"Crone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The goddess came In likeness of an ancient crone, With grizzled locks and tottering frame, And spoke with ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... the creek. He had a gift for languages and an energetic mind, accustomed to work, and he had already given much time to the study of the local tongue. Old habit was strong in him and he was gathering together material for a paper on the Samoan speech. The old crone who shared the hut with Sally invited him to come in and sit down. She gave him kava to drink and cigarettes to smoke. She was glad to have someone to chat with and while she talked he looked at ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... thy peers am I, And slighted, like that poor old crone, And yet some clinging memories try To rate thy conquests as ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our advertisement. "It's this as has brought me, good gentlemen," she said, dropping another curtsey; "a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to take joy and brightness with her. In the cottages of the poor her fair face shone like a sunbeam. She would sit for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and apparently as pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been listening to the compliments of a marquis; and when she tripped away, leaving nothing behind her (for her poor salary gave no scope to her benevolence), the old woman would burst out into ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... For you're too young to dare to doubt your wisdom. It's a wise man, or a fool, can speak for himself, Let alone for others, in this haphazard life. But give me a young fool, rather than an old— A plucky plunger, than a canny crone Who's old enough to ken she doesn't ken. You're right: for doubting is a kind of dotage: Experience ages and decays; while folk Who never doubt themselves die young—at ninety. Age never yet brought gumption to ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... stir. He saw tears on Margaret's face; and once he was sure he heard Forsythe's voice in contempt: "Well, he seems to be well occupied for the present! No danger of his waking up for a while!" and then the voices all grew dim and far away again, and only an old crone and the harsh girl's whisper over him; and then Margaret's tears—tears that fell on his heart from far above, and seemed to melt out all his early sins and flood him with their horror. Tears and the consciousness that he ought to be doing something for Margaret now and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... old crone. "But he never will—even if you would, Sybil Stanley! Oh Christian, my ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... distressed at having to leave her beautiful young Prince in this hurried way, and as she flew past the blind old crone she whispered in her ear, 'I go to my father's ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... universal reign of famine there were at last found those who were ready to repeat the horrible crime of feeding upon the flesh of their own kindred. It was discovered that a husband and wife, with a neighboring crone, had endeavored to satisfy the gnawings of hunger by eating a newly dead child. Their guilt came speedily to light, and was punished according to the severe code of the sixteenth century. The father ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... frosted-glass partition was still in the hall, and on this my uncle's crest was visible. The premises were in a filthy condition, and the inhabitants looked more than ordinarily villainous. On the steps a red-faced crone sat pulling at a clay pipe, and a reek of stale porter came ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... the hall-floor and abided them; and they saw him and his shining war-gear, and ceased their talking and laughter, and drew round about him, and gazed at him; but none said aught till an old crone came forth from the ring, and said "Who art thou, standing under ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... aptitude for practising them. He then conceded to the impetuous penitent the kiss of peace, in a slight embrace which was like the accolade given by a monarch to new knights.[308] The whole scene is ignoble. We seem to be watching an unclean cauldron, with Theresa's mother, a cringing and babbling crone, standing witch-like over it and infusing suspicion, falsehood, and malice. When minds are thus surcharged, any accident suffices to release the evil creatures that lurk ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... creatures, toothless, hollow cheeked, wrinkled, with nose and chin almost meeting. Bent almost double, they walked about with a crutch, shaking and mumbling as they went. If any one had an ache or a pain it was easily accounted for. For why, they were bewitched! The poor old crone was the witch who had "cast the evil eye" upon them. And sometimes these poor creatures were put to death for their ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... wretchedness over a book, the execrable old woman railed and stormed, and complained that she was neglected. Yet, when Frances stayed, she was constantly assailed with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, in the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a proof that the person who enjoyed it was meanly born, and out of the pale of good society. All her scanty stock of broken English was employed to express the contempt with which she regarded the author of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you saw all I see in this cup, you would not be so eager to know its contents," said the crone in a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... be thinking," said Betsey; "you be wonderin' how I got so much sperrits. Well, p'raps I shall tell 'ee zoon. We sh'll zee, Jasper, we sh'll zee." And with that the old crone chuckled. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... take him as gardener. He readily assented; but after some weeks he began to be homesick, and, taking leave of his mistress, went home. On arriving there he was astounded that he knew no one, and no one knew him, save an old crone, who at length came to him and said: "Where have you been? I have been looking for you for two hundred years." Thus saying, she took him by the hand and he fell dead; for the crone who had sought ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the fortune-teller raised her head, and, shading her eyes with one skinny hand, looked curiously at the new comers. Calton thought he had never seen such a repulsive-looking old crone; and, in truth, her ugliness was, in its very grotesqueness well worthy the pencil of a Dore. Her face was seamed and lined with innumerable wrinkles, clearly defined by the dirt which was in them; ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... a creature that anybody can make for himself, but it must be done so secretly that no human eye sees it. Its body is a broomstick, its head a broken jug, its nose a piece of glass, and its arms two reels which have been used by an old crone of a hundred years. All these things are easy to procure. You must set up this creature on three Thursday evenings at a cross-road, and animate it with the words which I will teach you. On the third Thursday the creature ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... old crone Petronella fled with white face and tearful eyes, as the sound of those terrible blows smote upon her ears with the whistling noise that well betrayed the force with which they were dealt. She quickly made ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her lover, but without effect. A few days later she again met her old gipsy crone Hagar Burton, who repeated her sibylline declaration. As Miss Arundell never, by any chance, talked about anything or anybody except Burton, and as she paid liberally for consulting the Fates, this declaration necessarily points to peculiar acumen on ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... boy whom Wiltrud had borne to her unfaithful husband was hateful to the second wife, who fondled her lord, and flattered him with the hope of the children she would bear him. Then it was arranged that the knight's first-born should be handed over to the care of an old crone who lived in a remote tower of ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... the throne, where beauty late had sat: Her ugliness distorted thus; whereat The herald cries: "Who will this woman take With smallest dowry? She can cook and bake, And many household duties well perform, Although she does not claim a beauty's charm. Who wants a wife?" The ugly crone with blinks Doth hideous look, till every bidder shrinks. A sorry spectacle, mis-shapen, gross, She is, and bidders now are at a loss How much to ask to take the hag to wife. At last one cries: "Five bilti,[20] for relief Of herald I will take, to ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... 'Do you call me?' Says I, 'I do.' She says, 'Well?' I reply, 'He is well if you are.' 'Who, then?' says she. I say, 'Your lover.' This makes her jump like a flea on the bed. But she brazens it out finely, turning to her old crone with a 'What does the girl mean?' Bless you, THEY knew well enough. I folded my arms—so; I said, 'He has walked the stony hills barefoot to find you. He will be out of his skin, standing on his head, to know you are here.' She stamped her foot and flew into a passion. 'How ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... came across me, the man who had conducted the horse to the stable entered the apartment, and discovered to me a countenance yet more uninviting than that of the old crone who was performing with such dexterity the office of cook to the party. He was perhaps sixty years old; yet his brow was not much furrowed, and his jet-black hair was only grizzled, not whitened, by the advance ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... hear how he died. It was about two o'clock in the morning that he awoke from an uneasy slumber, and felt his end approaching. The old crone who had been hired as a nurse to watch at night, was fast asleep in her chair. The rushlight had burned low down in the socket, and, through the interstices of its pierced shade, threw a feeble and alternate light and shadow over the room. The mouth of the dying man was ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Mabyn addressed a timid remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the objects around seemed all the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... care!" cried an aged old crone, "Take care what you promise," said she. "At first 'twill be fun, But, in the long run, You'll wish you had let the thing be. Through this stick with an eye I look and espy That for ages and ages you'll sit and you'll sew, And ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... her sight many a scene of penitence that had played before her fancy, and I do not know but she would have been willing to have the suppliant guilty of some dreadful misdeed, rather than eating meat last Friday, which was probably her sin. However it was, the ancient crone before that ghastly idol was precious to her, and it seemed too great a favor, when at last the suppliant wiped her eyes, rose trembling from her knees, and approaching Kitty, stretched towards her a shaking ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... your hand." He had said this as he worked. Then he stopped, and turned round to her, with his graving-tool in his hand. "Recollect old Lesbia, how she used to squeak out to me, with her nodding head and trembling limbs"—here he mimicked the old crone—" 'My boy, take your pleasure while you can. I can't take pleasure—my day is over; but I don't reproach myself. I had a merry time of it while it lasted. Time stops for no one, but I did my best; I don't reproach myself.' There's the true philosopher, though a slave; more outspoken than ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... members of that gentleman's family, whether there were men servants in the house, and whether a dog was kept. In fact, she made herself fully acquainted with Mr. Yates' domestic arrangements. This was thought nothing of at the time, but the old crone's curiosity was recalled to mind after the event took place, which I ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... crone I'd toady Like a lass in young-eyed prime, Could she tell some tale of Lodi At ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... let his name escape her white lips, "My Robert; the bairn's not ill-favoured, but he will never look like his father,"—and such sayings, uttered in a calm, sweet voice. Nay, I remember once how her pale countenance reddened with a sudden flush of pride, when a gossiping crone alluded to their wedding; and the widow's eye brightened through her tears to hear how the bridegroom, sitting that sabbath in his front seat beside his bonny bride, had not his equal for strength, stature, and all that is beauty in man, in all the congregation. That, I say, sir, whether ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... agreed Joyce. "It looked so picturesque with the tents and the white covered wagons, and that old crone bending over the camp-fire. I know a woman at home who had her fortune told by a gypsy, and every single thing that was told ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... west of the moon. But it was only the same thing once again. "Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince," said the old woman. "Yes, indeed, I should have been the one," said the girl. But this old crone knew the way no better than the others—it was east of the sun and west of the moon, she knew that, "and you will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get to it at all," she said; "but you may have ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... were engaged in our calculations, an old crone, who had been groping about in the crevices for chips and sticks, stopped, and seeing us thus penned in by tree boles, eyed us with a compassionate look. "Ja, ja!" said she, "with fallen trees all jumbled together it is hard for the Herrschaft to move on; but it's harder ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... women squat down. They crone their wild refrain, praising the one who wins in strife and love. They seize in their right hand the hula gourd, clattering with pebbles inside. They whirl it aloft, they shake, they swing, they strike their palms, they thump the mat; and ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... awoke, he said to his guest, "O merchant have the mosquitoes worried thee?" He replied, "No," and Obayd said, "Belike thou art grown used to them." Then they broke their fast and drank coffee, after which they fared forth to their affairs, and Kamar al-Zaman betook himself to the old crone, and related to her what had passed, And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... ever to abide Firm in eternal strength. Before the gate Stood eager EXPECTATION, as to list The half-heard murmurs issuing from within, Her mouth half-open'd, and her head stretch'd forth. On the other side there stood an aged Crone, Listening to every breath of air; she knew Vague suppositions and uncertain dreams, Of what was soon to come, for she would mark The paley glow-worm's self-created light, And argue thence of kingdoms overthrown, ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... and feeding, and the vending of all the strange and hideous forms of flesh, fish, and fowl. If you wish to know how much the tentacle of a small polyp is worth you may chance to see a cent pass for it from the crone who buys to the boy who sells it smoking from the kettle; but the price of cooked cabbage or pumpkin must remain a mystery, along with that of many raw vegetables and the more revolting ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... out its unseemly denizens, white and black, old and young, male and female, the child of three years old, keen, alert and self-protective, running to see the "row" side by side with the toothless crone of seventy; or most likely passing her on the way. Thieves, beggars, pick-pockets, vile women, rag-pickers and the like, with the harpies who prey upon them, all were ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... reverence at first, and afterwards with fear, as he wandered, muttering to himself, among the sandhills and along the beach. After a while the power of thought and a sense of the outward things of life returned to him. He found that an aged crone from the village had established herself in his house, and was caring for Hyacinth. He let her stay, and according to her abilities she cooked and washed for him and the boy, neither asking wages nor taking orders from him, until ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... quiet, did as she was bid, stirred the fire, till its ruddy glow brightened every nook of the little white-washed chamber, and made the old crone beside it wince and mutter in her sleep. Having shielded her from its fierce light, she then, with trembling fingers, opened a little penknife which lay upon the table, and cut the twine with which the cover was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... she, you han't forgot Pierpoint of Hargrave, I suppose; I have some small Estate there still: Madam says he, I am very glad to see you; It is not an hour ago since I was Drinking your Health: I hope your good Daughter's very well: She's very well at your Service, Sir, replyed the old Crone; and I hope, Sir, you'l do me the honour to go and see her: I'll wait upon you another time, Madam, said he, but I an't in a condition to wait upon a young Lady now; O you are very well, reply'd she; come, you shall go along with me; and taking him ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... girls satisfied my Western ideas of beauty, with their clear, mellow, olive complexions, and their almond-shaped eyes, so dark yet glowing. Those among them who were really old were simply hideous and repulsive. One wretched crone shuffled through the noisy throng with an air of authority, and pointing to Boy lying in my lap, cried, "Moolay, moolay!" "Beautiful, beautiful!" The familiar Malay word fell pleasantly on my ear, and I was delighted to find some one through whom I might possibly control the disorderly bevy ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... workhouse, said to be a hundred years of age, was sent for by the Board of Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous figures, and the contrast their appearance offered to that of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty knows, sir,' was her reply, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... querulous murmurs were hushed. Even to-day the patients nodded to her languidly as she passed, observing with transitory cheerfulness that they were kilt with the hate, or that it was terrible weather entirely. One crone raised herself sufficiently to remark that it was a fine thing for the counthry, glory be to God! which patriotic sentiment won a smile from Sister Louise, but failed to awaken much enthusiasm in any ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... his father's last illness, he happened to pass the door of the grandmother's hovel while the crone was administering to Tommy a severe punishment with a piece of thick rope: she had been sharp enough to catch him stealing from herself. Clare heard his cries. The door being partly open, he ran in, and gave him such assistance that they managed to bolt together from the hut. A friendship, for ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... disturbed all healthy relationship between the thoughts within her and the world without. On our first entrance, she looked cheerfully at us, and showed herself ready to engage in conversation; but suddenly, while we were talking with the century-old crone, the poor actress began to weep, contorting her face with extravagant stage-grimaces, and wringing her hands for some inscrutable sorrow. It might have been a reminiscence of actual calamity in her past life, or, quite as probably, it was but a dramatic woe, beneath which she had staggered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... moment twenty years have passed; your hair is grey, you are matronly, stout, your face is no longer oval; yet unmistakably it is you yourself, the same woman. Slam! 'Scene IV.' You are enfeebled, a crone, toothless, tottering on a stick. Once more! It is the last effect—the door flies open and ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the dropping of the first syllable: 'history' and 'story'; 'etiquette' and 'ticket'; 'escheat' and 'cheat'; 'estate' and 'state'; and, older probably than any of these, 'other' and 'or';—or with a dropping of the last syllable, as 'Britany' and 'Britain'; 'crony' and 'crone';—or without losing a syllable, with more or less stress laid on the close: 'regiment' and 'regimen'; 'corpse' and 'corps'; 'bite' and 'bit'; 'sire' and 'sir'; 'land' or 'laund' and 'lawn'; 'suite' and 'suit'; 'swinge' and 'swing'; 'gulph' and 'gulp'; 'launch' and 'lance'; 'wealth' and ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... showed under the edge of the closed window-blind. In the room day was mingling incongruously with night, for the candle looked sickly, and the aged crone's face was of a leaden colour, lighted by the piercing eyes that brooded hungrily on her son— her only son: the dwarf had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wanes; the children are grown; Fun and frolic no more he knows; Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:— Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; When you can pipe that merry old strain, Robert of Lincoln, come back ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... cooking, and bearing all her abuse without grumbling. Strange to relate, a battered Bible was seldom out of his sight; and whenever he had leisure, and his mistress' back was turned, he was forever poring over it. This pious propensity used to enrage the old crone past belief; and oftentimes she boxed his ears with the book, and tried to burn it. Mother Tot and her man Josy were, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... age of ten for the distant farm of Tirl, and did not return until the old bellman's death, twenty years afterward; but the first remark he overheard on entering the kirk-wynd was a conjecture flung across the street by a gray-haired crone, that he would be "little Snecky come to ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... is late and lone. All goes well at the castle? say!— Not a word speaks the withered crone, Gray as a ghost in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the old crone, leaping from her seat and dancing about the room, "the dhrame's come true at last! Och, hullybaloo! didn't I know that the pretty Paudeen wasn't born for the pig-stye! Bedad, but he'll ruffle the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... thou blindly cling To this old false misshapen thing? Wilt thou refuse the charms of youth For withered breast and grinning tooth! Canst thou this wretched creature prize And look on me with scornful eyes? This aged crone this very hour Before thy face will I devour: Then joyous, from all rivals free. Through Dandak will ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... common life of the people goes on, now as it has for hundreds of years. For the piazza, descending in direct tradition from the ancient Forum, is the public hall of citizens, where they trade, gossip, quarrel, plot, love, and hate, from the crone sunning herself in a sheltered nook over her bag of chestnuts to the grandee whose palace windows open above the noisy commonalty. The Chancellor saw this common meeting-ground, this glorified street, filled with a ragged mob of "the baser quality," as on the operatic stage, emptily ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... you, Jimmie, to call on an old crone like me, and so promptly. She'll be down in a minute. But you must be on your good behavior, Jim, for they're talking about you, you know. They're bracketing your name ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... children, and the scolding of the mother, which had preceded the dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... so or not, one thing was clear that Mother Jael had gone off with a considerable amount of loose silver in her pocket. The servants knew nothing of her departure, so there was no doubt that the old crone, used to dodging and hiding, had slipped out of the garden by some back way, while the guests had been commiserating the bishop's slight illness. As Cargrim wanted to see the gipsy at once, and hoped to force her into confessing the truth by threatening to have ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the teepee. On the couch the boy still lay, his eyes brilliant with fever but more with hate. At the foot of the couch still crouched the old crone, but there was no sign of ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... declivis, diu vidua, mater olim, parum decore matrimonium sequi videtur, an old widow, a mother so long since ([4741]in Pliny's opinion), she doth very unseemly seek to marry, yet whilst she is [4742]so old a crone, a beldam, she can neither see, nor hear, go nor stand, a mere [4743]carcass, a witch, and scarce feel; she caterwauls, and must have a stallion, a champion, she must and will marry again, and betroth herself to some young man, [4744]that hates to look ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... returned Roderick, 'what a gem I have got from my tailor, who was just going to cut up this peerless robe into strips. He bought it of an old crone, who must doubtless have worn it on gala days when she went to Lucifer's drawing-room on the Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice, with its gold tassels and fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from Beelzebub or his imps: it will give me a right worshipful ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... first old crone, who sat winking her bleared eyes, and warming her bleared hands over a little heap of peat in the middle of the cabin, entered ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... loud laughter and tramping came from the road—a sound of numerous footsteps. Zora listened, leapt to her feet and started to the door. The old crone threw an epithet after her; but she flashed through the lighted doorway and was gone, followed by the oath and shouts from the approaching men. In the hut night fled with wild song and revel, and day dawned again. Out from some fastness of the wood crept ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... fragrant, steaming bowl, the old crone made her slow entrance upon the scene, peering with dim eyes, and dropping tremulous curtseys every two or ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... like a witch," she said, with gayety. "You young men, at least, think every old, toothless gray-haired crone like me ready for the stake, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... only well-known tales, so that the tire-woman felt wearied and indifferent and, ashamed of having brought the stranger, she stole away unnoticed. Several other maidens followed her example, and, as these withdrew, the old crone twisted her mouth into a smile, and repeated the same hideous confidential wink towards the lady. Hildegardis could not understand what attracted her in the jests and tales of the bronze-coloured woman; but so it was, that in her whole life she had never bestowed such attention on the ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... reprobate than this old crone I never did see, no, never. Oh, but how horribly scared I am she'll come some sly dodge on me when I'm not expecting it, and smell out the place where the gold is hidden. She has eyes in the very back of her head, the hell-cat. Now I'll ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... outer world was imperturbable in its circular variety. But the inner world, the vision,—ah, there was the extraordinary variation in human lives! From heaven to hell through all gradations, and whether it were heaven or hell did not depend on being like this crone at the end of the road or like herself in its sheltered nooks,—it was ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... boy and maid Followed the dismal cavalcade; And from door and window, open thrown, Looked and wondered gaffer and crone. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... rock his new treasure in his arms, and to crone over him a little lullaby well known in Tergon, with which his own mother had often ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... like the nightingale, Nor shalt thou in those fair white feathers go, Thou silly thief, thou false, black-hearted crow; Nor shalt thou ever speak like man again; Thou shalt not have the power to give such pain; Nor shall thy race wear any coat but black, And ever shall their voices crone and crack And be a warning against wind and rain, In token that by ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... had scarcely elapsed, when the anxious mother spied an old crone moving about in the court-yard; their eyes happening to meet, Zebah screamed and fell into a swoon. The young heir was instantly hurried away, but not before the old hag had cast a withering glance on the ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... bare necks and arms—it was etiquette at Madame Fontaine's receptions—which allowed one to see through filmy lace their flabby flesh or bony skeletons, they were as ridiculous as an elegant cloak would be upon an old crone. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... who poisoned him at the instigation of his enemy, old Mrs. Herne. Only the accidental appearance of the Welsh preacher, Peter Williams, saved him. Years afterwards, in 1854, it may be mentioned here, he told a friend in Cornwall that his fits of melancholy were due to the poison of a Gypsy crone. He spent a week in the company of the preacher and his wife, and was about to cross the Welsh border with them when Jasper Petulengro reappeared, and he turned back. Jasper told him that Mrs. Herne had hanged herself out of disappointment at his escape from her poison. This made ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... cast a glance of stupid hate Behind him, every step he took, Where followed him, like following fate, An aged crone, with bloated look: A something checked his listless gait; She neared him, rating ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... could read so plainly in every line of her face—the nobility which can attach itself only to decency of life and thought and action. In my brief interview with her in the twilight of the evening before I had heard only the ridiculous jargon of a woman without a palate, and I had seen only an old crone with a soot-smeared face. But now the maimed voice echoed in my ears like the sound of the little old melodeon with the broken strings—which had ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... for poor Fleda. Aunt Syra was her next neighbour, and opposite to her, at Miss Anastasia's left hand, was the disagreeable countenance and peering eyes of the old crone, her mother. Fleda kept her own eyes fixed upon her plate, and endeavoured to see nothing ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... mystic belief of race destiny which lives so strongly in the children of Israel. Wilhelmine, upon whom no hint of power, of fate, or of belief in the unknown, ever failed to work, listened with growing interest. She questioned the old crone, and succeeded in drawing from her a long and impassioned tirade upon the wrongs of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... warn ye! I—" The old crone was about to continue her forebodings; but Dirk interposed with a gruff, "Hush ye, hush ye, Mother Deb! ye be doin' the lad wrong. D'ye think he be one to teach our young uns wrong, eh? Be it evil, think ye? W'u'd he be doin' us a bad turn who's ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... withered frame, Yet just as busily swung she on: The garland beneath her had fallen to dust; The wheels above her were eaten with rust; The hands, that over the dial swept, Grew crook'd and tarnished, but on they kept; And still there came that silver tone From the shrivelled lips of the toothless crone, (Let me never forget, to my dying day, The tone or the burden of that lay)— ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... to Lafitte and L'Olonnois that we were now come into the neighborhood of possible treasure, and the sight of a few pearls, none of very great worth, which the old crone produced from a cracker box, was enough to set off Jimmy L'Olonnois, who was all for raiding ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... still more, the disappearance of the crone, had, however, made an impression; "'Twould be deuced provoking, though, if he should break my neck after all." He turned and gazed at Dolphin with the eye of a veterinary surgeon. "I'll be shot if he is ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... threading the gorse; skirted the edge of another huge coombe, troughed out beneath him; passed an ancient withered elder, squatting crone-like on the brow, and climbed a knoll that rose up bald out ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Thessalian crone replied: "If you asked to change the fate of an individual, though it were to restore an old man, decrepid with age, to vigorous youth, I could comply; but to break the eternal chain of causes and consequences exceeds even our power. You seek however only a foreknowledge of events to come, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... for a penny! He never can learn the cat's tread!" thought the crone, as she arose and withdrew the ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... of God, charity, kind gentlemen, charity!" and the old crone stretches forth a long, bony claw. Should you pass on she calls down curses on your head. If you are wise, you go back and fling her a copper to stop the cold streaks that are shooting up your spine. And these old women were the most trying sights I ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... on the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone shook ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... In thy still house shall sit The careful crone who guards thy virtuous bed; She tells thee tales, and when the lamps are lit, Reels from her ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... to understand in the present day the deep-seated faith in amulets and charms, which were thought to have brought about what would now be regarded as curious coincidences, or to place reliance upon the babbling utterances of some old crone who posed as a witch or a fortune-teller. Yet among such old-world stories there are germs of truth although misapplied. The emblems, amulets, and charms so implicitly believed in a few centuries ago are objects numbered among collectable curios, valued even in this prosaic ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... nay more than others beautiful, Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, You know what she will be; At six years old or seven her life is round her; A company, all ages, old men, young men, Whose vices she must prey on. And the bent crone she will be is there too, Patting her head and chuckling prophecies.— O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought Of will, of virtue— Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, Of opportunities ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... times to drop stones into my bosom, each stone she wrapped up in purple after she had muttered charms over it; then, directing her hands to my privates, she commenced to try out my virility. Quicker than thought the nerves responded to the summons, filling the crone's hand with an enormous erection! Skipping for joy, "Look, Chrysis, look," she cried out, "see what a hare I've started, for someone else to course!" (This done, the old lady handed me over to Chrysis, who was greatly delighted at the recovery of her mistress's treasure; ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... imitation of the god, for they represented him in pictures as having a bull's head. We know that a man does not turn into a bull, or a bull into a man, the line of demarcation is clearly drawn; but the rustic has no such conviction even to-day. That crone, his aged aunt, may any day come in at the window in the shape of a black cat; why should she not? It is not, then, that a god 'takes upon him the form of a bull,' or is 'incarnate in a bull,' but that the real Bull and the worshipper dressed as a bull are seen and remembered and give rise to ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... with a sigh, "I must make acquaintance with this caricature of my former self. I must accustom myself to the mortifying fact that this is Maria Theresa, or I might some of these days call for a page to drive out that hideous old crone! I must learn, too, to be resigned, for it is the hand of my heavenly Father that has covered my face with this grotesque mask. Since He has thought fit to deprive me of my beauty, let ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... arm's length for a while longer, by a minute examination of his upper clothing, which, by Dr. Ritchie's directions, had been removed, that the remedies might be more conveniently applied, and the heated blankets the sooner infuse a vital glow through the storm-beaten frame. The ancient crone took them up with the tips of her fingers—ragged coat, vest, and pantaloons—rummaged in the same contemptuous fashion every pocket, and kicked over the worn, soaked boots with the toe of her leather brogan, sniffing her disappointment at the worthlessness ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... crone told her the story of Anaxarete who was so cold to her lover Iphis that he hanged himself, and she at the window watching his funeral train pass by was changed to a marble statue. Advising Pomona to avoid such a fate, ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... a little to find me living on at all. This attitude was very well for him, and I found some amusement in it even while I chafed at his composed acquiescence in my misfortunes. But at times I grew impatient, and would fling myself out of the house, crying "Plague on it, is this old crone not only to drive me into folly, but to forbid me a ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... of sense. Renown does not follow all good deeds, if novelty and difficulty be not conjoined; nay, so much as mere esteem, according to the Stoics, is not due to every action that proceeds from virtue; nor will they allow him bare thanks who, out of temperance, abstains from an old blear-eyed crone. Those who have known the admirable qualities of Scipio Africanus, deny him the glory that Panaetius attributes to him, of being abstinent from gifts, as a glory not so much his as that of his age. We have pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of grandeur: ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Cherry, what nonsense!" Anstice, whose mother had been an Irishwoman, had heard of the superstition before, had even known an old crone in a little Irish cabin high up in the mountains who had, so it was said, practised the rite with success; but to hear the unholy gospel from Cherry's innocent lips was distinctly distasteful; and instinctively he tried to shake her faith in ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... crone, before he could arise to leave her sight, "tell me, I pray thee, what hard thing ye seek. I am old, and have had much wisdom. It may happen that I can help you out of the great trouble into which ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... sculptured stone The ruined arch beside, A hoary, bronzed, and wrinkled crone The twirling distaff plied,— Love with exalted Reason fraught In Plato's accents came, And Truth by Paul sublimely taught ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... (appearance), appellant, apple-pie order, baker's dozen, bamboozle, bay window, between whiles, bicker, blanch, to brain, burly, catcall, clodhopper, clutch, coddle, copious, cosy, counterfeit money, crazy (dilapidated), crone, crook, croon, cross-grained, cross-patch, cross purposes, cuddle, to cuff (to strike), cleft, din, earnest money, egg on, greenhorn, jack-of-all-trades, loophole, settled, ornate, to quail, ragamuffin, riff-raff, rigmarole, scant, seedy, out of sorts, stale, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... pocket drew Her spectacles, and wip'd them from the dust, Then on her nose endeavour'd to adjust; With difficulty she could find a place To hang them on in her unshapely face; For if the Princess's was somewhat small, This Fairy scarce had any nose at all. But when by help of spectacles the Crone Discern'd a Nose so different from her own, What peals of laughter shook her aged sides! While with sharp jests the Prince ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... increased our curiosity, and, after some flattering language about Janet's good nature, retentive memory, and Covenanting lineage, the old crone proceeded to the following purpose; and, as nearly as we can mind, (for it is a tale o' fifty years,) repeated it in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... thou crone; I like not flattery out of doors; go in and let's hear thy speech." In went the crone, and when her back was to him he drew his sword and whips her head off; but the sword flew out of his hand. And ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... miserably perish. So I kindled a light; I saw the red flame mount up; I got out at the door, but then I fell down; I lay there, I could not get up again. But the flames burst out through the window and over the roof; they saw it down below, and they all ran as fast as they could to help me; the poor old crone they believed would be burned; there was not one who did not come to help me. I heard them come, and I heard, too, such a rustling in the air, and then a thundering as of heavy cannon-shots, for the spring-flood was loosening the ice, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... jealously closed, and the lower windows were shut with shutters, so that all I could do was to cause Jumbo to awake the echoes with a lusty peal on the knocker, which he repeated at intervals, until there hobbled forth to open it a crone as wrinkled and crabbed as one of Macbeth's witches. I demanded whether my Lady Belamour lived there. She croaked forth a negative sound, and had nearly shut the door in my face, but I kept her in parley by protesting that I had often visited my Lady there, and offering a crown-piece if she ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... An hour later, Crone, the advertising manager, came up to Bobby very much worried, to report that not only the First National but the Second Market Bank had stopped their advertising, as had Trimmer and Company, and another of ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years, would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing and in review of those slips and errors which ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... by that one idea, climbed quickly down the tree to teach the crone. But the old woman taught her so that she needed no second lesson. Seizing her by the arm, she lifted her on her shoulder and ran off with her to the enamored prince. When the prince saw Wild-Rose, he came to meet her, begged for her hand, and, trembling, kissed her. Then she was clothed ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... thy good wife?" said one old crone. "Did she not take good care of thee? What didst thou lack? Why not have waited another month? Thy daughter-in-law would have borne thee a grandson!" A tall young fellow, Pietri's son, pressed his father's cold hand and ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... these," saith he, "is shaped us the true idea of a witch,—an old, weather-beaten crone, having her chin and her knees meeting for age, walking like a bow, leaning on a staff; hollow-eyed, untoothed, furrowed on her face, having her limbs trembling with the palsy, going mumbling in the streets; one that hath forgotten her Pater-noster, and yet hath a shrewd tongue ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the million That looked on the dark dead face, 'Neath its sable-plumed pavilion, The crone of a humbler race Is saddest of all to think on, And the old swart lips that said, Sobbing, "Abraham Lincoln! Oh, he ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... most dreadful little old crone," she says cheerily; "she's like some grotesque dream—why, what's ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... and thinking of nothing for hours together; the goede vrouw, on the opposite side, would employ herself diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in the corner of a chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, and hair-breadth ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... spares no prejudice, respects no habit, honours no tradition. Institutions are stubble in the fire it kindles. The present and the past it throws without remorse into the jaws of the future. It is the angel with the flaming sword swift to dispossess the crone that sits on her money-bags ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... her calf—the witch is at the bottom of it all. If your maid hath a fit of the sullens, or doeth her work amiss, or your man breaketh a dish, the witch is in fault, and her shoulders can bear the blame. On this very day of the year—namely, May Day,—the foolish folk hold any aged crone who fetcheth fire to be a witch, and if they catch a hedge-hog among their cattle, they will instantly beat it to death with sticks, concluding it to be an old hag in that form come to dry up the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... crone turned fiercely upon the one-eyed Hans. "Thou fool!" she cried, "why didst thou bring him here? Thou hast ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... Siner utterly to annihilate his adversary. Jim Pink Staggs, a dapper gentleman of ebony blackness, of pin-stripe flannels and blue serge coat— altogether a gentleman of many parts—sat on one of the bales and indolently watched an old black crone fishing from a ledge of rocks just a little way below the wharf-boat. Around Jim Pink lounged and sprawled black men and youths, stretching on the cotton-bales like ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... this old crone?" Beorn said. "It would never do to risk her giving an alarm, and though she looks feeble she might be able to ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... and burnt at his bedside on that horrible night was unquestionably, according to the testimony of the old deaf servant, who had been fifty years at Wauling, that identical piece of "holy candle" which had stood in the fingers of the poor lady's corpse, and concerning which the old Irish crone, long since dead, had delivered the curious curse I have mentioned ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... with such reprobates. He's just the kind of protector you need in these lurid times, when it seems as if no one could be trusted. To think that that boy Chunk, who has been treated so well, could play us such an infernal trick! His old crone of a grandam must know something about it, and I'll make her tell. Perkins!" and Mr. Baron rushed toward ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... "it was the time of the war. The neighbors told of some maiden aunt, an old crone like herself, who had left Joe's mother ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... conversing we approached Versailles. We thought the vicinity of the town seemed unusually deserted. We entered the main street: crowds were assembled; a universal murmur was heard; excitement sat on every countenance. Here an old crone was endeavouring to explain something, evidently beyond his comprehension, to a child of three years old, who, with open mouth and fixed eyes, seemed to make up in wonder for the want of intelligence; there a group of old disbanded soldiers occupied the way, and seemed, from their muttered ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and smacked their lips over it as a great delicacy. A lot of potatoes about the size of walnuts, boiled and peeled and added to a potful of salmon, made a savory stew that all seemed to relish. An old, cross-looking, wrinkled crone presided at the steaming chowder-pot, and as she peeled the potatoes with her fingers she, at short intervals, quickly thrust one of the best into the mouth of a little wild-eyed girl that crouched beside her, a spark of natural love which charmed her ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... this thought passed through her mind, the room seemed to darken, the air to thicken. The girl's proud young body sank, doubled till she seemed a crone, old and withered and jocose; a sneering laugh came from her drawn lips; her hands, trembling together, hookedly reached towards Kate; the eyes were sunk lidless and gleaming with malice; a voice that was like the croak of a raven sounded forth: "You got my money, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Sydney, like other sailors, he visited several barrooms where he told the story of his strange loss. In one of the places, in a corner, sat an old Scotch crone, smoking her pipe and quietly listening to the conversation. At midnight when Bob was about to leave, the old woman said, "What will ye gie me if I ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... looked up at her again. But instead of the withered old crone he expected to see, his eyes fell upon the most beautiful wife that could be imagined; for the old woman was a fairy, and had wished to give him a lesson before he knew her as she really was. No longer now was ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... colours were gay As the flower on its spray? Who would ever believe Aught could bring one to grieve So much as to make Lips bent for love's sake So thin and so grey? O Youth, come away! As she asks in her lone, This old, desolate crone. She loves us no more; She is too old to care For the charms that of yore Made her body so fair. Past repining, past care, She lives but to bear One or two fleeting years Earth's indifference: her tears Have lost now their heat; Her hands and her feet Now shake but to be Shed ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... this scene of bustle and noise, at the door of a small tent, sat two female gypsies. One of these was the queen, an aged crone, who, though bent with age and care, and wrinkled by time and the indulgence of vehement passions, yet prided herself upon the unfrosted darkness of her raven tresses, which fell over her shoulders in profusion. A turban of rich crimson cloth ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... the stories told By each decrepit, wizen-featured stone, That seems to muse, like ancient village crone Belost in thought ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... broken-down crone whose toilet astonished me as much as her person. In spite of her wrinkles, her face was plastered with red and white, and her eyebrows were indebted to India ink for their black appearance. She exposed one-half of her flabby, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of Thor!" answered Cedric impatiently, and would probably have proceeded in the same tone of total departure from his spiritual character, when the colloquy was interrupted by the harsh voice of Urfried, the old crone of the turret. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... into the air, but now a deathly silence received them. Silence broken only by the rustling of garments, as a withered old crone shambled forward and cast ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... random, My own songs awaked from that hour, And with them the key, the word up from the waves, The word of the sweetest song and all songs, That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, (Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,) The ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... the shingle roof for an armful of fuel. Returning, he entered the wigwam and knelt beneath the smoke-hole. And while he arranged the sticks carefully upon a twist of grass, the aged crone hovered, hawk-like, over him, ready with fist or foot for any lack of haste, or failure with the fire. Not until, with flint and steel, he lighted a strip of spongy wood and thrust it under the dry hay, and a flame leaped up and caught ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... kissed in return, and followed unreluctantly as they half dragged, half carried me into their domicil. On the door-sill of the inner apartment I found myself locked in the skinny arms of a brown and withered crone, who was said to be my grandmother, and, of course, my youthful moustache was properly bedewed with the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... that Rude Boreas could be as keen a sharpshooter as any in the rifle-pits around Richmond. A hard walk up-hill for a quarter of an hour brought him to the brow of the cliff on which stood the forlorn and wind-swept house where John Manning lay. An unkempt and hideous old crone as black as night opened the door for him. He left in the hall his hat and overcoat and a little square box he had brought in his hand; and then he followed the ebony hag up-stairs to Colonel Manning's room. Here ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the same moment I heard a loud coughing, and the voice of the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of steps, that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the back room of the highest floor; and thither, with unfailing courage, I proceeded. I arrived at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... converse. He was not aware, indeed, of the real danger of his case, and still had hopes of surviving many years. The deacon came in at the door, just as the widow had passed through it, on her way to visit another crone, who lived hard by, and with whom she was in the constant habit of consulting. She had seen the deacon in the distance, and took that occasion to run across the road, having a sort of instinctive notion that her presence was not required when the two ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... other generation, with its pride of material power, its sense of well-being, its surge toward mastery of the terrestrial forces, its need of luxury, was unable to comprehend one who felt life a grim, sorrowful thing, who felt himself a child, a crone, a pauper, helpless in the terrible cold. For that was required a less naive and confident generation, a day more sophisticated and disabused and chastened. And so Moussorgsky's music, with its poor and uncouth and humble tone, its revulsion from ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... off old age by some of my potions made from these roots I carry here, a bundle too heavy for an ancient crone like me to bear on her back? Thou shalt have ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... for the hidden signs with unsparing scrutiny. Upon finding a mole or wart or any similar mark, they tried the 'insensibleness thereof' by inserting needles, pins, awls, or any sharp-pointed instrument; and in an old and withered crone it might not be difficult to find somewhere a ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... an old woman to the stuff-bazar, with a casket of mighty fine workmanship, containing trinkets, and she was accompanied by a young baggage big with child. The crone sat down at the shop of a draper and giving him to know that the girl was pregnant by the Prefect[FN74] of Police of the city, took of him, on credit, stuffs to the value of a thousand diners and deposited with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Cupid's coy advance (Some crone conniving at the fraud), But simply by mechanic chance, I get ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... to be decently drowned, for it's worse luck yet to tamper with a witch's cat's kittens, particularly when they're as black as the hinges of Gehenna. Mandy thinks their mother had them black as a delicate mark of respect for the late crone." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... proceeded to rebuke the grumbling old woman for want of order and cleanliness—censured the food which was provided for the patient, and enquired particularly after the wine which she had left to make caudle with. The crone was not so dazzled with Lady Penelope's dignity or bounty as to endure her reprimand with patience. "They that had their bread to won wi' ae arm," she said, for the other hung powerless by her side, "had mair to do than to soop hooses; if her leddyship wad let her ain ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott |
