"Skulk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forth, and so will I. Sorry sight! to view Jabaster, with a stealthy step, skulk like a thing dishonoured! Oh! may the purpose consecrate the deed! the ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... peculate, purloin, poach, abstract, rob, defraud, pirate, plunder, crib, pillage, rapine loot, thieve, embezzle, peculate, plagiarize; insinuate, creep furtively, go stealthily, sneak, slink, skulk; ratten. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the mate got a doctor from a Dutch frigate, to look at me, who declared nothing ailed me. By these means nearly all hands in the ship were set against me, but my four companions, and the little boy fancying that I was a skulk, and throwing labour on them. I was ordered on deck, and set to work graffing ring-bolts for the guns. Walk I could not, being obliged, literally, to crawl along the deck on my hands and knees. I suffered great pain, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Guess, how could such a match be broke? See then what mortals place their bliss in! Next morn betimes the bride was missing: The mother scream'd, the father chid; Where can this idle wench be hid? No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came, And thought his bride had skulk'd for shame; Because her father used to say, The girl had such a bashful way! Now John the butler must be sent To learn the road that Phyllis went: The groom was wish'd[1] to saddle Crop; For John must neither light nor stop, But find her, wheresoe'er ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... there. The Abolitionists will ferret 'em out, and be down there with their devilish habeas corpus. I want you to go on board 'The King Cotton,' take the captain aside, and tell him, from me, to remove them forthwith from Castle Island, keep them under strong guard, and skulk round with them in the best hiding-places he can find, until a ship passes that will take them to New Orleans. Of course, I need not caution you to be silent about this affair, especially concerning the slaves being mortgaged to me. If that is whispered abroad, it will soon get into the ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Winchester; and, under their destroying hand, the rich and beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah seemed likely soon again to become a waste and desert place. It was a boast of theirs, that they could take any fort that could be fired; and round these places of refuge they would skulk and lurk with the greatest patience for a week at a time, quite content could they but get a single shot at such of the garrison as dared to show themselves beyond shelter of the walls. Sometimes, suddenly darting from their hiding-place, they would pounce upon little children playing in the ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... officers, French gentlemen, and, unless they are excited, the French poorer classes, nothing can be more insolent than that of the third-class dandies who reserve their valour for the interior of the town, or who, if ever they venture outside of its fortifications, take care to skulk beneath the protection of ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... like ghosts. I whistled softly to the first, and he condescended to answer with a low chuck, after which I could get nothing more out of him. This demure taciturnity is very curious and characteristic, and to me very engaging. The fellow will neither skulk nor run, but hops upon some low branch, and looks at you,—behaving not a little as if you were the specimen and he the student! And in such a case, as far as I can see, the bird equally with the man has a right to his own ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... ain't afraid of you! Don't skulk there—see what you'll get!' And a volley of peas, corks, and small shot flew about ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... my love like a thief, you have crucified my pride. I hate you! Go back to the dregs and lees of life, skulk in your tavern, forget, what I shall never forget, that so base a thing as you ever ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant yelling ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... he thought, when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other God has it in ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... smile, which, in common with all other tokens of emotion, seemed to skulk under his face, rather than play boldly over it—'to return to the point from which we have strayed. I have a little party of—of—gentlemen with whom I am connected in business just now, at my house tomorrow; and your mother has promised ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... reached over to give Bo a tap. He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they disappeared. Not only Dale's intensity, but the very silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have felt it, too, for she was trembling all over, and holding tightly ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... return;" the answer was again lost to Tamar, and probably some question, but the reply to this question was clear. "It is his day to go,—the garrison can't live without provision,—if he don't go to-day, we must skulk another twenty-four hours,—we must not venture with him, there will be murder!" then followed several sentences in such broad slang, as Tamar could not comprehend, though she thought she understood the tendency of these words, which were mixed with oaths and terms ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... team—a flock—a swarm (it has taken me a full quarter of an hour to recall the right word, but I have it at last)—a pride of lions. Why a number of lions are called a "pride," a number of whales a "school," and a number of foxes a "skulk" are mysteries of philology into ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... represent very large numbers in London and affiliated centres. In the conduct of details Spartan self-restraint was everywhere manifest. Members were urged to be brief in their remarks and business-like in their methods. Officials must give a solemn promise not to skulk, or make off, owing to persecution; and members were warned that noisy declamation was not a proof of zeal but might be a cloak for treachery. Above the chairman's seat was suspended a card with the words—"Beware of Orators." One would like to have witnessed ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... much water where we camped, but still ample for my time. The grass and herbage here were splendid and green. When the men found I would not allow them to skulk about the camp, and apparently desired no intercourse with them, some of them brought up first one, then another, and another, and another, very pretty young girls; the men leading them by the hand and ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... next his heart; and you mark me - you, sir, who are a Liberal, and the enemy of all their governments, you please to mark my words - the day will come in Grunewald, when they take out that yellow-headed skulk of a Prince and that dough-faced Messalina of a Princess, march 'em back foremost over the borders, and proclaim the Baron Gondremark first President. I've heard them say it in a speech. I was at a meeting once at Brandenau, and the Mittwalden delegates ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. To make a sailor shoulder ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... raised his head, and now he could again speak steadily. "I don't figure to skulk more than I must. Let them say what they will, eight decades from now. I'll already ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... these are the tenets of the modern nullification school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free discussion—that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth? Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us—of that Union proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—of that ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... make out that his wife was to blame. But I settled his doubts by telling him, that I would have him on my shoulder naked, unless he came in five minutes; not that he could do much good, but because the other men would be sure to skulk, if he set them the example. With spades, and shovels, and pitch-forks, and a round of roping, we four set forth to dig out the sheep; and the poor things knew that it was ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... who, but the brave Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires, When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave, Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave From mounts of ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... bosun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers ahead; but just to mind Him and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel, or hang on by the leeward earing for that matter. For, you see, what does it signify whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I didn't skulk? or rather," and here the old man took off his hat and looked up, "so long as the Great Captain has His way, and things is done to His mind? But how ever a man like you, goin' to the college, and readin' books, and warm o' ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... as spacious as that I had sailed through to the lake; and that though I had not perceived it, yet this beautiful spot might be very well peopled. But, says I again, if there be any such beings as I am fancying here, surely they don't skulk in their dens, like savage beasts, by daylight, and only patrole for prey by night; if so, I shall probably become a delicious morsel for them ere long, if they meet with me. This kept me still more within doors than before, and I hardly ever stirred out but ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... upon his hearers. He was, at least, severely punished. The Germans, enraged by his provocative behaviour and what they thought to be his German birth, demanded him to be tried before court-martial; he had to skulk inside the sentries of the American consulate, to be smuggled on board a war-ship, and to be carried almost by stealth out of the island; and what with the agitations of his mind, and the results of a marsh fever contracted in the lines of Mataafa, reached ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the head quarters of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and warpaint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is for ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't know who the devil is!" responded Richard, with an asperity that might be deemed a little unseasonable. "A man who serves his country, is true to his messmate, and has no skulk about him, I call a saint, so far as mere religion goes. I say, Guinea, my hearty, give the chaplain a gripe of the fist, if you call yourself a Christian. A Spanish windlass wouldn't give a stronger screw than the knuckles of that nigger an hour ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... than the Atlantic wolf; the color, which is not affected by the seasons, is of every variety of shade, from a gray or blackish-brown to a cream-colored white. They do not burrow, nor do they bark, but howl; they frequent the woods and plains, and skulk along the skirts of the buffalo herds, in order to attack the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... place; they have evidently been groomed and tubbed and manicured from the hour of their birth. And yet—is it possible? Lurking among all this modern splendour of vegetation, as though ashamed to show their faces, may be discerned a few lowly olive trees. Well may they skulk! For these are the Todas and Veddahs, the aboriginals of Monte Carlo, who peopled its sunny slopes in long-forgotten days of rustic life—once lords of the soil, now pariahs. What are they doing here? And how comes it that the eyesore ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... if it had been ten years back, instead of at present, I should have been ready enough to change our plans. But what is the use of going to sea now? The French and Spanish navies skulk in harbor, and the first time our fellows get them out they will he sure to smash them altogether, and then there is an end to all fighting. No, Peter, it looks tempting, I grant, but we shall see ten times as much with the army. We must go and settle the thing to-morrow. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as Probationary ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... "'Ere, don't you skulk up there!" added a coarser voice. "We know y'er there; and if yer don't come down to us, why, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... been but a frigate, my excellent friend, the manoeuvre would have been unnecessary. Peste! it is not a single republican ship that can make a stout English frigate skulk along the rocks and fly like a thief ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... KNOW - she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... causes, can do against base hirelings and mercenaries." He urged them, too, to be cool, but determined; not to fire at a distance, but wait for the word from their officers; and gave express orders that if any man attempted to skulk, lie down, or retreat, he must be instantly shot down as an example. Those who should distinguish themselves for gallantry and good conduct were assured that they might depend upon being honorably noticed and suitably rewarded. Strict orders as to other matters were also issued. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... officers and soldiers, that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty; that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men. It is the general's express orders that, if any man attempt to skulk, lie down, or retreat without orders, he be instantly shot ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... my dear Mellicent, will be filled with those court-flies who fed on the goodly vine till they had sucked all its juices, and, now winter is come, care not for its nakedness, but seek some covert where they may skulk till summer returns. You and I should make a notable appearance among those who call splendor, life; and subtlety, knowledge; we could neither speak their language nor enter into their views.—While we pined with desire to see the beauty of holiness restored, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... not. The state militia must do its duty. You would not have me skulk in the hour of danger. But there really is no danger for me, Netta. The sole trouble is in ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... in craven alarms, Have all run away from the summons to arms; They haven't the pluck of a pigeon—I'll go And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk in Soho!" ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... nothing. The rascals could skulk about by night, tear up rails, and hide them where they might be found by a man with half an eye, or half-destroy a bridge; but there was no shoot in them. They have not faith enough in their cause to risk their lives for it, even behind a tree or from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... the duck's eye. Having got your birds safely inside, catch them quietly and quickly, and having pinioned them, take them, if possible, to a cage with some part of it projecting out into the water. You, of course, feed them regularly, and are careful to give them some artificial cover to skulk in, as for some time the pain of the wound and the fright they have had makes them terribly shy. This cage, once constructed, is most useful for such work, and can be built at trifling cost, and the size I would recommend ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... but no more risky than bluffs he had seen work before. And they did need the weapons. Cutting westward now only kept them well inside Union territory. Somehow they would have to skulk or fight their way down through the southern part of Kentucky and then probably all the way across Tennessee—a tall order, but one which ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... "you'll have the game-keeper putting a charge of shot into you. Come out, man, and don't skulk behind the bushes." ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... purpose to sweep away the wreck, to rebuild on the foundation of one hope, which all the legions in hell cannot shake. Between you and me the battle has only begun, and nothing but your death or my victory will end it. You have your revenge; I intend to enjoy mine. Though he burrow as a mole, or skulk in some fastness of Alaska, I will track and seize that cowardly miscreant, and when the law receives its guilty victim, you shall be freed from suspicion, freed from prison, and most precious of all boons, you shall be freed ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... sluggish wash of water under foot, and a stretch of dreary flats behind. Belated locomotives shrieked to each other across the river, and the wind bore down the current the roar and rage of the dam. Shadows were beginning to skulk under the huge brown bridge. The silent mills stared up and down and over the streams with a blank, unvarying stare. An oriflamme of scarlet burned in the west, flickered dully in the dirty, curdling water, flared against the windows ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... "Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, "if ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Campbells in the neighbourhood would be ready to take him. "I have no fear about that at all," was his reply. "If I could get six stout trusty fellows to join me," he said, on another occasion, "I would rather skulk about the mountains of Scotland ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... yourself, will you?" He brought the rifle to his shoulder and covered point after point along the range of hills to the west. "Come on, show yourself. Come on a little, all of you. I ain't afraid of you; but don't skulk this way. You ain't going to drive me away from my mine. I'm going ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... state of things, this evil is indeed altered, and the ruin of the creditor's effects is better prevented; the bankrupt can no more skulk behind the door of the Mint and Rules, and prevent the commissioners' inspection; he must come forth, be examined, give in an account, and surrender himself and effects too, or fly his country, and be seen here no more; and if he does come in, he ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... to be done on deck, and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. "Where's that skulk, Chips?" shouted Jermin ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... from any necessity of betraying his total ignorance of his author, and sat gloomily on the hard form, impatiently watching the minute-hand skulk round the mean dull face of the clock above the chimney-piece, while around him one boy after another droned out a listless translation of the work before him, interrupted by mild corrections and ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... pays me twenty dollars a month, and Cato's seventy-four-four years older than Zeff. In truth, my negro property is all getting careless about paying wages. Old Trot runs away whenever he can get a chance; Brutus has forever got something the matter with him; and Cicero has come to be a real skulk. He don't care for the cowhide; the more I get him flogged the worse he gets. Curious creature! And his old woman, since she broke her leg, and goes with a crutch, thinks she can do just as she pleases. There is plenty ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... hated of the king, has come, and darkens the highways with his stride. Or my eyes play me false; for it has oft befallen bold warriors to skulk behind ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... were too perturbed to stop and measure it. When I discharged the rifle, the report was unusually faint, owing to the state of the air; so much so, that my companions, who were not fifty yards behind, scarcely heard it. The wild animals in the jungle which skirted the road, and which, in general, skulk in silence and secresy in their haunts, rent the air with their howlings. The very order of nature seemed about to be reversed, while the long streamers of grey moss swayed backwards and forwards mournfully from the trees, adding to the solemnity of the scene. As the party slowly wended its ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... across Gangoil, as he had falsely boasted of doing early in the day, but skirting it, and keeping on the outside of the fence nearly the whole distance. At about two in the morning he reached his cottage outside the mill on the river-bank; but he was unable to skulk in unheard. Some dogs made a noise, and presently he heard a voice calling him from the house. "Is that you, Nokes, at this time of night?" asked Mr. Medlicot. Nokes grunted out some reply, intending to avoid any further question. But his master came up to the hut ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... to be separated from Donald Roy, and entreated him in a low voice to accompany him. But Donald begged him to remember that it was not in his power to be useful to him, considering the open wound in his left foot; that he should only prove a burden to him, for it would be out of his power to skulk from place to place; and indeed it would be necessary for him to ride on horseback, so that any of the parties of militia who were ranging about would be sure to descry him at a distance, and that would be ruin to the chance ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... abhors, Whose outward words his secret thoughts belie, Hear then what seems to me the wisest course. On me nor Agamemnon, Atreus' son, Nor others shall prevail, since nought is gain'd By toil unceasing in the battle field. Who nobly fight, but share with those who skulk; Like honours gain the coward and the brave; Alike the idlers and the active die: And nought it profits me, though day by day In constant toil I set my life at stake; But as a bird, though ill ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... hacked off by a dragoon of Cornel Gardener's, down by at Prestonpans, and he had catched a bullet with his ankle over in the north at Culloden. So it was no wonder that he liked to crack about these times, though they had brought him muckle and no little mischief, having obliged him to skulk like another Cain among the Highland hills and heather, for many a long month and day, homeless and hungry. Not dauring to be seen in his own country, where his head would have been chacked off like a sybo, he took leg-bail in ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... innocence and against their country. It would be a fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw—to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and leave the craven traitor to his kind—to adopt his beloved "'Becca's" disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats, and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court of justice:—"To the infamous memory of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... was he less remarkable in that country for a wicked and villainous practice, than for his furious rage against the godly; but in a short time he became insolvent, and for fear of caption was obliged to skulk privately among his tenants. In the mean time, one Gordon, a north country man of the same stamp, coming forth to agent a curate's cause in that country, and travelling through Irongray parish found Mr. M'Bryar, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... hunting-field; (11) just as want of strength and thinness of coat go hand in hand with incapacity for toil. (12) The lanky-legged, unsymmetrical dog, with his shambling gait and ill-compacted frame, ranges heavily; while the spiritless animal will leave his work to skulk off out of the sun into shade and lie down. Want of nose means scenting the hare with difficulty, or only once in a way; and however courageous he may be, a hound with unsound feet cannot stand the work, but through foot-soreness will eventually ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... having ruined her reputation by a base and cowardly plot concocted with a wicked old woman, who would blast the whole family if she could, because M'Loughlin transported her felon son; you, now, like a paltry clown as you are, skulk out of the consequences of your treachery, and refuse to give satisfaction for the diabolical injury you have inflicted on ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... lazy, good-for-nothing boy taken, himself off to now, I wonder, and the weeds I left him to pull in the garden not half done yet; but it's just like him, as soon's my back's turned to skulk off in this way. I'll put a stop to this work one of these days, see if I don't. Its likely he's hiding in some out-of-the-way corner with a book in his hand as usual." These and many other angry words came harshly to my ears, on that June afternoon now so long ago. I was seated in the ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... for hawking to the youths of both sexes under seventeen, and the Education Acts not being sufficiently strong to lay hold of their dirty, idle, travelling tribes to educate them—except in rare cases—they are allowed to skulk about in ignorance and evil training, without being taught how to get an honest living. No ray of hope enters their breast, their highest ambition is to live and loll about so long as the food comes, no matter by whom or how it comes so that ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square or Argyle buildings. What in short can a lord do nowadays, that is lost in a great old solitary castle, but skulk about, and get into the first hole he finds, as a rat would ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the sailor's course, when the gang was on his track, followed the lines of least resistance, only here he became a skulk as well as a fugitive. It was not that he was a less stout-hearted fellow than when at sea. He was merely the victim of a type of land neurosis. Drink and his recent escape from the gang got on ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... trickster and a dishonest man. I have seen him myself, when I first came to this command, turn out all the Union men who had supported the Government, and put in their stead rebel soldiers who had not yet doffed their gray uniform. I have seen him again, during the July riot of 1866, skulk away where I could not find him to give him a guard, instead of coming out as a manly representative of the State and joining those who were preserving the peace. I have watched him since, and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... what kind of a boy Julian had been, and what inseparable friends he had always been with Lillyston, and how admirably he had recited on speech-day, and how stainless his whole life had been, and how vice and temptation seemed to skulk away ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... cried those that were hammering at the door with the handles of their swords, 'come out at once and skulk there no more, for know ye well thou art so beset that ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim—"What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path. He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... in Hillaton, he would keep his resolution, and that, as he had plainly stated his purpose to lift himself up by his own unaided efforts, he would do so if it were possible; and if it were not, he would live the life of a laborer—a tramp, even—rather than "skulk back," as he expressed it, to those who were ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... so he would understand it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, and ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Harry's daughter, Tudor, and not fear. [Goes out on the gallery. The guards are all driven in, skulk into corners Like rabbits to their holes. A gracious guard Truly; shame on them! ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... to tell me something, then he gets embarrassed, back-fires, and stalls. He and Theophilus have been sneaking out in the early dawn, too. Wow! What did he sneak out of the dorm. that way, with a football, for? He looked like a yeggman working night shift. Why should he skulk out with a football? He has never explained his dad's letter, or told just what Mr. Hicks meant by calling him the "Class Kid" of Yale, '96, and saying those members of old Eli wanted him to star! Oh, he's a tantalizing wretch, and I'd like to solve his mystery, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... partly know, that all the chimney-sweepers' boys, where Members of Parliament chiefly lodge, are hired by our enemies to skulk in the tops of chimneys, with their heads no higher than will just permit them to look round; and at the usual hours when members are going to the House, if they see a coach stand near the lodging of any loyal member, they call ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... specious shield, which private malice bears, Is ever blazon'd with some public good; Behind that artful fence, skulk low, conceal'd, The bloody purpose, and the poison'd shaft; Ambition there, and envy, nestle close; From whence they take their fatal aim unseen; And honest ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... no part in it: turning, he said sternly, "Do we risk our lives together, then, to skulk off when danger offers and leave one to suffer for all? Let's have no more of such idle talk. While things promised to run smooth you was welcome to the boast of havin' fired first shot, but now every man aboard fired it; and let he who says ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot can boast: Not such as prate of war but skulk in peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah, Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most - Their birth, their blood, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... and finally we were afraid lest the most influential of the accused should make a scapegoat of the meanest among them, and so slip out of the hands of justice at the expense of some one else—for favour and personal interest are strongest when they can skulk behind some pretence of severity. Moreover, we were advised by the well-known story of Sertorius, who set two soldiers—one young and powerful, and the other old and weak—to pull off the tail of a horse. You know how it finishes. And so we too thought that we could get the better ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... uncertain) 475; bamboozle &c. (deceive) 545. be concealed &c. v.; suffer an eclipse; retire from sight, couch; hide oneself; lie hid, lie in perdu[Fr], lie in close; lie in ambush (ambush) 530; seclude oneself &c. 893; lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep[obs3], play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c. v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... an older friend than Maurice! But lately you've treated me like a dog. You skulk round to keep from being by ourselves. You never give me a chance to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... believe that all the former have left the service, and that very few of the latter remain. Commodore Porter, of vain-glorious memory, (who once wrote a book of Voyages,) was, and may be still, the marine commandant, and distinguished himself by threatening to blockade Cuba, and by being obliged to skulk at Key West, to avoid destruction by the gallant Laborde. The Mexicans require no navy, and cannot maintain one; the sooner, therefore, they restrict it to a very few revenue cutters the better. The nature of the country and the destructive ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... evening, of which you will hear, that what happened there was to have its hold on Julianna Colfax, who had not then been thought of as coming into the terrible clutches of that which has followed us like a skulk o' night. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... his feet with the agility of a boy, his nose bleeding and a stone in each hand. The timid flock looked all aghast, while the audacious offender, so far from having shown any disposition to skulk, stood shaking his head and threatening, as if he had a mind to follow up the dastardly attack. The squire let fly one stone, which grazed the villain's head and killed a lamb. With the other he crippled a favorite ewe. The ram still showed fight, and the vengeful proprietor ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... revolting, now because of its being too laughable, is innocuous. His moral land is one of black and white, mostly black, without many of those really dangerous half-lights and shadows in which too many of our present day playwrights virtuously invite us to skulk and peer ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... enemy in ambush. How those miles and leagues which your feet must compass lie hidden there in that wilderness; how they seem to multiply themselves; how they are fortified with logs, and rocks, and fallen trees; how they take refuge in deep gullies, and skulk behind unexpected eminences! Your body not only feels the fatigue of the battle, your mind feels the strain of the undertaking; you may miss your mark; the mountains may outmanoeuvre you. All that day, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... festoons of pink and white paper disappeared from the garish mantel. Still desolate and cheerless shows the noble edifice. The gaunt chimney yawns still in sick anticipation of deferred smoke. The "irons," innocent of coal, and polished to the tip, skulk and cower sympathetically into the extreme corner of the fender. The very rug seems ghastly and grim, wanting the kindly play of the excited flame. We have no comfort in the parlour yet: even the privileged kitten, wandering in vain in search of a resting-place, deems it but a chill dignity which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... somewhat mysterious. But the American representative of the family is a bird of different manners. Unlike his namesake across the water, our cuckoo never—or so rarely as practically to be never—shirks the labor of nest-building and raising a family. He has no reason to skulk, and though always a shy bird, he is no more so than several others, and in no ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... even furnishing them with the very bone and sinews of war, that they may compass their unholy ends, and effect the ruin which will give to her another fat colonial province. While the more wily French emperor, looking to our possible success, and anxious for a subterfuge beneath which he may skulk in that event, and so escape the retribution which will assuredly fall upon his head, has really outwitted his island rival, in his Mexican expedition, whereby he hoped to 'kill two birds with one stone,' securing, in either event, the richest portion of the American continent, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... old soldiers know, the fighting line, granting that enough remain to make a fighting line, is never so strong as the moment after the first shock of battle has shaken out the men that always straggle on the march and skulk on the field. When, therefore, the first compact line faced about, it was with determination and with hope; yet scarcely had the fires of resolution been relit and begun to kindle to a glow than they were suddenly extinguished and all was plunged in gloom by the unlooked-for order to ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... shower had the sound of rain in springtime. From every side they were startled by noises they could not place. Strange movements and rustlings caused them to peer sharply into the shadows; footsteps, that seemed to approach, and, then, having marked them, skulk away; branches of bushes that suddenly swept together, as though closing behind some one in stealthy retreat. Although they knew that in the deserted garden they were alone, they felt that from the shadows they were being spied upon, that the darkness of ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... arms unwillingly I wear, Unwillingly I come to wage this war, Compell'd by injuries too great to bear. Banisht my country, while I make the flood, That laves the Rhine, run purple all with blood. While the Gauls, ripe our Rome to re-invade, I force to skulk behind their Alps afraid: By conquering my banishment's secur'd. Are sixty triumphs not to be endur'd? A German conquest reckon'd such a fault? By whom is glory such a monster thought? Or who the vile supporters of this war? A foreign spawn, a mobb in arms appear, At once Rome's scandal, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... the mill and seeing Therese's horse fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a greeting to Therese. His father he did not address. The old man looked from son to visitor with ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... wolf than of dog in Black Bart—has a finer sense for the lay of ground than anything on four feet. He knows how to come down the wind on his quarry keeping to the depressions and ravines so that not a taint of his presence is blown to the prey; and he will skulk across an open plain, stealing from hollow to hollow and stalking from bush to bush, so that the wariest are taken by surprise. As for Black Bart, he knew the kind of going which the stallion liked as well, almost, as he knew his own preferences, and he picked out a course which a surveyor with ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... show that it has increased the value of property in every city that has had a park, by bringing houses all about the parks, and by detaining as inhabitants of the city, to be taxed in the city, those men who skulk in small towns to throw the burden of the expense of their own city on those who stay behind. [Applause.] All we want to do to-night is to say to the city government that we are in earnest about this matter, and that we want ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... Sawney with backsword did slash him and nick him, While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him, Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, Me'll fight you, begar, if you'll come from your door!" Our case is the same; if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you rant and you roar, Through ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... struck that marvellous golden nail, and this world of treasures opened at the signal—I knew that the echo of that blow wuzn't a-goin' to die out on Lake Michigan. I knew that at its echo old Prejudice, and Custom, and Might wuz a-goin' to skulk back and hide their hoary heads; and Young Progress, and Equality, and Right wuz a-goin' to ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... are they who skulk aside, As to get out of reach, And in their clothing strive to ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... commenced this exasperated and semi-poetic fury, shaking her fist under the nose of the impassable hunter, "you are not even a woman. Your friends the Delawares are only women, and you are their sheep. Your own people will not own you, and no tribe of redmen would have you in their wigwams; you skulk among petticoated warriors. You slay our brave friend who has left us?—No—his great soul scorned to fight you, and left his body rather than have the shame of slaying you! But the blood that you spilt when ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... been in my place you would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you would not. Would you have gone out of the House—skulked the vote? I expect not. If you had skulked one vote you would have had to skulk many more before the end of the session. Richardson's resolutions, introduced before I made any move or gave any vote upon the subject, make a direct question of the justice of the war; so no man can be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and your only ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged: scattered and defeated all objections in his way; calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument: for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... honorable. The public squares of half our great cities echo to the wail of families torn asunder at the auction-block; no one of our fair rivers that has not closed over the negro seeking in death a refuge from a life too wretched to bear; thousands of fugitives skulk along our highways, afraid to tell their names, and trembling at the sight of a human being; free men are kidnapped in our streets, to be plunged into that hell of slavery; and now and then one, as if by miracle, after ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the right to speak; maxims enough to regenerate a universe,—a woful lack of great hearts, in which reason, right, and truth, regal and militant, are fortified and encamped! Now this disposition to skulk the austere requirements of intellectual growth in an indolent surrender of the mind's power of self-direction must be overcome at the outset, or, in spite of your grand generalities, you will be at the mercy of every bullying lie, and strike your colors to every mean ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... is the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a sherk,—one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine" is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work—a green-horn—a ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... spotted flies in the sugar-bush. Some say the enemy are a-scalping at Torlock, some say Little Falls. We heard last week that Schenectady was threatened. It may be true, for there's a pest o' Tories loose in the outlying county, and them there bloody Iroquois skulk around the farms and shoot little children in ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... me to slink back and skulk in the shadow of the corner of the wynd; for, like a greyhound in speed, Elliot had flown to us and was kneeling to the Maid, who, with a deep blush and some anger in her face—for she loved no such obeisances—bade ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... ahead, hide in some good place and intercept him—or at least see who he might be. It did not take him long to recover the road, mount his wheel, and start. Nobody was yet in sight, but he had not expected to see anybody. The tramp would doubtless skulk along behind the fences till sure Dan was gone, then come out and trudge after as fast as possible. Such was the program the young man mapped out for him, at least. Once, as he toiled through a sandy ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... skulk, if you want to!" he declared. "I've set out to see this thing through, and I'm goin' to do it. Only," he muttered, as he entered the downstairs vestibule, "I wish I didn't feel quite so much as if I was stealin' ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... A certain slender means to skulk from truth, Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself, Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all While that one only comes to view, of which The bodies exceed in number all the rest, And lie more close to hand and at the fore— ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... be repaid. The lover of fair play, the grateful, the true, honest, worth-while people will flock to your standard; the riff-raff will skulk behind bushes and throw rocks and mud, but their acts will prove to the great mass of the people that your purposes, practices ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... by catching flounders in the sea as the tide ebbed. Venture among them with fear in your heart and they would fly at your legs and throat like wild beasts; but twirl a big stick jauntily, or better still go quietly on your way without concern, and they would skulk aside and watch you hungrily out of the corners of their surly eyes, whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mastiff's. When the moon rose I noticed them flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, miles away from the hamlet; now sitting on their tails in a solemn ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... never destined to taste those five hundred dollar mouthfuls. It happened in this way: as the Boodah's searchlights, destroyed in the battle, were not yet repaired, in the interval some lawless ships took the chance on dark nights to skulk past with extinguished lights; now, the captain of Frankl's chartered steamer had that bright idea (being of adventurous turn), when night fell forty knots east of the Boodah, so he came to Frankl, and broached ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... pretend to be virtuous—if he is an atheist, let him say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious—if he's a beggar and can't help himself, let him admit the fact—if he's a millionaire, don't let him skulk round pretending he's as poor as Job—always let him be himself and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... in most others, the main use of power was promotion and protection: and honest man was never in any age among the titles of nobility, and has always been the appellation used toward the feeble and inferior by the prosperous. Nichols said on the present occasion, 'If this man is permitted to skulk away under such pretences, trial is here a mockery.' Finding no support, he threw up his office as Controller of the Navy, and never afterward entered the House of Commons. Such a person, it appears to ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... men had already gathered, and were waiting in the woods until the herd should leave. They now made fires around the mammoth to keep off the wolves and hyenas that had already begun to skulk about. And then they killed the ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... regiment. I was the only one in my company where there ought to have been six when I was promoted, so the whole duty fell heavily on me. The rest had been wounded at some time or other before, and then never pushed on much to get back to their regiment; many when recovered preferring to skulk in the hospitals in paltry situations such as doorkeepers or ward-masters, so getting a little extra pay, and then, as I shall again have occasion to show, being too ready to make their appearance when the war was over. Fortunately, however, they then met with no great encouragement. They had ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... Heaven! what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the daughters of men! Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow. As for a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them: had I a world, there should not be a knave ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... not passively obedient instruments, but very nervous and restless people, who wish to finish things quickly and to know in advance where we are going. It must be based on the fact that we are very proud people, but people who would all skulk if we were not seen, and who consequently must always be seen, and act in the presence of our comrades and of the officers who supervise us. From this comes the necessity for organizing the infantry company solidly. ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... aloud with angry faces, "oh, wicked spirit! you have a bad heart. See what a wrong you have purposely done us. If your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this? If you are indeed a god, come out across the line, and let us try issues together. Don't skulk like a coward in your hut and within your taboo, but come out and fight us. We are not afraid, who are only men. Why ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... my vengeance, by a trivial chance! [Aside. Fine work above, that their anointed care Should die such little death! or did his genius Know mine the stronger daemon, feared the grapple, And looking round him, found this nook of fate, To skulk behind my sword?—Shall I discover him?— Still he would not die mine; no thanks to my Revenge; reserved but to more royal shambles. 'Twere base, too, and below those vulgar souls, That shared his danger, yet not one disclosed ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... he went to Rome to the head-quarters of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and war-paint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighboring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is for ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... a source of immense exultation, which is vigorously expressed in a ballad of the day, written in a stirring salt-water rhythm.[7] It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay, in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as having deserted their ships to skulk on shore. They are ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... labourers was extreme. They would go to the woods and gather faggots of dead wood, which they would try to sell in the villages; but there were few who could afford to buy of them; and at night they would skulk about the fields to rob a swede or two to satisfy the cravings ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... least by it; not that I am an advocate for plunder—on the contrary, I would much rather that all our fighting was for pure love; but, as every thing of value falls into the hands of the followers, and scoundrels who skulk from the ranks for the double purpose of plundering and saving their dastardly carcasses, what I regret is, that the man who deserts his post should thereby have an opportunity of enriching himself with impunity, while the true man gets nothing; but the evil I believe is irremediable. Sir James ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... they have conspired against the rights and privileges of the people—No matter how unbecoming, gross and absurd their conduct may have been; if an independent Editor, in vindicating the rights of the people, and those of his own, questions the propriety of their conduct; they immediately skulk behind their offices, and impudently exclaim, "touch us not—we are privileged." 'Pigmies are Pigmies still ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... more faithless fear, From truth of single-sighted manhood, here Born and bred up to read the word aright That sunders man from beast as day from night. That red rank Ireland where men burn and slay Girls, old men, children, mothers, sires, and say These wolves and swine that skulk and strike do well, As soon might know sweet ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a better job of brainwashing, if they expected him to skulk in like a scared rabbit! He held his head high and moved across the floor step by steady step, trying not to limp or display that ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... hickory, walnut, Poplar, sycamore, and locust, Beech and elm and pine and cedar, Laurel, holly, ash and maple— All the trees have bent their growing To the husbandman's caprices. All the beasts have fled to westward; All the reptiles skulk in hiding; All the rivers and the brooklets Have subdued their wild, free rolling. Ancient mounds and Aztec relics, Mural signs and hieroglyphics, Toltec remnants and weird mummies, All the arts ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... he might be able to skulk in by the back door and thus avoid their attention, but as this was impossible, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and worked his way slowly toward ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Bennillong, in consequence of this, was attacked, when alone, by two men; when he defended himself with much address, and would have defied and foiled them both, had they kept fairly and openly in his front; but one of them, with the treachery common to those savage people, contrived to skulk behind, and throw a spear into his side, the weapon penetrating seven inches into the cavity of his body, and, from its direction, being supposed to have wounded the intestines. He was taken on board the Reliance, where at first the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the external history of the composition of Paradise Lost. When Milton had to skulk for a time in 1660, he was already in steady work upon the poem. Though a few lines of it were composed as early as 1642, it was not till 1658 that he took up the task of composition continuously. If we may trust our only authority (Aubrey-Phillips), he ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... told me that, according to the most ancient and approved treatise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. "In the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, "we say a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks." He went on to inform me that, according to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird "both understanding and glory; for being praised, he will presently set ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... would some tire for aye! Once more they wash; once more they freely eat; Then light their pipes; and now each other greet With warm "Good night!" but, ere they have departed, Their host thanks them, from gratitude warm-hearted. Now all are gone, save two, who skulk behind, Of the younger son; and, if I am not blind, A couple of bright girls I failed to mention, Are not quite unaware of their intention. But this is not my business, so I'll pass To other things, and ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... proudest man I ever knew when the faintest shadow of vassalage was sought to be cast upon him, he valued independence in others, and his wide experience taught him that the friend who would not hesitate to stand up firmly against him when he thought him wrong, would be the last to skulk from his side in the hour of danger, and from the defence of his memory when ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... drink oneself stupid, to bet on the most trifling passing events, and to talk slang that would disgrace a stable-boy, as well as to amuse oneself with all sorts of mean and vulgar intrigues which are carried on through the veriest skulk and caddishness;—thus Aubrey was a sad failure in "tip-top" circles. But the "tip-top" circles are not a desirable heaven to every man;—and Aubrey did not care much as to what sort of comments were passed on himself, provided he could see Sylvie always "queen it" over ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and sorely tried! —But he, for whom they died, Skulk'd like the wolf in Cranborne, torn and gaunt:— Till, dragg'd and bound, he knelt To one no prayers could melt, Nor bond of blood, nor fear of fate, from ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... keen sense of honour,—scrupulously avoiding mean actions. His standard of probity in word and action is high. He does not shuffle or prevaricate, dodge or skulk; but is honest, upright, and straightforward. His law is rectitude— action in right lines. When he says YES, it is a law: and he dares to say the valiant NO at the fitting season. The gentleman will not be bribed; only the low-minded ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... plovers, A watch of nightingales, A clattering of choughs, A flock of geese, A herd or bunch of cattle, A bevy of quails, A cast of hawks, A trip of dottrell, A swarm of bees, A school of whales, A shoal of herrings, A herd of swine, A skulk of foxes, A pack of wolves, A drove of oxen, A sounder of hogs, A troop of monkeys, A pride of lions, A sleuth of bears, A gang ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... this Jew in twain, O beast! strike thy kindly fangs deep into this heart,—be not afeard, for I shall make no battle with thee, nor any outcry whatsoever!' But, lo, the beast would cower before me and skulk away. So there is no death for me; the judgment spoken is irrevocable; my sin is unpardonable, and the ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... thinking, as she did so, how, if there had been any one to defend the fort, they would have been obliged to skulk from bush to bush, taking advantage ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... he mutters, "but I've seen a hundred Indians spring up out of a flatter plain than that. They'll skulk behind the smallest kind of a ridge, and not show a feather until one runs right in among them. There might be dozens of them off there beyond the Chug at this moment, and I not be able to see ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... this afternoon—confiscated some trains and made the crews haul them out of town. They shook their fists at the mines and the works as if they had been the haunt of the devil. I couldn't bring myself to skulk. I rode Nell right down to the station and sat there till the last carload pulled out with the men and women standing together on ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie |
