"Jig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your jig is up!" he murmured, "At daybreak they will find that the baron's cell is empty. They will poke their heads out of the window, and they will see you here, like a stone saint upon his pedestal. Naturally, you will be captured, tried, condemned; and you ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... seat of the stool gave way, and the flying Mercury came down with a crash, amid shrieks of laughter from the girls. Being accustomed to ground and lofty tumbling, he quickly recovered himself, and hopped gaily about, with one leg through the stool as he improvised a classic jig. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and while Mr. Bumpkin was confidentially conversing with the landlord in the chimney corner, he was suddenly aroused by the indomitable Joe bursting into the room and performing a kind of dance or jig, the streamers, meanwhile, in his hat, flowing and flaunting in ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... among the admirable qualities of the great Epaminondas that he had an extraordinary talent for music and dancing. Epaminondas accomplishing his jig must be accepted as a pleasing and instructive figure in the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... to the top of the stage, you will begin gaily a Pas-de-deux, or Duet dance. The first part will be lively, the second grave; the third a jig. You will have taken care to procure six or seven of the best airs for a dance, put together, that can be imagined. You will execute all the steps that you are mistress of; and let your character in the Pas-de-deux, be that of a ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... the water tank when the engine of the freight train stopped there to take a drink, and he gave a regular Indian war-whoop when he saw the boys alight. He hugged both of them as they climbed down from the engine, and fairly danced a jig in his delight at ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... think that there is nothing more entirely natural or charming in the life of man than his love of flowers: it preceded his love of music; no doubt an appreciation of something better in the way of art than a jig played on the pipes would follow close on the purification of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... of a good thing. This coming up to Clawbonny has put me in mind of running them straits, though we have had rather better weather this passage, and a clearer horizon. What d'ye call that affair up against the hill-side, yonder, with the jig-a-merree, that is turning in ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... being performed amidst much tittering and flustering, accompanied by many knowing looks and some expressed wishes among the swains, who hoped that their turn might come next, Dame Tetlow arose, and the squire seizing her hand, they began to whisk round in a sort of jig, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... much on that," he replied. "It's my story you want. Well, I've been busy putting things together, and I guess it's only the two ends of the jig-saw that are missing now. I warn you, Peggy, I don't know how Eagle March got into church, or where from, or what became of ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Poet, tried and leal, Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal; Alake, alake, the meikle deil Wi' a' his witches Are at it skelpin jig and reel, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... "The jig's up," said Professor Dane. "Captain Ixl in propul-cruiser nine-nine-seven-three will never be able to break through. The Earthlings have set up a close ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... she whispered to him, "and then she won't hear you. But, faith she's sleeping so well, it's my belief if you danced a jig she would not stir a limb. Go in, child, go in. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... discoveries, while hundreds were prating in their pulpits of things believed in by a negligible fraction of the population, and thousands writing down today what nobody would want to read in two days' time; while men shut animals in cages, and made bears jig to please their children, and all were striving one against the other; while, in a word, like gnats above a stagnant pool on a summer's evening, man danced up and down without the faintest notion why—in this condition of affairs the quality of courage was alive. It was the only fire within that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... well as his veins, and I don't think many of the company heard this too accurate summary of the situation. The boatswain did, but before he could speak, Dennis O'Moore had sprung to the ground between them, and laying the fiddle over his shoulder played a wild sort of jig that most effectually and unceremoniously drowned the rest of the song, and diverted the attention ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... I know, the more the English fellow will have to teach me, and Uncle Bob will have more worth for his money;" and then Ratty would whistle a jig, fling a fowling-piece over his shoulder, and shout "Ponto! Ponto! Ponto!" as he traversed the stable-yard; the delighted pointer would come bounding at the call, and, after circling round his young master ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... word-book. My friend having asked the Chinaman to give us some music on an instrument hanging above him, which looked something like our banjo, he proceeded to give us some celestial melodies. The tunes were not bad, being in quick time, not unlike an Irish jig, but the chords were most strange. He next played a tune on the Chinese fiddle, very thin and squeaky. The fiddle consists of a long, straight piece of wood, with a cross-piece fixed on to the end of it. Two strings stretch ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... no prettier word for it. "That naughty, naughty, Miss Thing-a-me-jig was making me sign a blank cheque! My autograph! My sacred aunt! ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... desperate proud of her. When M'Dermott helps me to tide over this pinch I'll have all those jewels back again by hook or by crook. Your mother shan't suffer in the long run, and I'll do a lot to the old place—the old house wants papering and painting. We'll dance a merry jig at O'Shanaghgan at your wedding, my little girl; and now don't keep me, for I have got to go out to meet Murphy. He said he would ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... is generally a settler—the stage is also a safe road to a safe settlement, and between a race-horse and a danseuse, we would not give a sixpence for choice. Now, as far as horse-flesh went, my grandfather was innocent; a pirouette or pas seul, barring an Irish jig, he never witnessed in his life—but he had discovered as good a method for settling a private gentleman. He had an inveterate fancy for electioneering. The man who would reform state abuses, deserves well of his country; there is a ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... having left home so jauntily with loaded weapon over his shoulder, it would be anything but a dignified return to dance back again without it. If he jig-stepped down the main street some neighbor was likely to see him and make remarks. A waltz through the gate, up the steps of the porch and into the hall, by which time it would probably be safe for him to cease his ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... dozen of us went to lodge with old Peter Hardheart, at the sign of the Foul Anchor; and as we had plenty of money, we thought we would have a regular blow-out. So Peter got a fiddler and some other unmentionable requisites for a jig, and we had a set-to in firstrate style. Why, our great frolic at Santa Martha, when Paddy Chips, the Irish carpenter, danced away his watch, and jacket, and tarpaulin, and nearly all his toggery, you know, and next morning came scudding along the beach towards the Alert, as she lay moored ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... kickin' around that way, Professor; an', anyhow, it's time t' get up. It's just a wonder how these Mexican mornin's put life into a man. Why, there's a freshness in th' air that's goin' t' waste in this canon that's fit t' make a coffin stand right up on end an' dance a jig!" ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... one sing, or tell a yarn, or whistle a tune, or dance a jig?" said "Bill" in a muffled tone. "If some one does not start some kind of excitement I will go to sleep in my tracks, and Doctor 'Gangway' says I mustn't sleep out of doors." His speech ended in a fit of coughing and a succession ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... "Whew!" he whistled, sitting down gingerly in the armchair. "Well, that's a mercy. I ain't so young as I used to be and I couldn't stand many such shocks. Whew! Don't talk to ME! When that devilish jig tune started up underneath me I'll bet I hopped up three foot straight. I may be kind of slow sittin' down, but you'll bear me out that I can GET UP sudden when it's necessary. And I thought the dum thing ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... would be popular, how brutal soever the wit. This is the progress of human passions. We ejaculate, exclaim, hold up to Heaven our hand, like the rustic Phidyle[246]—next morning the mood changes, and we dance a jig to the tune which moved us to tears. Mr. Bell sends me a specimen of a historical novel, but he goes not the way to write it; he is too general, and not sufficiently minute. It is not easy to convey this to an author, with the necessary attention to his feelings; and yet, in good ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... time, packing the moments with good-cheer, good work and an earnest wish to do better tomorrow than he had done today. That Nature occasionally produces such a man should be a cause for gratitude in the hearts of all the rest of us little folk who jig, mince, mouth, amble, run, peek about and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Don! Chasing your tail at a game of tag, Dancing a jig with a kitchen rag, Rearing and tearing, and ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... he was master of — 'I know something of single-stick, and psalmody (proceeded Clinker); I can play upon the jew's-harp, sing Black-ey'd Susan, Arthur-o'Bradley, and divers other songs; I can dance a Welsh jig, and Nancy Dawson; wrestle a fall with any lad of my inches, when I'm in heart; and, under correction I can find a hare when your honour wants a bit of game.' 'Foregad! thou are a complete fellow (cried my uncle, still laughing) I have a good mind to take thee into my family ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... said Uncle Jepson to Randerson, when a few minutes later he followed the range boss out on the porch. He grinned at Randerson suspiciously. "Throwed twice, eh?" he repeated. "Masten's face looks like some one had danced a jig on it. Huh! I cal'late that if you was throwed twice, Masten's horse ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was a dancing lamp-post, a dancing apple tree, a dancing ship. One would have thought that the untamable tune of some mad musician had set all the common objects of field and street dancing an eternal jig. And long afterwards, when Syme was middle-aged and at rest, he could never see one of those particular objects—a lamppost, or an apple tree, or a windmill—without thinking that it was a strayed reveller from that ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... afterwards so frequently to be seen among the famous illustrations to the "Comic Almanack": La Belle Assemblee, or Sketches of Characteristic Dancing, miscellaneous groups, comprising in all thirty figures (exclusive of the orchestra), engaged in a country dance, a Scotch reel, an Irish jig, a minuet, the German waltz, a French quadrille, the Spanish bolero, and a ballet "Italienne." The walls are hung with pictures of dancing dogs, a dancing bear, a dancing horse, rope dancing, the dance of St. Vitus, and "Dancing Mad." Besides this, we find the same year two large sheets showing ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... uncontrollable joy. Then he exclaimed: "God bliss yer own swate self!" taking her in his brawny arms. "God bliss you! No ghost, but yer own swate self. Oh, I feel like a blast of powder ready to go off!" And again he danced a singular commixture of the jig and cotillion, much to the Indian's amazement, for he thought him crazy. "I knew that I should look upon your face again; but, till me where it is yees have come from?" he finally ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... for her nonsense no cordial at all; Contention and strife, in the but and the hall, Are ready to greet my return. Oh, did he come to us, our bondage to sever, I would cry, Be on Death benedictions for ever, I would jump it so high, and I 'd jig it so clever— Short while would ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... muddy poodle, very wretched looking, and a critic, no doubt, who barked out something about forgetting sound tradition, all the spectators proclaimed Zamore the Vestris of dogs and the god of dancing. Our artist had performed a minuet, a jig, and a deux temps waltz. A large number of two-footed spectators had joined the four-footed ones, and Zamore enjoyed the honour of ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... he were here, and a matter of four thousand to back him. [Draws.] Sa! sa! canst fight as well as talk? Wilt take up the bilbo? Come, adopt the weapon of him I have sliced. Come, be nimble, sir, jig. I would fain go visit the haulage ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... along the last trip. He'd know the approximate position. Might have got the right figgers out o' the log, him havin' the run of the cabin. A cable would do the rest. He'd git his whack out of it, with the order of the Golden Chrysanthemum or some jig-arig to boot, an' git even with the way he feels to'ard our outfit for'ard, that ain't bin ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... have played for them several tunes, but as far as I can judge they do not feel modern music, though they listen eagerly from curiosity. Irish airs like 'Eileen Aroon' please them better, but it is only when I play some jig like the 'Black Rogue'—which is known on the island—that they seem to respond to the full meaning of the notes. Last night I played for a large crowd, which had come together for another purpose from all parts ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... unparalleled. Of this the long rag is their instrument. They draw it once or twice across the shoe to set the key and then they go into a swift and pattering melody. If there is an unusual genius in the bootblack—some remnant of ancient Greece—he plays such a lively tune that one's shoulders jig to it. If there were a dryad or other such nimble creature on the street, she would come leaping as though Orpheus strummed a tune, but the dance is too fast for our languid ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... began again. The hag, who had been bent double, reared herself up with a "Ho!" after the fashion of a Scottish sword-dancer, and began to make a wretched shuffle with her feet. Then she moved with a hobble and a jig to the far end of the room; and she called out, beginning to come straight down to the door whereby I stood. I know not what presentiment forewarned me to beware as the creature drew near; but yet I felt the danger, and the throbbing of my heart. That I could ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... powers, sor," exclaimed Mick Donovan, at once executing a caper which had some remote resemblance to an Irish jig, "it's deloighted Oi am at that same! Oi fale so glad, alannah, Oi could dance for joy, loike the piper that ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... at the Irish lad behind him. Fred heard a curious noise, and turned to learn what it meant. His friend had leaned his gun against the nearest tree, so as to give his limbs free play, and was flinging his arms aloft, and dancing a jig with a vigor that made it look as if his legs were shot out, and back and forth, by some high pressure engine. Now and then he flung his cap aloft, and, as it came down, ducked his head under and dexterously ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... and well mixed. Then you put it down, half a pint at a time, four times a day. It's a sure cure, and inside of a week after taking seventeen quarts and rubbing the empty bottles on your left shoulder blade you'll feel like dancing a jig of joy; ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... horse and gig With promises to pay; And he pawned his horns for a spruce new wig, To redeem as he came away: And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a jig, And drove off at the close ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... a few minutes," he answered, "and I will play you a jig. A jig is a beautiful dance, such life, ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... centuries. But because you cannot be Handel and Mozart—is it any reason why you should not learn to sing "God save the Queen" properly, when you have a mind to? Because a girl cannot be prima donna in the Italian Opera, is it any reason that she should not learn to play a jig for her brothers and sisters in good time, or a soft little tune for her tired mother, or that she should not sing to please herself, among the dew, on a May morning? Believe me, joy, humility, and usefulness, always go together: as insolence with misery, and these both with destructiveness. ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... concerned with several others in one of the biggest attacks that had ever been made upon what one might describe in general terms as the thousand-dollar light automobile market. What they said practically was this: This market is a jig-saw puzzle waiting to be put together and made one. We are going to do it. But that was easier to figure out than to do. At the very outset of this attack he and his associates found themselves up against an unexpected ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... a hig, An shoo didn't care a fig, But nah aw'll donce a jig, For mi love's come back, An aw know though far away, 'At her heart ne'er went astray, An awst ivver bless the day, ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... I. I should be ashamed to withhold the truth out of my fear to be taken for a sentimentalist: this woman who had passed was of great and instant charm; it was as if I had heard a serenade there in the woods—and at thought of the jig I had danced to it ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... 'Cara sposa' and 'Lascia ch'io pianga' (the latter still admired as one of the purest expressions of his genius), made a great impression. In the same season the Haymarket produced 'Hamlet' as an opera by Gasparini, called 'Ambleto', with an overture that had four movements ending in a jig. But as was Gasparini so was Handel in the ears of Addison and Steele. They recognized in music only the sensual pleasure that it gave, and the words set to music for the opera, whatever the composer, were then, as they have since ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ears Except for that amongst the spheres, (Which most of all, as he averred it, He dearly loved, 'cause no one heard it,) Yet aptly he, at sight, could read Each tuneful diagram in Bede, And find, by Euclid's corollaria, The ratios of a jig or aria. But, as for all your warbling Delias, Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias, He owned he thought them much surpast By that redoubted Hyaloclast[7] Who still contrived by dint of throttle, Where'er he went to crack ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... experiment O' Nature, Whase silly shape displeased her eye, And thus unfinished was flung bye. For me, I'm made wi' better grace, Wi' active limbs and lively face; And cleverely can move wi' ease Frae place to place where'er I please; Can foot a minuet or jig, And snoov't like ony whirly-gig; Which gars my jo aft grip my hand, Till his heart pitty-pattys, and— But laigh my qualities I bring, To stand up clashing wi' a thing, A creeping thing the like o' thee, Not worthy o' a farewell to' ye!' The airy Ant syne turned awa, And left ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... slowly out of my retreat, feeling rather humiliated, and while Marroca danced a jig round me, shouting with laughter, and clapping her hands, I threw myself heavily into a chair. But I jumped up with a bound, for I had sat down on something cold, and as I was no more dressed than my accomplice was, the contact made me start, and I looked round. I ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... went by. Upon inquiring, he found that they took him for a priest, with his dark garb, smooth-shaven face, and serious expression. Edison says: "I get a suit that fits me; then I compel the tailors to use that as a jig or pattern or blue-print to make others by. For many years a suit was used as a measurement; once or twice they took fresh measurements, but these didn't fit and they had to go back. I eat to keep ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of the window and asked who was there and what she wanted. Well, mother came down, and things were made straight as far as she and the teacher were concerned; but I was in for it; I knew that by the way mother looked at me. The jig was up, I was found out, and I knew things would happen; and I did not want to be around when mother said, "You just wait!" I knew what that meant, so I determined to go out into the world and make ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... of no use, but a real iron stove, big enough to cook for a large family of very hungry dolls. But the best of it was that a real fire burned in it, real steam came out of the nose of the little tea-kettle, and the lid of the little boiler actually danced a jig, the water inside bubbled so hard. A pane of glass had been taken out and replaced by a sheet of tin, with a hole for the small funnel, and real smoke went sailing away outside so naturally, that it did one's heart good to see it. The box of wood with a ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and found that the gold bottle that contained the precious powder had dropped upon the stand and scattered its life-giving grains over the machine. The phonograph was very much alive, and began dancing a jig with the legs of the table to which it was attached, and this dance so annoyed Dr. Pipt that he kicked the thing into a corner and pushed a bench against it, to ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... an impostor," he said, laughing, as he replied to the welcome of his comrades. "I believe I could safely throw away these sticks and dance a jig; but the doctor has laid his commands on me, and my man, who has been ruling me with a rod of iron, will not permit the slightest infringement of them. He seems to consider that he is responsible for me in all respects, and if he had been master ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... ceased to play, And another tune straightway Sang the kettle, louder, louder, till its voice grew very big; And the feet of laughing girls (Girls with shamrock in their curls) You could almost hear a-keeping time to that old Irish jig. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... howl of terror from the platform, which was followed by a roar of laughter from the audience, and when he turned he saw the squaw standing up and trying to wrap the fake tail around a pair of well-developed, copper-colored legs. Her face was as pale as a squaw's face could get and Merritt knew the jig was up. I was peeking in the door, and when I saw what had happened I gathered up the box-office receipts and faded away. I met Merritt that evening in our usual saloon, and underneath a pair of black eyes and a battered-up phiz I ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... wanted that night. So, calling for the can again and again, Israel invites the two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length, a wag of the company proposes that Israel should entertain the public with a jig, he (the wag) having heard that the Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A fiddle is brought in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut to think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be diverted at the expense of an unfortunate ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... so that a man's blood must keep pace with their beat. They can suit every part, jangling in wild joy, or copying the slow pace of sorrow, or pealing in ordered rhythm, blithe but with a warning of mortality in their cadence. But this bell played dance music. It summoned to an infernal jig. Blood and fever were in its broken fall, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... spirits began to lighten. Merely by way of being sociable with himself he hummed some old ditties. There was that about the old coaster, the Eliza Jane. I liked to hear him sing that, as, dancing a one-footed jig-step by the wheel-box, ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... me," Jet whispered as the paper fell from his grasp. "Now my jig is up, an' I reckon there's no chance but that I'll have ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... sick of his learned talk about books, pictures, and politics, as if a young society girl were expected to know about these things; and as for his small talk, it reminded me of an elephant trying to dance a jig;" and she sprang up with a snatch of song from the "opera bouffe," and began ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... to see, the good woman executed a sort of jig, and having thus relieved her feelings departed to the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Giles Corey. And let him say so twice as 'tis, and meet my fist, an he dares. I be an old man, but I could hold my own in my day, and there be some of me left yet. Who says so twice to old Giles Corey? Martha a witch! Verily she could not stop praying long enough to dance a jig through with the devil. Martha! Out upon ye, ye lying devil's tool of a parson, that seasons murder with prayer! Out upon ye, ye magistrates! your hands be redder than your fine trappings! Martha a witch! ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Jig's up pretty definitely, don't you think?" said Adams, with a glance around at the idle track force huddling for shelter under the lee of the ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... through the incurrent necessities of every circumstance, each of them spoke in whispers, even now. It was curious to note the candid mirth on either side. Mercury was making his adieux to Alcmena's waiting-woman in the middle of a jig. ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... a weak solution of the acid," declared Ham. "Otherwise it would have eaten the rope through in jig time. So that's the game, is it? Well, they may have been trying it on a larger scale. Did you find ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... into the ring. One stocking came down, letting out a quart of sawdust. One tight split up to the knee as he made a jig step that brought the tears to the eyes of Billy Blow, who, with his boy, had come to witness ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... almost crazed me with agreeable surprise—it gave me such a flight of spirits that I danced a jig to Mr. Crisp, without any preparation, music, or explanation—to his no small amazement and diversion. I left him, however, to make his own comments upon my friskiness, without affording him the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... centre. While we were thus in our allotted positions, and straining every nerve to remain perfectly rigid—an ordeal which, by the way, I never wish to go through again, as I had hard work to restrain myself from breaking out into a Highland fling or an Irish jig, or calling out "Boo!" to the audience to relieve my pent-up feelings—Mr. Abbey suddenly seized the superb hat on Caldecott's head, which the latter had had specially made, and in which he really fancied himself, handed it to me, and to Caldecott's horror, and almost before he was conscious ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... has with utmost diligence called out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself and in the rest of the pew good thoughts and dispositions, they have been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... and Sir Samuel were out of the way, as safely disposed of as Monsieur Charretier himself, I felt so extravagantly happy in reaction, after all my worries, that I danced a jig in her ladyship's ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... "The jig's up with Germany and she's the only one that doesn't see it. It's fun to see the way she tries to belittle America to her own people. Almost every week she has to change the story. At first she said that America wouldn't fight ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... answered for her, "and I'm jolly well sure we never will again! I've had enough of being 'a child again, just for to-night!' And, if you please, ladies and gentlemen, it's now five o'clock! the jig is up! the game is played out! the ball is over! Here, waiter; bring some ice cream, ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... the waltz better. The waltz is to the two-step what the minuet is to the jig. Don't you think so now? Young Mrs. Black is a splendid waltzer. Next to you, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... Briant, forgetting his bodily pains, sprang to his feet with a roar of joy, seized Ailie in his arms and kissed her, embraced Glynn Proctor with a squeeze like that of a loving bear, and then began to dance an Irish jig, quite regardless of the fact that the greater part of it was performed in the fire, the embers of which he sent flying in all directions like a display of fireworks. He cheered, too, now and then like a maniac—"Oh, happy day! I've ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... awake now for five hours and the doctor says he's out of danger. I sort of let go then when the tension was over, but I've slept a bit since and have got a grip on myself again. I'm so happy that I feel like dancing a jig up and down the wards, and it is only with great difficulty that ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... the winter picture of it, it has no such darkness as that. The newsboys and the sandwich-men warming themselves upon the cellar gratings in Twenty-third Street and elsewhere have oftener than not a ready joke to crack with the passer-by, or a little jig step to relieve their feelings and restore the circulation. The very tramp who hangs by his arms on the window-bars of the power-house at Houston Street and Broadway indulges in safe repartee with the engineer down in the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... destined to a short time of it—he takes up with white mice, or, lacking these, constructs a dancing-doll, which, with the aid of a short plank with an upright at one end, to which is attached a cord passing through the body of the doll, and fastened to his right leg, he keeps constantly on the jig, to the music of a tuneless tin-whistle, bought for a penny, and a very primitive parchment tabor, manufactured by himself. These shifts he resorts to in the hope of retaining his independence and personal freedom—failing to succeed in which, he is driven, as a last ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... Dictionary declares solemnly that "beauty" is one of the meanings of "forma" And here we are away from alchemy and the magic wand ideas, and pass to the thought of the first place that I have quoted: "the streets were more than a mere assemblage of houses," The puzzle is solved; the jig-saw—I think they call it—has been successfully fitted together, There in a box lay all the jagged, irregular pieces, each in itself crazy and meaningless and irritating by its very lack of meaning: now we see each part adapted ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... pleased to give by B.mol express command to the pox not to run about any longer in gleaning up of coppersmiths and tinkers; for the jobbernolls had already a pretty good beginning in their dance of the British jig called the estrindore, to a perfect diapason, with one foot in the fire, and their head in the middle, as goodman Ragot ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the water cure I'm after. Sure it's the blissid wather that saves us. There was Pat Murphy that brak his leg when he fell with a hod of bricks aff the ladder in Say Strate, and they put a bit of wet rag round it, and the next wake he was dancing a jig to the chune of Paddy Rafferty, at the ball given by the Social Burial Society. And there was my sister Molly's old man, Phelim, that was took bad wid the fever—and he drank walth of whiskey, but it never did him a bit of good—but when he lift off the whiskey, and drank ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... life. The common dances I learned (as, perhaps, I ought not to confess) in the servants' hall, which, you may be sure, was never without a piper, and where I was considered unrivalled both at a hornpipe and a jig. ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drinkers and quarrelsome; great liars, but civil, submissive, and obedient. Dancing is so universal among them, that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families. Besides the Irish jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and country-dances are taught; and I even heard some talk ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... no stomach for Bryce's style of combat. He wanted a rough-and-tumble fight and kept rushing, hoping to clinch; if he could but get his great hands on Bryce, he would wrestle him down, climb him, and finish the fight in jig-time. But a rough-and-tumble was exactly what Bryce was striving to avoid; hence when Rondeau rushed, Bryce side-stepped and peppered the woodsman's ribs. But the woods-crew, which by now was ringed around them, began to voice disapproval ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... "He can't play nothin' but two jig tunes and he plays them like the very Old Scratch," she ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... threw away my crutches this morning, and tried to celebrate by dancing a jig. I'm sure I should have succeeded to my later sorrow but for Aunt Betty's horrified look, whereupon I sat ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... and awfully well, too, to his own singing. Mamma, who was attired in a flowing pink dressing-gown and a black hat trimmed with lilac, became suddenly emulous, and with her spade under her arm joined in the jig. This lasted for about a minute, and was a never-to-be-forgotten sight. They skipped round the hall, they changed sides, they swept up to each other and back again and finished with ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... it to do over again you shouldn't," I answered; and then I seized her and held her tight in my arms. Nor did I release her until Whistling Jim, coming up and realizing the situation, celebrated it by whistling a jig. "If you'll say the word," I declared, "I'll ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... reasoning at once. "Besides," he added, "if the Frostola man doesn't see us come out, he'll know the jig is up right ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... never a song to sing?) At ten to the tick, by the kitchen clock, I marked him blundering by, With his eyes astare, and his rumpled hair, and his hat cocked over his eye. Blind, in his pride, to his shoes untied, he went with a swift jig-jog, Off on the quest, with a strange unrest, hunting the Feasible Dog. And this is the song, as he dashed along, that he sang with a swaggering swing— (Now how had I heard him singing a song if he ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... tea, while Mercer and I were down by the gardens, where I found that somebody had been dancing a jig on my newly-raked beds, we heard a good deal of chattering and laughing over in the play-field, and Burr major's voice dominating all the others so queerly that ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... masque of Summer-time and Spring," said he, "wherein both claim to be best-loved, and have their say of wit and humor, and each her part of songs and dances suited to her time, the sprightly galliard and the nimble jig for Spring, the slow pavone, the stately peacock dance, for Summer-time. And win who may, fair Summer-time or merry Spring, the winner is but that beside our Queen!"—with which he snapped his fingers in the faces of ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... in the gibbet?" said Villon. "They are all dancing the devil's jig on nothing, up there. You may dance, my gallants, you'll be none the warmer! Whew! what a gust! Down went somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree! - I say, Dom Nicolas, it'll be cold to-night on the St. Denis ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Aggie said she used to do a little jig step when she was a girl, and if they would play slower she would like to see if she had forgotten it. Tish did not hear this—she was talking to Tufik, and a moment later she got up and ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on the cheery gang Wha dearly like a jig or sang, An' never think o' right an' wrang By square an' rule, But, as the clegs o' feeling stang, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to Russia is like a jig-saw puzzle, a mystery even to the man who devised it. A straight-forward recognition of the Omsk Government would have been an honest hand for honest work, but where would Allied diplomacy have come in? Diplomacy is only necessary when there are ulterior objects than ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... with him. The Flour had a few drinks, and then he went into the back-room where the new chums were. One of them was dancing a jig, and so the Flour stood up in front of him and commenced to dance too. And presently the new chum made a step that didn't please the Flour, so he hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down—fair an' flat on ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... accept their bounteous gifts, And order they be kept with proper care, Till we do build a place most fit to hold These precious toys: tell your society We ever did esteem them of great worth, And our firm friends: and tell 'em 'tis our pleasure They do prepare to dance a jig ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... laughed heartily at this, and the Righthandiron, dancing a little jig, sang over and over ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... dance a reel with Mrs. Major O'Dowd of ours; and a jig—did you ever see a jig? But I think anybody could dance with you, Miss Osborne, who ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... o'clock on Thursday, spent the day there, and returned the next night to Siboney. Early Friday morning, as we were approaching the Cuban coast, the captain of the Hercules came down into the cabin with the astounding news that the blockading fleet had disappeared. "The jig is up, boys!" he exclaimed excitedly. "They've taken the city, and the fleet is inside the harbor. I can't see a sign of a ship anywhere along ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... [85] The "jig" seems to have been a comic after-piece consisting of music and dancing. In Mr. Collier's Hist. of Dram. Lit., iii. 180-85 (new ed.), the reader will find much curious information on the point. The following passage from Shirley's Love in a Maze ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... de soldier clo's. He's a "dead shore shot," gwineter kill dem crows. He takes "Pot," an' "Skillet" from de Fiddler's Ball. Dey're to dance a liddle jig ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... your poor father had been alive," wound up Mrs. O'Keeffe, "the dirty upstart would never have dared to put such an insult on his orphaned daughter, that he wouldn't, and if Dan O'Leary should hear of it—which the saints forbid—it's not the jig that his foot would be teaching Mr. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... to market, to buy a fat pig, Home again, home again, jiggety-jig; To market, to market, to buy a fat hog, Home again, home again, jiggety-jog; To market, to market, to buy a plum bun, Home again, home ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... only throwing away powder," said Laurent. "Do you see that man who has lost his helmet, over yonder by the grocer's shop? Well, now draw a bead on him,—carefully, don't hurry. That's first-rate! you have broken his paw for him and made him dance a jig in his own blood." ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... different dress each time, and a clog-dance. The best clog-dance on the Pacific Slope," he added in a stage aside. "The minstrels are crazy to get her in 'Frisco. But money can't buy her—prefers the legitimate drama to this sort of thing." Here he took a few steps of a jig, to which the "Marysville Pet" beat time with her feet, and concluded with a laugh and a wink—the combined expression of an artist's admiration for her ability, and a man of the ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... could make you laugh and crow with his fiddle, and could make you jump up, aetat. 60, and snap your fingers at old age and propriety, and propose a jig to two bishops and one master of the rolls, and, they declining, pity them without a shade of anger, and substitute three chairs; then sit unabashed and smiling at the past; and the next minute he could make you cry, or near it. In a word ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... paid us toll. Od's curse! When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due, —Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to— I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time! He danced the jig that needs no floor,—and, here's the prime, 'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... poles. When we began to move the shearers gave a howl like the yell of a legion of lost souls escaping from down below. They gave three cheers for the rouseabouts' cook, who stayed behind; then they cursed the station with a mighty curse. They cleared a space on deck, had a jig, and afterwards a fight between the shearers' cook and his assistant. They gave a mighty bush whoop for the Darling when the boat swung into that grand old gutter, and in the evening they had a general all-round time. We got back, and the crew had to reload the wool without ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... no means browbeaten, Tim insisted that Melinda should give them a jig; and, so, crimsoning with shame and confusion, Melinda took the vacant stool and played her brother a tune—a rollicking, galloping tune, which everybody knew, and which set the feet to keeping time, and finally brought Tim and Andy to the floor for a dance. But Melinda declined playing ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... off. Montana, you'd ought to have masked your neck and your Adam's apple sooner'n your face. And you're Bill Sandersen. They ain't any other man in these parts that stands on one heel and points his off toe like a horse with a sore leg. I know you all, and, if you touch a hair on Jig's head, I'll have you into court for murder! You hear—murder! I'll have you ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... connected with this dinner at Lady Morgan's is of her kind and comical zeal to show me an Irish jig, performed secundum artem, when she found that I had never seen her national dance. She jumped up, declaring nobody danced it as well as herself, and that I should see it immediately; and began running through the rooms, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... writing of Johnson on March 16, 1775, says:—'He has the aspect of an idiot, without the faintest ray of sense gleaming from any one feature—with the most awkward garb, and unpowdered grey wig, on one side only of his head—he is for ever dancing the devil's jig, and sometimes he makes the most driveling effort to whistle some thought in his absent paroxysms.' Miss Burney thus describes him when she first saw him in 1778:—'Soon after we were seated this great man entered. I have so true a veneration for him that the very sight of him inspires me with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... But the best of us has our weaknesses & if a man has gewelry let him show it. As I was peroosin the bill a grave young man who sot near me axed me if I'd ever seen Forrest dance the Essence of Old Virginny? "He's immense in that," sed the young man. "He also does a fair champion jig," the young man continnerd, "but his Big Thing is the Essence of Old Virginny." Sez I, "Fair youth, do you know what I'd do with you ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... I know what it isn't. I checked out the refrigs three times, see, and came up with nothing. The refrigs are in jig order, and if I know it then you know it. So, if the refrigs are in jig order, there's only one thing it can be: we're getting too near the sun!" Boone clamped his mouth shut and stood with thick, muscular arms ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames
... on to, Julius Benjamin. The bridge is gone. So's everything else. It's only a matter of time when Goggles will be gone, too. This last will fix him with the company." Zephyr glanced slyly at Bennie with the last words. "The jig is up. The fiddle's broke its last string, and ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... wetting his stubbly white beard in the froth of the drawn quart of ale, and made away as fast as his stiff legs could carry him to where there was a steam ploughing engine at work—a mile distant. The sight of the white steam, and the humming of the fly-wheel, always set Bevis "on the jig," as the village folk called it, to get to the machinery, and the smell of the cotton waste and oil wafted on the wind was to him like the scent ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... sat asleep by the fire, The mistress snored loud as a pig, Jack took up his fiddle by Jenny's desire, And struck up a bit of a jig. ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... proper. It's odd," said Miss Palliser, looking down at her tea-cake with an air of profound philosophic reflection. "You can't ask your cousin to stay with you, because it's improper; but it isn't improper to sit up making catalogues with young Mr. Thing-um-a-jig till all hours ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... But she let old Belsham rest, and when I ran back after my gloves this afternoon, there she was, so hard at the Vicar that she didn't hear me laugh as I danced a jig in the hall because of the good time coming. What a pleasant life she might have if only she chose! I don't envy her much, in spite of her money, for after all rich people have about as many worries as poor ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... all assembled around Ned, who was repeating over and over again, the story told by Tom. Even Patsey, whom I had scarcely noticed since he joined the train, was tossing his well-worn cap in the air, catching it upon the toe of a toeless boot, while executing a lively Irish jig, and exclaiming every time he drew ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... doctor's arm. The others fell in line as if by magic, and then the fiddles began with vim. Oh, how they danced! Everyone, old and young—quadrilles, reels, polkas, Irish Washerwoman, Old Dan Tucker, and all. Even Mrs. Conors, after much persuasion, did a jig as it was performed "whin I was a gal in ould Ireland," and Patrick Flynn, the aspiring County Member, was her partner. How the old tavern creaked and groaned with the unusual tax upon its timbers, and how bright the windows looked from every side of the rambling edifice! When midnight was past the ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... lie shattered. All his trials oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears apart on a spike of ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... "the secret of eloquence is to know your facts—or, as the all-powerful Chuff would amend it, to know your tracts. One fact, I think I may say, is plain. The jig is up, or (more literally), the jag is up. I can see now that alcohol will never be more than a memory. Principalities and powers are in league against us. If the malt has lost its favor, ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... you're worth while the goin' is good. There, he's lifted his crate in one big pull an' I kinder guess he ain't hurt much either, else he couldn't show so much steam. Wall, here Perk's been left in possession, after all that bluff he put up. But it sure was a dandy jig while ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... news I've heard in a year of Sundays!" cried Andy. "Gone for good! Just think of it!" and, in high spirits, he began to do a jig, and ended with a handspring across the room, landing with a ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... hear me, Hero; wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure and a cinque-pace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs, falls ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... was the way the fun-loving Rover explained his actions. "I've got to let off steam or 'bust,'" and then he did a few steps of a jig, finishing by catching Nellie up in his arms and whirling ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... had tuned up his fiddle. William Isham was his name, a great bearded fellow who hailed originally from Rochester, New York; he would sit by the hour on the tongue of his wagon playing "Oh Susannah" and other lively airs, or strike up a jig tune while Negro Joe, who had fled from slavery in Mississippi, did a double shuffle in the firelight. The children slipped away from their mothers to set peeps at the fun from the edges of the crowd or play hide and seek ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... lately from Cork; I've crossed the big watther as bould as a shtork. 'Tis a dochther I am and well versed in the thrade; I can mix yez a powdher as good as is made. Have yez pains in yer bones or a throublesome ache In yer jints afther dancin' a jig at a wake? Have yez caught a black eye from some blundhering whack? Have yez vertebral twists in the sphine av yer back? Whin ye're walkin' the shtrates are yez likely to fall? Don't whiskey sit well on yer shtomick at all? Sure 'tis botherin' nonsinse to sit ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... mother had called on and who had called on her mother and how something must be done to stop her smoking too many cigarettes. It said that their young brother, having sprained his ankle at hockey, had become a wolf for jig-saw puzzles. It said where their parents had dined recently and where they were going to dine and who was coming next week. It said what she had seen at the theatre last Saturday and what book she was reading. It said which of the other V.A.D.'s ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... again what did I say to ee about missee? What did I say? Didn't I as good as tellee witch way she cast a sheepz i? That indeed would a be summut! An you will jig your heels amunk the jerry cum poopz, you might a then dance to some tune. I a warruntee I a got all a my i teeth imme head. What doesn't I know witch way the wind sets when I sees the chimblee smoke? To be sure I duz; as ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... very fond of dancing, especially the jig and buck. I made money as I stated before, I played children's plays of that time, top, marbles and another game we called skinny. Skinny was a game played on trees ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... them—the one next to the barber-shop—had across its front an ample, jig-sawed veranda, where aforetime, no doubt, the father of a family had fanned himself with a palm-leaf fan on Sunday afternoons, watching the surreys go by, and where his daughter listened to mandolins ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... marked the passing of Tug Bailey, who had confessed but had made his confession too late to please the crowd, which had him in its power. Nevertheless, Moran realized that there was no time now to form his men into anything like organized resistance. The enemy had caught him napping, and the jig was up. He had seen the vigilantes work before, and he knew that if he intended to save his own skin he must act quickly. When he turned from the window, short though the interval had been, he had formed ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... the mussulmans may have been mightily amused by the caper; but for my part I should modestly prefer skipping to the simple jig of ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... Khlopov had entered the room, he began to play with me and Marusya. He gave us candy, and insisted on dancing a jig with us. ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... in the dining-room grate; the golden light was dancing a jig all over the walls, hiding behind the curtains, coquetting with the silver, and touching the primroses on the plates to a perfect sunbeam; for father and mother were coming. Tom and Gypsy and Winnie were all three running to the windows and the door every two minutes ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... struggles he was arrested by the sound of whistling. Somebody in the distance outside was whistling, clearly and musically, a quaint, jingling sort of jig that struck familiarly on Desmond's ear. Somehow it reminded him of the front. It brought with it dim memory of the awakening to the early morning chill of a Nissen hut, the smell of damp earth, the whirr of aircraft soaring through the morning sky, the squeak ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... no shallow fluting that merely set the rustic feet a-jig, it was a strange and stirring strain that made the simplest one among them stand with his soul a-tiptoe, as he listened, as if a kingly train with banners went a-marching by. So royally he played his part, that ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... it, but the three of us quickly freed the trap. The humor of the thing took strong hold of my new allies, and while I was getting a lantern to light us through the passage Larry sat on the edge of the trap and howled a few bars of a wild Irish jig. We set forth at once and found the passage unchanged. When the cold air blew in upon ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... few yards, packed down the snow, danced a jig that sent the blood back into his feet, and managed to endure another half hour. Then, from down the river, he heard the unmistakable jingle of dog-bells. Peering out, he saw a sled round the bend. Only one man was with it, straining at the gee-pole ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... out of the bag: this fatal hint at "some secret mission" made that plain. A little carelessness, some more shrewd probing into his affairs, and the jig would be up, indeed. This was the one way that their enemies in Hunston could interfere with him—insisting on knowing why he had come there; and Coligny Smith had had the bull luck, as Peter put ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... this cover the sound of smothered yells reached our ears, mingled with blows of gun-butts, as the fellows vainly endeavored to break out from their prison. The negro Sam grinned from ear to ear, executing a jig, as he flashed ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... said they; the parts heal, and her constitution mends: if she submits to our government she will be abroad in a little time. Nay, it is reported that they wrote to her friends in the country that she should dance a jig next October in Westminster Hall, and that her illness had been chiefly owing to bad physicians. At last, one of them was sent for in great haste, his patient grew worse and worse: when he came, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... organ and so had Larry, and they were both in the same key. Joe too had an old fiddle of his father's on which he could scrape with joy to himself, and with more or less agony to others, the dance tunes of local celebrity, the "Red River Jig," picked up from his father, "Money Musk" and "The Deil Amang the Tailors," the two latter from Dan Monroe at ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... his rod: 690 Original in spirit and in ease, She pleased by hiding all attempts to please: No comic actress ever yet could raise, On Humour's base, more merit or more praise. With all the native vigour of sixteen, Among the merry troop conspicuous seen, See lively Pope[54] advance, in jig, and trip Corinna, Cherry, Honeycomb, and Snip: Not without art, but yet to nature true, She charms the town with humour just, yet new: 700 Cheer'd by her promise, we the less deplore The fatal time when Olive shall be no more. Lo! Vincent[55] comes! With simple grace array'd, She laughs ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... of a good deal of perturbation on the part of both dancers and orchestra, the entertainment went off well enough to be applauded heartily. Certain numbers, notably the South Carolina breakdown, the Irish jig, and the minuet of Washington's time, "brought down the house," presumably because the music fitted best ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... 'here's for the jig-maker! he's the right man!' Or perhaps he is claiming the part as his own: 'I ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... feminine division of mankind has precisely an opposite meaning. The woman manager (he says) economizes, saves, oppresses her household with bargains and contrivances, and looks sourly upon any pence that are cast to the fiddler for even a single jig-step on life's arid march. Wherefore her men-folk call her blessed, and praise her; and then sneak out the backdoor to see the Gilhooly ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... such a lively jig that his rags and tags flew about him, and then he made another bow and kissed his hand again and ran up the ladder like a flash ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... hotels that go round and round like catherine wheels? They'll take away my shield and break me. I can think and talk con-con-consec-sec-secutively, but I s-s-stammer with my feet. I've got to go on duty in three hours. The jig is up, Remsen. The jig ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... horses. When de bell rang dey was ready to eat. After breakfast dey took de teams and went out to plow. Dey come in 'bout half past 'leven and at twelve de bell rung agin. Dey eat their dinner and back to plowing dey went. 'Bout five o'clock dey come in again, and den they'd talk, sing and jig ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... go, for she also was a grand dancer, and she was afraid that when she heard the fiddles starting a merry jig, she might start dancing. So she excused herself by saying she was too tired with scraping pots and washing saucepans; and when the others went off, she crept up to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel |
