"Knee-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stepping-stones, but on the day in question the tops of the stones were barely visible. On crossing the burn the foot of the bride slipped, and the bridegroom, in his eagerness to assist her, slipped also—knee-deep in the water. The raven voice was again ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... Cephas (Patty's secret adorer), was a painter by trade, and kept his pots and cans and brushes in a little outhouse at the back, while Uncle Bart himself stood every day behind his long joiner's bench almost knee-deep in shavings. How the children loved to play with the white, satiny rings, making them into necklaces, hanging them to their ears and weaving them ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with great speed toward the ostrog. We were not less chagrined than disappointed at his abrupt departure, as we began to find our journey over the ice attended not only with great difficulty, but even with danger. We sunk at every step almost knee-deep in the snow, and though we found tolerable footing at the bottom, yet the weak parts of the ice not being discoverable, we were constantly exposed to the risk of breaking through it. This accident at last actually happened to myself; for, stepping on quickly over a suspicious ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... marched back. Every house in Neuilly and Courbevoie was full of troops, and regiments were camping out in the fields, where they had passed the night without tents. Many of the men had been so tired that they had thrown themselves down in the mud, which was almost knee-deep, and thus fallen asleep with their muskets by their sides. Bitter were the complaints of the commissariat. Bread and eau de vie were at a high premium. Many of the men had thrown away their knapsacks, with their loaves strapped ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... raced for the scene, shouting to Champlain to follow, but leaving him and four of his men to find their way as best they could. They were soon lost in the dense woods. The day was hot, and the air was full of mosquitoes. The Frenchmen struggled on through black mud and knee-deep water and over fallen trees and slimy logs, panting under their heavy corselets; but not a sound could they hear to guide them to ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... rectangular tanks from the cooks' wagons were used, being carried by two men, on a wooden framework or stretcher. Along a road or up a well made communication trench this was a comparatively light task, but to carry a tank full of hot tea over slippery shell holes and through knee-deep mud was a difficult matter, and on more than one occasion a platoon lost its hot drink at night through the disappearance of the carriers into some shell hole. The wonderful thing was that both tea-less platoon and drenched carriers would ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... than rain—there were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By noon of the second day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; coops floated in slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep in certain places; the horses drew back—it was like fording a stream. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... been a fine property; now over everything lay the mark of decay. A broad drive, covered with grass and weed; the remains of beds, where thistles and docks were destroying the flowers and lawns, knee-deep in the over-growth. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... standing knee-deep in the water, and rooting up the lily stems with his long, pendulous nose, was the biggest and blackest bull moose in the world. As he pulled the roots from the mud and tossed up his dripping head ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... before, the words of which I did not understand, but which at the present time, down the long avenue of years, seem in memory's ear to sound like 'Horam, coram, dago.' Several robust fellows were near me, some knee-deep in water, employed in hauling the seine upon the strand. Huge fish were struggling amidst the meshes—princely salmon—their brilliant mail of blue and silver flashing in the morning beam; so goodly and gay a scene, in truth, had ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... knee-deep in her own blood while the iron of Germany is being hurled into her breast. Iron Workers of America, to you has God given the answer to the German thunderbolt. The iron of the republic shall beat down ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... experience of Wapping, Poplar, Rotherhithe, Limehouse, and Deptford, when they really came to life, there was precious little sleep, and no vegetables worth mentioning. They were quick and lusty. There they stood, long knee-deep and busy among their fleets, sometimes rising to cheer when a greater adventure was sailing or returning, some expedition that was off to find further avenues through the Orient or the Americas, or else a broken craft bringing back tragedy from the Arctic; ship after ship; great captain ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... in the home of the summers, the seats of the happy immortals, Shrouded in knee-deep blaze, unapproachable; there ever youthful Hebe, Harmonie, and the daughter of Jove, Aphrodite Whirled in the white-linked dance, with the gold-crowned Hours and ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... here, drilling there, galloping every where; and, moreover, Montreal is knee-deep in snow, and the thermometer below zero. Every hour brings fresh intelligence of the movements of the rebels, or patriots—the last term is doubtful, yet it may be correct. When they first opened the theatre at Botany Bay, Barrington ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... days Merry-Garden was a cherry-garden. The cottage was faced with a verandah overlooking the tide. In the wide stone chimney-place, where now, standing knee-deep in nettles, you may look up and see blue sky beyond the starlings' nests, as many as twenty milk-pans have stood together over the fire, that the visitors might have clotted cream to eat with their strawberries and raspberries. In the orchards, from under masses of traveller's joy, you may ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... honor of Saladin his biographers are never weary. When, for instance, the Christians took Jerusalem they slaughtered every soul in the place; their horses were knee-deep in blood. When Saladin took the city he suffered none to be slain; when there was no more money for ransom he suffered thousands to go free; to the weeping widows and fatherless girls he gave purses of money and suffered no outrage to be done to them. He divided them ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... nags were brought to the door, and we, mounting, set out for London, where we arrived about ten, the roads being fairly passable save in the marshy parts about Shoreditch, where the mire was knee-deep; so to Gracious Street, and there leaving our nags at the Turk inn, we walked down to the Bridge stairs, and thence with a pair of oars to Greenwich. Here, after our tedious chilly voyage, we were not ill-pleased to see the inside of an inn once more, and Don Sanchez, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... of great effort they made him understand what was required, and they then continued to make him jump in and out of the hogshead for several minutes; then, joining hands, they danced around him, whilst he stood knee-deep in the water, shivering, and making the most imploring motions to be set ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... were full two hours in walking from the base of the hills to Howard's ranch headquarters. Continuously the girl found fresh interests leaping into her quick consciousness. They waded knee-deep in lush grass of a meadow into which Howard had brought water from the hills; among the grass were strange flowers, red and yellow and blue, rising on tall stalks to lift their heads to the golden sun. From the grass rose birds, startled by ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... waggons were entrained very quickly, and just at dark I found myself in a second-class carriage, one of a merry party of eight, sitting knee-deep in belts, haversacks, blankets, cloaks, and water-bottles. We travelled on till midnight, and then stopped somewhere, posted guards, and slept in the ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... two feet high, and has an arrow-shaped leaf larger than one's hand. Like rice, it grows in shallow pools of water, and a patch of it looks like an inundated garden. As we passed along we saw half-clad natives standing knee-deep in mud and water pulling the full-grown plants or putting in young ones. Reaching higher ground, we cantered along a hard, smooth road bordered with short green grass. On either side were dwellings of wood surrounded by broad-leafed banana trees, with here ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... things that I must not do. How many cold shower-baths of reproval have I already received; how many unruly things have I already done! We are invited to many dinners, luncheons, and entertainments of all kinds. I am knee-deep in engagements, actually wading in them. The engagement-book you gave ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... feet, fair lady." Anita Windham flashed a smile at him. "Like the chivalrous Don Walter Raleigh," she responded. "Ah, but I am not a Queen Elizabeth. Nor is this London." She regarded with a shrug of distaste the stretch of mud-flats reaching to the tide-line, rubbish—littered and unfragrant. Knee-deep in its mire, bare-legged Indians and booted men drove piles for the superstructure of a ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... low sob came faintly on the ear, Mock'd by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought, Into the stream leapt Ambrose, where he caught Fast hold of something—a dark huddled heap— Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee-deep, For a tall man; and half above it, propp'd By some old ragged side-piles, that had stopt Endways the broken plank, when it gave way With the two little ones that luckless day! "My babes!—my lambkins!" was the father's cry. One little voice made answer—"Here ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... saw another figure leave a companion and run in after a retiring wave, the foam knee-deep, and catch at something ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... out vigorously, stumbled into the water loosening the hold of two vicious scavengers on the torn skin of his ankle when he waded out knee-deep. Already that black tongue of small bodies licked across the red-haired side of the hunter. Within minutes the corpse ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... the waves with redoubled speed, leaning over until the water foamed over her gunwale and was knee-deep in her scuppers, an occasional billow topping over her foc's'le, and pouring down into the waist in a cataract of gleaming green sea and sparkling spray, all glittering with prismatic colours, like a ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... ho! Shell-bracelets ho! Fair maids and matrons come and buy!" Along the road, in morning's glow, The pedlar raised his wonted cry. The road ran straight, a red, red line, To Khirogram, for cream renowned, Through pasture-meadows where the kine, In knee-deep grass, stood magic bound And half awake, involved in mist, That floated in dun coils profound, Till by the sudden sunbeams kist Rich ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... timber. The only thing to greet the eye was the logs of which the huts were constructed. Nevertheless the scene was to a certain extent enlivened by the spectacle of two peasant women who, with clothes picturesquely tucked up, were wading knee-deep in the pond and dragging behind them, with wooden handles, a ragged fishing-net, in the meshes of which two crawfish and a roach with glistening scales were entangled. The women appeared to have cause of dispute between themselves—to be rating ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... demanded forcible and immediate action on the part of the Federal authorities. These pioneers had seen uncounted millions of buffalo melt away because no one took enough interest in the matter to stop the wanton waste. They had seen great billowy prairies, once knee-deep in the most splendid covering of grass and vegetation, grazed down until they were hardly more than dust heaps; and mountains that were clothed with magnificent forests swept bare—first by the woodsman's ax and later by forest fires that burned each year millions and millions of feet ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... of the wet hides, which we were obliged to roll about in wheelbarrows; the continual stooping upon those which were pegged out to be cleaned; and the smell of the nasty vats, into which we were often obliged to wade, knee-deep, to press down the hides,— all made the work disagreeable and fatiguing; but we soon became hardened to it, and the comparative independence of our life reconciled us to it, for there was nobody to haze us and find fault; and when we were through ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... moment the water flooded up around Helen's ankles. The stream was rising, and had Jennie not dragged her back, Helen would have been knee-deep in the water—perhaps have been injured herself by one ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... summer home there is a little cove or landing by the bay, where nothing larger than a boat can ever anchor. I sit above it now, upon the steep bank, knee-deep in buttercups, and amid grass so lush and green that it seems to ripple and flow instead of waving. Below lies a tiny beach, strewn with a few bits of drift-wood and some purple shells, and so sheltered by ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Devil. The moon had not yet risen when the timber disappeared at the foot of the first shoulder. Douglas pulled up the panting horses, turned back to the wind and rested for a few moments, then put Tom to the climb. The snow was without crust but it was knee-deep and Tom didn't like it. He floundered and snorted, but Douglas spurred him relentlessly and they crested the shoulder without pause. Here, however, Doug decided ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... enticing gestures, and, gathering courage, stood tremulously while the tide splashed their feet and retreated. The boldest walked in ankle-deep and danced in daredevilry, and soon young and old were gambolling uncouthly, tasting the sea's quality, shouting and splashing. None ventured more than knee-deep; some crawled and wallowed in the wet sand, too fearful to trust their lives to so big a thing which showed itself to be alive by breathing and moving. The morning was spent in moist frolics, and when the north-easter began to work up a little sea, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... a mighty rush for Mineola. Nobody who caught the infection stopped to reason. Some of them had to wade through water, which in places was knee-deep. They came from various directions, and united in a yelling mob. They meant to carry the ark with a rush. They would not be denied. As the excited throngs neared the great vessel they saw its huge form rising like a mount of safety, with an American ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... and Boggley were away all Sunday, and I spent the whole day with a volume of Dana Gibson's drawings, the only book I could find. I did go for a short walk, but the dust was nearly knee-deep, and, except the little bungalow and outhouses, there was absolutely ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... indomitable lady, having preferred the less expensive mode of walking, entering a strange world. Sauntering along the Bowery she turns down Bayard street. Bayard street she finds lined with filthy looking houses, swarming with sickly, ragged, and besotted poor; the street is knee-deep with corrupting mire; carts are tilted here and there at intervals; the very air seems hurling its pestilence into your blood. Ghastly-eyed and squallid children, like ants in quest of food, creep and swarm over the pavement, begging for bread ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, and it ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... in her small splint chair by the rose-draped window, her thoughts dwelling on long dark green grass, the shade of elms, and cows knee-deep in river-shallows; this was California—hot, arid, tedious in endless ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... better of him the year before when he had risen in the gray dawn of an Indian day and stoically made his way to the banks of the Ganges. It had proclaimed itself above the Vedic hymns of the twice-born Brahmins, standing knee-deep in the sacred river; it had dogged his footsteps among the ash-smeared fakirs, and jewel-hung cows; it had even haunted the burning-ghat where he had stood and watched human bodies burning on ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... seamen and volunteers were attached to each gun. Three of these were sixty-eight-pounder shell guns and three thirty-two-pounder solid-shot guns. Each of these guns weighed about three tons. Now each of these had to be dragged through the loose sand, almost knee-deep, for something like three miles before it could be put in the position the engineers had assigned to it. This battery, by the way, was protected by bags of sand piled on each other, and this was the first time that this device had ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... in pursuit of me I made the mistake of running along the edge of the forest rather than making for the open beach. In a moment I was knee-deep in rotting vegetation, and the awful thing behind me was gaining rapidly as I floundered and fell in my efforts ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... little stream down which he had been traveling had become a river. There were houses here and there on the shores, cultivated fields and pasture-lands, and in some places cattle browsed on the banks, or stood knee-deep ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... of red and white cows, knee-deep in the water, were swishing off the flies with the wet tufts of their tails. Hester watched their every movement. She was no longer afraid of cows. Presently, as if with one consent, they all made up their minds to relieve the tedium of the contemplative life by an exhibition ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... faces, as if they found these the pleasantest points of the landscape. Sauntering between plantations of young eucalyptus, they came to the arched stone bridge. They leaned on the parapet, looking down at the marshy stream beneath and at the three irises Kerr had remarked, knee-deep in swamp ground. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... round sharply at the attack behind her, and she stood bare-haired and bare-shouldered, knee-deep in the golden bracken, with the glory of the moon on her; her arms hanging, her lips parted, her great eyes wide with terror—as lovely in her desperate extremity as a dream, as, a painted picture. I don't know how long I was down there, but when I finally got up, and, following along the path behind ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... towards twilight, one could lounge away an hour pleasantly under the shadow of the fortress, looking now at the game and now at the rolling country beyond, where olives and long battalions of vines marched knee-deep through the golden grain, until the purple splendors of sunset had ceased to transfigure the distant hills, and the crickets chirped louder under the deepening gray ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... made by the red hunter and warrior. Although hundreds of deer traveled to this lick yearly, they had not originally made the trail. It was an ancient Indian runaway, for the creek was fordable near this point. The tribesmen had used it for generations until it was worn almost knee-deep in the forest mould, but wide enough only to be traveled in single file. Along this ancient trail, and approaching the lick with infinite caution, came a boy of thirteen, bearing ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... hard work. Bit by bit she began to grab; whatever I had felt in her mind seemed to leap up. I probed her, amplifying it, trying to draw it out. It was like wading through knee-deep mud—sticky, sluggish, resisting. I could feel her excitement growing, and bit by bit I released my grip, easing her out, ...
— Second Sight • Alan Edward Nourse
... stream began to rise and the pools to fill up. The frogs sat knee-deep in water, and the fishes swam upon ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of the wet hides, which we were obliged to roll about in wheelbarrows; the continual stooping upon those which were pegged out to be cleaned; and the smell of the vats, into which we were often obliged to get, knee-deep, to press down the hides; all made the work disagreeable and fatiguing;—but we soon got hardened to it, and the comparative independence of our life reconciled us to it; for there was nobody to haze us and find fault; and when we got through, we had only to wash ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... fir-lined path of the forests, which were covered with a heavy layer of snowflakes. Some one struck a red light in the dark, and the pleasant aroma of a good cigarette was wafted toward him. Osip, the sleigh-tender, ran from sleigh to sleigh, knee-deep in snow, telling of the elks that were roaming in the deep snow, nibbling the bark of aspen trees, and of the bears emitting their warm breath through the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... defective character—than of anything else; and for days after the fight the flood-gates of heaven seemed to stand open, to deluge the country around Manassas until it became a perfect lake of mud. Roads already bad were washed into gullies; holes generally knee-deep became impassable. It is perfectly easy, therefore, to understand why, for a week after the battle, delay was necessary; but as week after week passed, and there was still no forward movement, it ceased to be strange that the people should murmur, and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... this field we came to a deep gully through which ran a swift stream almost knee-deep. Our way led across this stream, and there was only one means of getting over. That was to plunge in and splash through. Tired as we all were, after getting thoroughly wet our feet felt like lead, and marching was perfect torture. Still there ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... limpid ponds, the Warloch lay before us, veiled in a glory of golden-flecked heliotrope and purple water-lilies, and floating deep green leaves, with here and there gleaming little seas of water, opening out among the lilies, and standing knee-deep in the margins a rustling fringe of light reeds and giant bulrushes. All round the ponds stood dark groves of pandanus palms, and among and beyond the palms tall grasses and forest trees, with here and there a spreading colabar ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... honey and falling like dew upon the young sward. The birds twittered ceaselessly, and some young thing preening upon a light blossomy twig scattered down, anon, perfume upon some shy young fawn, and he leapt away frightened by so dainty a bath and plunged knee-deep in crystal pools and sent the stately swans skimming hurriedly to a quiet and ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... autumn Sredni-Kolymsk is as completely cut off from the outer world, as a desert island in mid-ocean, by swamps and thousands of shallow lakes which extend landwards on every side for hundreds of miles. A reindeer-sled skims easily over their frozen surface, but in the open season a traveller sinks knee-deep at every step ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... those watching events from the shore when they saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the visitor and in its place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters were just about reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this surprise came, and it was augmented when, with the protection of the guns of the vessel, the men in these cutters showed themselves to be a hostile ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... shop we find just outside the city, beside a large creek. A laundry not built by hands! Here women stand knee-deep in the stream, with the hot sun beating down upon their heads. They are doing their laundry work. The clothes are cleaned by soaking them in water and pounding them with stones. We wonder if there are any buttons left ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... words Ned unslung the glasses, and adjusted the same to his eyes. The others of the party, standing there knee-deep in the rank grass that grew along the border of the woods, watched him with renewed interest. They even forgot about the wild fowl that were sporting in flocks out where the waves broke upon a line of rocks, with a ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... with Argyle, he ventured a march, where no march had ever been before, or could have been supposed possible, up the rugged bed of the Tarf, and so, by the spurs of big Carryarick and the secrets of the infant Spey, now in bog and wet, now knee-deep in snow, over the mountains of Lochaber. It was on Friday the 31st of January that he began the march, and early in the evening of Saturday the 1st of February they were down at the foot of Ben Nevis ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... cousin," retorted Emma, with a laugh, "but it is covered here with snow that is soft and probably knee-deep. Go on ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... mowen time I took An' pull'd ye out o' Longmeaed brook, Where you'd a-slidder'd down the edge An' zunk knee-deep bezide the zedge, A-tryen to reaeke out ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... and she felt the deepening slush of swamp-mire under her feet. She sank in it to her shoe-tops, and stumbled into pools knee-deep, and Peter wallowed in it to his belly. A quarter of an hour they fought through it to the rising ground beyond. And by that time the last of the black storm clouds had passed overhead. The rain had ceased. The rumble of thunder ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... stretch of marsh between the peninsula and the cove, alternately walking on soft springy ground above a bed of coralline limestone and wading knee-deep along the watercourse, they emerged upon the left bank of the cove. The two smaller cabins were not more than twenty paces distant, and between them was a plank bridge rudely built in the form of a trestle. Dave ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... look at it. I only remember the extreme solitude of the region, and scrambling and sliding down a most precipitous pali, hearing a roar like cataract upon cataract, and coming suddenly down upon a sublime and picturesque scene, with only standing room, and that knee-deep in water, between a savage torrent and the cliff. This gulch, called the Scotchman's gulch, I am told, because a Scotchman was drowned there, must be at its crossing three-quarters of a mile inland, and three hundred feet above the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the Nivernois. Its productions are various; in the plains are grown wheat, rye, hemp, oats, and flax: on the mountain side the grape is largely cultivated; and in the valleys are rich verdant meadows, where countless droves of oxen, knee-deep in the luxuriant grass, feed and fatten in peace ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... great way from Christchurch. The sun was lying low in the west and shooting its level rays across the long sweep of rich green country, glinting on the white-fleeced sheep and throwing long shadows from the red kine who waded knee-deep in the juicy clover. Right glad was the traveller to see the high tower of Christchurch Priory gleaming in the mellow evening light, and gladder still when, on rounding a corner, he came upon his comrades of the morning seated astraddle upon a fallen tree. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Wakayoo stood knee-deep in a pool that had formed behind a sand bar, and he was having tremendously good luck. Even as Baree shrank back, his eyes popping at sight of this monster he had seen but once before, in the gloom of night, one of Wakayoo's big paws sent a great splash of water ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... return on their own trail, and discover that made by the Pathfinder and the Serpent in their ascent from and descent to the river, the clue to their movements would cease at the shore, water leaving no prints of footsteps. The young man had therefore waded, knee-deep, as far as the point, and was now seen making his way slowly down the margin of the stream, searching curiously for the spot in which ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... smell of ripening grain, clover-blooms, and new hay; for the high stands of wild hay around the ponds and lakes are all being cut this year, and even the timothy along the roads, and there was a mellow undertone of mowing machines everywhere, like the distant hum of a city. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in a stream as we passed, and others lay contentedly on the clover-covered banks. One restless spirit, with a poke on her neck, sniffed at us as we went by, and tossed her head in grim defiance of public opinion and man-made laws. She had been ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... heard on board as the boat passed close under the batteries. On deck, exposed alike to the storm and to the enemy's fire, were two men; one, Charles Wilson, a seaman, heaving the lead, standing sometimes knee-deep in the water that boiled over the forecastle; the other, an officer, Theodore Gilmore, on the upper deck forward, repeating to the pilot the leadsman's muttered "No bottom." The storm spread its sheltering wing over the gallant vessel, baffling ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... of shallow mist was rolling; and the trees in the valley, like browsing cattle, stood knee-deep in whiteness, with all the air above them wan from an innumerable rain as of moondust, falling into that white sea. Then the moon passed behind the lime-tree, so that a great lighted Chinese lantern seemed to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wild jasmine and other flowers of whose pastures (the "lilies" of the Song) still excite the admiration of travellers. Laurence Oliphant is lost in delight over the "anemones, cyclamens, asphodels, iris," which burst on his view as he rode "knee-deep through the long, rich, sweet grass, abundantly studded with noble oak and terebinth trees," and all this in Gilead. When, then, the Hebrew poet placed his shepherd and his flocks among the lilies, he was not trying to conciliate the courtly aristocrats of Jerusalem, or reconcile them to his ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... but one of my associates did. He saw it last winter in a dismal place on the Toul sector. A file of our troops were finishing a long hike through rain and snow over roads knee-deep in half-thawed icy slush. Cold and wet and miserable they came tramping into a cheerless, half-empty town within sound and range of the German guns. They found a reception committee awaiting them there—in ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... Buto bore down straight upon Tarzan, across the few yards of knee-deep grass which separated them. Accident started him in the direction of the ape-man, and then his weak eyes discerned the enemy, and with a series of snorts he charged straight for him. The little rhino ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down, as if working a churn. Once, when the poor creature met with a very heavy fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal's neck, and whispered to the smith "Twenty ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... no more afraid of the weather than he was of anything else. Day after day he went out with his gun and his dog, to fight his way for miles through the drifts, up and down hill, over the open moor where the snow was not knee-deep, under the giant trees from which great lumps of it fell now and then upon his fur cap and grizzled hair, down into the dells and gorges where it was nearly up to his neck, and where his sturdy dog struggled wildly through ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... fishing with a determination that did not spring altogether from love of the sport. The water of the British Columbian river in which he stood knee-deep was icy cold; his rubber boots were badly ripped and leaky, and he was wet with the drizzle that drove down the lonely valley. It was difficult to reach the slack behind a boulder some distance outshore, and the arm he strained ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... during the night to keep out the dew, all the waxy chalices of the winter-greens pale and faint with passion, all the bells nodding to the wind, began ringing—ringing ten thousand golden bells; and the painter's brush, multicolored dazzling knee-deep in the Alpine meadows, flaunted countless torches of carmine flame to welcome back the day. Then, suddenly, it wasn't a sound of bells at all. It was her voice, her voice with the golden note and the liquid break that came when he had surprised Love in her eyes; and it wasn't the warmth ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... fragments of the glory that was Rajasthan. There, where courtiers had intrigued and flattered, crows held conference. On the crumbling arch of a doorway, that opened into emptiness, a vulture brooded, heavy with feeding on those who had died for lack of food. Knee-deep in the Man Sagar Lake, grey cranes sought their meat from God; every tint and curve of them repeated in the quiet water. And there, beside a ruined shrine, two dead cactus bushes, with their stiff distorted limbs, made Roy think suddenly of two dead Germans he had come upon once—killed ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... stanchion-rail as he made his way knee-deep in water, came towards the two prisoners. It was Hans Koppe. He had obtained the Kapitan's permission to release his charges ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year, you must not die: You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old year you ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... morning, the 8th of February, he marched with five companies of the second battalion of the 60th Regiment, four guns and thirty-eight men of the Mounted Squadron. The force crossed the river Ingogo, then only knee-deep, and gained a plateau in shape like an inverted L, the base being the side nearest Newcastle. On arrival here an orderly suddenly reported that the enemy, concealed among boulders and large blocks of granite, was waiting in great force. Almost immediately afterwards about ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... short cuts across the fields when the trenches were knee-deep with mud, was scandalous in the eyes of our neighbors of the Imperial army, as the troops from the British Isles are known. Quite frequently we were subjected to the most scathing tongue-lashing from officers ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... but dashed at once into the lake, and plunged wildly across. The noise made by himself in wading knee-deep prevented him from hearing other sounds; and he did not look to see whether he was followed until he had climbed out on the opposite shore of the bay. Then he paused and turned around. To his chagrin ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... gentle splash and then the other—"Oh dear" said Isabel, seized with a great disposition to laugh. Lawrence was not amused. His boots were full of mud and water and he had an aching sense of injured dignity. The bog was not even dangerous: and ankle-deep, calf-deep, knee-deep he waded through it and got out on the opposite bank, bringing up a cloud of little marsh-bubbles on his heels. Isabel would have given all the money she had in the world—about five shillings to go away and laugh, but she had been well brought up and she remained grave, though ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... in mud and water, to find the least variation in the depth of the water so as to facilitate our exertions, but it was to no purpose. We were ultimately obliged to drag the boat over the flats; there were some of them a quarter of a mile in breadth, knee-deep in mud; but at length got her into deep water again. The turn of the channel was now before us, and we had a good run for about four or five miles. We had completed the bend, and the channel now stretched ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... crowded with towering and clumsy structures, especially on the elevated ridge which runs along Broadway from the City Hall to the Battery, giving it the appearance of an uncouth acropolis. All over the town manufactories and public buildings of colossal size stand, like megatheria, knee-deep in a jungle of houses. The campaniles of modern industry rise slim and tall into the air. The great buttresses and towers of the Brooklyn Bridge loom above the house-tops. Grain-elevators, which "take the wind out of the sails" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Standing knee-deep in a shallow pool on the beach, staring at him with wide-open dark eyes, was the creature that had screamed—a living, breathing embodiment of the curves and color, the softness, brightness, and gentle sweetness that his subconsciousness knew. There were the familiar ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... they had been his own? In those days each labourer had three or four acres of land as of right. This fostered an independent spirit and made their affection a tribute worth the winning.[8] Later on that same year, when winter came, earlier than its wont, the fells were knee-deep in snow and all the beasts were brought for shelter round the farm to protect them from the snow-drifts and bitter ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... washing the dogs. The mother, who had been the first victim, was morosely licking herself, shuddering effectively, and coldly ignoring her oppressor's apologies. The daughter, trembling in every limb, was standing knee-deep in the bath; one paw, placed on its rim, was ready for flight if flight became practicable; her tail, rigid with anguish would have hummed like a violin-string if it were touched. Fanny, with her shirt-sleeves rolled ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... were being stuck, and many of the passengers were already wading knee-deep in ooze, ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... clouds, and the hissing of his angry voice grew fainter; but so did the roars of the Firedrake. Presently they sounded more like groans; and at last the Remora slipped up his legs above the knees, and fastened on his very heart of fire. Then the Firedrake stood groaning like a black bull, knee-deep in snow; and still the Remora climbed ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... the world Knee-deep in blowing grass, And watched the white clouds crisply curled Above the mountain-pass, And lay among the purple thyme And from its fragrance caught Strange hints from some elusive clime Beyond the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to hold a Fish feast immediately on the conclusion of the marriage ceremony and that a similar practice can be prove for the ancient Greeks.[54] At the present day the Jews of Tunis exhibit a Fish's tail on a cushion at their weddings.[55] In some parts of India the newly-wedded pair waded knee-deep into the water, and caught fish in a new garment. During the ceremony a Brahmin student, from the shore, asked solemnly, "What seest thou?" to which the answer was returned, "Sons and Cattle."[56] In all these cases there can be no doubt that it was the prolific nature ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... their neighbourhood; and a very vigilant watch was therefore kept during the night. Somewhat to their surprise, however, it passed away quietly, and the next morning they resumed their march. They were passing the borders of a thick wood, nearly knee-deep in grass, when Roger felt his foot strike against a hard substance which emitted a hollow sound, as it gave way before him. Stooping down, he rose with a human skull in his hand, white and clean. He and Vaughan examined it: the ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... feeling which was almost that of getting back to their own rooms. Then they came to great steppes covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood knee-deep in this grass, and at the villages and way-stations were people wearing sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered with silver buttons. In one place there was a wedding procession waiting for the train to pass, with the friends of the bride and groom in their best ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... chambers, and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... one of those calm noonday scenes which impress upon us their own bright and voluptuous tranquillity. There stood the old herdsman leaning on his staff, and the quiet cattle knee-deep in the gliding waters. Never did stream more smooth and sheen than was at that hour the surface of the Moselle mirror the images of the pastoral life. Beyond, the darker shadows of the bridge and of the walls of Coblentz fell deep over the waves, checkered by the tall ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... making some useful article, or in sharpening the tools, after the flood-tide had obliged the pickmen to strike work, a sea would come rolling over the rocks, dash out the fire, and endanger his indispensable implement, the bellows. If the sea was smooth, while the smith often stood at work knee-deep in water, the tide rose by imperceptible degrees, first cooling the exterior of the fireplace, or hearth, and then quietly blackening and extinguishing the fire from below. The writer has frequently been amused at the perplexing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... second division to close up their ranks. The archers would have attacked them, but the king caused the signal for them to halt to be sounded, and riding up formed them in order again. The French were unable to take advantage of the moment to try and recover their lost ground, for the horses were knee-deep in the ground, upon which they had all night been trampling, and into which the weight of their own and their riders' armour ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... had been invaded. Threescore huskies chorused defiance, and as many furry forms precipitated themselves upon the dogs which drew the first sled. The door was flung open, and a man, clad in the scarlet tunic of the Northwest Police, waded knee-deep among the furious brutes, calmly and impartially dispensing soothing justice with the butt end of a dog whip. After that the men shook hands; and in this wise was Malemute Kid welcomed to his ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... unenviable pleasure of seeing some more of those icy waters, and their slow and deadly stealing under the snow seemed to him sinister and fatal as he pulled himself up on the brink. The care necessary, the cold, cutting wind, and the knee-deep snow, made their progress terribly slow, and Acton began to notice that Senior, despite his anxiety for a sharp pace, ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... taking of the "Cavalier,"[449] Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" of "hopes" Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear, Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the groups[450] Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thawed into a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... chat with some shabby-looking acquaintance in private life; we passed by the crowded little shops on the hill below the church, and glanced at the conglomeration of grain-sellers, jewellers, confectioners, and dealers in metal or earthen vessels, every man sitting knee-deep in his wares, smoking the eternal "hubble-bubble;" we noted the keen eyes of the buyers and the hawk's glance of the sellers, the long snake-like fingers eagerly grasping the passing coin, and seemingly convulsed into serpentine ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... terrible look in her eyes as she stared out across the barren. She put him in the traces, and fastened about her slender waist the strap that Pierre had used. Thus they struck out for the river, floundering knee-deep in the freshly fallen and drifted snow. Half-way Joan stumbled in a drift and fell, her loose hair flying in a shimmering veil over the snow. With a mighty pull Kazan was at her side, and his cold muzzle touched her face as she drew herself to her feet. For a moment Joan ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... wonderful hush of the dawn over the infinite sea. The air and water melted into a pearl gray. Far out toward the east, the waters began to blush at the kiss of the coming sun. The pearl gray slowly turned into purple. So startling was the vision, she swam in-shore and stood knee-deep in the shallows to watch the magic changes. In breathless wonder she saw the sea and sky and shore turn into a trembling cloud of dazzling purple. A moment before, she had caught the water up in her hand and poured it out in a stream of pearls. She lifted a handful and poured it out now, each drop ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... every lee-roll the muzzles of the quarter-deck guns were buried in the boiling yeast that foamed and swirled giddily past to leeward, and sometimes surged in through the ports, filling the lee-scuppers knee-deep with water. And whereas we had before ridden buoyantly over the head seas, with nothing worse than an occasional shower of spray flying in over the weather cathead, the frigate now plunged her bows savagely right into the very heart of them, quivering to ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... nations, and entone Hosannas louder than the victims groan; Then, stooping, drink their blood with gulps of zeal." What right have wounds, though wide, to throb, or feel? 'Tis blasphemy to England's crimson throne. Knee-deep in Erin's blood, she mocks Christ's moan: Forgive them, Lord! they know not their ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... devoured it.—Cattle knee-deep in green pasture, belly-deep in green water-flags by standing pools; cattle resting their long flanks while they chewed the cud; cattle whisking their tails amid the meadow-sweet, under hedges sprawled over with wild rose ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from tents and sprang through the white leaping edge into the rocking blue, as other bathers were doing all round the bay. When Mrs. Hilary came out of her tent, Neville was waiting for her, poised like a slim girl, knee-deep in tumbling waves, shaking ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... pass, Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs, That build amid the glare a shadowy house, And with a Paradisal freshness brims Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade; The antic water-fly above it skims, And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade, Or knee-deep in the grassy ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... stars among the green leaves. How it waved and rippled and flashed in the sunshine, when the wind blew! Andy almost forgot his grief; and surely he had quite forgotten that nothing was now any longer what it appeared, when he waded knee-deep through the delicious clover, and laid himself down in it. No sooner had he done so than he saw that what he had mistaken for a field was a large pond, and he had plunged into it ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... jewel in his head' I doubted nothing at all. You must see it glitter if you stooped and looked steadily into the hole. And on days when he came out and sate swelling his black sides, I never looked steadily; I would run a hundred yards round through the shrubs, deeper than knee-deep in the long wet grass and nettles, rather than go past him where he sate; being steadily of opinion, in the profundity of my natural history-learning, that if he took it into his toad's head to ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... fell in with an emigrant party on their way to Texas. Their mules had sunk in the mud, ... the wagons were already embedded as far as the axles. The women of the party, lightly clad in cotton, had walked for miles, knee-deep in water, through the brake, exposed to the pitiless pelting of the storm, and were now crouching forlorn and woebegone under the shelter of a tree.... The men were making feeble attempts to light a fire.... 'Colonel,' said one of them as I rode past, 'this is the gate of hell, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Like an antelope he bounded, Till he came unto a streamlet In the middle of the forest, To a streamlet still and tranquil, That had overflowed its margin, To a dam made by the beavers, To a pond of quiet water, Where knee-deep the trees were standing, Where the water lilies floated, Where the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... talk was all of Germany. She knows a great deal of its history and I think she must have told us all she knew. By the time the servants came to take away the tea-things I had a distinct vision of Germany as the most lovable of little lambs with a blue ribbon round its neck, standing knee-deep in daisies and looking about the world with kind ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... for a minute or two," pleaded the smith, who, with his assistant, was by this time standing nearly knee-deep in water. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... think I ever was abroad in; a chill that pierced into the marrow. The sky was bright and cloudless overhead, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But where Silver stood with his lieutenant all was still in shadow, and they waded knee-deep in a low, white vapour, that had crawled during the night out of the morass. The chill and the vapour taken together told a poor tale of the island. It was plainly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seemed to swim for a second before their eyes, and, as it cleared away, they were standing together with many other children knee-deep in unending banks of bluebells ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... dawn pierced the gloom of the deep valley, they were wading, knee-deep, a ford of the river, whose banks they had skirted throughout their journey. On the further side the forest, dank, green, and dripping with dew, received them into its impenetrable shades, but still the goldsmith toiled on; his heavy burden on his back, and the panting, weary, energetic, enthusiastic ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... eagerness to please and do. I could not help observing that, despite his dreadful sense-handicap and his wrecked, frail body, he did the most work, was always the last of the group to spring to the life-line and always the first to loose the life-line and slosh knee-deep or waist-deep through the churning water to attack the immense and depressing tangle ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... cloistered openings; sunny little meadows inclining to a spring, where the wild pea-vine, plant beloved of horses, and infallible sign of a rich soil, grew knee-deep. Such an opening they learned, however small, was quaintly dignified by the natives with the name ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the timber at last, and spun across a wide plain, scattered with clumps of gum-trees. Then another belt of bush, a narrow one this time; and they came out within view of a great park-like paddock where Shorthorn bullocks, knee-deep in grass, scarcely moved aside as the buggy spun past, with the browns pulling hard. The track ran near the fence, and turned in at a big white gate glistening with new paint. It stood wide open, and beside it was a man on ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... muscularly-built figure crossing the drift a little way down, stepping from boulder to boulder with those curiously small, neat feet, twirling his old horn-handled hunting-crop as he went, with a decidedly vicious swish of the doubled thong. Now he was knee-deep in the reeds of the north shore; now he was climbing the bank. A black-and-white crow flew up heavily, and was lost among the intertwining branches of the oaks and the blue-gums, and a cloud of finches and linnets rose as the covert of tree-fern and cactus and tall grass, knitted ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves |
