"Skulker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... oath, Sermaise ran up. "Now, may God die twice," he panted, "if I have not found the skulker at last! There is a crow needs ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... The third skulker took advantage of the cessation of firing to tumble down from his perch and fly for his life. The indefatigable Smith broke away from Thurstane, dashed after the pitiful fugitive, leaned over him as he ran, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... perchance followed by many of our leaders, to make each day some expedition afield before the sun had reached its meridian. On the whole one was happier without deep dug-outs—and safer, too, for to become a skulker ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... for him. I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... to-morrow night is in Suite L. Go to it—that's the shortest way to put Roebuck and Dominick out of business. Face 'em and they'll skulk." ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... avoid the shot, but because his manhood felt a call upon it not to skulk in obscurity from an open enemy, Septimius at once stood forth, and confronted the same handsome young officer with whom those fierce words had passed on account of his rudeness to Rose Garfield. Septimius's ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... the Doggerbank hero, That made "Hogan Mogan" to skulk? Poor Keith's gane to hell to be fuel, The auld rotten wreck of a Hulk. And where is our King's Lord Lieutenant, Sae fam'd for his gratefu' return? The birkie is gettin' his Questions To say in ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... "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, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 way ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... 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, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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 she fare herself, Brings to her callow brood the food she takes, So I through many a sleepless night have ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... "I think I can guess exactly what you would say, captain; but not another word, if you please. What? Would you have me skulk below while brave men are imperilling their lives in defence of those who are dearer to me than my own life? I could not possibly do it. Besides, if I am not greatly mistaken, you will need all the force you can muster before the end of the affair ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Achilles' battle-eager son: "Calchas, brave men meet face to face their foes! Who skulk behind their walls, and fight from towers, Are nidderings, hearts palsied with base fear. Hence with all thought of wile and stratagem! The great war-travail of the spear beseems True heroes. Best in ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the early twilight fell from the leaden sky, and the shadows began to skulk behind the bushes, and the birds gathered to their nests with sleepy twitter, she tripped over a little stone, fell weakly to the ground, and lay still. She had not the strength to get ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 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 feeble expectancy ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... that 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 ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... of the Press, indulges all.—I must and will repeat it, Newspapers deserve the patronage of every friend to his country. And whether the defamers of them are arrayed in robes of scarlet or sable, whether they lurk and skulk in an insurance office, whether they assume the venerable character of a priest, the sly one of a scrivener, or the dirty, infamous, abandoned one of an informer, they are all the creatures and tools of ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... object looked at. Mr. Carter looked at the jewellers till he came to one whose proprietor blended the trade of money-lending with his more aristocratic commerce. Here Mr. Carter stopped, and entered by the little alley, within whose sombre shadows the citizens of Hull were wont to skulk, ashamed of the errand that betrayed their impecuniosity. Mr. Carter visited three pawnbrokers, and wasted a good deal of time before he made any discovery likely to be of use to him; but at the third pawnbroker's he found himself on the right ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the open, 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 of every ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... time-honoured throne; not yet have the dingy 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... things wrong; so they all do; but he has the people's interests 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 spoke up for fifteen thousand. Fifteen ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see such a girl as you," admitted Prince, smiling at her. "You take the cake. But we can't let you do that for us. We can't skulk behind a young lady's skirts to save our hides. It's not etiquette on ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... states, and in California. In Ohio he is a common summer resident, breeding in the extensive swamps and wet meadows. The nest is a rude affair made of grass and weeds, placed on the ground in a tussock of grass in a boggy tract of land, where there is a growth of briers, etc., where he may skulk and hide in the wet grass to elude observation. The nest may often be discovered at a distance by the appearance of the surrounding grass, the blades of which are in many cases interwoven over the nest, apparently to shield the bird from the fierce rays of the sun, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... rate, how much more expeditious that I should go myself!" says he. "But all this is quite a waste of breath. At seven to-morrow the chaise will be at the door. For I start from the door, Mackellar; I do not skulk through woods and take my chaise upon the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... am 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
... been dealing with a villain, sir?" cried Robert. "Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in a hurry. Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him again. What you're asked to do now, is to bury the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 heaven from ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... me, as most of my remaining property is vested in real estate. And even if it would, I could not consent to it: I could not consent to banish myself from my country; to flee like a felon; to skulk from society with the base view of defrauding my creditors. No, I have lived honestly, and honestly will I die. By fair application and long industry my wealth has been obtained; and it shall never justly be said, that the reputation of my latter days was stained with acts of baseness and meanness. ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... 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 A. B., one of the perjured ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... a nuke-kubi? 'Kubi' signifies either the neck or head. 'Nukeru' means to creep, to skulk, to prowl, to slip away stealthily. To have a nuke-kubi is to have a head that detaches itself from the body, and prowls ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... of the heart to be pure. To such a heart, sin is disgusting. It sees a thing as it is,—that is, as God sees it, for God sees everything as it is. The soul thus saved would rather sink into the flames of hell than steal into heaven and skulk there under the shadow of an imputed righteousness. No soul is saved that would not prefer hell to sin. Jesus did not die to save us from punishment; he was called Jesus because he should save his people ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: one moment our intelligent, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... 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
... (soldier) 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... at Samarang, 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 ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... talk," put in Hilton, giving the blusterer a contemptuous glance. "Mr. Furneaux, you seem primed with information. Why should Mr. Trenholme, if that is his name, have the audacity to call on Miss Manning? He might have the impudence to skulk among the shrubs and watch a lady bathing, but I fail to see any motive for his visit to ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... daughters. Why do the women go to look? as Colonel Ward asked, in his indignant refusal even to listen to the petition. Sunday is the one day when they can stay at home with safety, and leave their husbands to skulk in the ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... should hold back from marriage is in the same case with him who runs away from battle. To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall. It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into temptation; but not lawful to skulk from those that come to us. The noblest passage in one of the noblest books of this century, is where the old pope glories in the trial, nay, in the partial fall and but imperfect triumph, of the younger hero.[3] Without some such manly note, it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... excite their feelings and to mislead their judgment. Their information concerning the temper of the public mind was chiefly derived from the worst members of the Whig party, from men who were plotters and libellers by profession, who were pursued by the officers of justice, who were forced to skulk in disguise through back streets, and who sometimes lay hid for weeks together in cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen who had formerly been the ornaments of the Country Party, the statesmen who afterwards guided the councils ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... think that the women of America are accustomed to skulk from their enemies when their presence may avail to encourage their friends, and they may be of use to the wounded?" she answered, looking at the same time towards Madeline, in the expectation that she would ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... a guerrilla, or bushwhacker, is an armed man who recognizes none of the rules of civilized warfare, and very often has no commander. In France he is called a "franc-tireur," or free-shooter. The guerrilla goes out to live on the country, to skulk, to war on the weak, and never attack save from ambush, or when the odds clearly are on his side. His military status is barely one remove from ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... prohibiting the granting of licences 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 they get it. ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... cave 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 Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... 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 ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Come to the pleasant woods with me; Quickly before me runs the quail, The chickens skulk behind the rail, High up the lone wood-pigeon sits, And the woodpecker pecks and flits. Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... "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
... and 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 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
... 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 his head ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... pinkie was 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 a ship over the sea, among the Dutch folk; where he followed out his ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... suitor to comply with the established custom and etiquette which are her safeguards. The daughter of a poor laborer would demand all this as a matter of course, and shall the beautiful Zell Allen, who has had scores of admirers, have all this reversed in her case, and be compelled to skulk away from the home in which she should be openly married, to hunt up a man at night who has made the pitiful promise that he will marry her somewhere at some time or other, on condition that no one shall know it till he ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... me to prefer my calling to yours," said the soldier, curtly. "You can do as you like with your running-gear; I recognize no authority but that of the minister of war. I have my orders; I shall take the field with veterans who don't skulk, and face an enemy you ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... We began to entertain hopes of his ultimate recovery. But alas! in an evil moment, through the influence of bad companions, he fell, and for some time we lost sight of him. A long time afterward we caught a glimpse of his bloated, sin-stained face, just as he was turning to skulk away to avoid recognition. Where this poor human wreck is now leading his miserable existence we cannot say, but have no doubt he is haunting the dens of iniquity and sin in the cities, seeking to find a little momentary pleasure in the gratification of his appetites and passions. A hopeless ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... 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 his conduct has been as sinuous as the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... himself very retired, as the garrison at Inverlochie was not far off, and as the 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 than return ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... order, preparing their minds for action. They were forbidden to play at cards or other games of chance, and advised to ponder the importance of the cause in which they were enlisted. "But it may not be amiss for the troops to know," he added, "that if any man in action shall presume to skulk, or hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his commanding officer, he will be instantly shot down." And with this exhortation and ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... Before, he displayed the grandeur of gold and rich purple; Before, pampered steeds would bear him safe away, Even Gwarthlev, who deserved a comely name; {104d} Before, the victorious chief would turn aside the ebbing tide; His command was ever to go forward, {105a} loth was he to skulk. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... 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 ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... 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, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... - I 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; and Marion will probably be richer - on your showing, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... the plan was desperate and simple. It was neither more nor less than this: I knew the house and every turn and passage in it, and when the hour should strike I said I should go down and skulk among the guests, and at the crucial moment find or seize a weapon and fling myself upon this bridegroom as he should ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... 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 advance and take ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... soldier loads his musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned him once. The soldier would not stop. The officer ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... well taught; and if these British hearts are won young, and tutored right, and trained loyal, and warmly clothed in true blue jackets, we shall not have so many shipwrecks where cheap foreigners skulk as the tempest ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... that the people who contribute most to the victory should profit the 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, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... London, 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
... then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... or three, I'd come out and face 'em," he said, "but the odds are too great. I must skulk back in the darkness, and get back ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... a painful predicament, and Reginald was justly horrified. Could he venture out and display the weakness of the British Navy in the face of a crew of unwashed Greek matelots? On the other hand, could he skulk in his cabin and allow the Master to doubt his courage and resource? He rose and lurched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... with a 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 that you shall keep house for me. I am not much used to parties; ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... 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 in the ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... the time had come when I could no longer skulk behind a printing press. That bulwark had been torn down, and now I must literally open my mouth for the dumb, or be one of those dogs spoken of in Scripture who would not bark. The resolve to speak at that meeting had come in an instant as a command ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... thrust a plaintively meowing cat from the portico into the street. Trotter quickened his steps, tingling, abashed, shaken with an inordinate and ridiculous sense of guilt. He felt that he wanted to keep out of the light, that he ought to skulk in the shadows until he was free of the weight on his arm. He hurried on until he became desperate, determined to end the farce at any hazard. So, as he passed a building where a house front was being converted into a low-windowed shop face, he dropped the paper package into ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... 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 and unprincipled will sell themselves to those ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... us than we imagine. Our deportment depends upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were amongst us we might kill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant yelling ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... follow), was trained to break into a gallop as soon as the vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine miles between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Peter; and 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 ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... the door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats—that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a man when ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... have not committed forgery. But I do not wish to skulk or hide myself. I understand a warrant is out against me in London. I have come to Scotland, hurriedly, for the sake of getting married, not to escape apprehension. I am here, openly, under my own name. I tell you the facts; ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... 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 must give a full account ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... of turnips. To him, too, I was faithful, and he went on, taking, without knowing it, a precious leaflet with him in his bag. Glorious work! If Wesleyans will but go on claiming even the highways for God, sin will skulk yet."' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "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 hair or hide ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... came out her appearance so terrified Gray Wolf that he tried to get up and skulk away, weak as he was. Waubenoo, glad that her enemy was so conquered that he would not be likely to trouble her much more, did as Nanahboozhoo ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... this mountain wall the road is carried in seventeen sharp zigzags; so steep is it that the country people call it the 'Devil's Staircase.' Any army holding the top of the pass would have an ascending enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of Highlanders, accustomed to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to rush down the most rugged hillsides with the swiftness and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... "'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, we'll ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... therefore, sir, to restrain them in time of war from such exorbitant demands; to deprive them of those prospects which have often no other effect than to lull them in idleness, while they skulk about in expectation of higher wages; and to hinder them from deceiving themselves, embarrassing the merchants, and neglecting the general interest of their country, is undoubtedly just. It is just, sir, because in regard to the publick it is necessary to prevent the greatest ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... there was something 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
... eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field, so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey-spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... boarding house for students, doing average well. At rare intervals, however, he lapsed into his old ways. During such occasions he kept to the river side of the town. Sober, he was good-natured and obliging; drunken, he was sullen, with a disposition to skulk out of sight and be alone. His daughter Dennie had her father's good-nature combined with a ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... 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 him, But, struck with reverence, kept an awful silence. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is exalted, ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... it isn't faded and where the sun is just so—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... and I am glad to see you, for I was afraid that you had come to harm," answered Reuben, in a kind tone. "I said as how I was sure you wasn't one to skulk. Where was ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... communications with the base, which was Hauterive. Sure enough, he had not seen the finger-post before he saw the pikes. There were three mounted men there, one of whom had his face to the north and was shading his eyes to spy over the heath. In a dozen more strides (for he was at no pains to skulk from three troopers) a man saw him, gave a shout and spurred over the heather. Prosper pulled his horse into a gallop, resolved to bring things to a quick conclusion. Spear in rest he came down on his fellow like a ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... his life. Once he was shot in the neck, and, as the bullet could not be removed, it ever after troubled him to wear armor. His officers pleaded with him to spare himself, but his reply was that Caesar and Alexander did not skulk behind the lines; a general must lead if he ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... and stay at Barham till further notice? They'd all be delighted to have him: It was only ten miles off Merefield, and perhaps—Because Frank was not going to sponge upon his friends. Neither was he going to skulk about near home. Well, if he was so damned obstinate, why didn't he go into the City—or even to the Bar? Because (1) he hadn't any money; and (2) he would infinitely sooner go on the tramp than sit on ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... doth Virtue skulk where none may see In the great world's corners dim? And the just man mark the knave go free, While the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... self and his 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 do ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... 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 merit is ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way as if afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes till ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of the desert were now in an awkward predicament; for although they had been safe from the peccary, the cougar could climb a tree like a squirrel. A noise, however, disturbs him from his meal, and swinging the dead animal on his back, he begins to skulk away. But he is interrupted before he can reach cover; and as the new-comers prove to be twenty or thirty peccaries, summoned to the field by the dying screams of their comrade, he has more to do than to think of his dinner. To fling down his burden, to leap ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... many men refined by literature skulk in obscurity? The boy goes to a good school, becomes imbued with the love of letters, and then, when he is come to man's estate and should be seeking the Forum in order to display his talents, he suddenly changes into a boor, unlearns all that he has learned, and in his love for the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... (felis lynx), and the wild cat, both skulk through the Pyrenean forests; the former now only rarely seen. Along the naked cliffs leaps the "izzard," which is identical with the chamois of the Alps (antelope rupicapra); and in the same localities, but more rarely seen, the "bouquetin," ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... 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. ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Freedom? For, 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 glare off ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... 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 Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady |
