"Crouched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one of them a grand-looking old man was seated apathetically contemplating the boiling of a pot. Old, and sitting among ruins, he represented the fate of a race which, living, has no history, and perishing leaves no monument. By the other irori sat, or rather crouched, the "MISSING LINK." I was startled when I first saw it. It was—shall I say?—a man, and the mate, I cannot write the husband, of the ugly woman. It was about fifty. The lofty Aino brow had been made still loftier ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the Falls. They were all Brahmans and all old, and they shivered in their poor scanty garments of coarse white. Most of them were frail with long fasting and penance, and they prayed as they stood in the water or crouched under its weight. Such a one had sat on the stone under the special fall which, as the friend who had taken me observed with more forcefulness than sentiment, "comes down like a sack of potatoes." I had tried to stand it for a minute, but it pelted ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... crouched down in the boat, with the exception of Jack, who followed Pearson's example in ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... him. There is a tradition in those parts which denies rest in the grave to a person killed by accident. Old Mergel had thus become the ghost of the forest of Brede; as a will o' the wisp he led a drunken man into the pond by a hair; the shepherd boys, when they crouched by their fires at night and the owls screeched in the hollows, sometimes heard quite clearly in broken accents his "Just listen, sweet Lizzie;" and an unprivileged woodman who had fallen asleep ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Paumanok, When the snows had melted, and the Fifth-month grass was growing, Up this seashore, in some briers, Two guests from Alabama—two together, And their nest, and four light green eggs, spotted with brown, And every day the he-bird, to and fro, near at hand, And every day the she-bird, crouched on her nest, silent, with bright eyes, And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the thorn-stopped entrance. We had hoped to catch him napping, but it was not to be. He seemed particularly wide awake. If we could not kill that man, and kill him silently, we were lost. There we crouched and watched him. Presently Umslopogaas, who was a few paces ahead of me, turned and made a sign, and next second I saw him go down on his stomach like a snake, and, taking an opportunity when the sentry's head was turned, begin ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... glitter of excitement in her eyes. On tiptoe she hastened along the broad hall, reaching the library door just as Folsom stepped out on the porch. On tiptoe she darted in, closed the door behind her, almost rushed to the north window, and there grasping the curtain she crouched, heedless of the possibility of observation, and for half a minute clung and crouched and stared. Then, as Folsom's genial, powerful voice was heard in welcoming accents, and heavy footsteps came along ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... held out his hand, saying, "Good morning, sir! Take a seat, sir!" which I did somewhat shyly, but not without a smile for his comical "sir." I spied a number of young girls peeping at us from behind curtains, while the male attendants, among whom were his younger brothers, nephews, and cousins, crouched in the antechamber on all fours. His Excellency, with an expression of pleased curiosity, and that same grand unconsciousness of his alarming poverty of costume, approached us nearly, and, with a kindly smile patting ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... measure. Right to the heart of it, my lad, The song goes, though the skin mislike you so." "Nay, an there's more of it, I'll sing it, too! 'Tis a fine tale, Sir John, I have it by heart, Although 'tis lies throughout." Up leapt Will Kemp, And crouched and swayed, and swung his bauble round, Making the measure as they trolled the tale, Chanting ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... convulsive attitudes crouching in the corners or leaning against the walls; one sat at the table, with her head resting on her hands, and a Bible open before her. She was reading while the others listened; one crouched under the table with a rosary in her hand,—she was a Catholic—all were richly dressed and their gowns were covered with lace and gold and silver embroideries; and yet their garments were decayed and those that wore them were skeletons. The fair blond hair of the one reading seemed ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... Mongol, "how our camels moved their ears in fear? How the herd of horses on the plain stood fixed in attention and how the herds of sheep and cattle lay crouched close to the ground? Did you notice that the birds did not fly, the marmots did not run and the dogs did not bark? The air trembled softly and bore from afar the music of a song which penetrated to the hearts of men, animals and birds alike. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... if he missed the half-past six train he had to come by the half-past seven, and in those hours of waiting the dusk grew oppressive and fearful in the music-room. Startled by a strange shadow, she crouched in her armchair, and when the feeling of dread passed she was weak from want of food. Why did her father keep her waiting? Hungry, faint and weary of life, she opened a volume of Bach; but there was no pleasure for her in the music, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... range of the carbines and musketoons. During that half-hour we were slowly slipping by the long two miles of Slapton sands. We could not go fast, for our only sail was a coat, and, though the wind was pretty fresh, the set of the tide was against us. So for half an hour we crouched below that rowboat's gunwale, just peeping up now and then to see the white line of the breakers on the sand, and beyond that the black outlines of the horsemen, who slowly followed us, firing steadily, but with no very clear view of what they fired at. ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... with the artillery, and to secure a barrage commencing at 5.15 a.m. Meanwhile the Companies doubled up, with C leading and A in the rear. The need for haste was most urgent, for the day was breaking and the trench was seriously battered. The men crouched low as they ran, but the Hun probably saw their heads, for shrapnel was sprinkled along the communication trench, causing a few casualties. As Captain Blandy (O.C. A Company) approached the head of the communication trench in broad daylight, he looked ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... had come. Before many more minutes passed, the plan would have either succeeded, or there would be fewer men able to walk around the ranch house. Hawkins and Nort drew their guns, and headed their ponies to the left, throwing them into a gallop. They crouched low in the saddles. What was in their minds as they made ready for that desperate charge? Fear? Hardly that. A turmoil ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... into a scream that rang for an instant and stopped short, leaving blank silence. Nicanor's face sharpened and grew pinched with eagerness; under scowling brows his eyes took on a strange glitter like the eyes of an animal in the dark. He crouched closer to the door, his body rigid with the strain of listening. Once more the cry of pain rose, this time sustained and savage with despair; it choked and gurgled horribly into silence; and rose again, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... loaded their pistols again. The two gentlemen had each rifles and a brace of pistols, as had their servants. A lady and child had been lifted from the sledge, and these crouched down at the angle by the fire. The sledge and the two horses protected one of the faces of the position, and the driver, at his master's orders, took his position on the front seat again, so as to shoot down any wolf that ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... came to a place where there was a gap in the rails which fenced it. Through this we slipped, and then in the gathering gloom we followed Holmes until we had reached a shrubbery which lies nearly opposite to the main door and the drawbridge. The latter had not been raised. Holmes crouched down behind the screen of laurels, and we all three ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to it; a little dory had been beached on the pebbles and left there by the receding tide. There was a child in it—a boy, of perhaps two years old, who crouched in the bottom of the dory in water to his waist, his big, blue eyes wild and wide with terror, his face white and tear-stained. He wailed again when he saw us, and held ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... staring intently at the little thing till it began to cry 'Peek, peek, peek' in a most dismal tone, for it was very cold, and then the old cock, who had been looking very important and big, suddenly began to cry 'Took, took, took', just like a hen, and softly crouched down, spreading his wings a little for the chick to creep under him and get warm, and no doubt he would have taken care of that chicken and brought it up if I had not taken it back to ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... a little exclamation, crossed the floor and crouched down by the other's side. A word or two in the topmost document stared at him. The seal of the envelope had melted, and a little thread of green wax had made a ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... their view, but in this she was mistaken; for, while Huntley and one of the Smiths entered the abode, the other climbed up the mound. She saw his hat within a foot of where she rested, and fancied she could feel his breath upon her cheek as she crouched, like a frightened hare, more closely in her form. However, he surveyed the spot without ascending further, and then retreated muttering something about corbies and ravens, and, almost instantly, she heard the door of the hut close. Cautiously she crept down ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... carriage rolled on, leaving her there, crouched on the kerbstone, gazing after it with something between a laugh ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... later we were both in the room, crouched in its farther corner, for the stones or whatever they were seemed to be following us. I struck a match, of which fortunately I had some, together with my pipe and a good pocketful of tobacco—my only solace in ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... they found nothing. Returning next day with Merrifield for the carcass of the elk however, they found that a grizzly had been feeding on it. They crouched in hiding for the bear's return. Night fell, owls began to hoot dismally from the tops of the tall trees, and a lynx wailed from the depths of the woods, but ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... coming up the path to the door. She gave directions to her young son to answer the bell, and to tell the clergyman that his mother had just gone down the street on an errand. Since the single ground floor room of the cottage offered no better hiding place against observation from the door, she crouched behind a clothes-horse hung with drying garments. When the boy had opened the door to the minister, and had duly delivered the message concerning his mother's absence, the reverend gentleman cast a ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... there were in Ireland at the time of Henry VIII. two hundred and thirty-one houses of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, thirty-six houses belonging to the Premonstratensians, twenty-two of the Knights of St. John, fourteen to the Trinitarians or Crouched Friars, nine to the Benedictines, forty- two to the Cistercians, forty-three to the Dominicans, sixty-five to the Franciscans, twenty-six to the Hermits of St. Augustine, twenty- five to the Carmelites, and forty-three ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... at one another, showing an uncomfortable fear of what the negro and the Automaton were doing. Even the negro edged away fearfully and all crouched back, afraid ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... procured the use of a melodeon, and now, after placing the drooping flowers in water, she sat down before the instrument and poured out the joy of her soul in song. Sad memories no longer floated like corpses on the sea of the past; grim forebodings crouched among the mists of the future, and she sang song after song, exulting in the gladness of her heart. An analysis of these occasional hours of delight was as impossible as their creation. Sometimes she was conscious of their approach, while gazing up at the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... raft shot into the swiftest part of the current. They crouched stolidly, looking at the shores, while between them, dressed in white and kneeling with her face turned heavenward was a girl seven years old. She seemed stricken with paralysis until she came opposite the tower and then she turned her face to the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... green, she had seen something which touched her heart much more. She passed up alone under the screen, which they had spared, to see what had been done in the chancel; and as she went she heard a sobbing from the corner near the priest's door; and there, crouched forward on his face, crying and moaning quietly, was the old priest who had been rector of the church for nearly twenty years. He had somehow held on in Edward's time in spite of difficulties; had thanked God and the Court of Heaven ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... holding up the picture, eyeing it intently. "Sanctuary" represented the interior of an old village church. On the ground against a pillar, crouched a young and beautiful woman, her dress and general aspect indicating the last degree of vagrant wretchedness; worn out, she had fallen asleep in a most graceful attitude, and the rays of a winter sunset smote upon her pallid countenance. ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... at whose base crouched the little town, there stood bolder and more rugged heights. In rear of these rose the twin forest-clad tops of an enormous mountain mass, on either side of which stretched pinnacled ranges covered with ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the mustang, scrutinizing him very carefully, he brought himself within a yard or two of where Sut Simpson crouched. The latter waited until he was the nearest, when he stepped forward, with his drawn knife in hand, and, placing himself directly in front of the astounded ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... crouched in conventional attitude by the roadside. His distress was plain; the prostrate body of a man evidence of some unusual condition. A samurai left the passing train and came up to investigate. "Ah! Robbery and murder: follow behind to the tsujiban. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... rose highest now, as literally she did, in standing on the stone where she had crouched, above ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... singing. It seemed to come from a thick part of the wood at one side of the path; and, after hesitating a moment, Dorothy stole into the bushes, and, creeping cautiously along until she was quite near the sound, crouched down in the thicket ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... quarters—as to the forcible restriction of his tail. Still, the cheese was within easy reach, and he had determined to enjoy it. Indeed, he ate his full. Now, cheese on an empty mouse stomach acts as an intoxicant. He had fallen into a drowsy slumber, crouched in a back corner of the trap, and so he ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... fatigued, emerge from the adjoining hammock, and walk to the edge of the stream, and there, after glancing round him with eager eye and air, he laid down his rifle, and stepping on to a tree which debouched into the stream (lying as it had been struck down by a tornado), he crouched down at the end of it, and commenced laving himself with the water. His appearance was romantic, and there is no doubt, from his dress, he was a warrior of some note, probably following his wife, one of the squaws captured by the volunteers I have before mentioned, and who were ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... cold; but, disdaining a taxi for so short a distance, Leroy buttoned up his coat and strode swiftly along towards his chambers in Jermyn Court, W. As he turned the corner of the square, he stumbled sharply over the slight figure of a girl, crouched near one of the doorsteps, and, with his habitual courtesy, he stopped to see if any harm had ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... arisen simultaneously with the announcement of her name. He would have sprung up to receive her, but she pressed him down, and throwing all reserve on one side for the first time in their intercourse, she crouched beside the sofa, whispering with roguish solicitude, her face not too far from his own: 'How foolish you are, George, to get ill just now when I have been wanting so much to see you again!—I am so sorry to see you like this—what I said to you ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... sharp-featured, and a man who worked astonishingly hard. He was very popular with his men, and his battery was happy and boasted. He cared especially for their food, and would go into their kitchen daily to taste the soup. He was also a silent man. He sat his horse badly, bent and crouched, but his eyes were very keen; and he again was a character of whom the men talked and told stories. I believe he was something of a mathematician; but we knew little of such things ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... fled from the light, seeking darkness like some nocturnal animal. His head was leaned slightly on one side, the thin, weary face lying in the shadow of the chair, and the hair that fell thickly on the moist forehead. As he dreamed the sky grew ghastly as the dead. The night crouched as if in terror along the edges of the river, beneath the bridges and among the masonry and the barges aground, and in the ebbing water a lurid reflection trailed ominously. And as the day ascended, the lamps dwindled from red to white, and beyond the dark ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... some skins and blankets lay the boy, whose bright eyes and flushed cheeks proclaimed fever. An old squaw, bent in form and wrinkled in face, crouched at the end of the couch, her eyes gleaming like beads of black ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... of a woman sat crouched forward on one of the lowermost steps of the brownstone dwelling which was keeping a domestic tradition in a street mostly gone to shops and small restaurants and local express-offices. The house was black behind its closed shutters, ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... hare, either crouched or running in the fields, or hanging dead in a poulterer's shop, or lastly pathetic, even dreadful-looking and in this form almost indistinguishable from a skinned cat, on the domestic table. But not many ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... I crouched as low as I could, and the more I worried the larger I seemed to be and I feared greatly for what might occur behind me. It seemed as if I were swelling up. But finally, as I realized that the ball had gone ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... but sounds of renewed activity immediately followed upon the order to search, the scuffle of footsteps along the aisles and on the steps leading to the organ loft distinctly reaching the lurking pair as they crouched beneath the altar intently listening, to gather, if they might, some indication of the direction in which the search was proceeding. Presently, to their discomfiture, they heard the footsteps of apparently two persons approaching the enclosed space within ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... he and his suite, composed of many a mounted knight with his esquire a-foot, who now always accompanied him in increasing numbers, rode forth gallantly through the iron doorway and passed hard by the place where she lay in wait for him. The Sorceress crouched low upon the ground in her tattered rags; and, seeing a heap by his way, the Prince at first supposed that a slice of stone had fallen from the rocks across his path. But as he drew nigh she fell to weeping and wailing with might and main as though ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... crouched a beautiful Pomeranian dog, the gift of his kind American friend, William W. Story. The affection existing between "Gaillo" and his master was really touching. Gaillo's eyes were always turned towards Landor's; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was one who heard those words, in whose ears they rang like a death-knell; one crouched behind among the shrubbery, whose hands clung to the lattice of the arbor; who, though secure in her concealment, could scarcely hide the anguish which raged within her. At these words the anguish burst forth. A groan escaped her, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Mistassini-viewing everything in the full light of the afternoon: the great wooden bridge, covered in and painted red, not unlike an amazingly long Noah's ark; the high hills rising almost from the very banks of the river, the old monastery crouched between the river and the heights, the water that seethed and whitened, flinging itself in wild descent down the staircase of a giant. But to see this young man after seven years, and to hear his name spoken, ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... Empress Glory of Portugallia stands on the pier, with a crown of gold upon her head, and with seven kings behind her holding up her royal mantle, and seven tame lions crouched at her feet, and seven and seventy generals, with drawn swords, going before her, then we shall see, Praestberg, whether you dare say to herself what you've just said ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... As we crouched on the sand under the ledge of rock, a terrific but welcome downpour of rain fell, and we were able to satisfy our thirst by pressing our mouths to crevices in the rock overhead. But we were not long allowed to remain undisturbed in our shelter, for, although the tide ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... flight of their unleashed souls when they sat close in the balcony alone, they had reached a height that could never be attained when the sun was strong in their eyes. They crouched behind the windshield, for Rimrock drove recklessly, and went roaring out across the desert and between the rush of the wind and the sharp kick of the chuck-holes conversation was out of the question. Then they came to the camp, with its long rows of deal ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... he could in his blind passion strike her or otherwise vent his rage, a revolver was clapped to his face through the window, and, with a look of surprise and terror, his valor oozing from him, he crouched back on the cushions. At the same time the carriage door was thrown open, and Edward Mauville, the patroon, stood in ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Laird—"death. I flouted him in my youth; I wrestled with him and flung him from me. I laughed at his cold eyes across a naked sword, and spurned him on the heather; but now in my age, when my bones are brittle and my arms shrunk, he creeps behind me again, sure, sure o' his prey," and as he spoke he crouched like a stealthy enemy, one groping hand outstretched. Then he flung himself upright, his eyes flashing, ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... through the heart. The rest made a rush forward. Another shot was fired, but this missed them, and before it could be repeated they had wrested the pistol from the hand of Matheson's wife. She was firmly secured, and they then entered the kitchen, where, crouched upon the floor, lay some seven or eight negro men and women in an agony of terror. Vincent's question, "Dinah, where are you?" was answered by a scream of delight; and Dinah, who had been covering her child with her body, leaped ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... dance. It was symbolic of a curious legend current among the Indians of Vancouver island, of a strange spirit that dwells among the mountains and spends most of his time eating the fat members of the Quackahl tribe. Hammasoloe took the part of the spirit and crouched down as if ready to spring on his prey. The sticks beat hard on the plank, and the ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... minutes no one of the three spoke a word. Crouched over until his eyes were within a foot of the snow the old pathfinder examined every inch of the little clearing in which the Woongas had built their fire, and when at last he drew himself erect his face betrayed ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... Another time, while crouched among some boulders watching for a flock of Gambel's Quails to come to a water-hole in the Santa Catalina Mountains of Arizona, a Canyon Wren alighted on my back, for I was covered with an old tent fly so spotted ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... throat as they prepared to come about, for on such occasions she always became excited; he saw again the sweet curve of her lips and her uplifted chin; he heard again her shrill voice crying, "Ready, about!" and saw the spokes spin as she threw the helm over and crouched from the swinging boom, although it cleared her pretty head by at least three feet. He listened again to her elfin laugh as she let the sloop fall off sufficiently to take the lip of a comber over the starboard counter and force Donald and her father to seek shelter from the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... sat or lay upon the grass at rest for a little while: but him-seemed as he gazed that some memories of past time stirred in some of them; for some, they hung their heads and the tears stole out of their eyes and rolled down their cheeks. But those older Runaways of Silver- dale were not crouched down like most of the others, but strode up and down like beasts in a den; yet were the tears on the face of one of these. Then Face-of-god constrained himself, and spake to the folk, and said: 'We are now over-nigh to our foes of Rose-dale to lie here any longer, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... what more do you want to ask me?" came from miles away; and in imagination he could see Officer Green crouched at the telephone stand, as he remembered it at Police Headquarters in Bloomsbury, feeling the importance of his relations with the public as a ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... appeared to be an elderly man of medium size, swarthy, weather-beaten, and bearded to the eyes. He strode to the fire, extended a limp, cold hand to Jason and I in turn with an almost inaudible greeting, and crouched down by the dying blaze, his dark eyes bent upon the glowing embers. Naturally expecting him to be Dutch, both Jason and I had greeted him in the usual manner by giving our own names in self-introduction. He had made no reply; but though our hearth ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... The door was so low I had to bend almost double to enter. A rough shelf did duty for a bed, upon which lay an old bedridden man, while at the other end lay a sick woman with a child beside her, and crouched below was an idiot daughter. Altogether nine persons lived in this hut, eight adults and this one boy. Ananias is an illegitimate child, and has lived with these grandparents since his mother lost her reason and was ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... We crouched together as the thunder crashed over the house. Rain,—nothing but rain. No ever-varying light and shade, as in common squalls. One great cascade ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... that hidden from public view, crouched down in the chariot in which the successful Roman pro-consul or general drove triumphantly through the crowded streets of Rome, was a slave celebrated for his impertinence, whose duty it was to make the one honoured feel that, after all, he was nothing more than an ordinary ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... chink between two colossal chests, I saw that the passengers who had joined us at the last moment were standing at the other side of the pile. They had evidently failed to see me as I crouched in the shadow of the boxes. The one who had spoken was a tall and very thin man with a blue-black beard and a colourless face. His manner was nervous and excited. His companion was a short plethoric little fellow, with a brisk and resolute air. He had a cigar in his mouth, and a large ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... recovering himself, he fired again and again, severely wounding two Apaches. These lay clawing the ground within twenty yards of the wall. The four remaining Indians were safely concealed at the same distance, protected no less by the fortification than by the loose boulders behind which they crouched for the final spring. Lane realized the fact that his next shots, to be effective, must be at a downward angle, and to fire them ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... occasionally some unexpected interviews with them. One of these was interesting as showing that a tiger does not like the rearing of a horse. My friend was riding across the country one morning when he came suddenly, at the edge of a shola, on a tiger, which at once crouched as if to spring. The horse, an Australian, wished to turn, but my friend, being afraid that the tiger might then spring on him, turned his horse's head towards the tiger and touched him with the spur. This caused the horse to rear, and ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... him in it. Besides, he had to look at the clock every few minutes, and whenever a man in a uniform appeared with a megaphone and announced the impending departure of a train Tom had heart disease, seized both bags and crouched ready for instant flight until he was assured that the word "Brimfield" was not among the list of stations enunciated through the trumpet. It was after he had sunk back with a sigh of relief on finding that a ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... One Saturday, as Pascualet was coming home from his sweetheart's house, along one of the paths of the huerta, about midnight, a dog had bitten him; a wretched, silent animal that jumped out from behind a sluice; as the young man crouched to throw a stone at it, the dog bit into his shoulder. His mother, who used to wait for him on the nights when he went courting, burst into wailing when she saw the livid semicircle, with its red stain left by the dog's teeth, and she bustled about ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... crouched, or couched, or whatever you call that precise position of cats, which is neither lying down nor sitting up, for some time longer—for another twenty minutes, to be precise; and all the while the thuds of mystery serenaded her from nowhere in ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... awoke in the night sick with the remorse which is bred of ruined plans and a splitting head. He got up wearily, and sat over the fire 'a good deal chagrined,' to quote his own simple phrase, at his miserable capture. Escape seemed hopeless indeed; there crouched the vigilant troopers, scowling on their prey. A thousand plans chased each other through the hero's fuddled brain, and at last he resolved to tempt the cupidity of his guardians, and to make himself master of their fire-arms. There were still left him a couple of seals, one gold, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Bear trembled. He crouched down under the bed just as far as he could. Now he could hear Omnok come closer to his house. And then he saw Omnok's face at the side of the wall. Ah! Yes! There was a little curtain there! Why had he not seen it! But suddenly a happy thought ...
— Little White Fox and his Arctic Friends • Roy J. Snell
... along the prairie, roaring like a cataract. The horses turned tail to the storm, and stood hanging their heads, bearing the infliction with an air of meekness and resignation; while we drew our heads between our shoulders, and crouched forward, so as to make our backs serve as a pent-house for the rest of our persons. Meanwhile the cow, taking advantage of the tumult, ran off, to the great discomfiture of the captain, who seemed to consider her as his own especial prize, since she had been discovered by Jack. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the house had no inhabitant besides the two females and the old man. I went in search of the latter, and found him crouched, as before, at the kitchen-fire, smoking his pipe. I placed myself on the same bench, and entered into conversation ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Rajah of Manipur used to be transferred to somebody else, usually to a criminal, who earned his pardon by his vicarious sufferings. To effect the transference the Rajah and his wife, clad in fine robes, bathed on a scaffold erected in the bazaar, while the criminal crouched beneath it. With the water which dripped from them on him their sins also were washed away and fell on the human scapegoat. To complete the transference the Rajah and his wife made over their fine robes to their substitute, while they themselves, clad in new raiment, mixed with the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... being upon the border of the street and not far apart, with their little, foot-wide flower-gardens close against the front. The circular fan of a patent windmill lifted itself lightly, the most prominent object in the settlement, and a charming Gothic schoolhouse crouched farther down on the opposite side. Behind the houses, growths of trees formed an enclosing background, according to the tastes of the owners, but guided by some harmonizing supervision like the colors. And at a short distance the avenue was crossed ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... crouched upon the floor, they drew away from him as if a pestilence were in his breath. They fell off, one by one, from that part of the room, leaving him alone upon the ground. Even those who had him in their keeping shunned him, and (with ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the enemy an inkling of what was going on, and the rattling of the wagons on the road completed the exposure. Without warning, a ball struck in the road near us and bounded over the rear of the train, the report of the cannon following instantly. The drivers involuntarily crouched over their mules and cracked their whips. Another shot followed, but it was also short, and the last wagon turned the shoulder of the hill into the gorge of the creek as the ball bounded along up the Gauley valley. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the negro the dog growled softly and crouched against my skirt. Cookie stood like an effigy of amazement done in black ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... him to draw his brows in a frown. Opal, left alone in this room full of devout backs, grew suddenly grave. She felt almost afraid. She began to think of Saybrook Inn and the man lying there stark and dead! The man she had danced with but a week before! Dead! And for her! She cringed, and crouched down in her chair, till her beaded frock swept the polished floor in a little tinkley sound that seemed to echo all over the room, and before she knew it her fear of being alone had brought her to her knees. To be like the rest of the world—to be even more ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... long miles of the mountain descent Ford crouched on the driver's seat and put his mind into the business of getting down the slides and around the sagging curves without having a wreck. The 1012's brake equipment was modern, and the Nadia's gear was in perfect order. Now and then on a tangent the big engine would straighten herself ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the burden of years and resting much of his weight upon a staff, came tottering into sight. The watchers crouched back, breathless with excitement, as the newcomer paused before the iron-studded door, and from beneath his cloak ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... were to be other actors in this little overhead drama. A couple of cats, chancing to be in the campus when the students invaded it, had run up this identical elm, and had crouched in wild-eyed fear on that same bough, watching the wild orgies of the students. They had probably been there for a considerable period, not daring to descend while that howling, dancing mob held the grounds. Perhaps they even fancied that those yells ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... waken my companion that he too might see them, but something made me hesitate—the sudden realization, probably, that I should not welcome corroboration; and meanwhile I crouched there staring in amazement with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to myself that I ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... both started forwardly on a run as fast as the dense underbrush would permit. Before they had gone twenty feet a large leopard-like animal sprang transversely across their path, then, seeing the boys, crouched for a spring. The guns were cocked and ready, and it is a wonder that in the excitement there was not a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... your father, Andre! Gervais, he is your son—our son! The letter there... on the table... O my God!" And she slipped nervelessly to the ground, and crouched there sobbing at the feet of M. de La ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Crouched there among the rhododendrons, she lay as still as a mouse, moving nearer and nearer, though none would have told that so much as a lizard even stirred under the blossoms, until her ear, quick and unerring as an Indian's, could detect the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... as each other. When he saw that he could not see a glimpse, and when I myself said to him that I would get out in spite of him, he gave that spring out of the water, and he stood in the mouth of the cave, and he said that he would have revenge for the sight of his eye. I had but to stay there crouched the length of the night, holding in my breath in such a way that he might not feel where I was. When he felt the birds calling in the morning, and knew that the day was, he said, 'Art thou sleeping? Awake, and let ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... very pale and lay propped up by pillows, her eyelids half shut against the light, though there was little enough under the thick double canvas and a brazier of glowing woodcoals made the tent almost too warm. A great Norman woman with yellow hair crouched beside her, slowly fanning her face with a Greek fan of feathers. The Queen stood still a moment, for she had entered softly, and Beatrix had not opened her eyes, nor had the woman known her in the dimness. But when she recognized the Queen, the maid's jaw dropped and her hand ceased to ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... merely dumped at her feet the roll from the horse's back, setting his rifle down against it. Then he led Buck away, zigzagging tediously, at last passing from sight beyond an out jutting monster crag. Gloria crouched, seeking to shield herself from the whiplashes of the wind. She listened to it as it shrieked about the slabs and boulders of granite; the sound was indescribably eerie, filled with unrest, eloquent of the brutal contempt of the eternal for the feeble and transient. The universe grew ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... little bark had made more than two voyages. Being badly made it was taken apart and put together again, by the light of the fire. The night was cold; the men were weary and disheartened with such varied and incessant toil and hardship. They crouched, dull and drooping, around their fires; many of them began to express a wish to remain where they were for the winter. The very necessity of crossing the river dismayed some of them in their present enfeebled and dejected state. It was rapid and turbulent, and filled ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... eagerly towards the palace of the king. The chief who had captured them hurried on first to announce the success of his expedition. Just before he reached the kraal he was met by a tall stout chief, evidently a person of much consideration, for as he approached he bowed again and again, and then crouched down to the ground, apparently not daring to look up at his face. The tall chief wore, like the others, a cap stuck full of ostrich and crane feathers, with lappets of monkey skins, a kilt of the same skins ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... watched the accumulation of game; there was not a breath of air, although the scud was flying fast above us, occasionally throwing a veil over the moon and casting a sudden obscurity on the dim scene before us. Our gun-bearers were crouched around us; their dark skins matching with the ground on which they squatted, they looked like so many stumps of trees. It was nearly ten o'clock, and my eyes ached with watching; several times I found myself nodding as sleep took me by surprise; ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Frank let out this shout. It was caused by seeing the ranchman leap from the back of his own horse and rapidly run back toward the spot where Jerry crouched, apparently too winded to get to his ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... heart was cut out and offered to the idol, after which the body was eaten at a ceremonial feast. The eight captives who remained now understood that the food they had had was meant merely to fatten them for future sacrifice. Half mad with horror, they crouched in the hot moist darkness, and listened to the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... lightning. The friends, whose taste had led them to select this dilapidated dwelling as a place of conference, were two in number, both women,—one of them no other than the minister's servant, the drear-faced Ulrika. She was crouched on the earth-floor in an attitude of utter abasement, at the feet of her companion,—an aged dame of tall and imposing appearance, who, standing erect, looked down upon her with an air of mingled contempt and malevolence. The hut was rather dark, for the roof was not sufficiently ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... she sat, crouched upon her breast,—crouched, but not for slumber or for spring. No slumber gloomed darkly in those broad, sad eyes; no dream indefinably softened the lips, whose patient outline breathed only wakefulness and expectation,—a long-deferred, yet constant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... his arm with a startle of surprise. The flames of a small fire were dancing merrily, and crouched by the fire was McCan. Labiskwee muttered something in Indian, and so lashlike was the sound that Smoke remembered she had been called "cheetah" by ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... widely until their two flanks were close in against the wall of rock, and then the deadly rifles began to spit spitefully, the balls casting up the soft dirt in clouds or flattening against the stones. The two men crouched lower, hugging their pile of slag, unable to perceive even a stray assailant within range of their ready revolvers. Hampton remained cool, alert, and motionless, striving in vain to discover some means of escape, but the little ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... of the green space round about him. On their pretty bamboo trellises the potted morning-glory vines held out flowers as yet unopened. They were fragile, as if of tissue, and were beaded at the crinkled tips with dew. Kano's eyelids, too, had dew of tears upon them. He crouched close to the flowers. Something in him, too, some new ecstacy was to unfurl. His lean body began to tremble. He seated himself at the edge of the narrow, railless veranda along which the growing plants were ranged. One trembling bud reached out ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... staring eyes Ethel darted back to the window. He did not see her. His back was turned. He mounted his horse and gayly cantered away. For full five minutes Ethel stood, crouched in the shadow of the window, staring after him, with her dark eyes burning and glowing in the intensity of their gaze. Then she turned away with a bewildered look. Then she locked the door. Then she flung herself upon the sofa, buried her head in her hands, and burst into a ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... reporter dashed out of the door, the light faded entirely from between the two disks and on the lower one a little dog crouched, ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... roof of the tent. Vainly he fought the cold and strove to maintain his watch on the bank. In his weak condition he was an easy prey, and the frost sank its teeth deep into him before he fled away to the tent and crouched by the fire. His nose and cheeks were frozen and turned black, and his left thumb had frozen inside the mitten. He concluded that he would escape with the loss of ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... corner Jim was a short distance in front. The geese were obviously restless and he crouched as low as he could get. Jake found a hollow in the bank where the sand, undermined by the current, had fallen down, and stood with the water creeping to his feet. He imagined it would nearly reach his waist in mid-channel, and they must soon ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... up and down the cheerless street. It was deserted save by the lounging sentinels and one wretched child, who crouched against the gateway. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... behind some rocks in front of them. The bottom was composed of sand and gravel, the only rock being that behind which Dick had crouched, ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... the children to the Zoological Gardens the other day, where a fine, intelligent-looking lioness appeared exceedingly struck with them, crouched, and made a spring at little Fan, which made Anne scream, and Emily, and Amelia Twiss, who was with us, catch hold of the child. The keeper assured us it was only play; but I was well pleased, nevertheless, that there was a grating between that very large cat and the little white mouse of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Peter crouched on the hearth and lighted the fire in three places, then handed the torch to Kathleen as he crept again into his mother's lap, awed into complete silence by the influence of his own mystic rite. Kathleen waved the torch ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... stairway. In the empty house the least noise echoed greatly. The polished stairs cried out hollowly my presence. I was half way up when I came to a full stop. Some one was coming down round the bend of the stairway. Softly I slid down the balustrade and crouched behind the post at the bottom. The man—it was my friend of the shilling—passed within a foot of me, his hand almost brushing the hair of my head, and crossed the hall to a room opposite. Again I went up the stairs, still cautiously, but with a confidence born ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... now, all at once, she discovered that there was no more seeking, and she could easily guess the cause. With a good deal of trouble she crawled out again, with many signs of her hiding-place on her dress for she had been obliged to sit crouched. She ran to Erick, who was still in the same ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... and dropped down once more upon the ground, crouched upon the damp earth, strewn with dead fallen leaves. Her hat had fallen off, and the rain came down upon her uncovered head, wetting the short hair as it was blown about by the wind, drenching her thin little cloak and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... heavily-constructed appendages one is accustomed to behold. The other end of the hall has also some choice sculptured marble, but unfortunately part of it is hidden by the before-mentioned gallery. Could you obtain a clear view, you would see a figure of Justice, with Ignorance and Quarrelsomeness crouched at her feet: on one side a skeleton, and on the other Punishment. Above all is the figure of Atlas supporting ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... the city of Thebes was afflicted with a monster which infested the high-road. It was called the Sphinx. It had the body of a lion, and the upper part of a woman. It lay crouched on the top of a rock, and stopped all travellers who came that way, proposing to them a riddle, with the condition that those who could solve it should pass safe, but those who failed should be killed. Not one had yet succeeded in solving it, and all had been slain. OEdipus was not daunted by ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... the river, the desert crouched like a lion who flings back his head with a shake of yellow mane, before he stoops to drink. And in the midst of the stream rose Elephantine Island, with its crown of feathery palms, its breastwork of Roman ruins (a medal of fame for the kings ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... I dug until I had gone down more than two feet; then I dug on and on until, standing in the passage as I was, I could not reach down any deeper into the hole I had made. So I crawled into the tomb, crouched down on my breast, and dug down and down as far as ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... with lightning so vivid that our tent was completely lighted up in the darkness of the night, and its misery displayed. Not only was the rain pouring through the roof so that we were wet through as we crouched upon our angareps (stretchers), but the legs of our bedstead stood in more than six inches of water. Being as wet as I could be, I resolved to enjoy the scene outside the tent; it was curious in the extreme. Flash ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... He crouched down where he had been standing and covered his face with his hands. He tried to deafen as well as to blind himself, that he might neither hear nor see anything of the coming event of which he, an inhabitant of Monkshaven at that day, well ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... seemed deserted. Not a spider could be seen near the shining, circular doors. Only here and there crouched a huge, bristly warrior safe behind a jutting rock with his glittering eight eyes fixed on the ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... went into the park, and if, after searching for her long, he could not discover on what tree she was swaying, nor the covert in which she crouched to play with a bird, nor the roof on which she might have clambered, he would whistle the well-known air of "Partant pour la Syrie," to which some tender memory of their love attached. Instantly, Stephanie would run to him with the lightness of a fawn. She ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... The old priest crouched by the altar, silent. Conflicting counsels troubled the air. Let the sacrifice go forward; the gods must be appeased. Nay, the boy must not die; bring the chieftain's best horse and slay it in his stead; it will be enough; the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... on he was several times addressed, but always with the same result. When after dark food and wine were served out, he seized the portion offered to him, and hurrying away crouched under the shelter of a gun, and devoured it as if fearing it would be taken from ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... unenlightened Vendeans, were the most cruel and rapacious banditti that ever were let loose to afflict the world. Yet, while they exercised this savage oppression in the countries near the Loire, their fellow-citizens on the banks of the Seine crouched at the frown of paltry tyrants, and were unresistingly dragged to dungeons, or butchered by hundreds on the scaffold.—At Marseilles, Lyons, Bourdeaux, Arras, wherever these baleful principles have made converts, they have made criminals ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... next thing we knows there goes the luncheon gong. As we climbs down to the main deck where we can get a view forward, Vee gives me a nudge and snickers. J. Dudley Simms is still roostin' alongside the wireless cabin; and just beyond, crouched behind a stanchion with one ear juttin' ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... straightway hidden. The inner apartment was ankle-deep in blood. The plaster was scored with sword-cuts; not high up as where men have fought, but low down, and about the corners, as if a creature had crouched to avoid the blow. Strips of dresses, vainly tied around the handles of the doors, signified the contrivance to which feminine despair had resorted as a means of keeping out the murderers. Broken combs were there, and the frills ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... others crouched, shuddering, and their eyes in the red torch-flame were the eyes of goblins. In another moment a shock ran through the group, for another voice, clear and stern, commanded, "As you value your lives, don't stir. Men, do not fire ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... porcupine's quills, some inches long, stuck in pretty strongly and deeply; and the animal himself, quite ready for further offensive warfare, crouched in the fork of a small maple, just ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... two Henry did not move. He remained before the fire, crouched slightly forward, while the generous heat fed the flame of life in him. A glowing bar, penetrating the crevice at the door, fell on the earth outside, but it did not pass beyond the close group of circling trees. The rain still fell with uncommon steadiness and persistence, but at times ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... saloon he looked back upon the swarming darkness of the alley and his heart filled with a great surging wave of pity, love, and sorrow. Almost at his feet in a dark shadow of a doorway a tiny white-faced boy crouched fast asleep on the stone threshold. It made him think of little Bobs, and his own barren childhood, and a mist came before his eyes as he looked up, up at the sky where the very stars seemed small and far away as if the sky had nothing ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... the railway, and that if the stage came it would go no farther that night, so he had better not wait longer for it. But he did wait a little. He was chilled to the bone by this time, and he trembled and crouched over the fireplace, wondering vaguely what ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... those wild, dumb, eloquent eyes say to Jesus as they looked wonderingly at Him out there in the Wild? As they bounded out of the thicket, crouched, stared at Him, and slunk away, what did they say to Him, those great lean wolves? And what did He say to them? Animals are such eloquent things, especially at such times. 'The foxes have holes,' Jesus said, long afterwards, remembering as He said it how He watched the creatures of the Wild ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... horse to the fence and walked up the worn footpath to the door. Apparently no one was at home. Under this impression I knocked vehemently, by way of making sure; and a weak, cracked voice at length answered, "Come in!" There, by the window, perhaps the same where she sat so long before, crouched in an old chair covered with calico, her bent fingers striving with mechanical motion to knit a coarse stocking, sat old Mrs. Buel. Age had worn to the extreme of attenuation a face that must always have been hard-featured, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... come to Coralio on board of her. And yet, with a persistence not to be attributed to an idling voyager, he had appealed the case to the higher court of his own eyesight. Surprisingly like some gay-coated lizard, he crouched at the foot of the cocoanut palm, and with the beady, shifting eyes of the selfsame reptile, sustained his espionage on ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... from the depths of the easy chair, where he had crouched, afraid lest Pickering should revive and see him ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... entire surface is finished in a dark purplish red paint, which appears to have been polished down as a slip. A companion piece is considerably smaller and the supporting figures are very grotesque and somewhat crouched, as if bearing a ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... inhabitants. A little clump-built boat was in full sail along the lazy bosom of a canal, but its sail consisted of the blades of two paddles stood on end, while the navigator sat steering with a third paddle in the stern, crouched down like a toad, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes. I presumed him to be some nautical lover on the way to his mistress. After proceeding a little further I came in sight of the harbor or port of destination of ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... at either end of a line marked on the sand. Each held the end of a taut rope. The contestants drew lots from an urn for the place nearest the lower turning goal,—no trifling advantage. A favouring god gave Moerocles the first; Lycon was second; Glaucon only third. As the three crouched before the rope with hands dug into the sand, waiting the fateful signal, Glaucon was conscious that a strange blond man of noble mien and Oriental dress was sitting close by the starting ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Chizzy crouched over the controls, his eyes on the navigation chart. Only the thin screech of parted air disturbed the silence of the ship. The high scream and the slow, precise snack-snack of cards as Reg and Max played a game of double solitaire with ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... figures of metal and fabric that were men crouched closely back beneath the leaves of the trees that concealed them, and waited tensely, not daring at first to move for fear of discovery. Each one could see, through the intervening growth, the watch-towers of the ranch; but Friday, from his post in the tree to the "east," could ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... window; there was the white wall which had been spattered with the hero's life blood; there was the open door of the dining-hall where he had been carried back to die; there the white pillar behind which the murderer crouched, and there the dark archway through which Gerard had run, his heart beating thickly with the hope of escape, and the thought of the horse waiting beyond the ramparts and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... forget his caution. He crouched in the bushes for quite a while yet, watching the place where the smoke had been, but the sky remained clear and undefiled. He heard nothing and saw nothing but the lonely valley. At last he crept forward slowly, and with ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... his mate go down he crouched, and, with a low snarl, sprang upon the captain crushing him to his knees with ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and the certain approach of her husband, infused new life into Garanga. "Your father cannot see us," she said, "as we stand here in the shade of the trees; hide yourself in that thicket, I will plunge into the water." Louis crouched under the bushes, and was completely hidden by an overhanging grape-vine, while his mother advanced a few steps into the water where she could be distinctly seen. A shout from the canoes apprised ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... guided her. All day long she wandered, and when toward evening she noticed her slippers were muddy she took them off to clean. And then darkness fell. It began to rain and she grew frightened. She crouched under a tree until she noticed a light some short distance away. She got ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... unslung their clubs and stood waiting the onrushing beast. Tarzan of the Apes drew his hunting knife and crouched in the path of the fanged fury. It was almost upon him when it swerved to the right and leaped for Om-at only to be sent to earth with a staggering blow upon the head. Almost instantly it was up and though the men rushed fearlessly in, it managed to sweep aside their ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Venturing from their cedar house, they saw that they had entered the mouth of a great river upon the banks of which grew enormous trees that sent out long crooked roots into the water, and that among these roots crouched crocodiles and other noisome reptiles. Also the white-robed oarsmen had appeared again, and, as there was no wind, rowed the ship up the river, till at length they came to a spit of sand which jutted out into the stream, ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the years of doom, until one midwinter a frost more keen than any known before froze the sea into a floor of solid black ice. By night the swans crouched together on the rocky isle for warmth, but each morning they were frozen to the ground and could free themselves only with sore pain, for they left clinging to the ice-bound rock the soft down of their breasts, the quills from their white wings, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... on a confused riot, saw Jim crouched, flashing ray-gun in hand. There was a hole in the barrier, and a mob of green-scaled Venusians were crowding through. Jim's ray caught the last Mercurian and the dwarf vanished in a cloud ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... it been the rout of Comus and his crew, and Dorothy the Lady Una, trembling near, her heart could hardly have throbbed more thickly as she crossed the dewy meadow. A young maple stood within ten rods of the barn, and here she crouched in shadow. ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... last of the night watch. The depths of the primeval forest were alive with sound, those sounds which are calculated to set the human pulse athrob. Steve Allenwood crouched over the fire. He was still, silent, and he squatted with his ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... front room below had been Wheelwright's workshop, and the family lived in the room back of it. Both looked as though they had been swept and garnished by the hand of Famine herself. Not a single article of furniture, of any description, was left! Crouched over two short brands,—the remains of a couple of sticks of wood which a poor neighbor had given them the day before,—were Wheelwright and his wife, shivering with cold. In one corner of the room lay two or three ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... wish he had used." And as he spoke the wounded parson sprang lithely to his feet and left us two women kneeling before him. In an instant a thought of Mary and the Magdalen flashed through my brain as he bent to raise me to my feet, while Martha crouched away from us ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... position and every imaginable costume. One solitary wigwam stood at the top and others could just be seen, betraying a considerable village in the rear. A large Union Jack also floated from a mast planted in the rock. There they sat and crouched and smoked, or stood, or leaned with that majestic composure peculiar to the Indian race; while below, on the slippery sides of the rock, tumbled and rolled about their dirty children, or prowled their grim and wolfish-looking dogs. It was a gay holiday time for them ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... on the overthrow of her life and hopes. There was no one left in whom she might confide; none whose hand was friendly, or on whom she dared to reckon for the barest loyalty. With the fall of Gondremark, her party, her brief popularity, had fallen. So she sat crouched upon the window-seat, her brow to the cool pane; her dress in tatters, barely shielding her; ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this daring flight, his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both Houses of Parliament. Yes, he did make you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, sir; he has attacked even you—he has—and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying away our royal eagle in his pounces, and dashing ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and smiled. He had the appreciative smile of a man with a genius for listening, which is a better, because a rarer, contribution to conversation than good speech. Philip, crouched in his chair with his face averted from the electric lights, ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... the furthest end, crouched a lady holding a little boy in her arms. Before her stood a Spanish gentleman, sword in hand. A servant, also armed, stood by him. They were hard pressed, for six or eight men with swords and pikes were cutting ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... evenings were chill, so Jane had lit the fire, but the wind drove the smoke downwards and the air was full of its acrid taint. Johnson felt chilled to the bone, though rather by his apprehensions than by the weather. He crouched over the fire with his thin white hands held out to the blaze. At ten o'clock Jane brought in the joint of cold meat and laid his place for supper, but he could not bring himself to touch it. He drank a glass of the beer, however, and felt the better for it. The tension of ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... truth of this statement. However, now that man can ride on a street car and earn, or at least get, his daily bread by sitting in an office, it is necessary to exercise a little in order to get good results. The farmer who sits crouched up on a plow, mower or binder also fails to use his lungs, but if he gets out and pitches hay or bundles of grain, he is sure to get what oxygen ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... I came up the path I saw something that astonished me. There was a circle of beasts about the hut, little conies that sat in the sunlight and shadow, without feeding, though it was the time for it; and as I came nearer I saw other beasts. There was a wild cat crouched in the shadow of the hazels moving his tail from side to side; a stag with his two does stood beneath a beech-tree, and a boar looked over the bank against which ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... Dick crouched back into the doorway of the cave. He was trying to think what to do. It was an awkward situation. He didn't want to be caught in what looked, on the face of it, like an act of spying, and yet he didn't wish Masterson and his cronies to think him ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... which the old man crouched and shivered, he took a blazing brand and using it to light his way entered the lodge from which the former had emerged. It seemed empty of everything save that in one corner, on a heap of dried grasses, there lay ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... waiting for the prompter to give him the word"—says Mr. Whitfield the actor, who was then with him upon the stage—"then put out his right hand, as if going to take hold of mine. It dropt, as if to support his fall, but it had no power; in that instant he fell, but not at full length, he crouched in falling, so that his head did not strike the stage with great violence. He never breathed after. I think I may venture to say he died without a pang." It is one of the most melancholy incidents connected ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli |
