"All fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hyatt—quite a youngster, but of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... the soil, and catching at whatever branch or stem presented itself, he took the plunge. Clinging, sliding, falling, he arrived at the bottom. In a posture half sitting, half standing, and considerably jarred, he found himself face to face with Bruin. The animal had settled down on all fours, and now, with his surly, depressed head turned sullenly to one side, he looked at Penn, and growled. Penn looked at him, and said nothing. He had heard of staring wild beasts out of countenance—an experiment that could be ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... of his name the man sprang to his feet, facing us. The bearskin which wrapped his body slipped down and left him entirely nude. In an instant he dropped upon all fours again, drew the skin over him ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... all fours to his brother and put oft his helm, but he might not know him, his visage was so disguised by blood and wounds. But when Balin awoke, he said, "O Balan, my brother, thou hast slain me and I thee, wherefore all the wide world shall ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... Americanism is on all fours with the declarations found in the Bull Moose and regular Republican platforms. The characteristic of all these references to Americanism is vagueness and uncertainty as to what is really meant. I believe that the time has come when the Democratic party should set forth ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... comfortably as could be before the gale. The trysail was got up from below, bent, halliards and sheets hooked on, and, in short, made all ready for setting, and I returned aft to Ryan's side, having to claw my way to him along the rail in preference to creeping along the deck upon all fours, which seemed to be the only alternative method of making headway against the wind. The sea was by this time getting up, and the air was full of spume and scud-water, caught up from the surface of the sea and the crests of the waves and swept along in a blinding, drenching shower by ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... gash in the earth; the sinking moon lightened only a strip along the east wall, near the top; lower down, smoke mingling with the natural gloom cast an impenetrable veil from bank to bank; not a breath of air stirred the tomblike stillness. Directly in front of us a horse coughed. We dropped on all fours, listened a moment, then crept forward. Without warning, we found ourselves foul of a picket-line, and the vague forms of grazing horses loomed close by. Piegan halted us with a touch, and we lay flat; then with our heads together he ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... on all fours. No ellipsis. The word fours is a true substantive, as proved by its ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... stunts, if you mean in the smart set. Jump about on all fours and pick up a woman's umbrella with your teeth, and bark. Anything else would be easier for you among chic people, where your brilliancy ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... got so narrow that he found it difficult to secure a foot-hold. At this point the ridge became so attenuated that the youth saw at the first glance that it was impossible to proceed in an upright position; he therefore crept along on all fours, or sat astride the ridge and urged himself on with his ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... clock's muffled ticking. Not the ghost of a sound rose up from the great bed. Either she lay archly listening or slept a sleep serener than an infant's. And when, it seemed, we had been hours in hiding and were cramped, chilled, and half suffocated, we crept out on all fours, with terror knocking at our ribs, and so down the five narrow stairs and back to the little ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the great stress which you lay on man walking on two legs, whilst the quadrumana go on all fours, permit me to remind you that no one much values the great difference in the mode of locomotion, and consequently in structure, between seals and the terrestrial carnivora, or between the almost biped kangaroos and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... was un keepun' wuth the way ut ate. Ot a year ut was the size o' a bairn of two. Ut was slow tull walk an' talk. Exceptun' for gurgly noises un uts throat an' for creepun' on all fours, ut dudna monage much un the walkun' an' talkun' line. But thot was tull be expected from the way ut grew. Ut all went tull growun' strong an' healthy. An' even old Tom Henan cheered up ot the might ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... themselves in the tepid waters of the James. But no reader can possibly understand what enjoyment it afforded, unless he has slept on the ground for fourteen days without undressing, and been compelled to walk, cook, and live on all fours, lest a perpendicular assertion of his manhood should ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... and struck a vicious blow at his tormentor with great, bared talons that might well have torn away the ape-man's face had the blow landed; but it did not land—Tarzan was even quicker than Sheeta. As the panther came to all fours again upon the little platform, Tarzan un-slung his heavy spear and prodded at the snarling face, and as Sheeta warded off the blows, the two continued their horrid duet of blood-curdling ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... presented themselves in their path, and, rising upon their hind legs, contemplated them for some time with a whimsically solemn gaze. The hunters remained motionless; whereupon the bears, having apparently satisfied their curiosity, lowered themselves upon all fours, and began to withdraw. The hunters now advanced, upon which the bears turned, rose again upon their haunches, and repeated their serio-comic examination. This was repeated several times, until the hunters, piqued at their unmannerly staring, rebuked it with a discharge of their rifles. The ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... was full of rents and holes. And just beyond it was a huge pit with fresh soil heaped up in a ring around it. Loose earth and stones and sods were scattered everywhere. Then we saw something move in the darkness—it was a man on all fours, dragging himself painfully along and uttering a groan with every breath. Two bearers arrived with a stretcher. They put it down by his side and helped him on to it. Then they picked it up and disappeared in the gloom. We had hardly walked a few yards further when ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... one at all. He reveled in the sunshine, and everywhere made friends of children. "We saw Brahms on the hotel veranda at Domodossola," wrote a young woman to me in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five, "and what do you think?—he was on all fours, with three children on his back, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... physicians, has been termed "Lycanthropy." It consists in the belief that one is not a man but a beast, in the disuse of language, the rejection of all ordinary human food, and sometimes in the loss of the erect posture and a preference for walking on all fours. Within a year of the time that he received the warning, Nebuchadnezzar was smitten. The great king became a wretched maniac. Allowed to indulge in his distempered fancy, he eschewed human habitations, lived in the open air night and day, fed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... The writer says that God is necessarily hidden from us because we can grasp "his inscrutable nature and methods" only as "an infant can grasp the thought and purpose of a man." Similes are dangerous things. When it is demanded that they shall run upon all fours, they often turn against their masters. This one does so. The infant grows into a man in due course, and then he can not only grasp the thought and purpose of his father, but also, it may be, comprehend still greater things. Will the infant ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... tail rippling out behind him or up his back, and his shrill, nasal tones still pouring out. He hops to the next stone, he assumes a new position, his tail palpitates and jerks more lively than ever; now he is on all fours, with curved back; now he sits up at an angle, his tail all the time charged with mingled suspicion and mirth. Then he springs to a rail that runs out at right angles from the wall toward me, and with hectoring ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Virgilus, of the fearful destruction of the city of Troy, which was more terrible even than that of our own village, when a cry arose that our old neighbour Zabel his red cow, which he had bought only a few days before, had stretched out all fours, and seemed about to die; and this was the more strange as she had fed heartily but half-an-hour before. My child was therefore begged to go and pluck three hairs from its tail and bury them under the threshold of the stall; for it was well known that if this was done ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... undigested facts. The facility with which the world swallows up the ordinary college graduate who thought he was going to dazzle mankind should bid you pause and reflect. But just as certainly as man was created not to crawl on all fours in the depths of primeval forests, but to develop his mental and moral faculties, just so certainly he needs education, and only by means of it will he become what he ought to become,—man, in the highest sense of the word. Ignorance is not simply the negation of knowledge, it is the misdirection ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... and undoubtedly miles from a dwelling. As the boat reached the bank, not even waiting for the gang plank to be shoved out, the old sinner gave me a push and at the same time applied the now familiar boot. I reached the earth on all fours. My first thought was to present him with a rock, but I curbed my temper, for I had no idea of deserting ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... soon turn brown, as they are rubbed with bear's oil and exposed to the sun. They rub them with oil, both to render their nerves more flexible, and also to prevent the flies from stinging them, as they suffer them to roll about naked upon all fours, before they are able to walk upright. They never put them upon their legs till they are a year old, and they suffer them to suck as long as they please, unless the mother prove with child, in which case ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... high-churchism, which to him was tantamount to freemasonry. He was not strict in his lines of definition. He endured without impatience many different shades of Anglo-church conservatism; but with the Slopes and Proudies he could not go on all fours. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... staring towards the window. Outside on the veranda, crouching on all fours in the dusk, was a dark figure. With a strange, sudden movement it raised itself and stretched out an arm towards the room—standing lank, tall, and ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... Miss Parker, that any people who will get down on all fours to worship the picture of their emperor and, at this period of the world's progress, ascribe to a mere human being the attributes of divinity, are certainly deficient in common sense, if not in civilization. However, for the purpose of insuring ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... but some fifty yards below was a shallow, for which he made off hot-foot; and forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and in three minutes was creeping along on all fours towards the clump ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of rage and pain answered the reports. They saw the gorilla stagger, then drop to all fours, ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... that he can be supposed honest; and those who really are so are looked upon as a kind of martyrs or penitents, who are determined by long suffering to atone for past crimes; and who, if they could not get into the police, would probably go long pilgrimages on all fours, or with unboiled peas ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... hour to play with his children before a mother's lullaby should put them to sleep. He got down on his all fours and little Jeb mounted and rode round the room to the baby's scream of joy. He lay flat on the floor with the baby on his breast and let her pull his beard and mustache until her ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... went up next year to look after Dapple and the mares, he was quite astonished. So tall, and stout, and sturdy, he never thought a horse could be; for Dapple had to lie down on all fours before the lad could bestride him, and it was hard work to get up even then, although he lay flat; and his coat was so smooth and sleek, the sunbeams shone from it as ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... the panes of which were dimmed by the rain. The children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath Mother Chantemesse's colossal bed. There were also two or three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours. They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening into the Rue de la Lingerie, provided them with plenty of entertainment. The ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... back, you are going too steep and should turn off and traverse instead. No time is saved by too steep a climb; the man who goes easily gets to the top first, while the other clambers up almost on all fours, gets hot and exhausted and has gained nothing. If I am leading an elementary run uphill, I can soon pick out the experienced runners by the line they take and the pace at which they climb. The puffing, panting, stumbling people, who forge ahead, herring-boning or turning their ankles over their ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... and scrambling to all fours turned about on his hands and knees, intently gazing at the flap against which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... outside, and entirely out of the reach of all visitation; much less could I conceive how my friend Thompson would be able to administer clysters, that were ordered for some, in that situation; when I saw him thrust his wig in his pocket, and strip himself to his waistcoat in a moment, then creep on all fours under the hammocks of the sick, and, forcing up his bare pate between two, keep them asunder with one shoulder, until he had done his duty. Eager to learn the service, I desired he would give me leave to perform the next operation of that kind; and he consenting, I undressed myself ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... path in front of the big old farm, swung wide the farm gates, and propped them open. Then he went down on all fours and put his ear to the frost-bound country road and listened. "Yes," he added, "two miles away, and coming on sharp. Why not let them come? What does it matter how soon?" He strode back, however, with quick steps. Five minutes ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... game was taken up again. The sheep moved higher whenever I came too near them. Sometimes I dropped to all fours and gave an imitation of a playful pup; stopping to sniff loudly at a chipmunk's hole or to dig furiously with both hands. The sheep crowded forward appreciatively. Evidently they had a weakness for vaudeville. No acrobat, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... possible he went down on all fours and ran his fingers across the floor boards in a semi-circle. They had not travelled very far before encountering the hard edge of a boot sole. That was good enough for Richard. Judging the distance nicely he seized its owner's ankle in an iron grip and springing to his feet lifted it high ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... dangerously near my astonished eyes; he leaped at me, gnashing his teeth like a fiend; he bellowed injuries, shocking allegations impossible to be proved, horrible guesses at my ancestry, he barked like a dog, bayed at me on all fours; finally whirling his staff over his head, he rushed at me as if to dash my brains out—then, cooling as suddenly as he had boiled over, stopped short, looked quizzically at me, blew out his cheeks and let his ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... vaguely aware of seizing the ticket, of hearing some one call after me something about "change," of a whistle, the waving of a flag, and a shout, "Stand away from the train." Next moment I was sprawling on all fours on the knees of a carriage full of passengers; and before I had time to look up the 1:30 train was outside ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... this here, when out pops on me the farmer's wife; and so she twists her scraggy neck round like a weathercock in a whirlwind, till at last she hears where Master Redcap wor a gobbling. I'd just time to creep under a cart, when up she comes; so down goes I on all fours and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... filled me with compunction at having been brutal to so pitiful a creature, and I hurried to open the door for him. The animal clawed vigorously inside, and the instant I pushed back the ill-fitted slabs, it strained through and rushed on all fours to the fire. Madame de Ferrier fled backward, for what I liberated could hardly be seen ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... among the birches; now stooping behind low humps upon the mountain-side; now crawling on all fours among the heather. The pace was deadly: my heart seemed bursting against my ribs; and I had neither time to think nor breath to speak with. Only I remember seeing with wonder, that Alan every now and then ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... objects. Craning out still farther he over-balanced himself and fell thud! upon a hard, polished flat plain. He tried to scramble to his feet, but the ground under him was so slippery that he could only crawl gingerly on all fours ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... expression, as though it warn't over safe to come too near her heels—an everlastin' kicker. 'You may come out, John,' said she to her husband, 'it's only Mr. Slick;' and out came John from under the bed backwards, on all fours, like an ox out of the shoein' frame, or a lobster skullin' wrong eend foremost; he looked as wild as a hawk. Well, I swan, I thought I should have split, I could hardly keep from bustin' right out with larfter; he was all covered with feathers, lint and dust, the savin's of all ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the street, still piping. They followed; the neighbours flocked out and joined in the dance; even those who had gone to bed rushed down, and all followed at Jack's heels down the village street, dancing madly to his wild piping. People jostled and fell and went on dancing on all fours, but the Friar kept his feet, if not his head, and whirled many a maid ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... species. "Its favourite postures," observes Mr. Bennett, "are lying flat at its whole length; sitting upon its haunches with its fore legs perfectly upright, and its head in a dependent position; or standing upon all fours with its fore-paws widely extended and its head and neck swinging alternately from side to side, or upwards and downwards in one continued and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... also mention that I saw Diderot's "Father of a Family," and "The Philosophers" of Palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into a ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... left on the hill, so we chose the lower road, and gradually worked our way down, joining the grassy spur lower down—only it wasn't grassy here at all, but chiefly precipice. We got down somehow, chiefly on all fours, but by the time we had reached the sangars, the enemy had bolted, and they were occupied by our men. It had taken us nearly an hour to get down. Here I came across Colonel Kelly, and after shaking hands, I looked at my watch and found it was just twelve, ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... that Master Chiron was not really very different from other people, but that, being a kind-hearted and merry old fellow, he was in the habit of making believe that he was a horse, and scrambling about the schoolroom on all fours and letting the little boys ride upon his back. And so, when his scholars had grown up and grown old and were trotting their grandchildren on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school-days; and these young ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... There the hunter sometimes digs a trench in the snow and lies in wait for the unsuspecting deer. When he shoots one, he immediately skins it, but takes care to leave the head attached to the skin; then ramming a pole into the head at the neck, he drapes the skin over the pole and getting down on all fours places the skin over his back and pretends to be a caribou. Thus he will approach the band, and should he tire of crawling along on his hands and knees he will even lie down to rest in sight of the deer, but he always takes care to keep ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... if you give me fifteen more I'll crawl on all fours right up to that tavern. Do you want me to?" proposed the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... followed the killing of the pig was indescribable. The priests covered their heads and faces with their sacred kerchiefs and trembled with intense vehemence, some leaning against the posts of the sacrificial table, the high priest himself groveling on the ground on all fours, unable to arise from sheer exhaustion. When the death-blow had been dealt to the victim they broke into the mystic words, "tgud, tgud, tagan," with loud coughs at the end. These words were taken up by the bystanders and shouted ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... and narrow that the hero soon found himself obliged to creep on all fours, and to grope his way. At last he perceived a faint light at a distance, and the cavern enlarged so much that he ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... cried the man, giving me a shove, just as the woman flung her shawl over my head. I stepped back, for the shove was no light one; but just behind me the boy had crouched on all fours (he had evidently practised the trick), so that I went headlong over him, and had a nasty fall into ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... and with still greater precision, to Cock-fighting, to Lotteries, Raffles, Backgammon, Cribbage, Put, All Fours, and Whist, showing all the chances of holding any particular card or cards. Thus, it is 2 to 1 that your partner has not one certain card; 17 to 2 that he has not two certain cards; 31 to 26 that he has not one of them only; and 32 to 25 (or 5 to 4) that he has one or both—that ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... take a chance," he said to himself, returning his six-shooter to its holster. And just as the outlaw threw up his own weapon to fire, the Trooper, in a running jump, plunged into him with all fours, exactly as, when a boy, he had plunged off a springboard into the old mill-dam of a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... some message from his wider horizon. You may remember how they gazed into Alcestis' face when she returned from the House of Hades, that they might find there a token of her shadowed journey. It is lucky that I am no taller than six feet; if ten, giddiness would set in and reversion to type on all fours. An undizzied man is to me as much of a marvel as one who in his heart of hearts is not afraid of ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... them in their flexions or extensions; and of this most important study write a separate treatise: in the description of the movements of animals with four feet; among which is man, who likewise in his infancy crawls on all fours. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... she cried. "Why do you forgive them all this? Before I used to be foolish myself, too, but now I compel them to walk before me on all fours, compel them to kiss my soles, and they do this with delight ... You all know, girlies, that I don't love money, but I pluck the men in whatever way I can. They, the nasty beasts, present me with the portraits of their wives, brides, mothers, daughters ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... about the Jews?" the other answered, "Well, what about the negroes?" and he parried the further question, "What about pogroms?" with another of his own, "What about lynching?" The problems are not, of course, quite on all fours, nor do two wrongs make a right, but a reminder that similar problems exist in other parts of the world will perhaps be enough to show that the Jewish question in Russia is neither unique nor at all easy to solve. Let us, instead of visiting the sins of a few townships upon the heads of the entire ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Tilbury. According to him, the design was that Ralegh should stop in France till the anger of Spain was lulled. After their departure a servant of Ralegh's rushed to Stukely with the news that his master was out of his wits, in his shirt, and upon all fours, gnawing at the rushes on the boards. Stukely sent Manourie to him. Manourie administered the emetic, and also an ointment compounded of aquafortis. This brought out purple pustules over the breast and arms. Strangers, and after a single visit Stukely too, were ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... conservative women, too, who used their powerful influence against them. It was in the salon of the delicate but ardent young Princesse de Robecq that Palissot was inspired to write the satirical comedy of "The Philosophers," in which Rousseau was represented as entering on all fours, browsing a lettuce, and the Encyclopedists were so mercilessly ridiculed. This spirited and heroic daughter-in-law of the Duchesse de Luxembourg, the powerful patroness of Rousseau, was hopelessly ill ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... still thinking it, was blotted from his mind. He was thrown suddenly to the sandy earth; the sand was slipping swiftly from beneath his feet; he was scrambling on all fours, clawing wildly for some anchorage that would keep him from ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... Mr. Stenson declared, "this is a veritable temple of peace. I arrived here literally on all fours. Miss Abbeway has proved to me quite conclusively that as a democratic leader ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... On all fours he crawled to the summit of an eminence a mile or so away, whence he found himself commanding a view of the interior dispositions of the stronghold. By the aid of a telescope with which he had equipped himself he was able to verify that, as he had suspected and hoped, the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... having the lamp thrust out before him, began to crawl into the tunnel. As his heels disappeared, and only a faint light outlined the opening, I dropped upon all fours in turn, and began laboriously to drag myself along behind him. The atmosphere was damp, chilly, and evil-smelling; therefore, at the end of some ten or twelve yards of this serpentine crawling, when I ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... fearlessly. The affair is entirely devoid of danger, though it at first appears quite otherwise to those unacquainted with the mysteries of mining. Even the putting on of the dark convict-dress awakens very peculiar sensations. Then one must clamber down on all fours, the dark hole is so very dark, and Lord only knows how long the ladder may be! But we soon remark that this is not the only ladder descending into the black eternity, for there are many, of from fifteen to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have gone very far. What stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne's child, that (Davidson remembered her very ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... with the morale or elongated lash of the reins. Without hesitation the pony stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid down the precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have had to climb it on all fours. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... occurred. At and since their entrance, our party had heard what seemed the continued bark of a dog. A man on all fours came forward from behind a group, and with unmeaning face, and nostril snuffing up the wind, imitated to perfection the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... found that these were no other than penguins which had gone down on all fours, and were crawling among the bushes on their feet and wings, just like quadrupeds. Suddenly one big old bird, that had been sitting on a point very near to us, gazing in mute astonishment, became alarmed, and scuttling down the rocks, plumped or fell, rather than ran, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... had the appearance of being continuously occupied by Indians. As I went on down I saw a very strange looking track upon the ground. There were hand and foot prints as if a human being had crawled upon all fours. As this track reached the valley where the sand had been clean swept by the wind, the tracks became more plain, and the sand had been blown into small hills not over three or four feet high. I followed the track till it led to the top of ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... did not wait. He groped his way in, relocked the passage door and crawled on all fours through the smoke and ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... at first, when Harkness saw the figure leap outward from the cliff. A second one followed. They landed on all fours upon a rock that jutted outward toward ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Glaramara and Great Gable and their family appeared distinct, in deepest, sablest "blue". I rose, and behind me was a rainbow bright as the brightest. I descended by the side of a torrent, and passed, or rather crawled (for I was forced to descend on all fours), by many a naked waterfall, till fatigued and hungry (and with a finger almost broken, and which remains swelled to the size of two fingers), I reached the narrow vale, and the single house nestled in ash and sycamores. I entered to claim the universal ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... anyhow," was the reply. "They'll soon try, when they find there are very few of us, to crawl up the hill upon us. Then's the time you've got to note every movement! See! there comes one fellow behind that rock now. He's crawling on all fours. Thinks we can't see him. Now just hold on until he comes around that little ledge!—I'll take ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... Apia at the American consulate with two companions. The German pickets were close set and visited by a strong patrol; and on his return, his party was observed and hailed and fired on by a sentry. They ran away on all fours in the dark, and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa grappled and flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body. The second sentry (like the first) fired after his assailants at random ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by a hurricane. All sorts of debris filled the fields and everywhere there seemed to be a thick deposit of blackened earth. Vaguely realizing that he must report for duty, he crawled, in spite of his bursting head and aching limbs, on all fours down ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... all fours retrieving, and the undignified posture had the advantage of serving to conceal the wild terror of his face; a terror such as may stamp itself upon the features of a man who cannot swim and who has ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... astonished the company. Even Master Jock now sprang from his seat, and, resting the palms of both hands on his knees, regarded the new-comer with amazement, while the gipsy went down on all fours and began sniffing around him like ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... the captain to shorten sail, the deuce a seaman durst have gone aloft to stow the canvas. The second mate, standing in the top, was in the act of lifting his rifle, when the monster, running on all fours out to the dizzy topgallant yard-arm, stood erect a breathless instant, poised—in human posture—a marvellous picture of the man-beast against the liquid blue, then sprang into ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... but a few miles, before we fell in with a squad of as choice game as heart could have wished, three proper tall young vagabonds! profoundly engaged at all fours, in a log tippling shop, with cards as black as their own dirty hands, and a tickler of brandy before them! and so intent were the thieves on fleecing each other, that they took no manner of notice of us, but continued their scoundrel work, eagerly stretched over the table, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... stand up and move, he found that his limbs were almost powerless. Like a child he tottered, his joints had no strength, his legs tingled as if they had been benumbed. He was so weak he crawled on all fours along to the mast, furled the sail kneeling, and dragged himself rather than stepped ashore with the painter. The instant he had fastened the rope to a branch, he threw himself at full length on the grass, and grasped a handful of it. Merely to touch ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... mate) shoving off from the starboard side. I waited for the splash of the oars in the water, and then got my back under the hatch. The mate had kept his promise. I lifted it easily—crept across the deck, under cover of the bulwarks, on all fours—and slipped into the sea on the port side. Lots of things were floating about. I took the first thing I came to—a hen-coop—and swam away with it about a couple of hundred yards, keeping the yacht between me and the boat. Having got that distance, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... said, and stepped between. "What right has he to walk the earth like a man! He is but fit to go on all fours—Ha! ha!" he went on, laughing wildly, "I begin to believe in the transmigration of souls! I shall one day see that son of yours running about the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... animal under the sun, he started back, plunged, reared, and struck out with his fore-feet ere he had time to observe what sort of a creature it was that had so startled him. When he perceived it was a little girl, he dropped instantly upon all fours, and content with avoiding her, resumed his quiet trot in the direction of his mistress. Rosamond stood gazing after him in ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... little farther in search of water and was alarmed by a horseman appearing. He made for home on all fours—he ran much on all fours now—and backed into the den. In the prairie grass he was concealed, but the den was on a bare mound, and the horseman caught a glimpse of a whitish thing disappearing down the hole. Badgers were familiar to him, but the peculiar ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... crawl like children until they learn how to walk by themselves. But whether they go on two legs or on all fours, the first thing, the only thing you can ask is that ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... with gold pieces, which a faithful bequeathed to the Pope. And that poor, dear man was about to count them when the coffer slipped from his hand, and there was the entire treasure on the floor, and the Pope and a cardinal on all fours were scrambling for the napoleons, when a servant entered.... Tableau! ....I assure you that good Pius IX would be the first to laugh with us at all the Vatican jokes. He is not so much 'alla mano'. But he ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... for it was not still like the others, but went stopping and starting and scuttling like a crab over the grass—sometimes upright like a man and sometimes on all fours like a beast. At last it stood up and ran from tree to tree in a swaying, moving zigzag. I could see then that it was a man, but for the life of me I could not remember where I'd seen his like. Then another cloud slid over the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... was so tickled by this suggestion that she put it into practice at once, and went gaily forth up the steps on all fours. At the turn she stopped, ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... almost on to his haunches, then reared straight up and in a moment of temper tried to throw her off; indeed, she must have fallen but Ida, always cool at such moments, swept sideways, caught Adonis's bridle and brought him on all fours. Maude was instantly jerked forward on to the horse's neck in a humiliating fashion, but recovering her seat, sat trembling ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... I had a foolish but very vivid dream. I dreamed that the landlady and another person, dark and not properly visible, entered my room on all fours, followed by a horde of immense cats. They attacked me as I lay in bed, and murdered me, and then dragged my body upstairs and deposited it on the floor of that cold little square room under ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... It also chose its opportunity. It was as though a gigantic insect of iron was endowed with the will of a demon. Now and then this colossal grass-hopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then falling back on its four wheels, like a tiger on all fours, rush upon the man. He—supple, agile, adroit—writhed like a serpent before these lightning movements. He avoided encounters; but the blows from which he escaped fell with destructive force upon the vessel. A piece of broken ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... nuisance, Master Charles, to cry. The German eolina was of itself bad enough, but these congregated noises were intolerable. Uncle John aimed a desperate blow with a large apple, which he was just about to bite, at the head of Carlo, who, in order to give his lungs fair play, was standing on all fours on the hampers. The apple missed the dog, and went some distance beyond him into the water. Mr. Carlo, attributing to Uncle John a kinder feeling than that which actually prompted the proceeding, looked upon it as a good-natured expedient to afford him an opportunity of adding ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... through dense steaming jungle, soon crossed by the ubiquitous river. Across it, near a pretty waterfall, the trail climbed up and ever up through jungle and forest, often deep in mud and in places so steep I had to mount on all fours, slipping back at each step like the proverbial frog in the well. A splendid virgin forest surrounded me, thick with undergrowth, the immense trees whispering together far above. A half-hour up, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... breasted the couloir leading to the Col, where we had them well in sight. They found the ascent much "harder on the collar" than they expected: fortunately the sole of the huge gutter yielded a trickle of water. The upper part was, to their naive surprise, mere climbing on all fours; and they reached the summit, visible from our halting-place, in two hours. Here they also were summarily stopped by perpendicular rocks on either side, and by the deep gorge or crevasse, shedding seawards and landwards, upon whose ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... walk erect, and not on all fours, they are liable to suffer from various ailments of pregnancy that quadrupeds escape. Thus the upright posture is the chief factor, at least, in causing such complaints as swollen feet, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... wrong? However that may be, see him now on all fours, his nose to the ground like a dog that smells a scent, and following seven or eight inches behind the superb hexapode. One moment after he was outside his hut, under the midday sun, and a few minutes later at the foot of the palisade ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... of your time to read; I thought them in as many seconds. Indeed, I had not time to form a plan of either defense or escape, when my antagonist, evidently concluding that I was fair game, dropped upon all fours, uttered a loud roar and rushed upon me with open mouth; simultaneously, I turned and fled with ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... like a cat, on all fours, clawing energetically as he urged his upward progress, his comrade paying out the rope carefully. At first his speed was good, but gradually it dwindled. Now he was fifteen feet from the peg, now ten, now eight—but going, oh, so ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... that's so," drawled Van lazily. "I ought to duff right in on all fours. I acknowledge it. But it is not so easy to make your mind go where you ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... to go to the Boulevard Cafe—they dance on Sunday just the same as weekdays—and then we'll do a movie afterward. I suppose Steve and his Beatrice are now revelling in the Constantine conservatory, with Steve walking on all fours to prove his devotion. Why is it some girls have everything? Look at me—no one cares if I live or die. First I had a stepmother, and then I tried living with a great-aunt, and then I went to work. Here I am still working, and a lot of thanks I get for it. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... obediently got down on "all fours" while the small folks clambered up on his back and he "rode" them over to the bed, their bathrobes flying as they went. Arrived at the destination Ted deftly deposited his load in a giggling, squirming heap on the rug and then gathering ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... right and left; every one pitched into his neighbor with the most fearful cries, and hell itself seemed broke loose. The hour-glass and the Moulah of Oude had got me down and were pummelling me to death, when a short, thickset man came on all fours slap down upon them shouting out, 'Way, make way for the royal Bengal tiger!' at which they both fled like lightning, leaving me to the encounter single-handed. Fortunately, however, this was not of very long duration, for some well-disposed Christians ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... evening measuring this imbecile's facial angle. When he heard him mutter indistinct imprecations against those blood-suckers the Republicans, he always expected to hear him moan like a calf; and he could never see him rise from his chair without imagining that he was about to leave the room on all fours. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... when he dropped into the saddle. With both hands he clung to the horn. Up went the bronco on its hind legs. It pitched, bucked, sun-fished. In sheer terror Bob clung like a leech. The animal left the ground and jolted down stiff-legged on all fours. The impact was terrific. He felt as though a piledriver had fallen on his head and propelled his vital organs together like a concertina. Before he could set himself the sorrel went up again with a weaving, humpbacked twist. The rider ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... that summer of '55 and worked on the farm, and pored over my books when I had a chance. I must have found Locke's "Essay" pretty tough reading, but I remember buckling to it, getting right down on "all fours," as one has to, to ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... ledge took no needless risks. Though it was impossible to believe any stratagem had been planned for his special benefit an accident might betray him. With the utmost circumspection he rose on all fours and with comprehensive glance examined trees, plateau, and both strips of beach for signs of a lurking foe. He need have no fear. Of all places in the island the Dyaks least imagined that their quarry had lain all night within ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... followed next, and the pillows from the bed and sofa. Next she tore off her slippers, and sent them flying against the brown furry back now turned toward her. Not knowing what to make of such a shower of spools and needles, scissors, buttons, and wearing apparel, old Bruin dropped on all fours and ambled out of the doorway just as Lloyd ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... in act of becoming normal and easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy—and for him, him, to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke, bringing him up to the perpendicular again ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... should rely upon his word, being conscious he was too much my friend to deceive me; therefore bargained, and caused him to be sent home. But by the light of the sun, which next morning illumined the heavens, I perceived the horse was greased on all fours. I therefore, in gentle terms, upbraided my friend with duplicity, when he replied with some warmth, "I would cheat my own brother in a horse." Had this honourable friend stood a chance of selling me ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... his liberty. Despite Jean's superior strength, Dan had the advantage in that his own body acted as a lever, and for a moment it seemed that he was to be successful; but the Frenchman, with a violent execration, suddenly let go his hold on the knob, the door swung in, and Dan fell back on all fours upon the floor. By the time he had recovered himself for another dash, he was confronted by Jean, a disagreeable leer upon his unpleasant countenance and a cocked pistol ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... grill stretches from wing to wing and keeps out the town. This grill is high enough for Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... at us in welcome, crawling out of their igloos on all fours like bears out of a cave; they laughed when we photographed them crowding to get in front of the camera, when we scattered among them copies of L'Opinion, when up the snow-clad hillside we skidded and slipped and fell. And if we peered into the gloom of the shelters, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... would gladly have gone down on all fours, and had a key-board mortised into my side at any expense of personal torture, if Miss Tucker could only have played a piece on me, and herself been conscious of the chords she was awakening inside my jacket. I loved her ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... he was sitting in a shed after the accident, he was surprised to see a person enter the door crawling on all fours, and half dead with terror. This it appeared was the surgeon, who had been sent for by the chiefs. He was horror-struck at the accident, but soon recovered himself on observing Captain Maxwell's ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... forward and the bronco halted. Then up in the air he went, a distance of six or eight feet. He came down "on all fours," good and hard, and had Dave been resting in the saddle he would have had the wind knocked out of him completely. But the youth was standing in the stirrups, and he allowed his body to spring with that of the ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... by men of great stature. They were twice as long as the footprints we made, and none of us were noted for small feet. On going a short distance into the woods we saw a vast number of huts made of dried grass, so cramped that a man of ordinary size could not creep into them on all fours, yet many of them contained families of pygmies. We afterwards tried to penetrate somewhat farther into the wood, in order to ascertain the nature and situation of the country, when, on coming to an open place, a number of tall savages, none of them less than eight feet high; came out from ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... her seat, until the cow, seeing she was unable to get rid of her burden, ran for a black walnut tree, which stood near the old pump. She ran close against this tree and Ruth came shooting from the cow's back, much like a big frog jumping into a pond, landing unhurt on all fours on the ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... children, and a little while afterwards Philpot—who had got a funny-looking mask out of one of the bon-bons—started a fine game pretending to be a dreadful wild animal which he called a Pandroculus, and crawling about on all fours, rolled his goggle eyes and growled out he must have a little boy or girl to eat ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body impulsively, and at the same time ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the wild rider came bounding out from among them, and moving now erect, now on all fours, came sideling up to Martin, flinging his arms and legs about, wagging his head, grimacing and uttering whinnying and other curious noises. Never had Martin looked upon so strange a man! He was long and lean so that you could have counted ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... the woman will have to play the double part of income-earner and mother, an impoverished and struggling home. It would mean also an unsocial because ostracized home. In most cases, and even assuming it to be right in idea, it would still be on all fours with that immediate abandonment of private property we have already discussed, a sort of suicide that ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... they had come to a turn in the road. This brought them in view of Chloe's cottage. Little Pomp was on all fours, hunting for nuts among the fallen leaves under ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... for the return party, which clustered together on all fours with their faces approaching and eyes questioning, ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... view of my face. He called his hinds about him, and asked them, as I afterwards learned, whether they had ever seen in the fields any little creature that resembled me. He then placed me softly on the ground upon all fours, but I got immediately up, and walked slowly backward and forward, to let those people see I had no intent to run away. They all sat down in a circle about me, the better to observe my motions. I pulled off my hat, and made a low ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... swathing of the infant is needless to set down, for it is necessary it should be thus swaddled, to give its little body a straight figure, which is most proper and decent for a man, and to accustom him to keep upon his feet, who otherwise would go upon all fours, as ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... went out of the dormitory they passed into the children's day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at play—some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of the ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... great—standing up like suspects awaiting identification, while her eye ranges over them. Chopin tries to edge behind Wagner, a difficult and forbidding person, and Gounod seeks eclipse of Mendelssohn, who suddenly drops and crawls on all fours between Gounod's legs; Sullivan cowers, and even Piccolomini's iron-framed nerves desert him. She extends her hand. There is a frantic rush to escape. Have you ever seen a little boy picking dormice ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... made great friends with Flossie. She was patting him on the head now, for the animal, after marching about on his hind legs, was down on all fours again. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... he saw the object of his search creeping from some reeds, on all fours, with a stealthy, panther-like movement towards the unconscious fisherman. Before Hurlstone could utter a cry, Bunker had sprung upon the unfortunate man, thrown him to the earth, rapidly rolled him over and over, enwrapping him hand and foot in his own net, and involving him ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... piece of cracker she held between her lips. The squirrels were all sitting up, each with a nut in his little paws, and each with an alert and cunning look in the corner of his eye, to prevent, no doubt, being surprised out of a portion of his nut. Caesar was lying on all fours, growling and tearing at his breakfast, while the dog looked on with a superior air, as if he knew they would not have had any breakfast but ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey |
