"Skulk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had owned to being every mean, unknowable thing that Weary could call to mind—and his imagination was never of the barren sort—Weary generously permitted him to get upon his feet and skulk out to where his horse was tied. After that, Weary gave his unruffled attention to the stage driver and discovered the unwelcome fact that there was no letter and no telegram for one William Davidson, who looked a bit glum when ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... be broke? See then what mortals place their bliss in! Next morn betimes the bride was missing: The mother scream'd, the father chid; Where can this idle wench be hid? No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came, And thought his bride had skulk'd for shame; Because her father used to say, The girl had such a bashful way! Now John the butler must be sent To learn the road that Phyllis went: The groom was wish'd[1] to saddle Crop; For John ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... most to the victory should profit the least by it; not that I am an advocate for plunder—on the contrary, I would much rather that all our fighting was for pure love; but, as every thing of value falls into the hands of the followers, and scoundrels who skulk from the ranks for the double purpose of plundering and saving their dastardly carcasses, what I regret is, that the man who deserts his post should thereby have an opportunity of enriching himself with impunity, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... never destined to taste those five hundred dollar mouthfuls. It happened in this way: as the Boodah's searchlights, destroyed in the battle, were not yet repaired, in the interval some lawless ships took the chance on dark nights to skulk past with extinguished lights; now, the captain of Frankl's chartered steamer had that bright idea (being of adventurous turn), when night fell forty knots east of the Boodah, so he came to Frankl, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... seventeen sharp zigzags; so steep is it that the country people call it the 'Devil's Staircase.' Any army holding the top of the pass would have an ascending enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of Highlanders, accustomed to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to rush down the most rugged hillsides with the swiftness ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... was very fortunate, as the guards used to skulk about this building at night for the purpose of plundering the boxes, and on the night of the escape, as it happened, they saw every man that came out; but, supposing them to be friends, only whispered to each other, that 'the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... her no longer. They ran and threw themselves at the feet of the women that had hated her. She laughed in scorn and said that she wanted no such love, and that when one returned—he had gone as Ambassador to the Court of France—he would show the world that his love did not skulk in the hilt of a dagger. People marvelled at this because she had flouted her very skirts in his face, had not thrown him so much as the humblest flower of hope. When they heard he was coming, they ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... country, depend. Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty; that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men. It is the general's express orders that, if any man attempt to skulk, lie down, or retreat without orders, he be instantly shot down for ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... the agility of a boy, his nose bleeding and a stone in each hand. The timid flock looked all aghast, while the audacious offender, so far from having shown any disposition to skulk, stood shaking his head and threatening, as if he had a mind to follow up the dastardly attack. The squire let fly one stone, which grazed the villain's head and killed a lamb. With the other he crippled a favorite ewe. The ram still showed fight, and the vengeful proprietor would probably have soon ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... into the open, thinking, as she did so, how, if there had been any one to defend the fort, they would have been obliged to skulk from bush to bush, taking advantage of every scrap ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... their devilish habeas corpus. I want you to go on board 'The King Cotton,' take the captain aside, and tell him, from me, to remove them forthwith from Castle Island, keep them under strong guard, and skulk round with them in the best hiding-places he can find, until a ship passes that will take them to New Orleans. Of course, I need not caution you to be silent about this affair, especially concerning the slaves being mortgaged to me. If that is whispered abroad, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... something to be done on deck, and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. "Where's that skulk, Chips?" shouted ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... been but a frigate, my excellent friend, the manoeuvre would have been unnecessary. Peste! it is not a single republican ship that can make a stout English frigate skulk along the rocks and fly like a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... we are only four against a hundred I dare only skulk," I answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. "But do you think ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to be urged in ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... the offer with joy and thankfulness. I longed for a change somewhere, I cared not where, and, if skulk I must, an errand like this would please me vastly more than hiding for a ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... pilfer, filch, peculate, purloin, poach, abstract, rob, defraud, pirate, plunder, crib, pillage, rapine loot, thieve, embezzle, peculate, plagiarize; insinuate, creep furtively, go stealthily, sneak, slink, skulk; ratten. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... not once prick him, Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, Me'll fight you, begar, if you'll come from your door!" Our case is the same; if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you rant and you roar, Through ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... Clinker (published in 1771) makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as Probationary Odes ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... you brute deevil. You let me go I keel you," shrieked Pedro. But the words, that would have made the bear cringe and skulk a few hours before, held no terror for him. He was master now, and this man who had clubbed and prodded, sworn at, and outraged him, was a pigmy in his arms. His powerful jaw too was close to the man's neck. One ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... Englanders, and has been hiding about in the woods during all this business. Well, if that is all, we may as well turn in again. Monsieur need have no fears," added he, addressing Isidore; "the best way is to take no notice of her. At all events, if she does skulk about, she is more likely to warn us of any danger than to bring it upon us." With these words the guide, followed by Pritchard, again entered the house, ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... water under foot, and a stretch of dreary flats behind. Belated locomotives shrieked to each other across the river, and the wind bore down the current the roar and rage of the dam. Shadows were beginning to skulk under the huge brown bridge. The silent mills stared up and down and over the streams with a blank, unvarying stare. An oriflamme of scarlet burned in the west, flickered dully in the dirty, curdling water, flared against the windows of the Pemberton, which quivered and dripped, Asenath ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... cooed a dove, "O nightingale, what's the use, You bird of beauty and love, Why behave like a goose? Don't skulk away from our sight, Like a common, contemptible fowl: You bird of joy and delight, Why ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... should hold back from marriage is in the same case with him who runs away from battle. To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall. It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into temptation; but not lawful to skulk from those that come to us. The noblest passage in one of the noblest books of this century, is where the old pope glories in the trial, nay, in the partial fall and but imperfect triumph, of the younger hero. (1) Without some such manly note, it ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shame from every manly bosom, and which at once changed into shrill wrath the supplicatory tones with which he had been hitherto addressed. Down the street he hurried and down the street followed the insulted fair. "Hiss—hiss—no gentleman, no gentleman! Aha-skulk off—do—low blaggurd!" shrieked Polly. From their counters shop-folks rushed to their doors. Stray dogs, excited by the clamour, ran wildly after the fugitive man, yelping "in madding bray"! Vance, fearing to be clawed by the females if he merely walked, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... baronet, "I think I can guess exactly what you would say, captain; but not another word, if you please. What? Would you have me skulk below while brave men are imperilling their lives in defence of those who are dearer to me than my own life? I could not possibly do it. Besides, if I am not greatly mistaken, you will need all the force you can muster before the end of the ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... action, and that they cannot get over the feeling. But what part of you is afraid? Your flesh, which is afraid of pain, just as a beast is of the whip. Then your flesh perhaps says, Run away—or at least skulk and hide—take care of yourself. But next, if you were a coward, the law would come into your mind, and you would say, But I dare not run away; for, if I do, I shall be shot as a deserter, or broke, and drummed out of the army. So you may go on, even though you are a coward: but that is not courage. ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... being too revolting, now because of its being too laughable, is innocuous. His moral land is one of black and white, mostly black, without many of those really dangerous half-lights and shadows in which too many of our present day playwrights virtuously invite us to skulk and peer ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... skulk around here in the woods to avoid being seen by Sam Haines, there is no reason why I should not make the most of my time," he said to himself, as hope began to spring up once more in his breast. "There is little chance I shall be able to raise any money for the mill now, when ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... skulk here for hours, waiting for an opportunity to cross unseen," said I, on rejoining her, "but our gods above are victorious, and we share their victory. So now for the 'Ring of Bells.' There's a gate at the bottom of the hill. Come along, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... days when he came home haggard and blue in the lips to tell Leonora that he must fly. There were days when he returned from the chase, or rather from the skulk, elated, youthful, his pockets full of money and his imagination afire with hopes of substantial wealth. But his course was steadily downward, his methods steadily farther and farther from the line of the law. Dumont came just in time to save him, came to build him up from the most shunned ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... he had already burst large iron fetters asunder. But even if you are unable to break this band, you have nothing to fear from the gods, for we will immediately loose you again. The wolf answered: If you get me bound so fast that I am not able to loose myself again, you will skulk away, and it will be long before I get any help from you, wherefore I am loth to let this band be laid on me; but in order that you may not accuse me of cowardice, let some one of you lay his hand in my mouth as a pledge that this is done without ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... Confession, I'll at least have done something for somebody before this scrap. Rupert, you can thank Heaven you don't feel as I do—that you've nothing positive to do to-morrow—that you're not pulling your weight. I shall just skulk about, like a dog worrying the heels ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... afraid of you! Don't skulk there—see what you'll get!' And a volley of peas, corks, and small shot flew about ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... interrupt their work here. It is a terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much disheartened, and would need constant encouragement. Under this terrible uncertainty and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... over and above saving his crop for him. I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or next door ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... and the wild cat, both skulk through the Pyrenean forests; the former now only rarely seen. Along the naked cliffs leaps the "izzard," which is identical with the chamois of the Alps (antelope rupicapra); and in the same localities, but more rarely seen, the "bouquetin," or "tur" (aigocerus pyrenaicus)—a ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and Marion will probably be ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... own spirit stirred and drove them on.' Then spake tall Hector, with the glancing helm All this I too have watched, my wife; yet much I hold in dread the scorn of Trojan men And Trojan women with their trailing shawls, If, like a coward, I should skulk from war. Beside, I have no lust to stay; I have learnt Aye to be bold, and lead the van of fight, To win my father, and myself, a name. For well I know, at heart and in my thought, The day will come when Ilios the holy Shall lie in heaps, and Priam, and the ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr. Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him, but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... faint, owing to the state of the air; so much so, that my companions, who were not fifty yards behind, scarcely heard it. The wild animals in the jungle which skirted the road, and which, in general, skulk in silence and secresy in their haunts, rent the air with their howlings. The very order of nature seemed about to be reversed, while the long streamers of grey moss swayed backwards and forwards mournfully from the ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... must be done, And that at once," said I, in tones which made The old man turn to get a look at me. I hailed an omnibus, and there we parted.... What if I write Charles Lothian a letter? Nay, I'll not skulk behind a sheet of paper, But face to face say what I have to say. This very evening must I call again. Let a firm will bear up ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... where to find her then he did his Trull. His Children were took care of by his Wife's Relations, or else they must have gone a begging. Whilst he being threatned with a Goal for Mortgaging his Lands twice over, was fain to Skulk about, and to play least in sight: Thus he that but a while ago profusely spent his Money on a Whore, was now reduc'd to that condition that he wanted Bread: Whilst both the Bawd and Whore which he had wasted all upon, forsook him without so much as minding what became of him; but left ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... moment, through the influence of bad companions, he fell, and for some time we lost sight of him. A long time afterward we caught a glimpse of his bloated, sin-stained face, just as he was turning to skulk away to avoid recognition. Where this poor human wreck is now leading his miserable existence we cannot say, but have no doubt he is haunting the dens of iniquity and sin in the cities, seeking to find a ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... a battle every day Against discouragement and fear; Some foe stands always in my way, The path ahead is never clear! I must forever be on guard Against the doubts that skulk along; I get ahead by fighting hard, But fighting keeps ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... as well as in the next. I often tell them so. That is why I took orders. What do you suppose Wentworth suspects when he says Alington has suggested a discreditable reason for your being in the di Collo Alto villa that night, and that he is not going to allow you to skulk behind a woman any longer? He will be here directly to extort what he is pleased to call 'the truth.' What are you going ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... the winter has driven a number of wolves to hover about the Settlement in search of provisions; they are perfectly harmless however, as they are met singly, and skulk away like a dog conscious of having committed a theft. But in packs, they kill the horses, and are formidable to encounter. In the pursuit of buffaloes and the deer on the plains, they are known to form a crescent, and to hurry their prey over precipices, ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... this once, from the black book; Thou hear'st no further of this case."—But, Lord! I might not in two years his bribes record. There's not a dog alive, so speed my soul, Knoweth a hurt deer better from a whole Than this false Sumner knew a tainted sheep, Or where this wretch would skulk, or that would sleep, Or to fleece both was more devoutly bent; And reason good; his ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... think that evening, of which you will hear, that what happened there was to have its hold on Julianna Colfax, who had not then been thought of as coming into the terrible clutches of that which has followed us like a skulk o' night. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... cried those that were hammering at the door with the handles of their swords, 'come out at once and skulk there no more, for know ye well thou art so beset that thou shalt ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... must have set up some plan for avoiding pursuit. Rouse the Apaches? Or prepare an ambush? Either could work. Then Bayliss' men could be a saving factor. If the Kentuckian could locate Rennie, and ride in to his camp—or skulk close enough to it—that should bring the ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw—to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and leave the craven traitor to his kind—to adopt his beloved "'Becca's" disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats, and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court of justice:—"To the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... others, the main use of power was promotion and protection: and honest man was never in any age among the titles of nobility, and has always been the appellation used toward the feeble and inferior by the prosperous. Nichols said on the present occasion, 'If this man is permitted to skulk away under such pretences, trial is here a mockery.' Finding no support, he threw up his office as Controller of the Navy, and never afterward entered the House of Commons. Such a person, it appears to me, leads us aptly ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the commands of the Council—then my responsibility ceased. What I have to do is to be faithful to my oath, and to the promise I have made." Almost unconsciously he glanced at the ring that Natalie had given him. "You would not have me skulk back like a coward? You would not have me 'play and not pay?' What I have undertaken ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... that his wife was to blame. But I settled his doubts by telling him, that I would have him on my shoulder naked, unless he came in five minutes; not that he could do much good, but because the other men would be sure to skulk, if he set them the example. With spades, and shovels, and pitch-forks, and a round of roping, we four set forth to dig out the sheep; and the poor things knew that ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... freedom brings the slave She weds, is vengeance: why should we, Whom equal laws acclaim as free, Think shame, if men too blindly brave Steal, murder, skulk, ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... is," replied the other, sulkily. "No thanks to you for having to skulk like a fox. As I told you in my letter, the police are after me, and if I cannot get out of the country ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... He was frequently cautioned, upon the peril of his skin, to see that all the negroes were off to the field in the morning. 'Ocra,' said the overseer, one evening, to the driver, 'if any pretend to be sick, send me word—allow no lazy wench or fellow to skulk in the negro house.' Next morning, a few minutes after the departure of the hands to the field, Ocra was seen hastening to the house of the overseer. He was soon in his presence. 'Well, Ocra, what now?' 'Nothing, sir, only Rachel says she ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... tried! —But he, for whom they died, Skulk'd like the wolf in Cranborne, torn and gaunt:— Till, dragg'd and bound, he knelt To one no prayers could melt, Nor bond of blood, nor fear of ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... here on they will not do at all. The weakest moonlight—yes, even starlight—would make them stand out in the darkness like tombstones. A few days more and we shall be in the cannibal country. And it is an old trick of those eaters of men to skulk along the shore by night, watching a camp until all are asleep, and then sneak up with spears ready. A rush and a swift stab of the spears into those white nets, and you are dead or dying from the poisoned points. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am positive that we need not ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... therefore was saved from any necessity of betraying his total ignorance of his author, and sat gloomily on the hard form, impatiently watching the minute-hand skulk round the mean dull face of the clock above the chimney-piece, while around him one boy after another droned out a listless translation of the work before him, interrupted by mild corrections and comments from ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... and then reached over to give Bo a tap. He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they disappeared. Not only Dale's intensity, but the very silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Porter, of vain-glorious memory, (who once wrote a book of Voyages,) was, and may be still, the marine commandant, and distinguished himself by threatening to blockade Cuba, and by being obliged to skulk at Key West, to avoid destruction by the gallant Laborde. The Mexicans require no navy, and cannot maintain one; the sooner, therefore, they restrict it to a very few revenue cutters the better. The nature of the country and the destructive climate of the coast, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... flounders in the sea as the tide ebbed. Venture among them with fear in your heart and they would fly at your legs and throat like wild beasts; but twirl a big stick jauntily, or better still go quietly on your way without concern, and they would skulk aside and watch you hungrily out of the corners of their surly eyes, whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mastiff's. When the moon rose I noticed them flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, miles away ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... hoodwink, mystify; puzzle &c (render uncertain) 475; bamboozle &c (deceive) 545. be concealed &c v.; suffer an eclipse; retire from sight, couch; hide oneself; lie hid, lie in perdu [Fr.], lie in close; lie in ambush (ambush) 530; seclude oneself &c 893; lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep^, play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark; cryptic, cryptical^; private, privy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... forth, and so will I. Sorry sight! to view Jabaster, with a stealthy step, skulk like a thing dishonoured! Oh! may the purpose consecrate the deed! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... answered, "Deiphobus, thou wert ever the dearest of my brothers; now I honor thee still more, because thou hast dared to come out from behind the walls to aid me, while others skulk within." ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... bad heart. See what a wrong you have purposely done us. If your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this? If you are indeed a god, come out across the line, and let us try issues together. Don't skulk like a coward in your hut and within your taboo, but come out and fight us. We are not afraid, who are only men. Why ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... answered, defiantly. "Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... state of things, this evil is indeed altered, and the ruin of the creditor's effects is better prevented; the bankrupt can no more skulk behind the door of the Mint and Rules, and prevent the commissioners' inspection; he must come forth, be examined, give in an account, and surrender himself and effects too, or fly his country, and be seen here no more; and if he does come in, he must give a full account upon ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... papa knows that I am the more sensible of the two; after a pitched battle or so he would understand it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, and ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... their share of the general ruin,—to be compensated by the final suppression of the common foe. To have endured this, and even to have submitted, for a time, to the searching of ships, so that not one Englishman should be allowed to skulk from such a fight, had not been pusillanimity, but magnanimity. But if, as English Whigs and American Democrats contended, Napoleon Bonaparte was the armed soldier of democracy, the rightful heir of the Revolution, the sole alternative to anarchy, the legitimate ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... and quickly, and having pinioned them, take them, if possible, to a cage with some part of it projecting out into the water. You, of course, feed them regularly, and are careful to give them some artificial cover to skulk in, as for some time the pain of the wound and the fright they have had makes them terribly shy. This cage, once constructed, is most useful for such work, and can be built at trifling cost, and the size I would recommend is about fifteen yards long by five yards wide, ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... in the day, but skirting it, and keeping on the outside of the fence nearly the whole distance. At about two in the morning he reached his cottage outside the mill on the river-bank; but he was unable to skulk in unheard. Some dogs made a noise, and presently he heard a voice calling him from the house. "Is that you, Nokes, at this time of night?" asked Mr. Medlicot. Nokes grunted out some reply, intending to avoid any further question. But his master came up to ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... ignorant; and while such exist in the world, divines will preach upon its impiety and philosophers discourse upon its absurdity in vain. Still it is evident that these follies have greatly diminished. Soothsayers and prophets have lost the credit they formerly enjoyed, and skulk in secret now where they once shewed their faces in the blaze of day. So far there is ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... in craven alarms, Have all run away from the summons to arms; They haven't the pluck of a pigeon—I'll go And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk in Soho!" ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... therefore, sir, to restrain them in time of war from such exorbitant demands; to deprive them of those prospects which have often no other effect than to lull them in idleness, while they skulk about in expectation of higher wages; and to hinder them from deceiving themselves, embarrassing the merchants, and neglecting the general interest of their country, is undoubtedly just. It is just, sir, because in regard to the publick it is necessary to prevent the greatest calamity ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... possess 200 A lawful fame, and lazy happiness, Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free, And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, He stood at bold defiance with his prince; Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulk'd behind the laws. The wish'd occasion of the plot he takes; Some circumstances finds, but more he makes; By buzzing emissaries fills the ears 210 Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears Of arbitrary counsels brought ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... he swung it so that I might not mistake the sound, and that was the last I saw of him, hugging his five arrows, with the moon gone pale like a meal-cake, and the tame wolves that skulk between the huts for scraps, slinking off ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... these arms unwillingly I wear, Unwillingly I come to wage this war, Compell'd by injuries too great to bear. Banisht my country, while I make the flood, That laves the Rhine, run purple all with blood. While the Gauls, ripe our Rome to re-invade, I force to skulk behind their Alps afraid: By conquering my banishment's secur'd. Are sixty triumphs not to be endur'd? A German conquest reckon'd such a fault? By whom is glory such a monster thought? Or who the vile supporters of this war? A foreign spawn, a mobb in arms appear, At once Rome's ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... do not skulk in corners and watch other people's doings," replied the young fellow, who, however, had only just come on deck, and was ignorant of the scene between Claude and Marguerite. "Let me catch you plotting any villainy against ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... and I'll trouble you not to use such a word as that about Molly Gibson, as I've known all her life. It's odd, if you will. I was odd myself as a girl; I never could abide a plate of gathered gooseberries, but I must needs go and skulk behind a bush and gather 'em for myself. It's some folk's taste, though it mayn't be Miss Browning's, who'd have all the courting done under the nose of the family. All as ever I said was that I was surprised at it in Molly Gibson; and that ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his reasons as it were a battle ranged: scattered and defeated all objections in his way; calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument: for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... seems to me the wisest course. On me nor Agamemnon, Atreus' son, Nor others shall prevail, since nought is gain'd By toil unceasing in the battle field. Who nobly fight, but share with those who skulk; Like honours gain the coward and the brave; Alike the idlers and the active die: And nought it profits me, though day by day In constant toil I set my life at stake; But as a bird, though ill she fare herself, Brings ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... on you, my boys, and if you skulk again, I'll obey orders—by the Lord Harry, I will!" said the sergeant, as he glanced at the lock of his musket. "Company K isn't going to be laughed at ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... I must confess that I was entirely at a loss. I could not move a foot across the deck without being discovered, since it was merely the fact that I was in the lee of the cabins and in the deeper shadows of the dawn that enabled me to skulk where I was. Yet I was reluctant to go back without having carried the search a stage further. It was obvious from the calm which reigned among the mutineers that the Prince and his following were either dead or prisoners. Which had been their fate? The shadow of the man ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... political trickster and a dishonest man. I have seen him myself, when I first came to this command, turn out all the Union men who had supported the Government, and put in their stead rebel soldiers who had not yet doffed their gray uniform. I have seen him again, during the July riot of 1866, skulk away where I could not find him to give him a guard, instead of coming out as a manly representative of the State and joining those who were preserving the peace. I have watched him since, and his conduct has been as sinuous as ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... lay green meadows, and beyond these pasture-lands that stretched away to the wilderness plains where little patches of grass grew among the bushes and between the great rocks. There were caves among these rocks where wolves used to skulk and sometimes robbers hid. So the shepherds who guarded their flocks in these wild pastures ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever I am. The hawk looks awkward and out of place on the ground; the game birds hurry and skulk, but the crow is at home and treads the earth as if there were none to molest him ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... prison-walls. It is a holiday, and the day is fair and balmy; but the chill and sadness cannot be shaken off, as we look around us. The sunshine seems almost to be a mockery in this place where fellow-men are caged and guarded like wild beasts, and skulk about with shaved heads, clad in the striped uniform of infamy. Merciful God! is this what thy creature man was made ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... they who skulk aside, As to get out of reach, And in their clothing strive to hide ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way as if afraid, and stand silent amid the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... from it. By doing this they hope to escape the extra bullet or fatal blow of the axe that would quickly finish them. Then when the hunters are off their guard, or night comes on, they hope to be able to skulk away." ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... well taught; and if these British hearts are won young, and tutored right, and trained loyal, and warmly clothed in true blue jackets, we shall not have so many shipwrecks where cheap foreigners skulk as the tempest ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... in Europe to any indifference to my own country or my friends.... I am determined not to return home until I have sent some writings before me that shall, if they have merit, make me return to the smiles, rather than skulk back to the ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... "Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, "if I ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smile, which, in common with all other tokens of emotion, seemed to skulk under his face, rather than play boldly over it—'to return to the point from which we have strayed. I have a little party of—of—gentlemen with whom I am connected in business just now, at my house tomorrow; and your mother has promised that you shall keep ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... destroying hand, the rich and beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah seemed likely soon again to become a waste and desert place. It was a boast of theirs, that they could take any fort that could be fired; and round these places of refuge they would skulk and lurk with the greatest patience for a week at a time, quite content could they but get a single shot at such of the garrison as dared to show themselves beyond shelter of the walls. Sometimes, suddenly darting from their hiding-place, they would pounce upon little children playing ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... ordinary affairs of men. People wrote to inquire about their matrimonial affairs, their quarrels, their business difficulties, whether they must conform to this or that enactment of the State, how they might outwit the persecutors and skulk behind the law. Muggleton replies with surprising shrewdness and good sense, and now and then exhibits a familiarity with the quips and quirks of the law that he can only have acquired by the necessity which suffering ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... meowing cat from the portico into the street. Trotter quickened his steps, tingling, abashed, shaken with an inordinate and ridiculous sense of guilt. He felt that he wanted to keep out of the light, that he ought to skulk in the shadows until he was free of the weight on his arm. He hurried on until he became desperate, determined to end the farce at any hazard. So, as he passed a building where a house front was being converted into a low-windowed shop face, he dropped the paper ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... did seem to me to be a fine waste of ammunition, and a very stupid application of a scientific ideal; for while shelling it the Germans must have noticed that there was nothing at all on the road. We naturally decided not to go up that road in the car, but to skulk through a wood and meet the car in a place of safety. The car had, sooner or later, to go up the road, because there was not another road. The Commandant who was with us was a very seasoned officer, and he regarded all military duties as absolute duties. The car must return along that ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... no secrets from you, John," she answered, "Our chief trouble is, as you may guess, our poor father's strange behaviour. Is it not a sad thing for all of us that a man who has played such a distinguished part in the world should skulk from one obscure corner of the country to another, and should defend himself with locks and barriers as though he were a common thief flying from justice? This is a trouble, John, which it is out of your ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... burrow in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square or Argyle buildings. What in short can a lord do nowadays, that is lost in a great old solitary castle, but skulk about, and get into the first hole he finds, as a rat would do in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... piously preserved in the family chronicle which I follow), was trained to break into a gallop as soon as the vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine miles between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died unmarried; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... loads his musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned him once. The soldier would not stop. The officer then ran his ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... you skulk up there!" added a coarser voice. "We know y'er there; and if yer don't come down to us, why, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... and give us a call at the station as soon as you can. I'll keep out of sight till these chaps are started; then I'll have a bit of breakfast with Daddy Montague, and invent a good watertight lie, and do a skulk for an hour or two, and then dodge on to the station as slowly as possible. I want something to go wrong in the store while Montgomery has charge himself; it'll learn him to appreciate me better. I'll have to ram it down his throat that the fellows had their ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... has that lazy, good-for-nothing boy taken, himself off to now, I wonder, and the weeds I left him to pull in the garden not half done yet; but it's just like him, as soon's my back's turned to skulk off in this way. I'll put a stop to this work one of these days, see if I don't. Its likely he's hiding in some out-of-the-way corner with a book in his hand as usual." These and many other angry words ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... such a girl as you," admitted Prince, smiling at her. "You take the cake. But we can't let you do that for us. We can't skulk behind a young lady's skirts to save our hides. It's not etiquette on ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... for such truth as is destined to appear. When Christians worshipped in the Catacomb, one man, no worse than the rest, though no less foolish, will have pointed to its mouth, and said, 'Obscene rites are practised in that darkness. The devotees of an execrable creed skulk there out of sight.' Not till the time was ripe, did lightning split the face of the rock, and lay ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... affiliated centres. In the conduct of details Spartan self-restraint was everywhere manifest. Members were urged to be brief in their remarks and business-like in their methods. Officials must give a solemn promise not to skulk, or make off, owing to persecution; and members were warned that noisy declamation was not a proof of zeal but might be a cloak for treachery. Above the chairman's seat was suspended a card with the words—"Beware of Orators." One would like to have witnessed the proceedings of these ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... surly capitano kicking and beating the hands from taffrail to bowsprit, particularly one great tall fellow, without a hat, and but a few dry thin hairs to shield his skull from the scorching sun; cursing him, as he puffs a cigarette, for being the most idle scoundrel of a skulk on board! But he—the scoundrel!—laughing with a hollow laugh up the sleeve of his filthy shirt, with never a dollar in his belt or an extra pair of trowsers in the forecastle, with bare feet, and still, cold eyes, now turned to green—eating nasty jerked beef and drinking ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... himself there unless when hard pressed indeed, and then he would skulk in, seeking for shelter and food, and pleading with bated voice his husband right to assistance and comfort. Nor was his ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... I saw him in Flanders after this, whence he went to Rome to the head quarters of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and warpaint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... break of day Saint Reynard through the hedge had made his way; The pale was next, but proudly with a bound He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground: Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed Of coleworts he conceal'd his wily head; Then skulk'd till afternoon, and watch'd his time (As murderers use) to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... last of these, he ascended the front stoop and knocked loudly upon the door. There was no reply, and while he was waiting for some one to answer his summons, Hal managed to skulk up behind the other buildings and approach ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... the door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats—that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... public spirit, contributed towards the bringing of this ruin upon themselves and upon you. They have skulked from their public duty. They have kept aloof from, or opposed all measures for a redress of grievances; and indeed, they still skulk, though ruin and destruction stare them in the face. Why do they not now come forward and explain to you the real cause of the reduction of your wages? Why do they not put themselves at your head in petitioning for redress? This would secure their property ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... the fact that we are not passively obedient instruments, but very nervous and restless people, who wish to finish things quickly and to know in advance where we are going. It must be based on the fact that we are very proud people, but people who would all skulk if we were not seen, and who consequently must always be seen, and act in the presence of our comrades and of the officers who supervise us. From this comes the necessity for organizing the infantry company solidly. It is the infantryman on whom the battle has the most violent effect, ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... He raised his head, and now he could again speak steadily. "I don't figure to skulk more than I must. Let them say what they will, eight decades from now. ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... thousands—to an institution of long standing and high character in the city of which he was a quiet resident. The source of such a gift could not long be kept secret. It, was our economical, not to say parsimonious Capitalist who had done this noble act, and the poor man had to skulk through back streets and keep out of sight, as if he were a show character in a travelling caravan, to avoid the acknowledgments of his liberality, which met him on every hand and put ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... upon circumstances," replied his father, looking searchingly into his face. "If my boy was mean enough to skulk out of the house at night, when I supposed him to be abed and asleep, it is just possible that I might not consider him ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... my vengeance, by a trivial chance! [Aside. Fine work above, that their anointed care Should die such little death! or did his genius Know mine the stronger daemon, feared the grapple, And looking round him, found this nook of fate, To skulk behind my sword?—Shall I discover him?— Still he would not die mine; no thanks to my Revenge; reserved but to more royal shambles. 'Twere base, too, and below those vulgar souls, That shared his danger, yet ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... been in my place you would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you would not. Would you have gone out of the House—skulked the vote? I expect not. If you had skulked one vote, you would have had to skulk many more before the end of the session. Richardson's resolutions, introduced before I made any move or gave any vote upon the subject, make the direct question of the justice of the war; so that no man can be silent if he would. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln |
