struggled up from the debris, like a mole coming to the surface of the earth to feel the genial sunshine on his dim eyeballs. I found myself standing (oddly enough, on all fours) in an immense pit created by the overthrow of a gigantic dead tree with a girth of about thirty or forty feet. The tree itself had rolled down to the bottom of the ravine; but the pit in which it had left the huge stumps of severed roots was, I found, situated in ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... forget the tortures which we had to undergo in climbing almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor dog, Pamir, panting and with his tongue hanging out, make two or three steps and ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... the lantern, whisky-keg, and a small tin pail of pork. Just as I reached the rock, Mr. M——, who was feeling his way along the top, and warning me to be careful, slipped, turned, and, vainly trying to grasp the rock, went down on all fours with a run and splash into the lake. Away went Frank after him, shouting with a laugh, "I'll save ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... got down on all fours; Whiffle, a small light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang and Fyall, managed to scramble up on my shoulders, where he stood, holding by the window sill above, with a foot on each side of my head. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... son's illness, answered with indifference, 'that he could do nothing for him,' and left him to his fate. The other, when the accounts reached him, hurried down, and watching for a favourable moment, crawled on all fours along the weather gunwale to his son, who was in the mizen rigging. By that time, only three or four planks of the quarter deck remained, just over the weather-quarter gallery; and to this spot the unhappy man led his son, making him fast to the rail to prevent his being ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... full night by now. But in the west still glowed the faintly red streak of the dying embers of the day. Racey suddenly bethought him that the red streak was at his back, therefore he dropped on all fours and ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... two hundred and eighty pounds, and her extreme haste, added to her extreme corpulency, produced a most amazing result when Esmeralda elected to travel on all fours. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... weird thing went often to the drinking fountain and wrapped its tongue about the water jet. That night he awakened at midnight to find The Grinner gone. He did not bother to look for him and mid-forenoon he returned. His rotund form seemed to have grown even larger, and as he ambled about on all fours the sweat trickled from his repulsive skin and trailed across the floor. It was a strange thing and Omega was at a loss to account for it, but his wonder was eclipsed by his appreciation of The Grinner's companionship. The Grinner was often absent for hours ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... "But, after all, it's your steamin' gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours, that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at him Only ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... comprehending. With a sheepish grin he sat astride of Jack Benson's back as the latter stood on all fours. ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... that there seems to be so little in the New Testament outside of the Gospels which is plainly on all fours with the first part of the Lord's Prayer. At the front the Lord's Prayer—as the one island of religious ground, amid marshes of ignorance, common to Englishmen—is the padres' great stand-by. It declares better than any words which we can frame what distinguishes the Christian religion from others—that ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... displayed not the faintest astonishment at discovering his sister-in-law on all fours, nor did he appear overcome to be introduced to her as a buffalo of the plains. He smiled at her almost as tenderly as at his ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... began at seven o'clock to convey our baggage, and the soldiers later reported that there was not even standing-room left. I climbed on board and found rattan piled high everywhere, covering even the steps that led up to the "passenger-deck," where I emerged crawling on all fours. A shelter of duck had been raised for me in one corner, the lieutenant and Mr. Loing placed their beds in the adjoining space, while the soldiers camped next to them. All the natives, packed closely together, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... who had only an ax with him. Jack raised his rifle and fired, and as the bear dropped on all fours fired another shot. ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... misjudged the distance, or got a bad "take off," owing to the softness of the ground; this usually resulted in my falling with a splash into the middle. I think the most aggravating thing of all was to make a really good jump and land on the other side, just beyond the water-line, on all fours, only to find that I had not enough impetus to remain there, as the ground was sloping. Sometimes I was able to save myself by jabbing my stick into the ground, though, more often than not, this was impracticable, and my hands could find nothing firmer to catch hold of than a few tufts of grass, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... flying up behind from the quickness of his turn. Straight at the throat of the chestnut he dived and his teeth closed on the throat of Alcatraz just where the neck narrows beneath the jaw. His superior height enabled Alcatraz to rear and fling himself clear, but his throat was bleeding when he landed on all fours dancing with rage and the sting of his wounds. Yet he refrained from rushing; he had been in too many a fight to ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... by thinking himself wise. He preferred somebody else to God. Whom? Himself! Then—birds; then-beasts on all fours with backbone on a line with the earth, nose and mouth close to the ground; then—gray-black, slimy, crawling, creeping things. He traded off the truth of God for a lie; the sweet purity of God for rank impurity. He dethroned God, and took the ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... sat down unexpectedly and with much emphasis. That put him between two impulses, and while they battled he stared round-eyed at Bud. But he decided not to cry, and straightway turned himself into a growly bear and went down the line on all fours toward Cash, growling "Ooooooo!" as fearsomely as his baby throat was ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... The referee is on all fours, his cheek almost to the ground. He is watching for the meeting of those two shoulders upon ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... as meal, and the finer particles drifted freely, rising high in the air, while the larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand. I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees. When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope—thirty-five degrees in some places—made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... fellow arrayed himself in all the beauties of his and Elliott's wardrobe. He took his time about it, and occasionally interrupted his toilet to play his banjo or make pleasing diversion for the bull-dogs by gambling about on all fours. "I've got two hours before me," he thought, and borrowed a pair of Elliott's silken foot-gear, with which he and the dogs played ball until he decided to put them on. Then he lighted a cigarette and inspected ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... of the room—then darted swiftly out between the legs of Lund and Rainey, on all fours, like a great dog. Curlike, it sprawled on the floor with a white face and pop-eyes, with hands outstretched in pleading, knees drawn up in some ludicrous attempt at protection, calling shrilly, in the ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... Then followed, on golden dishes, peacocks and plovers which had been so skillfully cooked that their bright colors were preserved. After the guests had eaten all they cared for of this food, tiny roasted pigs were brought in, and set on all fours upon the tables. By this time, all the gold and silver goblets which had been filled with wine needed refilling. Then the squires carried in beautiful white swans on silver platters, and roasted cranes and curlews on plates that glowed like the sun. After that came rabbits stewed ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... poured the chase, rolled as it were in a flying heap; the hunted man just perceptibly first, the bull and Archibald Plinlimmon cannoning against each other at the entrance. Master Archibald was hurled aside by the impact of the brute's hindquarters and shot, at first on all fours, then prone, alongside the base of the wall; but he had managed to get his thrust home, and this time with effect. The bull tossed his head with a mighty roar, ducked it again and charged on his prey, who flung up both arms and fell ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... any people who will get down on all fours to worship the picture of their emperor and, at this period of the world's progress, ascribe to a mere human being the attributes of divinity, are certainly deficient in common sense, if not in civilization. However, for the purpose of insuring the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... blue sea! A hundred—no, a thousand—what do I say? A million Indians with baskets long and wide on their backs and the baskets filled with gold! The baskets are so great and the gold so heavy that the Indians are bowed down till they go on all fours. Gold,—a mountain of pure gold and every Spaniard in Spain and a few Italians—golden kings—" When we had all we could ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... her, and then clapping them to her face. But now the great beast became impatient; it struck the door sharply, and snarled warningly. The woman shrank back as though she herself were about to drop on all fours and answered him. "No, no!" she cried, and considered a moment. Then the door was burst in with one tremendous blow, and Master Bruin rolled over the threshold and leaped toward them in clumsy jumps, his head thrown somewhat backward as though wondering why his little comrade had not rushed to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was to be put off at a Wood Pile on the edge of an immense forest and undoubtedly miles from a dwelling. As the boat reached the bank, not even waiting for the gang plank to be shoved out, the old sinner gave me a push and at the same time applied the now familiar boot. I reached the earth on all fours. My first thought was to present him with a rock, but I curbed my temper, for I had no idea of deserting ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... for the night and went to rest, believing every thing secure; but when day appeared next morning neither the cacique nor any of his attendants were to be found. Taking advantage of the centinels falling asleep, Capasi had crept out from among them on all fours, after which his Indians carried him off to some more secure place than the former, as he was never more seen. The Spanish escort returned much ashamed of themselves to Soto, pretending that Capasi and his attendants must have been carried off through the air, as it was impossible for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... If I haven't got the law of him, it's because he's too much of a sneak. He wasn't anything but a handsome sort of beast to begin with; and, what with drinking and the life he's led, he's grown into a sort of thing that had better go on all fours like Nebuchadnezzar than come nigh decent people on his hind-legs. Why has he let her alone all these years?" The speech was grimly dramatic. "Why, just because, first place, I believe another woman had the upper hand of him; second place, when he ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Had it come on to blow so as to oblige the captain to shorten sail, the deuce a seaman durst have gone aloft to stow the canvas. The second mate, standing in the top, was in the act of lifting his rifle, when the monster, running on all fours out to the dizzy topgallant yard-arm, stood erect a breathless instant, poised—in human posture—a marvellous picture of the man-beast against the liquid blue, then sprang ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... the ditch, rammed the rowels into the horse's sides. But Dandolo would not jump yet. He stood with his fore feet on the brink, and when Phineas with his whip struck him severely over the shoulders, he went down into the ditch on all fours, and then scrambled back again to his former position. "What an infernal brute!" said Phineas, gnashing ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... was the reply. "They'll soon try, when they find there are very few of us, to crawl up the hill upon us. Then's the time you've got to note every movement! See! there comes one fellow behind that rock now. He's crawling on all fours. Thinks we can't see him. Now just hold on until he comes around that little ledge!—I'll take ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... the house. The newspaper he had folded and left ready to read at leisure was used to light the fire, although an overfilled waste-basket stood near. The towel-rack was empty just when he wanted his bath, and his bedroom slippers were always kicked so far under the bed that he was obliged to crawl on all fours to reach them. ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dogs who made the Out-of-doors And fashioned mutts to gambol on all fours, Grant us a respite from the city's stones! Grant us a grassy place to bury bones!—A grassy spot to roll on now and then, Oh, Lord of dogs who also fashioned men, Accept our thanks for this brief breath of air, And grant, Oh, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... stress which you lay on man walking on two legs, whilst the quadrumana go on all fours, permit me to remind you that no one much values the great difference in the mode of locomotion, and consequently in structure, between seals and the terrestrial carnivora, or between the almost biped kangaroos and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... acrobat he had lately seen at the circus, stuck up in the air first one leg and then the other. When his elegant legs were exhausted, he brought his arms into play or jumped up impulsively and went on all fours, trying to stand with his legs in the air. All this he was doing with the utmost gravity, gasping and groaning painfully as though he regretted that God had given him such a ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... mother-instinct be?" I wondered. "Just how much would that mother-love stand?" I had dropped to my knees, and on all fours had crept up within about three feet of the bird. She still had chance for flight. Would she allow me to crawl any nearer? Slowly, very slowly, I stretched forward on my hands, like a measuring-worm, until my body ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... processions, the insults and eternal threats levelled at God and the devotion bestowed upon His rival, while amid cursing of the wine and the bread, the black mass was being celebrated on the back of a woman on all fours, whose stained bare thighs served as the altar from which the congregation received the communion from a black goblet stamped with an image ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the spluttering of a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the match. I saw suddenly before me a nondescript shape on all fours like a beast, but with a man's head drooping below a tubular projection over the nape of the neck, and the gleam of a rounded mass of bronze ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... at Dublin, asked me for the earliest possible draft of heads of my Local Government Bill for England: "in case it is settled that we are to bring one in—a move which I have come to think is necessary. They need not run on all fours, but there are points on which it would not do to ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... entirely over and catch them under," says Mr. Cartwright, "the two young men took a leap into the mud, and when they lighted they sunk up to the middle. The young lady was dressed in white, and as the wagon went over, she sprang as far as she could, and lighted on all fours; her hands sunk into the mud up to her arm-pits, her mouth and the whole of her face immersed in the muddy water, and she certainly would have strangled if the young men had not relieved her. As they helped her ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... went on Joe's probable attitude. She had pictured him as annoyed, even rude. What she was not prepared for was to find him on all fours, grunting and rooting about in a pile of papers. She ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... wait. He groped his way in, relocked the passage door and crawled on all fours through the smoke and heavy, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... came down sprawling on all fours in a bunch of grass which served, in a great measure, to break the force of the catapult over his pony's head. And then, as the lad righted himself and limped over to ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... flat on the ground, and Carnes, on all fours, crawled forward to join him. He smothered an exclamation as he looked over the crest of the hill. Before him, sitting in a hollow in the ground, was the huge globe which ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... existed more than one self or soul or shade in any one of these personalities, and these shades had the power not only to go away, but to transform their bodily tenements at will; a bird, by raising its head, could become a man; the latter, by going on all fours, could become a deer. (3) That the regulative side of the spirit world was the natural outcome of the clan social system and the tribal government in each tribe. Even one's personal name had reference to the world of ghosts. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... no need for continued progression in women, and Nature, like the grand old economist she is, or can be when she likes, matures the mind quickly in one case and slowly in the other; so slowly that he, the young male, goes crawling on all fours as it were, a long distance after his little flying sister—slowly because he has very far to go and must keep on for a very, very ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... plates, breaking glasses, and upsetting and scattering everything on it. Don Quixote, finding himself free, strove to get on top of the goatherd, who, with his face covered with blood, and soundly kicked by Sancho, was on all fours feeling about for one of the table-knives to take a bloody revenge with. The canon and the curate, however, prevented him, but the barber so contrived it that he got Don Quixote under him, and rained down upon him such a shower of fisticuffs ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... liberty. Despite Jean's superior strength, Dan had the advantage in that his own body acted as a lever, and for a moment it seemed that he was to be successful; but the Frenchman, with a violent execration, suddenly let go his hold on the knob, the door swung in, and Dan fell back on all fours upon the floor. By the time he had recovered himself for another dash, he was confronted by Jean, a disagreeable leer upon his unpleasant countenance and a cocked ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... He hastened up on all fours. The stairs were thickly carpeted. Gaining the top his strained ears detected the whisper of a sound that suggested the closing of ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the bend of the shaft, the rest of the way up was easy. Daylight was above, and the climb was a gradual slant over uneven ridged rock; and with the grip of the pegs in his mountaineering boots, he ascended almost at a run on all fours. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... and if, looking through the key-hole, he had made sure Matrena was occupied in her own chamber. Rouletabille, at the threshold, glided to one side, out of the line of view from the hole, and got down on all fours. He crawled toward the door. With his head to the floor he made sure that the little ordinary pin which he had placed on guard that evening, stuck in the floor against the door, was still erect, having thus additional proof that the door had not been ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... had the tone of benevolent farewell, and the bear, dropping on all fours, disappeared in the brush. Robert, whose fancy had been alive and leaping, returned to the camp rather pleased with himself, despite the fact that about three hundred pounds of excellent ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... And as she called upon her dead, there issued from her mouth sounds scarcely human, but rather like the howling of some savage dog. As she drew near, she bent over lower and lower, she placed herself almost on all fours; till, reaching him, she threw herself with a howl ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... for the darkness to lift. It did not lift that day, nor the next. Dick adventured on a voyage round the walls. He hit his shins against the stove, and this suggested to him that it would be better to crawl on all fours, one hand in front of him. Torpenhow found ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... had brought a "baboon," an ape or monkey trained to gather cocoa-nuts, a hideous beast on very long legs when on all fours, but capable of walking erect. They called him a "dog-faced baboon," but I think they were wrong. He has a short, curved tail, sable-colored fur darkening down his back, and a most repulsive, treacherous, and ferocious countenance. He is fierce, but likes or at all events ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... would see Tim spread out on all fours. Like an obstinate little pig, he would lie still until Molly picked him up. She would take him home and in a few moments he would reappear ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... interrupted at this point by the appearance of her grandchildren from the back of the yew hedge by which she was sitting—Tuttu on all fours, neighing like a horse, with Tutti on his back, blowing a ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... trifle with the policeman. Marbles are his principal pastime. He puts the thumb of his left hand to the ground and discharges his taw from the point of his second finger, bending it back till it touches the back of the hand and then letting it off like a steel spring. Then he follows up on all fours, with the action of a monsoon frog in pursuit of a fugitive ant. But liberty and the pride of an independent position amply compensate any high-souled dog-boy for the loss of his ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... became uncertain, and Piang warned Kali to look out for broken limbs. For many yards the path lay along fallen tree trunks, slippery with moss and mold. The footing became so treacherous that the order was given to crawl on all fours, and the progress was painfully slow and tedious. Frequently they strayed from the path and were forced to halt. The torches at the head of the column twinkled and flickered fitfully, but they only seemed to make the darkness more visible; they sputtered and flared, but the flames resisted ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... surprise, we found that these were no other than penguins which had gone down on all fours, and were crawling among the bushes on their feet and wings, just like quadrupeds. Suddenly one big old bird, that had been sitting on a point very near to us, gazing in mute astonishment, became alarmed, and, scuttling ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... decoying them. He disguised himself as an antelope, by means of a cloak of cotton cloth (manta) painted to resemble the colouring of the animal. This covered his body, arms, and legs. On his head he placed the antlers of a stag, and by creeping on all fours he could approach the antelopes quite closely and thus successfully shoot them. The Apaches, according to the Mexicans, were experts at hunting antelopes in ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... fortunately, for finding the brute still remaining quite motionless, we cautiously approached, and found it was stone dead. The perfect naturalness of the position, however, might well have deceived a more experienced sportsman. The beast was lying crouched on all fours, as if in the very act of preparing to spring. The one bullet had killed it; the wound was in the lungs, and the internal bleeding had suffocated it, but here was a wonderful instance of the tiger's tenacity of life, even ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... back into the tunnel and whispered hoarsely the good news. Men came out on all fours over the bodies of those who could not move. Shorty dragged Dave into the open. He was a sorry sight. The shirt had been almost literally burned from ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have gone very far. What stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne's child, that (Davidson remembered her very words) would ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Wild Boy, a savage discovered in November, 1725, in the forest of Hertswold, Hanover. He walked on all fours, climbed trees like a monkey, ate grass and other herbage. Efforts were made to reclaim him, but without success. He ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... quite on all fours at Manor Cross. The ladies, as has before been said, were all high, the Marchioness being the least exigeant in that particular, and Lady Amelia the most so. Ritual, indeed, was the one point of interest in Lady Amelia's life. Among them ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... wing to wing and keeps out the town. This grill is high enough for Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered a street-organ—a ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... Cautiously approaching, on all fours, to within a few yards of the nearest lodge, occasionally halting and listening to discover whether the village was deserted or not, we finally decided that the Indians had fled before the arrival of the cavalry, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... of sound, vague as the beat of waves along the shore, the stallion lurched down on all fours and leaped ahead, but the two on the halter ropes drove all their weight backward and checked the first plunge. A bright-coloured scarf waved from a nearby box, and the monster swerved away. So, twisting, plunging, rearing, ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... her feet come in contact with the flat rock under which the men had been when she had first heard them talking. It seemed a great distance to the ground from the rock, but she took the jump bravely, not even shutting her eyes. She landed on all fours and pitched headlong, face down, in the dust, but was up instantly and ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... flaming sky burned the remnants of the storm which had just driven him back from Douabougou. So squatted King Dacha, and with royal impassive face, showing no mark of the boiling curiosity within, stared at those unknown animals, the swine. Hard on their heels shuffled Isaaco, himself also on all fours in a deep obeisance. Behind him the bearers of the inevitable bribes: a drum, two blunderbusses, a bed, a piece of scarlet cloth, and a solitary dog. (There should have been another, but it had bolted far back ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... absorption of a vast series of undigested facts. The facility with which the world swallows up the ordinary college graduate who thought he was going to dazzle mankind should bid you pause and reflect. But just as certainly as man was created not to crawl on all fours in the depths of primeval forests, but to develop his mental and moral faculties, just so certainly he needs education, and only by means of it will he become what he ought to become,—man, in the highest sense of the word. Ignorance is not simply the negation of knowledge, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... to interfere, but out went the boy's left and one of them landed on all fours in ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... well that I was, for to be pitched out of your bunk on to wet oil-cloth is a disheartening beginning to a day. This happened about eight o'clock. The yacht was pitching violently, and I crawled on all fours into the cabin, where Davies was setting ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... that man, at first a hairy brute, walking on all fours, has risen on his hind-legs and shed his fur; and you complacently demonstrate how the elimination of the hairy pelt was effected. Instead of bolstering up a theory with a handful of fluff gained or lost, it would ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... prodded Mahdi with her umbrella, and he flopped on all fours on the floor of his cage, and sprang forward with a hoarse growl, reaching a great, hairy paw out ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... three or four hours that he had lain in the bushes, he had been travelling in a straight line all the time, as fast as he could with his broken leg. And did men travel fast? No; they moved very slowly, and always on their hind-legs. Cinnamon had never seen one go on all fours, though that seemed to him as ridiculous as their building houses of chopped trees instead of making holes in the ground. They very rarely went about at night, and Cinnamon did not believe any of them had followed him, so there was probably no immediate danger. Moreover, Cinnamon explained, ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... shadow was different, for it was not still like the others, but went stopping and starting and scuttling like a crab over the grass—sometimes upright like a man and sometimes on all fours like a beast. At last it stood up and ran from tree to tree in a swaying, moving zigzag. I could see then that it was a man, but for the life of me I could not remember where I'd seen his like. Then another cloud slid over the moon and ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... feet, and set thy foot on the necks of princes; when earthly dominion, and wealth, and the mind of man bore thy yoke? Exulting in the abasement of humanity, joying to witness the uttermost lengths to which man's folly would go, thou hast bidden thy lovers walk on all fours, and required of them their lands and wealth, nay, even their wives if they were worth aught to thee. Thou hast devoured millions of men without a cause; thou hast flung away lives like sand blown by the wind from West to ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... the inner workings of the mine. One by one we snaked our way from the skip into the hole; and, whatever the miners thought about it, it was rather a scarey business for me. We all got over safely enough and began a journey on all fours through mud and slush five or six inches deep. Here and there the airway was lofty enough to allow us to walk with bent heads and rounded shoulders. Sometimes it was so low that we had to go snakewise. There was ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... the man of God was lamenting the deplorable state of the church of Vervignole in the cloister of the cathedral, his meditations were disturbed by strange shrieks, and he saw a woman, stark naked, walking on all fours, with a peacock's feather for a tail. As she came nearer, she barked, sniffed, and licked the ground. Her fair head was covered with mud, and her whole body was a mass of filth. In this unhappy creature the holy Bishop Nicolas recognized ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... dog—where was he? He turned and saw the fox terrier down on all fours amongst the fern, motionless, his tongue out, his eyes gazing with animal inquiry at his master. The dog was waiting for the order to continue the walk. He seemed, in his passivity, merely to be resting, a little exhausted perhaps by the heavy closeness ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... thicket. Receiving no reply to his challenge he went to investigate and saw a brown bear standing on his hind legs and raking the berries off the twigs with both forepaws, into his mouth. At sight of John he dropped on all fours ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... to the clock's muffled ticking. Not the ghost of a sound rose up from the great bed. Either she lay archly listening or slept a sleep serener than an infant's. And when, it seemed, we had been hours in hiding and were cramped, chilled, and half suffocated, we crept out on all fours, with terror knocking at our ribs, and so down the five narrow stairs and back to ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... plaited with steel, which are usual to those of his rank; the steel, however, this night was covered with thin, black stuff, evidently to assist concealment. He looked cautiously around him. I had creeped noiselessly, and on all fours, within the shadow of the king's couch, where I could observe the villain's movements myself unseen. I saw a gleam of triumph twinkle in his eye, so sure he seemed of his intended victim. He advanced; his dagger flashed above ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... several of us crawled into a long hole to explore a cave in the woods. While laboriously making our way on all fours, carrying torches, we were suddenly horrified by fiendish hisses. Visions of snakes danced before our minds, the girls shrieked, the torches fell in our frantic scramble and we were left in Stygian darkness. A mocking, demoniacal laugh was heard, winged creatures ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... then, perhaps for their security, I must inform them that while Blueskin and one of his companions bought a pair of stockings, or two or three pairs of gloves in a large Shop, Stephen used to creep on all fours under the counter, and march off with goods perhaps to the value of ten, twelve, or twenty pounds. But, alas, he was not the youngest of Mr. Wild's scholars. I myself have seen a boy of six years old tried at the Old Bailey for stealing the rings of ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... presence at the castle, occurred to a woman who swept the floor of the great hall every day before dinner was laid, with a little hand-broom, called a prah-prah. She was engaged in her usual occupation, without knowing that Sai was there, and stooping almost on all fours; when with a sudden impulse of fun, the panther jumped upon her back, and stood there, wagging his tail. Naturally supposing she was going to be devoured, the poor prah-prah woman screamed so violently as to bring the other servants, whereupon they being of the same opinion as herself, and ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... He was everywhere about it; in fact, he multiplied himself on all points of the structure. Now one perceived with affright at the very top of one of the towers, a fantastic dwarf climbing, writhing, crawling on all fours, descending outside above the abyss, leaping from projection to projection, and going to ransack the belly of some sculptured gorgon; it was Quasimodo dislodging the crows. Again, in some obscure corner of the church one came in contact with a sort of living ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... ledge took no needless risks. Though it was impossible to believe any stratagem had been planned for his special benefit an accident might betray him. With the utmost circumspection he rose on all fours and with comprehensive glance examined trees, plateau, and both strips of beach for signs of a lurking foe. He need have no fear. Of all places in the island the Dyaks least imagined that their quarry had lain all night within earshot of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Sir Walter could not resume the journey. When Cotterell went to dress him he found his master taken with vomits, and reeling like a drunkard. The valet ran to fetch Sir Lewis, and when they returned together they found Sir Walter on all fours gnawing the rushes on the floor, his face livid and horribly distorted, his brow glistening ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... with you, father! Oh, I am glad, father." And the boy began to caper and dance, to go down on all fours, and leap about the floor like ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... struggled up the bank through a dense jungle, and in a few minutes reached the bottom of a precipitous slope. For an hour and twenty minutes we had a hard climb. A good part of the distance we went on all fours, sometimes hanging on by the tips of our fingers. Here and there, a primitive ladder made from the roughly hewn trunk of a small tree was placed in such a way as to help one over what might otherwise have ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham |
