"Slouching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was closed and fastened behind him and almost before he had taken his lungs full of the clean night air (for the house had been hot and stuffy), a shadow came slouching across the lawn in the moonlight. Peter joined the man at once and they walked around the house, while Peter questioned him as to the number of men and their disposition about the place. There were six, he found, including Wells, with six more to sleep in the stable, which was also used ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... many of them as fair, and quite as clean-looking, as Englishmen. Some of the regiments, raised in northern latitudes, were composed of fine, dark-bearded men, while the officers were generally good-looking and gentlemanly. These, however, were crack troops, and were certainly very different from the slouching, loutish-looking recruits to be seen when no ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... told me all was well. Leaving the wood we came to what appeared to be a large rough clearing. There were no trees—only bumps of earth covered with tall weeds. To our surprise we caught sight of the jaunty blue figure of a poilu, and then a band of slouching green-coated prisoners who were digging in their heavy leisurely manner. Mademoiselle Froissart inquired for the village ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... turned, caught sight of Pomfrey standing in the doorway, and walked quietly away. Amazed, yet gratified with this new assertion of herself, Pomfrey respectfully, but alas! incautiously, called after her. In an instant, at the sound of his voice, she dropped again into her slouching Indian trot and glided away over ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... daytime, but will sit for any length of time beside the man. And his slumberous propensities would not seem to be referable to the fatigue of carrying the bundle, for she carries it much oftener and further than he. When they are afoot, you will mostly find him slouching on ahead, in a gruff temper, while she lags heavily behind with the burden. He is given to personally correcting her, too—which phase of his character develops itself oftenest, on benches outside alehouse doors—and she appears to become strongly ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... faculty of obedience, sat down where she was directed, and fastened her stolid gaze upon the pot. For a time there was absolute silence in the garret, a ray of cold winter sunshine, cold but bright (for this was Paris), streamed in through the little window in the roof, and fell on Perine's slouching figure and coarse hair. Less than five minutes, however, had passed, when the chintz curtains of the alcove shook, parted, and from between them looked out a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... were exceedingly heavy with all the moisture they had imbibed. Repose had mitigated his fatigue, but every slow, slouching step of the horse intensified it again—and at a tremendous rate. Still, he did not care, having mastered the great truth that he would either tall off the horse in exhaustion or arrive at Kingswood—and which of the alternatives happened did not appear to him to matter seriously. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... gone, his example and his wishes still inspired me. And though I was not a studious cadet, I was a smart soldier, and my demerits, when they came, were for smoking in my room or for breaking some other such silly rule, and never for slouching through the manual or coming on parade with my belts twisted. And at the end of the second year I had been promoted from corporal to be a cadet first sergeant, so that I was fourth in command over a company of seventy. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... them—the giant father slouching in his saddle and the trim figure of the now sadly misplaced girl, erect on the awkward-pacing mountain beast—as incongruous, the two, as a fairy on some prehistoric monster. A horseman was coming up the street behind him and ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... there must be no interference or delay; she had so little time! For by morning they would guess, those three worried people—who had not yet begun to be sorry—they would guess what she had done, and they would follow her. She saw the gnomes slouching back past the cars, upright this time; then she felt the enormous tug of the engine beginning the up-grade. It grew colder, and she was glad of the blankets which she had not liked to touch when she first lay down in her berth. Outside there ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... mouth, which stretched easily into a smile, but which was none the pleasanter for that. When he turned inquiringly toward them they saw that he was stoop-shouldered; though not from any deformity, but from sheer, slouching lankness. Dunk gave them a swift, sour look from under his eyebrows and ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... gentlemen hunting or riding races at Newmarket—remember the Sir Joshuas in many a noble gallery; and you will not fail to remark that the choice spirits of the day, the go-ahead lads of that time, had let down the flaps of their cocked hats into slouching, and we must say, most slovenly circular brims. There was a sort of free-and-easy look affected in that day about the head, totally at enmity with the prim rigidity of the cocked beaver; you might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... was turned to the speaker and for several moments he remained standing at the top of the veranda steps, following with his eyes the slouching figure that had just passed through the gate and was tramping slowly along the county road. Then, with a sigh he returned to his seat and, running his fingers through his ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... close to half an hour before he heard Bob's sharply whistled tune close outside in the gun deck. He ducked lower behind his box and presently heard steps descending the ladder. A guarded observation taken from a dark corner close to the floor disclosed the slouching form of Daggs standing by ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... of Pendle flung back his burning glance. Nature seemed to welter in a wide atmosphere of light, from which there was no escape. Panting and oppressed, the hounds lay basking by the wall, and the shaggy wolf-dog crept, with slouching gait and lolling tongue, from the glare into the shadow of some protecting buttress. The watchman sat beneath the low battlements, hardly able to direct his aching eyes towards the forest path below the hill. The monotony of this dull and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... will warrant that little slouching cur is not he. Hereward must be half as big again, if it be true that he can kill a man with one blow ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... they saw a rough-looking man slouching against the building, his hands in his pockets, his blear eyes taking in the new-comers with a look of contemptuous hostility. As they passed, he spat tobacco juice on the dog and across the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... not understand this, he thought only of looking under each steel cap or tall, slouching hat for Jephthah. Several times a youthful, slender figure raised his hopes, and disappointed him, and he began to wonder whether Jeph could have after all stayed behind in the town, or if he could have been hurt ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shout she turned, and laughingly waited for him. He advanced, suddenly assuming the slouching, shoulder-swinging gait of the "bad man," his brows drawn and fierce, his chin ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... some one was whistling a doleful tune. The spring wind blowing in their faces was fresh and moist, a soft wind laden with the smell of earth. A clumsy hound came slouching around the corner of the little porch and, wagging his tail, stopped below them; the light shone down into his big, glistening eyes. Viola spoke to him softly. He wagged ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... an English evolutionist, gives this imaginary picture of our supposed ancestor: "We may not unjustifiably picture him to ourselves as a tall and hairy creature, more or less erect, but with a slouching gait, black faced and whiskered, with prominent, prognathous muzza, and large, pointed canine teeth, those of each jaw fitted into an interspace in the opposite row. These teeth, as Mr. Darwin suggests, were used in the combats ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... too soon, either; for, as they came running down to their boat a mean-looking, slouching sort of fellow walked ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... to Robert. The fair proportions of the one brought out the irregular build of the other; the classical face made the plain one more homely, the erect bearing made the eye turn to the slouching carriage, and the readiness of address provoked comparison with the awkward diffidence of one disregarded at home. Bashfulness and depression had regained their hold of the elder lad almost as the younger one entered, and in the changes ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slouching, scowling monster did know anything? For a minute or two then Raut was really afraid for his life, but the mood passed as he reasoned with himself. After all, Horrocks might have heard nothing. At ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and let somebody sell the new milk to the poor at cost price—say, five farthings the quart. You must not give it, or they will water their muckheaps with it. With those cows alone you will get rid, in the next generation, of the half-grown, slouching men, the hollow-eyed, narrow-chested, round-backed women, and the calfless boys one sees all over Islip, and restore the stalwart race that filled the little village under your sires and have left proofs of their wholesome food on the tombstones: for I have read ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... invariable custom when the trader was absent, to leave the keys of the safe and desks with Mrs. Hay, was surprised to find her in a flood of tears, for which she declined all explanation; yet the sight of Pete, the half breed, slouching away toward the stables as Marble closed the gate, more than suggested cause, for "Pink" had long disapproved of that young man. That night Crapaud, the other stableman, had scandalized Jerry Sullivan, the bar-keeper, and old McGann, Webb's Hibernian ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... then sank to sudden silence. There came a quick shuffling of feet in separation. The group fell apart. The store was empty! Out in the open air, under the warm summons of the sun, there passed a merry, laughing group of negroes, happy, care-free, each humming the burden of some simple song, each slouching across the road, as though ease and the warm sun filled all his soul! Dissimulation and secretiveness, seeded in savagery, nourished in oppression, ingrained in the soul for generations, are part of a nature as opaque ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... middle size, of slouching gait, and common-place appearance, redeemed by two fine dark eyes, which, melancholy in repose, gleamed and glowed whenever he became animated in conversation. He had warm affections, a tender, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... send us some towels, then," growls one of the number, a black-browed, surly-looking fellow with ponderous, bent shoulders and a slouching mien. Some of his companions titter encouragingly, others are silent. The sergeant of the guard flushes angrily and ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... last mile of heavy road, had slanted the tops of the fore-wheels towards each other at an alarming angle. The light, graceful dress and elegant parasol of the young girl, who occupied half of its single seat, looked ludicrously pronounced by the side of the slouching figure and grimy duster of the driver, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... regiment marched off in good order. It was almost entirely composed of boys; and though the whole body looked rather imposing when together, yet individually they have by no means a military air or appearance. Their uniform is extremely mean and unbecoming: it consists of a fez cap, worn slouching over the eyes and ears; an ill-made jacket of coarse blue cloth, faced and turned up with red; coarse white Russia duck trousers, always exceedingly dirty; Wellington boots in the same condition, into one of which the right leg of the pantaloon ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... than the village idiot, a nephew of the blacksmith, one who neither would nor could care for the church or for anything else. He was always called "Mad Joe," and seemed to have no other name; he was a dark, strong, slouching lad, with a heavy white face, dark straight hair, and a mouth always open. As he passed the priest, his moon-calf countenance gave no hint of what he had been doing or thinking of. He had never been known to pray before. What sort of prayers was he saying now? ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the vicinity, and it was quickly evident from the manner in which the wayfarer recognised him and came forward to meet him with outstretched hand that they had met by appointment. Short of stature as he was, with fair hair, colourless eyes, and a fair moustache, his slouching appearance was that of one who had seen better days, even though there still remained about him a vestige of dandyism. The close observer would, however, detect that his clothes, shabby though they were, were of foreign cut, and that his greeting was of that ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... the Byers girl to marry him. You saw him going down the road toward the Byers place four nights out of the seven. He had a quick, light step at variance with his sturdy build, and very different from the heavy, slouching gait of the work-weary farmer. He had a habit of carrying in his hand a little twig or switch cut from a tree. This he would twirl blithely as he walked along. The switch and the twirl represented just so much energy and animal ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... commonplace. Why, the girls had Glenn and Aaron on the go until old man Nate and myself could hardly get them out on a hunt at all. And when they did, provided the girls were along, they managed to get separated, and along about dusk they'd come slouching in by pairs, looking as innocent as turtle-doves. Not that those Wilson girls can't ride, for I never saw a better horsewoman than Susie—the one who took ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... we never saw him any more, and, of course, all he really wanted was a shilling. There are a certain number of riverside roughs who make quite an income, during the summer, by slouching about the banks and blackmailing weak-minded noodles in this way. They represent themselves as sent by the proprietor. The proper course to pursue is to offer your name and address, and leave the owner, if he really has anything to do with the matter, to summon you, and prove what ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... floor, and drove it, from behind, through his heart. He placed the knife upon the floor where drops of blood, trickling from its curved point, lay upon the white marble like spilled rubies. He unfastened the silver chain that carried the keys and crossed the floor with the slouching crouch of a hyena. Rapidly he opened the iron box, took the paper Amir Khan had placed there, and hesitated for a second, his ghoulish eyes gloating over the jewels and gold; but he did not touch them, his animal cunning holding him to the simple plan ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... He was gone, slouching along again and in no haste now that he had fulfilled his first duty. What haste could there possibly be since, sheepman from Las Palmas or another, he was dead and therefore must wait upon Ignacio Chavez's pleasure? Somehow she gleaned ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... the man, reaching for the barrel. 'Shoot better if I do the aimin'.' A laugh greeted this remark. Ab looked up again. There was a quick start in his great slouching figure. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... his concealed position Jasper was ere long able to see the dim form of a man slouching cautiously along, keeping well to the side of the road where the trees and bushes were the thickest. He even brushed the hazel bushes in passing and Jasper held his breath lest he should be detected by his breathing. He was sure now that the man had ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... see the slouching fellows making tracks across his fields, every one of which he looked on with as much jealousy as if it had been a garden—a wild garden they were too, strewn sometimes with the white cotton of the plane tree, hung about with roses and sweet with mowing grass. Those who love fields and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... I don't know anything about Mexico, except at second-hand. But, I should say, schools. Schools are good for any land, don't you think, Mr. Drury? And in Mexico they are such great disturbers of the old slouching indifference. They will make the right kind of discontent. Schools bring other things; new ideas of health and sanitation, home improvement, social outlook, and all that. Then, with the schools, I guess, the straight gospel. The Mexicans won't get converted ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... Those slouching men in long jack boots, butchers' blouses of white and shapeless form, are Russian soldiers. Soldiers, indeed! where is the smartness, the upright bearing, the stately tread and general air of cleanliness one expects in a soldier? These men look as if they had just tumbled ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Crump's slouching footsteps went out of hearing, and Isom sat where he was. His elbows dropped to his knees. His face dropped slowly into his hands, and the nettles of remorse began to sting. He took the back of one tremulous hand presently to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, and he found it ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... those bramble flowers, you dolt!" she retorted, springing to her knees. The foot paused and then descended clumsily on the frail branch, and raising her eyes she saw above her the bewildered face of a slouching man with a thin sunburnt beard, and white arms ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... skipper of the British collier, slouching with a heavy load of grime for London, or waddling back in ballast to his native North, alike is delighted to discover storms ahead, and to cast his tarry anchor into soft gray calm. For here shall ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the river, where he earned his daily bread, where his friends eked out their toilsome lives. Martin joined the silent, detached groups hurrying towards the city. He passed down the whole length of the Marszalkowska with the others slouching along the middle of the street beneath the gaze of the soldiers, brushing past the horses of the Cossacks stationed at the street corners. And he ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... to grow into solemn importance under his hands, and to acquire an unaccountable fascination from his connection with it. His attenuated figure, the habit of loneliness which imparted such severe and inflexible gravity to his features, his very dress, loose, careless, and slouching, all helped to give a peculiar force to his words. Had the Wandering Jew suddenly appeared before us, and mentioned the name of the dwarf, I could not have been more astonished. My steward was ignorant of my acquaintance with him, and Forrester had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... were much quieter, though there were numbers of soldiers slouching about with their muskets pointing every which way. When we arrived at last in the Rue de Courcelles (it had taken us four hours) all was as quiet ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked out of the window across the dreary dunes. Roden stood beside him, slouching and heavy-shouldered, with his hands in his trouser pockets. His lower lip was pressed inward between his teeth. His ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... before us at the present moment, and first let us look at it from its purely material side. Thousands of youths who a few months ago were slouching, narrow-chested, feeble specimens of underbred humanity, have now-expanded into well set up, hardened men. The body has been disciplined by drill, exercises, route-marching, and the like. Those who return from the war uninjured will, we may hope, be in such ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... Tharon's visit to the cabin in the glade, that Kenset, riding alone along the twilight land, passed close to the mouth of Black Coulee one day at dusk. He rode loosely, slouching sidewise in his saddle, for he had been to Corvan for his monthly mail and a few supplies tied in a bag behind his saddle, and he carried his ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... here," commanded Tessibel, beckoning to the slouching squatter across the way. The man with the basket offered the contents ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... and rough-haired, one of them carroty red, the other brindle and white, were slouching inertly along the narrow backwoods road. From habit they sagged heavily on the yoke, and groaned huge windy sighs, although the vehicle they were hauling held no load. This structure, the mere skeleton of a cart, consisted of two pairs of clumsy, broad-tired wheels, united by a long ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... commission. By means of the acquaintances he had made through his old mission class, he was able to secure enlistments rapidly, and although much of the material that he brought in was unpromising in its first appearance, he seemed to have the faculty of transforming the slouching dilapidated fellows into soldiers, and it passed into general remark that "Haldane's company was the roughest to start with and the best disciplined and most soldierly of them all when ordered to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of brandy as ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had seen Jim disappear between the first houses. He never set his eyes on him again. On his way back he met Cornelius slouching down with his head between his shoulders. He stopped before Brown. "Why didn't you kill him?" he demanded in a sour, discontented voice. "Because I could do better than that," Brown said with an amused smile. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... He was slouching along, his head drooping and his broad shoulders expressing the definite antipodes of good spirits. Betty studied his back as she strode after him, her conclusion being that he was perhaps not a good-humoured man to approach at ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Lem Wacker came slouching along. It was six o'clock, the quitting hour. Lem was always on time on such occasions. The whistle from the shops had ceased echoing, and, his dinner pail on his arm and filling his inevitable pipe, ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... or have a slouching gait," said the instructor quietly; "but you will find when you come to march that the opposite extreme is attended with great inconvenience and discomfort. Until then you must depend ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the same thing. First, following close upon the heels of sunset, comes a grizzly, tall, and slouching man, in the cap and blouse of a Union soldier, bearing down with his left hand upon a cane, and dragging his left foot heavily behind him, while with his right hand he holds by a string a cluster of soaring toy balloons, and also drags, by its long wooden tongue, a rude child's ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... publish. This casualness is our English vice. It is at once casual and secret. Our public life is conducted privately. Hence it follows that if an English swindler wished to impress us, the last thing he would think of doing would be to put on a uniform. He would put on a polite slouching air and a careless, expensive suit of clothes; he would stroll up to the Mayor, be so awfully sorry to disturb him, find he had forgotten his card-case, mention, as if he were ashamed of it, that he was the Duke of Mercia, and carry ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... greasy scoundrel who congregates with his mates at street corners; the unspeakable dogs who prowl at night in London and snatch their prey in lonely thoroughfares; the "jolly" gangs of young men who play cards till dawn in provincial club-rooms; even the slouching poacher who passes his afternoons in humorous converse at the ale-house—they are all idlers, and they all form bad company for anybody who comes within range of their influences. We are nearing the point of our demonstration. The youth is at first attracted by the charm of mere ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals rousing himself to see how the night ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the Polar bear not only moves rapidly through the water, but is also capable of darting forward in such a way as to seize a fish before it can escape beyond reach. On the land, also, he can move with rapidity—his slouching trot being almost as fast as ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... starting-point. Such was the experience this day of Breaden, Charlie, and myself, and disgusted we returned to camp at sundown. Warri was so late that I began to think he must have come upon the natives themselves, who had given him too warm a welcome. Presently he appeared, slouching along with an expressionless face, save for a twinkle in his eye (literally eye, for one was wall-eyed). My supposition was more or less correct; he had been fortunate in getting on the home-going tracks of some gins; following ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... Smith stood looking after the five slouching figures moving away toward their blind trails. When ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... effective methods of avoiding self-poisoning is by maintaining an erect posture. In an erect posture the abdominal muscles tend to remain taut and to afford proper support or pressure to the abdomen, including the great splanchnic circulation of large blood-vessels. In an habitual slouching posture, the blood of the abdomen tends to stagnate in the liver and the splanchnic circulation, causing a feeling of despondency and mental confusion, headache, coldness of the hands and feet, and chronic fatigue or neurasthenia, ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... irregular lanes between them, in which the polyglot traders bought and sold. Here were grave Armenians, scampish Greeks from the Levant, wild-eyed Bedouins, Tartars from Asia Minor, evil-visaged Italians, scowling Spaniards, hoarse-voiced, slouching Whitechapel ruffians, with a well-developed talent for dealing in ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... was a curly-headed lad of twenty, with a shrewd, good-humored face. He stood in a slouching attitude, one shoulder much higher than the other, and as he gave forth, in a singsong voice, his emphatic rhymed directions, his fingers played idly with the red-silk lacings of his brown flannel shirt. To an imaginative looker-on those idly toying fingers had an indefinable ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... 1860, the Governor, as he was always called, came to dinner, alone, as one of the family, and the private secretary had the chance he wanted to watch him as carefully as one generally watches men who dispose of one's future. A slouching, slender figure; a head like a wise macaw; a beaked nose; shaggy eyebrows; unorderly hair and clothes; hoarse voice; offhand manner; free talk, and perpetual cigar, offered a new type — of western New York — to fathom; a type in one way ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... were generally sickly and dispirited, and went to their daily work in a slouching, dogged manner, that showed their passive hatred ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... cottage twenty yards ahead, and, stopping in the path, turned round and watched me approaching. That time I really thought the game was up. It was absolutely essential to maintain a bold exterior, despite the fact that my breathing apparatus almost ceased to work. Slouching quickly along, I whistled a bar or two of "Pueppchen." Curiously enough my presence at that time of night created no suspicion, for I passed them without being spoken to. Before taking a road leading to the west, I sat down ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... your Waterloos, but the English peasant, trimmed and trained into the game-cock of war? How many of them have been carried off to man your fleets, to win your Camperdowns and Trafalgars? and when they came ashore again, were no longer the simple, slouching Simons of the village; but jolly tars, with rolling gait, quid in mouth, glazed hats, with crowns of one inch high, and brims of five wide, and with as much glib slang, and glib money to treat the girls with, as any ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... prescription—was Philip Stukely, the apothecary's only assistant; while the other was one Colin Dunster, a pallid, raw-boned youth whose business it was to distribute the medicines to his master's customers. He was slouching now, outside the counter, beside a basket three-parts full of bottles, each neatly enwrapped in white paper and inscribed with the name and address of the customer to whom it was to be delivered in due course. Apparently ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... shaped, ill-proportioned; crooked &c. (distorted) 243; hard featured, hard visaged; ill-favored, hard-favored, evil-favored; ill-looking; unprepossessing, unattractive, uninviting, unpleasing. graceless, inelegant; ungraceful, ungainly, uncouth, stiff; rugged, rough, gross, rude, awkward, clumsy, slouching, rickety; gawky; lumping, lumpish[obs3]; lumbering; hulky[obs3], hulking; unwieldy. squalid, haggard; grim, grim faced, grim visaged; grisly, ghastly; ghost like, death like; cadaverous, grewsome[obs3], gruesome. frightful, hideous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the ground, perhaps, of not needing the wings of liberty for any other purpose—were expected to furnish (from them) their own pens. There were but half a dozen of these unfortunates; all, with two exceptions, were of the same type—that of the ordinary agricultural criminal. Ignorant, slouching, dogged, they might have fired a rick, or killed a keeper, or even—sacrilegious but unthinking boors—have shot a great man's pheasant. They did not make use of their privileges of conversation beyond a muttered ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... sable cloak, "Tressilian" wends his way, His slouching hat denies his brow the cheering light of day; See how he dogs the proud earl's steps, as "Leicester" bears along The lovely "Amy" on his arm through that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... Tim came slouching slowly into the tanyard, a good-natured grin on his face. He paused only to knock Rufe's hat over his eyes, as the small boy stood in front of the low-spirited mule, both hands busy with the animal's mouth, striving to open his jaws to judge by his ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... fellow, with a handsome figure and face, though the latter was very dark, and he walked with a stoop and an awkward slouching gait. He wore his long black hair in straight elfin locks; those in front having been cut across the forehead just above the eyebrows, as being the simplest method of clearing the way for vision. He was clad in a very dirty soiled hunting-shirt and leggings of ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... her as she neared the rocks, to make sure that she was approaching them in a right direction, she was startled to see a man's figure standing there. Startled, because it was not the bent-shouldered form of Mr. Underhill, nor the slouching habit of Anderese; but tall, stately and well put on. It was too far to see the face; and in her one startled look Elizabeth did not distinctly recognize anything. Her heart gave a pang of a leap at the possibility of its being Winthrop; ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... displayed the number given in the note on its grimy facia. The baronet, as he moved towards it, was unconscious of the slouching figure of the labourer, who had been selling matches near the Albany, a few paces behind him. His foot was on the threshold of the shop when a man, black-bearded and swarthy, pressed an envelope into ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... bayonets pointed outward against the jostling peering crowd. The three who were to die could now see no human being beyond the dense, double row of soldiery. The remainder of earth for them was the hollow square, bounded by the slouching backs clothed in blue, by the white flats of the kepis, by the line of light playing over the thorns of steel. Beyond was the early morning sun; above, the mystery ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... strong, in a flat-chested, slouching sort of way, and had grown neglectful of even decency in his dress. He wore the American farmer's customary outfit of rough brown pants, hickory shirt, and greasy white hat. It differed from his neighbors, mainly in ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... upon the chair. By holding one foot underneath the chair in such a manner that you could rise to a standing position, if desired, without lurching forward, you will find it easy to maintain a well balanced and erect posture. If at any time you find yourself slumping forward or slouching in your seat, it is good to stretch your arms high above the head, or to expand the chest and draw your shoulders backward in the position commonly assumed when yawning and stretching. Either of these stretching movements will give you an erect position, and you ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... their murderous deeds of old— The grisly story Chaucer told, And many an ugly tale beside, Of children caught and crucified. I heard the ducat-sweating thieves Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, And thrust beyond the tented green, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... greatly pleased, smiled back at him. The shack was a "blind Tiger" where whiskey could be sold to Kentuckians on the Virginia side and to Virginians on the Kentucky side. Hanging around were the slouching figures of several moonshiners and the villainous fellow who ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... Quatre, to the effect of which a collar cut in Van Dyck fashion gave an especial significance. Cecil Walpole was disposed to be pictorial in his get-up, and the purple dye of his knickerbocker stockings, the slouching plumage of his Tyrol hat, and the graceful hang of his jacket, had excited envy in quarters where envy was fame. He too was on the viceregal staff, being private secretary to his relative the Lord-Lieutenant, during whose absence in England they had undertaken a ramble to the Westmeath ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... so fluent of his English, he had such an audacious, wide-branching mustache, such a twinkle in his left eye,—which wore its lid in a careless, slouching fashion,—that the heart of man naturally clove to him; and Colonel Ellison agreed on the spot to make the proposed promenade, for himself and both his ladies, of whom he went joyfully in search. He found them at the stern of the boat, admiring the ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... tightening of the muscles he became aware of a figure walking noiselessly beside him. His first impression was of a face singularly broad above and with a wide empty grin as its chief feature below, of a slouching ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... on board can match herself so bravely against black heaven and ocean. Well, so when you have travelled for days and days over an Eastern desert without meeting the likeness of a human being, and then at last see an English shooting-jacket and his servant come listlessly slouching along from out of the forward horizon, you stare at the wide unproportion between this slender company and the boundless plains of sand through which they ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... gave these small consideration, my thought centring rather on the two riding in front, the Indian slouching carelessly in his saddle, his real shape scarcely discernible, while the lieutenant sat stiff and straight, with head erect, his slender figure plainly outlined against the sky-line. He alone of the four spoke an occasional word, in the contralto boyish voice, of which I made little, however, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... watched him out of sight down the road; then she sat down and wept. Jim Mason came slouching around from his station at the barn door. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind another kind of horse,—a slouching, listless beast, with a strong slant to his shoulder and a notable depth to his quarter and an emphatic angle at the hock, who commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an hour; but, if a lively colt happened to come rattling up alongside, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... whole road to myself, for no one was yet stirring, and I walked on, with a slouching, dogged gait. The gray shooting-jacket was on my back, and from the end of my brother's rifle hung a small bundle of my clothes. My fingers worked moodily at the stock and trigger, and I thought that this indeed was the way to ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Such a barking! Such a chorus of welcome! Such exclamations of satisfaction it is impossible to describe. The new-comer was a man of immense stature, evidently more used to riding than to walking. For his gait was slouching, his limbs seemed to dangle about him, and he had a lazy, listless stoop, as he came up the garden with his saddle over his arm listening to a score of voices, patting the dogs that leaped around and upon him, ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... platform, standing up in the sleigh and peering eagerly after the train stopped. He called the name, "Mr. Barnes," until the few sleepy, slouching, countrified passengers who alighted had passed ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... instead of grumbling. He might have gone out into the street and fought, like the man who took the Bastille. It is somewhat nationally significant that when we talk of the man in the street it means a figure silent, slouching, and even feeble. When the French speak of the man in the street, it means danger ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... swashing, ruffling, desperate Dick, and not to be made a common jest for Stratford dolts to giggle at What! These legs, that have put on the very gentleman in proud Verona's streets, laid in Stratford's common stocks, like a silly apprentice's slouching heels? Nay, nay; some one should taste old Bless-his-heart here first!" and with that he clapped his hand upon the hilt of his poniard, with a wonderful swaggering tilt of his shoulders. "Dost ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... as far as the porch steps. A queer-looking individual was slouching along with ax over ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... slouching along the deck after their usual manner, and grouped themselves about the binnacle, "Why, where's the rest of ye?" demanded the carpenter, glaring angrily from one to the other; "where's Bill—and Jim—and Joe? Jump for'ard, one of ye, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... blooming by the roadside; and then, with many a mile of smiling pastures in its victorious wake, it burst over the low rampart of stable roofs encircling the old Lexington race-course, and, after a hasty glimpse at the horses speeding around the track and the black boys singing and slouching from stall to stall with buckets of water on their heads, it rushed impetuously into an old-fashioned, deep-waisted family barouche beside one of the stables, and shone full upon a slender, girlish ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... last agreed to take me as his mate. I had bought provisions and some working clothes, and stood there now, in blouse and high boots, ready to start work. I was free and unknown; I learned to walk with a long, slouching stride, and for the look of a laboring man, I had that already both in face and hands. We were to put up at the vicarage itself, and cook our food in the brew-house across ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... as, seeing him close at hand, she noted the change in him. Although, with his slouching gait and loose-hung limbs and hanging head, he had never been a smart-looking man, he had yet been one possessed of great personal nicety; in that matter—in the shipwreck of his life—being careful not to let ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... unmilitary can be conceived. Their horses were passably hardy and active, but stunted, mean-looking animals, while the saddle-gear would have been dear anywhere at five dollars. The men themselves had the lazy, slouching look peculiar to the hybrid class with which they wished to be identified. They were civil and sorry enough about the turn affairs had taken; but evidently quite determined that we should part company. The elder of the two took me aside, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Stefan Thomasevics on his way to Rogatica to help in gathering the harvest, was seated beside Selim Ali, Zubeydeh's cousin, driving in a cart through the silent Kastele. Renwick saw several Bosnian police officers in uniform, who inspected the empty vehicle, but merely glanced at the slouching figures on the seat. At the Visegrader Gate they were detained and questioned, but Selim had a clever tongue and told a straight story which Renwick corroborated with nods and gestures. It would have been ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs |
