"Skulking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the spirit-world, and perhaps came to a better understanding before they had taken many steps on the other side. Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal grudge for a deed like that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking enemy. The memorial-hunters have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well as the adjacent doors and doorframes, have recently been renewed; the walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... about that." She smiled at him with that sweetness which only a woman can know when she has the advantage. "I didn't pick them. Lost Wing"—she pointed to the skulking, outlandishly dressed Indian in the background—"attended to that. I was going to send them over by him. But I didn't have anything to do, so I just thought I'd ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... mentioned, and that of his legs being fastened with iron fetters "under his horse's wombe" is told with savage exultation. The piece was probably indited in the very year of the political murders which it celebrates, certainly before 1314, as it mentions the skulking of Robert Bruce, which, after the battle of Bannockburn, must have become a jest ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... out my legs luxuriously, pleasantly contemplating the stern yet kindly role I was to play: first send him skulking, next enact the solemn father to this foolish maid. Then, admonishing and smiling forgiveness in one breath, retire as gravely as I entered—a highly interesting ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... different fellows from the chicken-hearted children of the desert recorded in these volumes. One thing only is certain, that they have left their anti-fighting propensities to their mongrel descendants in Spain; for a series of actions—that is, jinking and skulking, and running up and down, hiding themselves as if they were the personages of a writ—more distinctly Arabian than the late campaign which ended in the overthrow of Espartero, could not have been performed under the shadows of Mount Ebal. All the nobility that we are so fond ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... war against the Pi-Ute Indians was then at its height, and as we were in the middle of their country, it became necessary for us to keep a standing guard night and day. The Indians were often skulking around, but none of them ever came near enough for us to get a shot at him, till one dark night when I was on guard, I noticed one of our horses prick up his ears and stare. I looked in the direction indicated and saw an Indian's head projecting above the wall. My instructions ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... see if anything could be picked up, they found Mary sitting on the sand beside the dead body of a man. The dead sailor's head was bruised, and his waistcoat had been torn open. A rat-catcher who had crossed the moor said that he saw the man who drowned the dog skulking up the hollow from the place where the corpse lay, but no one brought any definite accusation, for, after all, the bruise on the head might have been caused by a blow on a stone. Still the suspected man had ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Captain E—— as he stood over the fellow with hands a-twitching to take hold of him. "You mean, skulking coward, to talk like that of men who have come over to fight in the place of wretched gutter-snipes ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... a great mistake to make the discussion turn on sentimentalities about skulking or cowardice. Secrecy is justifiable in many cases, imperative in some, and it is not cowardice to seek protection against evils which are honestly avoidable. Nor can it be reasonably maintained that no cases are conceivable in which secret voting is preferable to public; ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... even out of the commonplace in that. He had been a little bit on edge himself, perhaps, and the sudden movement of that shadow, unexpected, had startled him for the moment, as, in all probability, the opening of the window had startled the skulking ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... in May, 1854, a negro was seen skulking in the shadows near a dock in Boston. This coloured man, Anthony Burns by name, was a slave, who had escaped from his Southern master, and after weeks had reached Philadelphia, where a Quaker had stowed him away in a ship bound for Boston. A Boston policeman who caught sight of the negro ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... who had been skulking about all day, very much mortified and uneasy, came in, and, being very hungry, was going to sit down to the table with the rest; but Mr Barlow stopped him, and said, "No, sir, as you are too much of a gentleman ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... station, where we stopped, horrid rumors of Goshoots on the war-path, and, ere the day reached its noon, to find their proofs irrefragable. Every now and then we saw in the potash-dust moccasin-tracks, with the toes turned in, and presently my field-glass revealed a hideous devil skulking in the mile-off ledges, who was none other than a Goshoot spy. How far off were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... would see no human beings that day. Few people ever visited him in his cabin, but he took no chances. He crept up the mountain and skulking through the woods found an immense patch of laurels. He crawled into it, and sat down there for hours and hours, so that no one should have an opportunity to speak to him and stir the latent devil ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... towards the largest knot of these people, who were skulking behind the houses, leaving the litter halted in the path behind me, and I bade them sharply enough to disperse. "For an employment," I added, "put your houses in order, and clean the fish offal from the lanes ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... refusal to withdraw. Jumonville had sent the two couriers, and had hidden himself, apparently to wait the result. He lurked nearly two days within five miles of Washington's camp, sent out scouts to reconnoitre it, but gave no notice of his presence; played to perfection the part of a skulking enemy, and brought destruction on himself by conduct which can only be ascribed to a sinister motive on the one hand, or to extreme folly on the other. French deserters told Washington that the party came as spies, and were to show ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... rapidly through the darkness. His first aim was to get his eye on Perkins and Mad Whately, from whom he felt that he and Scoville had the most to fear. He was now armed with a knife and short club, as well as a revolver, and was determined to use them rather than be captured. Skulking, creeping and hiding in deep shadow, he at last saw Perkins issuing from his house, carrying his lantern. Following, he distinctly observed the brief interview between the overseer and Whately, and guessed correctly that Scoville was among the prisoners. He was soon able so to shift his ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... sure to be discovered," I whispered to Pablo. "Our wisest mode of proceeding will be to stand up and face them boldly. It will be better to die on our feet, than to be speared like skulking foxes." ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... from which gold and silver pieces were shot among the crowd. And the same king, when he had given the crazy and cruel order that the population of Dehli should evacuate the city and depart to Deogir, 900 miles distant, having found two men skulking behind, one of whom was paralytic and the other blind, caused the former to be shot from a mangonel. (I.B. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... recovered himself enough to ask: for it was perfectly plain that the pretentiously intrepid passenger had been skulking all day in the scrub, scared by ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... boy?" whispered the scout, lowering his tall form into a crouching attitude, like a panther about to take his leap; "God send it be a tardy Frencher, skulking for plunder. I do believe 'killdeer' would take an uncommon ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... turpitude of perjury. He esteemed it only a natural lie invested with pomp and circumstance; and the New Testament on which he should be sworn meant no more to his unlettered conscience than the horn-book, since he knew as little of its contents. But a lie is a skulking thing, and he had scant ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... those who still endeavored to escape the vigilance of the naval officers, and save the three pounds on each slave. But the diligence and liberality of the authorities were not to be outdone by the skulking stinginess of Negro-smugglers. On the 18th of June, 1723, the General Assembly passed ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Parisian Boulevard on a night like this! how many pleasant hours has one passed in watching the lights, and the hum, and the stir, and the laughter of those happy, idle people! There was none of this gayety here; nor was there a person to be found, except a skulking commissioner or two (whose real name in French is that of a fish that is eaten with fennel-sauce), and who offered to conduct us to certain curiosities in the town. What must we English not have done, that in every town in Europe we are to be fixed upon by scoundrels of this sort; and what a ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much as the periscope of a hostile submarine had been sighted. The German torpedo-boats that occasionally sneaked southwards from Borkum were taking an enforced holiday. Perhaps it was in sympathy with the "High Seas Fleet" skulking in the Kiel Canal. In any case, the six motor craft of the Capella class had a full share of wintry conditions in the North Sea without any compensating adventures to ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... six months I have seen a skulking scoundrel who endeavored to avoid my notice, and always turned pale when he saw a copy of Dwight's Journal of Music. I pursued him vigorously, and he confessed to me that he was the chief of sinners, and that his name ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... He isn't looking, for them. He's skulking there, out of the firing. He'll always ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... was gone, and the crooning stillness set in broken only by the many sounds of the night, we would sit huddled together by the fire. It was dread for him she felt, not for herself. And in both our minds rose red images of hideous foes skulking behind his brave form as he trod the forest floor. Polly Ann was not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to work on the Godfrey mill at Minnehaha. My mother was very timid. The sight of an Indian would nearly throw her into a fit. You can imagine that she was having fits most of the time for they were always around. Timber wolves, too, were always skulking around and following the men, but I never knew them to hurt anyone. Father said it used to make even him nervous to have them keep so near him. They would be right close up to him, as close as a dog would be. He always took a lively gait and kept it all the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... conqueror ran a quick hand over him, seeking for weapons, and finding none, he grasped The Laird by the collar and jerked him to his feet. "Now, then, my hearty, I'll have a look at you," he said. "You'll explain why you're skulking around here ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... he get in,' said th' lad, 'th' fence was all roight and safe?' But I said, 'Did ta fasten th' gate last noight?' He looked at th' gate and said, 'I don't knaw, father.' Ah, that wor it, there wor his foot-tracks through th' gateway. Ah, friends, the devil is like an owd ass, goin' skulking and shuffling abaat in th' dark when other folks are in bed sleeping, and he is always trying to get into th' Lord's garden and spoil th' flaars; yo' may mend th' fence as much as yo loike, but if you don't fasten th' gate, he'll be ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... ground floor. She stood up, revealing herself disdainfully in the moonlight that now lay full on her window, then went out quickly into the vestibule and unlocked the house door. Her only fear was that the man would have gone, but if he were still there she was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried a small pistol ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... Do you know what it is to have a man dodging after you through these odds and ends of streets here? I dare say you do. Well, I had three skulking thieves of Indians dodging after me, over better than four hundred miles of lonesome country, where I might have bawled for help for a whole week on end, and never made anybody hear me. They wanted my scalp, and they wanted my rifle, and they got both at last, at the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... discharged the cab and ventured on foot, attired in his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observation, into the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base passions raged within him like a tempest. He walked fast, hunted by his fears, chattering to himself, skulking through the less-frequented thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still divided him from midnight. ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... time to the present the history of Tammany Hall is a tale of victories, followed by occasional disclosures of corruption and favoritism; of quarrels with governors and presidents; of party fights between "up-state" and "city"; of skulking when its sachems were unwelcome in the White House; of periodical displays of patriotism for cloaking its grosser crimes; of perennial charities for fastening itself more firmly on the poorer populace which has always been the source of its power; of colossal ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... He paused a moment, and looked at her. "Lucy," he said, once more, clasping his forehead with one hand, "I've fought against it hard. I'm fighting against it still. But at times it almost gets the better of me. Do you know who I saw in the church this morning, skulking behind a pillar?— that ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... dancers, tailors, mantua-makers, and the like." From this great street we proceeded to the next, where the princess Lucre reigns; it was a full and prodigiously wealthy street, yet not half so splendid and clean as the street of Pride, nor its people half so bold and lofty looking; for they were skulking mean-looking ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... was so old and fat and ugly that even the malicious and inveterate gossip of skulking breeds and Indians, squatting over teepee fires, could not hint at anything questionable in the relations between her and Carey. But it was a different ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... thou art here again, I see! For in a season of such wretched weather I thought that thou hadst left us altogether, Although I could not choose but fancy thee Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether Thou shouldst be seen in such a company Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps. ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... melancholy stretch of water. They listened breathlessly. There was no sound beyond the normal stirrings of the forest. Bobby had a feeling, similar to the afternoon's, that he was watched. He tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness across the lake where he had fancied the woman skulking. The detective's keen ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... most luxurious within,—made to use and live in; for Mr. Brown, her uncle, was an Englishman, and had never arrived at that height of Transatlantic ton which consists in shrouding and darkening all the pleasant rooms in the house, and skulking through life in the basement and attic. Sunshine, cushions, and flowers were Mr. Brown's personal tastes; and plenty of these characterized the cottage. A green terrace between hill and river spread out before the door for lawn and garden, and a tiny conservatory abutted upon the brink of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... emotion must be evanescent, for all emotion is so. Effervescence cannot last, and when the cause ceases the effect ceases too. Discipleship which enlists in Christ's army, in ignorance of the hard marching and fighting which have to be gone through, will very soon be skulking in the rear or deserting the flag altogether. Discipleship which offers faithful following because it relies on its own fervour and force will, sooner or later, feel its unthinkingly undertaken obligations too ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... night was like the last, except that a Dog she encountered drove her backward on her trail for a long way. Several times she was misled by angling roads, and wandered far astray, but in time she wandered back again to her general southward course. The days were passed in skulking under barns and hiding from Dogs and small boys, and the nights in limping along the track, for she was getting foot-sore; but on she went, mile after mile, southward, ever southward—Dogs, boys, Roarers, hunger—Dogs, boys, Roarers, hunger—yet on ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of reason would have had me desist. There was not, it seems to me, looking back now, one street or alley, lane or court, in Blois which I did not visit again and again in my frantic wanderings; not a beggar skulking on foot that night whom I did not hunt down and question; not a wretched woman sleeping in arch or doorway whom I did not see and scrutinise. I returned to my mother's lodging again and again, always fruitlessly. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... flocks, attended only by a few dogs, who have the entire control of the sheep, keeping them from straying away, and not only defending them from the blood-thirsty wolf, but even attacking, if necessary, the skulking savage. ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... passing through the broad expanse of Lake Peoria. Their canoe was leaky and heavily laden. The current was strong, and their passage slow. They did not venture to land until after dark, that the landing might not be seen by any foe, skulking through the forest along the banks of the river. They also took the precaution to seek their night's encampment on the side of the stream opposite that which was ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... night Was ever as message of death to this devil bent double with fright. For now were the hunters abroad; and the fiend like an adder at bay, Cast out of the sight of the Lord, in the folds of his fastnesses lay. Yea, skulking in pits of the slime—in venomous dens of eclipse— He cowered and bided his time, with the white malice set on ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... earth that we loved had been washed away into the great, infinite, unknown ocean, and here were we marooned upon this desert island of a world, without companions, hopes, or aspirations. A few years' skulking like jackals among the graves of the human race and then our belated and lonely ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay—the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed—"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... pretty tough for father," said Richard. "I wouldn't go into the house with him, because I knew he wanted to have it to himself; and then to think of that dirty hound skulking in! Well, perhaps it's for the best. It will make it easier, for father to go and leave the place, and they've got to go. They've got to put the Atlantic Ocean between ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in this town, and some well-appointed hotels. Lake schooners, and steam and canal boats are here in abundance, it being an entrepot for western produce and eastern merchandize. A few straggling Indians are to be seen skulking about Buffalo, like dogs in Cairo, the victims of the inordinate use of ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... reflected drowsily. He had a feeling that, sooner or later, something was going to happen. There was something altogether mysterious about the actions of these Chukches, especially one great sullen fellow, who had come skulking about Johnny's igloo just before he ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... friends the castaways have been left to themselves, for the time undisturbed, save by the dogs, which give them almost continuous trouble. The skulking curs, led by one of their kind, form a ring around the camp, deafening the ears of its occupants with their angry baying and barking. Strangely enough, as if sharing the antipathy of their owners, they seem specially hostile ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... tracks for the last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and how that skulking brute got away from me ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... unpleasantly demonstrative rabble, and swore at them roundly. In another moment Pasmore was himself again, and he could see that gallows-like tree right in front of him... And what was that hulking brute alongside saying about skulking shermoganish? Was he going to his death hearing the uniform he wore insulted by cowardly brutes without making a resistance of some sort? He knew he would be shot down instantly if he did, and they would be glad of an excuse, but that would be only cutting short the agony. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... out and fetched back five more German rifles. By this time the officers began to realize that the boy must be taken seriously. From that night on almost every night found the intrepid lad skulking about over 'No Man's Land,' many times with the enemy's machine gun fire snapping about his ears, but to which he gave not the slightest heed. Remi truly seemed to bear ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... the forest among the giant tangles and I was not at all anxious to find the way out again. Perhaps I might have lived there all the Autumn, and only when the berries and nuts were exhausted and the cold winter winds sought me out should I come skulking back to the haunts of men like some wild animal made ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... battle storm we seek no lee, With skulking head, and bending knee, Behind the hollow shield. With eye and hand we fend the head; Courage and skill stand in the stead Of panzer, helm, and shield, In ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... his Maker, and more than once has given annoyance, especially last year, when he robbed a damson-tree of a brood of Baltimore orioles. This winter and spring his friendly interest in my birds has increased, and several times I have caught him skulking among the pines. Last night what should I stumble on but a trap, baited and sprung, under the cedar-tree in which the cardinal roosts. I was up before daybreak this morning. Awhile after the waking of the birds here comes my young bird-thief, creeping rapidly to his ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... intentions or tired of our protracted stay, they fired the grass on the hill at the entrance of the creek, possibly to deter us from entering. Still we thought this might have been done without reference to us, but afterwards two or three men with spears were seen by passing boats skulking along the banks of the river on their way to the rapid, where they again set fire to the grass as if to smoke us out or prevent our return. But the grassy tracts along the tops of the low hills in the vicinity being intersected by lines and patches of brush the fire did not ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... stood in silence for a minute or more, to ascertain if it were repeated. Another low moan presently ensued, and then a full outcry, as of a terrified child. Dymock and Shanty looked at each other, and Shanty said, "It is the beggar woman. She is still skulking about, I will be bound; hark!" he added, "listen! she will be stilling the child, she's got under the cart." But the child continued to screech, and there was neither threat nor blandishment used to still ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... indigestible, that it might please Providence to send. One thing, at least, is to their credit: never any of these poor masks, with their deep silent remembrances, have been detected through murmuring, or what is nautically understood by "skulking." So, for once, M. Michelet has an erratum to enter upon the fly-leaf of his book in ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... and say to the savage that was in him, "Go, kill her. She despises her race and flings herself at the white man's feet." And so, impelled by passion and stayed by love, he followed her. The white man within him made him ashamed of his skulking, and the Indian that was in him guided him around her and home by ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... like ghosts, went skulking by, vain charlatans, ashamed. But friendships stood about in every scene—bright presences that cast a roseate glow on all the tribulations of his life. And it seemed as if a failure here was half a failure only, after all. It had not robbed him either of his youth, his strength, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... the while on the ugliness of men's garments, a sudden storm of violent rasping screams burst from some holly bushes a few yards away. It proceeded from three excited jays, but whether they were girding at me, the shouting boys, or a skulking cat among the bushes, ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... upland and descend to the sea-board; there is a sight for you upon the billows! A dozen men-of-war are gliding majestically out of port, their long buntings streaming from the top-gallant masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the East? A gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... myself? A city which presents a depressing variety of social needs can hardly afford to spare any good citizen, however humble, who is capable of social service, and for such a citizen to contract himself out of his obligations is very like skulking. I confess that this consideration occasioned me some uneasiness, and the questions which it raised have been treated with such admirable lucidity by a friend of mine, who still resides in London, that I will let him put ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... replied swiftly, "for now I can work openly, knowing exactly what I ought to do. I have felt like a rat skulking in a hole. I believed what those men told me; they convinced me with proofs I could not ignore, but they must have lied. In some details, at least, they must have deceived. Now would it be possible for Philip Henley to be in a penitentiary convicted ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... triple barriers of reserve; and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael, was wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most skilful masters of good manners. No rentroll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulation; and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really all the forms of good-breeding point ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... letters were read; and when, at last, they were brought out, they all got round any one who had a letter, and expected to have it read aloud, and have it all in common. If any one went by himself to read, it was—"Fair play, there; and no skulking!" I took mine and went into the sailmaker's berth, where I could read it without interruption. It was dated August, just a year from the time I had sailed from home; and every one was well, and no great change had taken ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... spied her skulking in the distance, they would probably conclude she carried a message that might be valuable to them and pursue her. If she walked right through them? Bah! Would they know it was Rosette—Rosette, for whose capture a fine reward ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... were soon alive with these alert, skulking minions. Every approach to the points of danger was guarded by desperate, heavily armed scoundrels who would not have hesitated an instant if it came to their hands to kill Truxton King, the man with all their dearest secrets in his grasp. In dark doorways lounged these apparently couchless ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... me? I bade ye ask Lysia, . ." and all at once he sat bolt upright, his face crimsoning as with an access of passion.. "Ask Lysia!" he repeated loudly.. "Ask her why the mighty Zephoranim creeps in and out the Sacred Temple at midnight like a skulking slave instead of a King! ... at midnight, when he should be shut within his palace walls, playing the fool among his women! I warrant 'tis not piety that persuades him to wander through the underground ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... strove to respond, to believe them—to believe in the work and in himself—strove to shake off the terrible discouragement invading him, lurking always near to reach out and touch him, slinking at his heels from street to street, from room to room, skulking always just beyond the shadows that his reading ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... exaggerated speed of a person in dire peril. Once more, as upon that night when he had first called at her father's house, he turned abruptly at the corner to stare at her window, and again he surprised a figure skulking after him. Without a moment's hesitation he made after it at a run, but the fellow dodged into the Plaza and disappeared among the shrubbery. Not caring to pursue the chase into those lurking shadows Kirk desisted, certain only of one thing—that he was not Allan who was ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... skulking Shawnee," muttered Colonel Zane, "to slip down here under cover of early dusk, when no one but an Indian hunter could detect him. I didn't look for trouble, especially so soon after the lesson we gave Girty and his damned English and redskins. It's lucky ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... as hard as they did, harder even, and that he was not nearly so afraid of work. Nothing disgusted him so much as sabotage, the deliberate bungling of work, and skulking raised to the level ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... quite a different complexion. At the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say) there is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for washing sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, when he was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking down through the deepest of the heather with obtrusive stealth. He knew the dog; knew him for a clever, rising practitioner from quite a distant farm; one whom perhaps he had coveted as he saw him masterfully steering flocks to market. But what did the practitioner ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and weapons are examined and repaired. The chief, arrayed in full dress, leads on his band. They march with silence and rapidity, and encamp with great caution, appointing sentinels in every necessary direction. Thus, lurking, skulking and marching, they reach the place of their destination. Another war council is held, to decide on the mode of attack; and then, with rifles, war-clubs, scalping-knives and bows and poisoned arrows, they fall ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... meaning of the word. She had been afraid in her bed at night, she had been apprehensive of a block's walk in the twilight, but Fear—in its true sense—was an alien and a stranger. She had never met him in the waste places, seen him skulking on her trail through the winter snows, listened to his voice in the wind's wail. She didn't know the fear of which the coyotes sang from this hill, the blind and groping dread of an immutable destiny, the ghastly realization of impotence against a cruel ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... roughly handled. A.P. Hill's division had done good work in preparing the way for Whiting's assault, but a portion of his troops had become demoralised. Ewell's regiments met the same fate; and we read of them "skulking from the front in a shameful manner; the woods on our left and rear full of troops in safe cover, from which they never stirred;" of "regiment after regiment rushing back in utter disorder;" of others which it was impossible to rally; and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Chelmsford, the next settlement, concluding it had been done by the Wamesit Red-skins, went thither, called them out of their wigwams, and then fired at them, killing a lad and five women and children. After all, the fire had been caused by some skulking heathen Indians; but though the Government obtained the arrest of the murderers, the jury would not find them guilty. The Wamesit Indians fled into the forest, and sent a piteous letter:—"We are not sorry for what we leave behind, but we are sorry that the English ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... very dark, and rain was still falling, but as the light streamed out into the gloom I fancied that I caught sight of a dusky form gliding away. The thought of Hendrika flashed into my mind; could she be skulking about outside there? Now I had said nothing of Hendrika and her threats either to Mr. Carson or Stella, because I did not wish to alarm them. Also I knew that Stella was attached to this strange person, and I did not wish to shake ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... suddenly confronted by the tyrant of her unhappy childhood, Patrick Magee. He was even a more wretched looking creature than of old,—shabbier, dirtier, with every mark of the most degrading vice. As he stepped from behind a hazel-bush, where he had been skulking, into her path, Molly gave an involuntary shriek, and shrank back from him in fear ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... that I came hither. No mortal should have the glory of seizing Abellino. If justice required him to be delivered up, it was necessary that he should be delivered up by himself! Or do ye take Abellino for an ordinary ruffian, who passes his time in skulking from the sbirri, and who murders for the sake of despicable plunder? No, by heaven, no! Abellino was no such common villain. It's true I was a bravo; but the motives which induced me to become one were ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... be content with half an examination, rather than drive away the game. And even as it is I've an idea I have been seen. I lay up among some reeds till dark, but after that I am sure there was somebody on the Marsh—and skulking, too, like me. So after waiting and scouting for a little I gave it up and ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... escape. It was little indeed that the artist had to do, to brand and emblazon him with the vices of his nature—but with how much discrimination that little is done! He took up the correct portrait, which Walpole upbraids him with skulking into a court of law to obtain, and in a few touches the man sank, and the demon of hypocrisy and sensuality sat in his stead. It is a fiend, and yet it is Wilkes still. It is said that when he had finished this remarkable portrait, the former friendship ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... Spaniards then rushed into the streets, thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were all rifled of their contents, and men were forced to carry the booty to the camp, who were then struck dead as their reward. The town was then fired in every direction, that the skulking citizens might be forced from their hiding-places. As fast as they came forth they were put to death by their impatient foes. Some were pierced with rapiers, some were chopped to pieces with axes, some were surrounded in the blazing streets by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "Poule d'eau marouette."—I have some doubt as to the propriety of including the Spotted Crake in my list, but, on the whole, such evidence as I have been able to collect seems in favour of its being at all events occasionally seen and shot, though its small size and shy skulking habits keep it very much from general notice. Mr. MacCulloch, however, writes to me to say the Spotted Rail has been found here; and one of Mr. De Putron's labourers described a Rail to me which he had shot in the Vale Pond in May, ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... hastily, dreading what lay behind me. I would come another time with my godmother. How could one tell who was skulking in the house? The door had been open when I ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... to be, like a Rafael or a Pitt, a great poet at an age when other men are children; it was your fate, the fate of Chateaubriand and of every man of genius, to struggle against jealousy skulking behind the columns of a newspaper, or crouching in the subterranean places of journalism. For this reason I desired that your victorious name should help to win a victory for this work that I inscribe to you, a work which, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the love of gold, that meanest rage, And latest folly of man's sinking age, Which, rarely venturing in the van of life, While nobler passions wage their heated strife, Comes skulking last, with selfishness and fear, And dies, collecting lumber in the rear,— Long has it palsied every grasping hand And greedy spirit through this bartering land; Turned life to traffic, set the demon gold So loose abroad that virtue's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... reached by a road passing through a swamp, full of larches and firs. "Are you not afraid of Tanner?" I was asked. Mrs. Schoolcraft, since the assassination of her husband, has come to live in the fort, which consists of barracks protected by a high stockade. It is rumored that Tanner has been seen skulking about within a day or two, and yesterday a place was discovered which is supposed to have served for his retreat. It was a hollow, thickly surrounded by shrubs, which some person had evidently made his habitation for a considerable time. There ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... as fair a specimen as could be found, of a truly engaging but not overpowering type, kindly, warm-hearted, full of enterprise, lax of morals (unless honour—their veneer—was touched), loving excitement, and capable of anything, except skulking, or sulking, or running ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... us at present to prescribe Laws, and take vengeance on those worthless traitors Those skulking cowards that deserted us; One has already done his bitter penance, The Piccolomini: be his the fate Of all who wish us evil! This flies sure To the old man's heart; he has his whole life long Fretted ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... well up the Bay, And we looked that our stems should meet, (He had us fair for a prey,) Shifting his helm midway, Sheered off and ran for the fleet; There, without skulking or sham, He fought them, gun for gun, And ever he sought to ram, But could finish ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... I daresay, it wouldn't seem of much consequence to you—Wombo's gone agen the laws of the tribe, and that's a serious matter. If they know he's skulking here under protection, they'll be spearing the cattle, and the Boss won't ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... from his position in the brush. About halfway down the hill as they came to him, he halted them, and he watched the gun-pits for the movement of anyone left skulking there. His eye went cautiously over the new prisoners to see that all side-arms had been ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... blundering in at such a time, pitifully full of good intentions. She recoiled from the picture as from a precipice that all unwittingly she had escaped. What madness had induced her to come on this expedition? A sudden panic at the possibility of discovery possessed her; suppose Peter should find her skulking like a beggar, waiting for broken meats? She looked at the image of herself that she carried in her heart. It was that of a proud woman who made no moan at the scourge of the inevitable. Many burdens had she carried in her proud, lonely heart, but of them ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the nation's chieftain president says our days of rule are o'er And his marshals with their warrants are on watch at every door, Old John he now goes skulking on the by-roads of our land, Or unknown he keeps in hiding with the faithful of ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... little space followed six cardinals in scarlet, very gorgeous, with caps and trains of the same colour. These swept along, looking to neither right nor left, followed by a lean man in a black silk suit and gown, skulking and bending, bearing a glass retort in one hand, and a phial, with a label flying from it, in the other. On this was written, I heard afterwards, the words "Jesuit-Powder"; but I could not read it from ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... examined the mark more closely. It was the track of a bare foot. Then, for the first time in many days, the girl threw back her head and laughed. "Microby Dandeline!" she cried. "And I was picturing some skulking murderer lying in wait to pounce on me at the first opportunity. And here it was only poor little Microby who happened along, and with her natural curiosity pawed over everything in the cabin, and then decided it would be a grand stunt to cook herself a meal and ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... and reveries. The thought once admitted that another's life is becoming superfluous and a burden, feeds like a ravenous vulture on the soul. Woe to the man or woman whose days are passed in watching the hour-glass through which the sands run too slowly for longings that are like a skulking procession of bloodless murders! Without affirming such horrors of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, it would not be libellous to say that his fancy was tampering with future possibilities, as it constantly happens with those who are getting themselves into training for some act ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to transform the once Swami of the flowing robes and lofty port into a hulking skulking negro tramp, like the sturdy villains of ancient days, sleeping in woody nooks by day, and pursuing his slow journey under the stars, answering the look of such human beings as he met with suspicion, keeping to the hamlets where police officers were scarce and knowledge of ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... knife, and took up my line of march in a skulking trot up the river. The frequent gullies on the lower bank made it tedious traveling there, so I scrabbled up to the upper bank, which was pretty well covered with buckeye and sycamore, and very little underbrush. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... tread-mill again. In one of his letters to Mr. Maclear he thus speaks of a part of this journey: "It was not likely that I should know our course well, for the country there is covered with shingle and gravel, bushes, trees, and grass, and we were without path. Skulking out of the way of villages where we were expected to pay after the purse was empty, it was excessively hot and steamy; the eyes had to be always fixed on the ground to ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... anything that might offer in the valley, when they descried the Moorish army emerging from a mountain-glen. They watched it as it wound below them, remarking the standards of the various towns and the pennons of the commanders. They hovered about it on its march, skulking from cliff to cliff, until they saw the route by which it intended to enter the Christian country. They then dispersed, each making his way by the secret passes of the mountains to some different alcayde, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... vehicles at the village inn to see if they showed marks of recent usage, and he had peremptorily interrogated everybody he came across to find out whether any one unknown in the district had been seen skulking about the neighbourhood. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... of Mauritius. Assuredly it was our right, it was our duty, to guard the coasts of that island strictly, to stop slave ships, to bring the buyers and sellers to punishment. But suppose, Sir, that a ship under French colours was seen skulking near the island, that the Governor was fully satisfied from her build, her rigging, and her movements, that she was a slaver, and was only waiting for the night to put on shore the wretches who were in her hold. Suppose that, not having a sufficient ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... asked to describe a particular man I had seen in the nunnery, and did so. My examiner partly turned round with some remark or question which was answered in a similar spirit. I turned and looked at the stranger, who was evidently skulking to avoid my seeing him, and yet listening to every word that was said. I saw enough in his appearance to become pretty well satisfied that I had seen him before; and something in his form or attitude reminded me strongly of the person, whose name had been mentioned. I was then requested to repeat ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... and went to sleep if he remained, which gave so much (445) offence, that he was not only excluded from his society, but debarred the liberty of saluting him in public. Upon this, he retired to a small out-of-the-way town, where he lay skulking in constant fear of his life, until a province, with ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and I did it—a blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strove to drag mademoiselle back; but the latter, with a strength surprising in one so slight, freed herself, and slipping past La Marmotte made for the corridor. Down this she ran, almost brushing against a figure crouching behind the arras—a figure skulking there like the evil thing it was. It was Simon, who had heard the shot too, and overcome by his fierce impatience had come forth from his chamber, poniard in hand. As the girl passed he made a half movement towards her, like the spider about to pounce upon his prey. But La Marmotte was following, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... this inclineth me to be the more lenient; but I may not hide from you that heavy charges lie against your character. Ye do consort with murderers and robbers; upon a clear probation ye have carried war against the king's peace; ye are suspected to have piratically seized upon a ship; ye are found skulking with a counterfeit presentment in your enemy's house; a man is slain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the two men, armed, were on the hill near the scene of the murder on 28th September, 1749. Moreover, Angus Cameron swore that he saw the murder committed. His account of his position was curious. He and another Cameron, since dead, were skulking near sunset in a little hollow on the hill of Galcharn. There he had skulked all day, "waiting for Donald Cameron, who was afterwards hanged, together with some of the said Donald's companions from Lochaber". No doubt they were all honest men who had been "out," and ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... a slow, dazed way, and blinked at the light. But in the next breath he burst out: "Where's that damned fool of a woman? Is she skulking behind you? I won't see her—won't have her ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... boy was busily at work by himself, Giles happened to come by, having been skulking round the back way, to look over the parson's garden wall, to see if there was any thing worth climbing over for on the ensuing night. He spied Dick, and began to scold him for working for the stingy old parson; for Giles had a natural antipathy to ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... vision of Tatsu's head thrust noiselessly into her kitchen. Rudely she had slammed the shoji together, calling out to him that he had better be off doing the one thing he was fit to do, rather than to be skulking around her special domain. Tatsu had, as rudely, reopened the shoji panels, tearing a large hole in the translucent paper. "He had come merely for a glimpse of the Dragon Maid," he told the angry dame. "In a few days more she was to be his wife, and this maddening convention of keeping him always ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... as he stood in the open gateway, he heard distant footfalls coming down the alley, and a grumble of voices. Perhaps two policemen on their rounds, he thought: it would be awkward to be surprised skulking about back doors at this time of night. He slipped inside the gate and closed it gently behind him, taking the precaution to slip ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... south of Ireland having lost a pet cat, and searched for it in vain, after four days was delighted to hear that it had returned. Hastening to welcome the truant with a wassail-bowl of warm milk in the kitchen, she observed another cat skulking with the timidity of an uninvited guest in an obscure corner. The pet cat received the caresses of its mistress with its usual pleasure, but, though it circled round the bowl of milk with grateful purrings, it declined to drink, going up to the stranger instead, whom, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... his headgear pulled down over his eyes, and skulking out beside the grand stand, soon began to ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... directly to his own cabin, cautioning her to silence with upraised forefinger. Softly, like skulking criminals, they entered the little compartment. Then Theriere turned and closed the door, slipping the bolt noiselessly as he did so. Barbara watched him, her heart beating rapidly ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his captors, and the confusion resulting when the bunk-house emptied itself of men half clad, it had taken the ranch-owner some time to discover that Glass had been surprised in the act of escaping. It seemed that the sentries, seeing a figure skulking past the white adobe walls of the house, had called upon it to halt. There had been a dash for liberty, then a furious struggle before the intruder's identity became clear, and but for Chapin's prompt arrival upon the scene violence would inevitably have resulted. As it was, the ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... Here the Federal troops could effect a landing: he knew the defences at that point. If they did? He thought of these Snake-hunters who had found in the war a peculiar road for themselves downward with no gallows to stumble over, fancied he saw them skulking through the fields at Cedar Creek, closing around the house, and behind them a mass of black faces and bloody bayonets. Floy alone, and he here,—like a rat in a trap! "God keep my little girl!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... unconsciously that you have passed from the fighting line to the hospital and commissariat base. Here, mixed impartially with the women, crowds of vigorous men, belonging to the junior ranks of the Legations' staffs and to numbers of other institutions, are skulking, or getting themselves placed on committees so as to escape duty. I suppose you could beat up a hundred, or even a hundred and fifty, rifle-bearing effectives in an hour. Many of the younger men were furious, and said they were quite willing to ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... every skulking hound in the county on me," Christopher replied, loosening Sam Murray's restraining grasp. "If I can settle you I reckon I can settle them; but the day you open your lying mouth to me again I'll shoot you down as I would a mad dog—and ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... street corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world of pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he made Bebelle's toilet with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work of the way in which he had often seen the poor Corporal make it, and having ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... Foret, from St. Florent himself!" shouted the priest, rushing out towards the door, as soon as he saw the first horseman turn in at the gate; "a good man, and true as any living, and one who hates a skulking republican ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... of it than in it. But still the young man was his cousin and a Carbury, and to such a one as John Crumb he was bound to defend any member of his family as far as he might be defensible. 'They says as how he was groping about Sheep's Acre when he was last here, a hiding himself and skulking behind hedges. Drat 'em all. They've gals enough of their own,—them fellows. Why can't they let a fellow alone? I'll do him a mischief, Master Roger; I wull;—if he's had a hand in this.' Poor John Crumb! When he had his mistress to win he could find no words for himself; ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Chaise tell that the last stronghold of the Commune has been stormed. Belleville and Buttes de Chaumont are piled with hundreds of corpses. The grim sergeants' squads are hunting from house to house, bayoneting skulking fugitives, or promptly shooting ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... writing, sir?" said the admiral to the discomfited master's mate, in a voice worse than thunder; for it was almost as loud, and infinitely more disagreeable. "I see by your damned skulking look, that you have been making a scoundrel of yourself, and a fool of this ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... that I were a young King's officer with a troop of light horse on the ridge yonder! My faith, how I should sweep down yon cross road like a kestrel on a brood of young plover! Then heh for cut and thrust, down with the skulking cannoniers, a carbine fire to cover us, round with the horses, and away go the rebel guns in a cloud of dust! ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... traitor, and he fighting for his country, while you'd be skulking here to make trouble ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... joy of being out, I had really come with a hope of discovering this mousy mite of a wren, and of watching her ways. It was like hoping to watch the ways of the "wunk." Several times I have been near these little wrens; but what chance has a pair of human eyes with a skulking four inches of brownish streaks and bars in the middle of a marsh! Such birds are the everlasting despair of the naturalist, the salt of his earth. The belief that a pair of them dwelt somewhere in this green ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... used to be, chercher la femme, and when she was found the investigation stopped there; but modern methods of inquiry are unsatisfied with this imperfect search, and insist upon looking behind the woman, when lo, invariably, there appears a skulking creature of the opposite sex who is not ashamed to be concealed by the petticoats generously spread out to screen him. While the world approves man struts and crows, taking all the credit; but, when there is blame about, he whines, street-arab fashion: "It wasn't me. Cherchez ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... virtue and holiness are not equally mated with prudence and heavenly wisdom, each serving but not subservient to the other. 'Art thou,' says Coleridge, 'under the tyranny of sin—a slave to vicious habits, at enmity with God, and a skulking fugitive from thine own conscience? Oh, how idle the dispute whether the listening to the dictates of prudence from prudential and self-interested motives be virtue or merit, when the not listening is guilt, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... bring the stranger to her apartment. Scarce had he arrived there when the Moorish king entered, and Ramiro hid himself in an alcove. "What would you do to Ramiro," asked Aldonza, "if you had him in your power?" "I would hew him limb from limb," said the Moor. "Then lo! Alboazar, he is now skulking in that alcove." With this, Ramiro was dragged forth, and the Moor said, "And how would you act if our lots were reversed?" Ramiro replied, "I would feast you well, send for my chief princes and counsellors, and set you before them and bid you blow your horn till you died." "Then ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... set his heels to flying. A phase had developed in his character that defied analysis; suspicion, suspicion of daylight, of night, of shadows moving by walls, of footsteps behind. Only a little while ago he had walked free-hearted and careless. This growing habit of skulking was gall and wormwood. Once in his room, which was directly over the office of the American consulate, he fell into a chair, inert and breathless. What a night! ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... turned pale, and Jim thought that they were afraid he would tell all he had seen and heard. The manner of both had changed, too. They had a skulking, nervous way with them now in place of the coarse bravado that had characterized ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the other imagined they were being followed; and a dozen times some innocent citizen was suspected of being the skulking Jules. If the French cousin of Andre actually had them shadowed it was done so skilfully that none of the boys were ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... shouted out on the battle-field of Kolin, "D'ye expect to live forever, pray?" Many Saxon or Silesian soldiers secretly left the army. One day Frederick himself kept his eye on a grenadier whom he had seen skulking to the rear of the camp. "Whither goest thou?" he cried. "Faith, sir," was the answer, "I am deserting; I'm getting tired of being always beaten." " Stay once more," replied the king, without showing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... trial of any person arrested for the crime. It was asking too much of editorial human nature to expect that the magazine which had commissioned the illustrated article on Roxton would not make capital of the fact that its special artist was actually sketching the house while Mr. Fenley's murderer was skulking among the trees surrounding it. Thus there was no escape for John Trenholme. He was doomed to become notorious. At any hour the evening newspapers might be publishing his portrait ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... skulking,' said the poor fellow, the furrows in whose bronzed and weatherbeaten cheek were running down with tears. The man we had just lost had been his messmate and friend, he told me, for ten years. I begged ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous |
