"Ankle-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... climbs above and bends Round what was once a chalk-pit: now it is By accident an amphitheatre. Some ash-trees standing ankle-deep in brier And bramble act the parts, and neither speak Nor stir." "But see: they have fallen, every one, And brier and bramble have grown over them." "That is the place. As usual no one is here. Hardly ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... only a little lighter than the night. He crossed the lake, his snow-shoes sinking ankle-deep at every step, and once each half- hour he fired a single shot from his rifle. He heard shots to the south, and knew that it was Ledoq; each report coming to him more faintly than the last, until they ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... you will say, no harm came, and everything was as it should be. Well, there are some who plunge through the mud ankle-deep; and there are others that got but over shoe; and here and there one that crosses on tiptoe; but you would rather that they all chose a better road. And intoxication is not a good thing, whatever may be the means thereto; and the sweet, fresh years ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... something that is neither pleasant to the eye nor good for food. I believe in a rotation of crops, morally and socially, as well as agriculturally. When you have taken the measure of a man, when you have sounded him and know that you can not wade in him more than ankle-deep, when you have got out of him all that he has to yield for your soul's sustenance and strength, what is the next thing to be done? Obviously, pass him on; and turn you "to fresh woods and pastures new." Do you work him an injury? By ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... ankle-deep in the sweet grass, and looked about her for a while, and saw no shape of man astir. She was yet weary, and stiff with abiding so long amongst the hard ribs of the boat, so she laid herself down on the grass, and its softness solaced her; and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... families were homeless in the street. Half a dozen patrol wagons and five ambulances were taking the people away to shelter, women and babies first. It was an hour—an hour of standing in the street, with bare feet on the ice, under the ankle-deep slush—before old Tom and his wife got their turn to be taken. Then Susan and Etta and Ashbel, escorted by a policeman, set out for the station house. As they walked along, someone ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... grew in the roadway, and the trees bended obstructing branches. The little man followed on over pine-clothed ridges and down through water-soaked swales. His shoes were cut by rocks of the mountains, and he sank ankle-deep in mud and moss of swamps. A curve just ahead ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... it but once and then only for a moment. I had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and, in a lonely little valley dim with pines, where I thought myself alone, I had come suddenly upon her, standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of a brook, the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered dark hair. She was very young—no more than sixteen; yet the face and eyes were already those of a woman. Such a face! Beautiful? Yes, but I thought ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... halo which encircles your head. They legalize the rights of my sword. I, too, adore my native land—no one more than I! I, too, bow before the infinite judge and submit my case to His wise decision. O God, Thou who protecteth France, look down and behold him who rides yonder, his horse ankle-deep in the blood of his countrymen, who looks without pity on the dying legions and says, 'It is well!' Then, O God, look Thou upon this saint here, who prays for her persecutors, and pass judgment between the two: which of the two is Thy image ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... general ferment, it is also the inspiration, and even the standard, of a young, violent, and fierce generation. It is the most visible and the most successful manifestation of their will, or they think it is. Political reform, social reform, literature even, move slowly, ankle-deep in the mud of materialism and deliquescent tradition. Though not without reason Socialists claim that Liberals ride their horses, the jockeys still wear blue and buff. Mr. Lloyd George stands unsteadily on the shoulders of Mr. Gladstone; the bulk of his colleagues cling on behind. If literature ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... nationality. When the door was opened, through the smoke-laden atmosphere, dense with the accents of the North, one had a vision of a vast, low room with hams hanging from the rafters, casks of beer standing in a row, the floor ankle-deep with sawdust, and on the counter great salad-bowls filled with potatoes as red as chestnuts, and baskets of pretzels fresh from the oven, their golden ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... year deepened towards winter, the rains came, torrential rains such as we thought we had never known the like of before. We heard that the trenches were flooded, and that our soldiers were eating, sleeping, and fighting ankle-deep (sometimes knee-deep) in water. At night, on going to our white beds at home, we had remorseful visions of those slimy red ruts in Flanders where our boys were lying out in the drenching rain under the heavy darkness of the sky. It was hard to believe that ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... their hot, chafing saddles the sweltering roans lurched off suddenly through a great snarl of bushes into a fern-shaded spring-hole and stood ankle-deep in the boggy grass, guzzling noisily at food and drink, with the chunky gray crowding greedily against first one rider ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... those great, calloused hands stretched thick arms, with the strength of an ox. An iron lever was inserted between the bars. The heavy breathing and the low sounds of the straining were drowned by the tropic storm. The prisoner leaped from the bench and stood ankle-deep in the water, straining his ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... on a chair an inch or two higher than the rest, between two bundles. From the first, a huge heap of feathers and wings, she was taking the downy plumes, and pulling the others from the quills, and so filling bundle two littering the floor ankle-deep, and contributing to the general stock a stuffy little malaria, which might have played a distinguished part in a sweet room, but went for nothing here. Gerard asked her if he could have ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... oyster-shells, fish heads and bones, potato-skins, and cabbage-stalks littered the roads; but dirty was a word which does not give the faintest description of the almost impassable state in which I found them, when I waded through them ankle-deep ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... HORSLEY. lowering his voice to whisper; "we've picked em out. Gone through the Force; mustered all the bald-headed men. They say that at conclusion of argument on Woman's Suffrage in St. James's Hall last night, floor nearly ankle-deep in loose hair. They don't get much off my men," said ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... contacted the animal. It was its usual curious self, nothing had alarmed or excited its interest. And he did not try to establish more than a casual contact as they made their way down the bank to the edge of the stream, Sssuri splashing in ankle-deep for the sheer pleasure of feeling liquid curl about his feet ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... the officer across a dew-damped meadow and up a winding lane hung with gossamer-decked briars, until the party halted, ankle-deep among withered leaves, in a dry ditch just outside the wood. There were reasons why each detail of all that happened on that eventful night should impress itself upon Geoffrey's memory, and, long afterwards, when wandering far out in ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... found the Huon pine-trees, interspersed with many others of different species, growing in great profusion, within three yards of the edge of the water, upon a soil of decomposed vegetable matter, which in many parts was so soft that we often suddenly sank ankle-deep, and occasionally up to the knees in it: this swampy nature of the soil is to be attributed to the crowded state of the trees; for they grow so close to each other as to prevent the rays of the sun ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... out again into the sunlight and the rank luxuriance of beds and borders. They wandered through a field of flowers capriciously, at random. Their feet trod a carpet of lovely dwarf plants, which had once neatly fringed the walks, and now spread about in wild profusion. In succession they passed ankle-deep through the spotted silk of soft rose catchflies, through the tufted satin of feathered pinks, and the blue velvet of forget-me-nots, studded with melancholy little eyes. Further on they forced their way ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... in the form of tents or of crude canvas and wooden houses. The few substantial buildings stood like rocks in a tossing sea. No attempt, of course, had been made as yet toward public improvements. The streets were ankle-deep in dust or neck-deep in mud. A great smoke of dust hung perpetually over the city, raised by the trade winds of the afternoon. Hundreds of ships lay at anchor in the harbor. They had been deserted by their crews, and, before they could be ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... the barricades amicably, without angering any one. They do what they can not to annoy the neighborhood. The combatants of the Bourg-Labbe barricades are ankle-deep in mud on account of the rain. It is a perfect sewer. They hesitate to ask for a truss of straw. They lie down in the water or ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the floor. Instantly the spirit left the room, but in another instant he returned with a barrel on his back, and poured its contents over the flower; and again and again he went and came, and poured more and more water, till the floor of the room was ankle-deep. ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... delay at Watchapreague Inlet that had lodged me on this inhospitable marsh; so, trying to exercise my poor stock of patience, I completed my toilet, shaking in my wet shoes. The icy water, into which I stepped ankle-deep in order to launch my canoe, reminded me that this wintry morning was in fact the first day of December, and that stormy Hatteras, south of which was to be found a milder climate, was ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... with the chill off as ask for a diluted edition of any of these vivid and primitive things. Onions may be regarded by a man as simply delicious, but oniony honey or oniony tea! The bather's plunge is a rapture to every stinging and startled nerve in his body, but to stand ankle-deep in the surf, shivering with folded arms in the breeze that scatters the spray! Life is full of delightful things that are a transport to the soul if we take them as they are, but that become a torment and an abomination if we water ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... sickles which no man's hand had held. In the section of the city through which Lynde passed to the railroad the streets were literally strewn with broken tiles and chimney-pots. In some places the brown and purple fragments lay ankle-deep, like leaves in autumn. Hundreds of houses had been unroofed and thousands of acres laid waste in a single night. It will take the poor of the canton fifty years to forget ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... no two happier people on Ballarat that autumn than the Mahonys. To and fro they trudged down the hill, across the Flat, over the bridge and up the other side; first, through a Sahara of dust, then, when the rains began, ankle-deep in gluey red mud. And the building of the finest mansion never gave half so much satisfaction as did that of this flimsy little wooden house, with its thin lath-and-plaster walls. In fancy they had furnished it and lived in it, long before ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... I see the rocking masts That scrape the sky, their only tenant The jay-bird, that in frolic casts From some high yard his broad blue pennant. I see the Indian files that keep Their places in the dusty heather, Their red trunks standing ankle-deep In moccasins of ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the blacksmith shop the usual game of quaits" was in progress, and the drug clerk on the corner was chasing a crony with the squirt pump, with which he was about to wash the windows. A few teams stood ankle-deep in the mud, tied to the fantastically gnawed pine pillars of the wooden awnings. A man on a load of hay was "jawing" with the attendant of the platform scales, who stood below, pad and pencil ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... one sank ankle-deep, for no one paved the street at that time, strangely enough preferring to pay the sixpence fine per square yard for leaving it undone. At one place, Brandon told me, a load of hay blocked the streets, compelling them to squeeze ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... amid the terrible storm beating on the combatants. The wind blew violently, and the rain descended in torrents. The men sank ankle-deep in the softened soil, but "Forward!" sounded the battle-cry, and the soldiers left their shoes in the mud, rushing in their socks or bare-footed on the enemy, who fought with lion-hearted courage, here ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... were, and the woods, but scarcely touched by the blight of autumn, were gray as usual from the limestone turnpike, which, when he crossed it, was ankle-deep in dust. A cloud of yellow butterflies fluttered crazily before him in a sunlight that was hardly less golden, and when he climbed the fence a rabbit leaped beneath him and darted into a patch of ironweeds. Instinctively he ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... dusty streets, Nor travel, ankle-deep, Through mush and slush, but quiet stands Where ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... line was to be measured south from near Kanab for about ten miles. Christmas day came with rain and small prospect of special enjoyment, and we all kept the shelter of the tent after hunting up the horses in mud ankle-deep. But our dinner was a royal feast, for Mrs. Thompson herself made a huge plum-pudding and Prof. supplied butter and milk from Kanab, making this feature of the holiday an immense success. In the evening a number of us rode up to the settlement ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... track and dived into the mist, Tristram following close at his heels. Their way lay over hillocks and hollows of sand in which they sank ankle-deep at every step. In two minutes they lost sight of the regiment, and were walking with their faces set, as it seemed, towards a wall of grey atmosphere, impenetrable by the eye. After five minutes of this Tristram groaned. He had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... spruce are seen, against which the white stems of the graceful birch stand out in bold relief; while the bank of some stream, or the margin of a lake, is marked by fringing thickets of alder. In many parts are moist, swampy bogs, into which the sportsman sinks ankle-deep at every step. The ground, however, is everywhere thickly carpeted by a luxuriant growth of a species of lichen. It possesses wonderfully nutritive qualities; so much so, that large quantities of alcohol have lately been extracted from it, as well as from other lichens ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... to go straight from the Market-place, to the House of the Capulets, now degenerated into a most miserable little inn. Noisy vetturini and muddy market-carts were disputing possession of the yard, which was ankle-deep in dirt, with a brood of splashed and bespattered geese; and there was a grim-visaged dog, viciously panting in a doorway, who would certainly have had Romeo by the leg, the moment he put it over the wall, if he had existed and been at large in those times. The orchard fell ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... my half of the golden chain You wore about your neck, That day we waded ankle-deep For ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... could not stay still. I went to and fro, till at length I reached the spot where my huts had been. The outer fence of the huts still stood; the fire had not caught it. I passed through the fence; there within were the ashes of the burnt huts—they lay ankle-deep. I walked in among the ashes; my feet struck upon things that were sharp. The moon was bright, and I looked; they were the blackened bones of my wives and children. I flung myself down in the ashes in bitterness of ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... rank upon rank, weary men, who showed among them here and there grim evidence of battle—rain-sodden men with hair that clung to muddy brows beneath the sloping brims of muddy helmets; men who tramped ankle-deep in mud and who sang and whistled blithe as birds. So they splashed wearily through the mud, upborne in their fatigue by that indomitable spirit that has always made the Briton the fighting ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... A torrential rain had set in. The car slid from one side of the road to the other like a Scotchman coming home from celebrating Bobbie Burns's birthday and repeatedly threatened to capsize in the ditch. The mud was ankle-deep and the road back to Malines was now in the possession of the Germans, so we were compelled to make a detour through a deserted country- side, running through the inky blackness without lights so as not to invite a visit ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... and much to be feared, for was it not so big that no one could see where it ended? They sat and watched its enticing gestures, and, gathering courage, stood tremulously while the tide splashed their feet and retreated. The boldest walked in ankle-deep and danced in daredevilry, and soon young and old were gambolling uncouthly, tasting the sea's quality, shouting and splashing. None ventured more than knee-deep; some crawled and wallowed in the wet sand, too fearful to trust their lives to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... variegated pelts cause us to resemble an unsuccessful compromise between Esau and an Eskimo, they keep our bodies warm. We wish we could say the same for our feet. On good days we stand ankle-deep; on bad, we are occasionally over the knees. Thrice blessed then are our Boots, Gum, Thigh, though even these cannot altogether ward ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... street, undrained and unutterably filthy, was ankle-deep in mud, even at the close of this hot August day. Down one side a long blank wall, stone-built and green with mildew, presented an unbroken frontage: on the other the row of houses with doors perpetually barred, and windows whereon dust and grit had formed effectual curtains ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... silence and of solitude became more absolute, a fitting attendant on memory. On and on the two men walked, the Christian and his burden; their sandalled feet felt like lead as they sank ankle-deep in the mud of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a passionate love of flowers, and, utterly heedless of all but the joy of seeing them, she ran down the slope, and only stopped when she found herself ankle-deep in the marsh below, in which the ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... reached the end of the board-walk, and plunging ankle-deep into the sand, trudged slowly along as if pushed back by the wind. It whipped her skirts about her and blew the ends of her fringed scarf back over her shoulder. She made a bright flash of color against the desolate background. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... made to police these military camps, and in Jaruco the filth covered the streets and the plaza ankle-deep, and even filled the corners of the church which had been turned into a fort, and had hammocks swung from the altars. The huts of the pacificos, with from four to six people in each, were jammed together in rows a quarter of a mile long, within ten feet of the cavalry barracks, where sixty men ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... was filled with red dust. We could see but a few feet ahead of us. The lamps on men's brows looked like fire-flies dancing in the red mist. There was a sound of rushing water and the chug, chug of the pumps. As we waded ankle-deep through a water alley, we heard the warning yells of a foreman. A charge of dynamite was about to burst and the men were flying out of danger. We were whisked into a cleft for safety. Half a dozen old miners were squeezed in beside ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... to feel a twinge of self-reproach at this undeserved praise. He walked up and down, unconscious that he was plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of everything but trembling suspense about what was going on in the cottage, and the effect of each alternative on his future lot. No, not quite unconscious of everything else. Deeper down, and half-smothered ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... rising, though more slowly, and as soon as they left the high ground they were splashing along ankle-deep in the water. Winding in and out among the trees, they came upon a boat which had been hauled out the previous fall. And three chechaquos, who had managed to get into the country thus far over the ice, had piled themselves ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... embrace? Of one clay all were made! Thus I became as they. Since only fear Could tame that crew, I bade its form draw near. It was a war I waged; I found a joy Undreamed-of in their death-cries, and in blood Full ankle-deep I waded—victor stood, To find at last that horror too could cloy! Now, grimly bearing what I may not mend, Remorseless, unconsoled, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... with stirring incident. When the company reached Bradford, Pennsylvania, they found the town in the throes of oil excitement. Oil was on everybody's tongue and ankle-deep in some of the streets. A great multitude collected at the theater. After the first part of the show the gallery, which was full of people, creaked and settled a few inches, creating a near panic. While this was being subdued an oil-warehouse on the ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... that vast, shadowy borderland where earth and heaven mingled; and gusts of wind which, as they roared by over a thousand straining trees and passed off with hoarse, volleying sounds, seemed to mimic the echoing thunder. And the leaves—the millions and myriads of sere, cast-off leaves, heaped ankle-deep under the desolate giants of the wood, and everywhere, in the hollows of the earth, lying silent and motionless, as became dead, fallen things—suddenly catching a mock fantastic life from the wind, how they would all be up and stirring, every leaf with a hiss like a viper, racing, many thousands ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... ears was a deafening roar. There were endless moments of strife and hell and flying darkness of spray all about him, and under him the rocking boat. When they lessened—ceased in violence—he stood ankle-deep in water, and then madly ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... to the California campaign, as she had spent the greater part of the past year in that State. She closed by saying: "Our reception by the Californians was such as to make them forever dear to us. I wish you could have seen Miss Anthony for once walking ankle-deep in roses. It showed that the sentiment for suffrage had reached the point where its advocates not only were tolerated but honored. I used to like to see her sitting in a chair all adorned with flowers and with a laurel crown suspended over her head, and to feel that it was woman suffrage that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Absyrtus, or turn your inquiries After Milton's prose metaphor, drawn from Osiris; But, as Cicero says he won't say this or that (A fetch, I must say, most transparent and flat), After saying whate'er he could possibly think of,— I simply will state that I pause on the brink of A mire, ankle-deep, of deliberate confusion, 350 Made up of old jumbles of classic allusion: So, when you were thinking yourselves to be pitied, Just conceive how much harder your teeth you'd have gritted, An 'twere not for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... blackbirds as they darted from one clump of greenery to the other. Now and again a peaty amber colored stream rippled across their way, with ferny over-grown banks, where the blue kingfisher flitted busily from side to side, or the gray and pensive heron, swollen with trout and dignity, stood ankle-deep among the sedges. Chattering jays and loud wood-pigeons flapped thickly overhead, while ever and anon the measured tapping of Nature's carpenter, the great green woodpecker, sounded from each wayside grove. On either side, as the path mounted, the long sweep of country broadened and expanded, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... We straightened in our saddles, we breathed deep, we joked. The country was scorched and sterile; the wagon-trail, almost paralleling the mountains themselves on a long easy slant toward the high country, was ankle-deep in dust; the ravines were still dry of water. But it was not the Inferno, and that one fact sufficed. After a while we crossed high above a river which dashed white water against black ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... to the brink. A cold air struck our faces. Our feet sank ankle-deep in the mud. The cobbler did not stop, but ran on into the Pool, where the shawled figure of a woman stood, covered to the waist by ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... as she spoke there was a great crash, which threw her into his arms a second time, and made a clean sweep of the tables. They stood literally ankle-deep in wine-glasses, dessert, and plates. The Mooroo had taken the rocks. There was a rolling crash on the deck overhead, and a confused ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... Middle Channel, running the boat ashore on Apes' Island at a spot where a stream of fresh water discharged into the narrowest part of the channel. Here we landed, and started to walk eastward over and through ashes that were ankle-deep and in places still unpleasantly hot. I was quite prepared to find evidences that the destruction of animal life had been tremendous; but even so I was amazed at the innumerable scorched and shrivelled carcasses of creatures that had made their way to the water's ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... his pockets and splashed cheerfully into the ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little bag and followed. Somehow he had vaguely expected some ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... and those of Cleopatra and Antony were of gold set with jewels. The dishes also were all of gold set with jewels, the walls were hung with purple cloths sewn with gold, and on the floor, covered with a net of gold, fresh roses were strewn ankle-deep, that as the slaves trod them sent up their perfume. Once again I was bidden to stand, with Charmion and Iras and Merira, behind the couch of Cleopatra, and, like a slave, from time to time call out the hours as they flew. And there being no help, I went wild at heart; ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... The explorers walked ankle-deep in dust through a maze of rooms until they came to a big central hall of statues. So artistically fashioned were they that they seemed lifelike in their attitudes, and for a moment all held their breath. This ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... pack of cards is called for at every deal, and the "old" ones are then thrown upon the floor, and in such an immense quantity, that the writer of this letter has seen a very large room nearly ANKLE-DEEP, in the greatest part of it, by four o'clock in the morning! Judge, then, to what height they ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... emotions, tore through the garden and into the old orchard. Bees were busy, and countless bright-coloured butterflies flitted hither and thither, sipping from hundreds of trees, white or pink with bloom—their beauty was lost upon me. I stood ankle-deep in violets, where they had run wild under a gnarled old apple-tree, and gave ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Neapolitan tenement. It was littered with dead cats and fowls and fish and castaway vegetables and rotten fruit and tin cans and greasy ashes and refuse from fishing nets and decaying cocoanuts by the million and sodden rags. This stewing garbage was strewn ankle-deep upon the sand or was floating on the surface of the river, not drifting seaward, as one would expect, but languidly following the tide up and down, forever lolling along the bank. Above this putrefying feast swarmed myriads of flies, their buzzing combining ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... and what they saw in nowise relieved the tenseness of the situation. Two carabinieri and an inspector of seals, dusty but stern of countenance, came up the path. O'Mally, recollecting the vast prison at Naples, saw all sorts of dungeons, ankle-deep in sea-water, and iron bars, shackles and balls. Every one stood up and waited for this new development to unfold itself. La Signorina alone seemed indifferent to this official cortege. The inspector signed ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... ceased falling, but the wind blew with increased violence, twisting the branches off the trees, tearing slates from the roofs, and shaking the street-lamps so furiously as to extinguish the gas. They could not see a step before them; the mud was ankle-deep, and not a person, not a solitary ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... were not made to open. Sometimes they had glass in them, but were oftener stopped up with rags. Before the doors were heaps of manure and pools of stagnant water. There was no regular footway, but a mere beaten track in front of the cabins, and this, on wet days, was ankle-deep in mud. The women hung about the doors all day long, knitting the men's blue stockings, and did little else apparently. Both men and women were usually in a torpid state, the result, doubtless, of breathing a poisoned ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Livingstone was struck down by that severe attack of rheumatic fever, accompanied by great loss of blood, to which reference has already been made. "I got it," he writes to Mr. Maclear, "by sleeping in the wet. There was no help for it. Every part of a plain was flooded ankle-deep. We got soaked by going on, and sodden if we stood still." In his former journey he had been very desirous to visit Matiamvo, paramount chief of the native tribes of Londa, whose friendship would have helped him greatly in his journey; but at that time ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... four o'clock. The road was ankle-deep in dust; the sun burnt our faces as we marched toward the west. Up hill and down hill, up hill and down hill, we marched for an ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... slammed their controls into reverse and with an ear-splitting screech, the twisted frames of the two vehicles ripped apart into tumbled heaps of broken metal and plastics. Martin and Ferguson jumped down the hatch steps and into ankle-deep foam and oil. They waded and slipped around the front of the car to join the ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... incessant rain and my wet clothes, and would on no consideration have missed this sight. Unfortunately the bad weather increased, and thick fogs rolled down into the valleys. The water flowed down from the mountains, and transformed our narrow path into a brook, through which we had to wade ankle-deep in water. At last we reached the spot which afforded the best view of the fall. It was yet free from mist, and I could still admire the extraordinary beauty of the fall and its quantity of water. I saw ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... with ivy, and was half surrounded by a wall, whose tottering, ornamental pinnacles told a story of comparative grandeur that had come to grief in this remote spot. The farmer had been winnowing his corn outside, and the narrow lane was ankle-deep with chaff. The only human being that I could find here was a wild-looking girl, with a bush of hair on her head, who made me understand, half in French, half in patois, that I should never reach Vayrac by the way I was going. She sent ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... which he kept fully and precisely every night by the camp-fire (even when I had to crouch over him and the precious paper with my water-proof focusing cloth) somehow bestowed about him. Up and down pathless cliffs, through tangled canons, fording icy streams and ankle-deep sands, we travailed; no blankets, overcoats, or other shelter; and the only commissary a few cakes of sweet chocolate, and a small sack of parched popcorn meal. Our "lodging was the cold ground." When we ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... young man was in camp at Crowborough. The contrast to his previous life as a city clerk, where mud was unknown and wet feet a rare occurrence, was marked indeed. The camp was sodden, the mud ankle-deep, and, what with that and the cold November weather, times were pretty stiff. He ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... thoroughly. Occasionally they seemed to be following obscure paths, but as often there was no sign of a track, and the thick, tropical vegetation made progress difficult. For an hour or two they climbed up the half-dry bed of a mountain torrent, and more than once they were ankle-deep in swampy ground. The Moritos passed through the jungle with the agility and noiselessness of cats, but the three white men floundered along as best they could. Their captors uttered never a word and would not ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... to fear the "bark" of a fox. I preferred, therefore, not to encounter any such eccentric "fox" alone; hence I refused to listen to my friend's entreaties, but simply followed on, over fallen tree-trunks, under drooping branches, and through unyielding brush; now sinking ankle-deep in a pile of dead leaves, now catching my hair in a broken branch, and now nearly falling over a concealed root; wading through swamps, sliding down banks, cutting and tearing our shoes, and leaving bits of our garments everywhere. On we went recklessly, intent upon one thing ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... hot days gave place to cooler and shorter, and there was none left of the beautiful fruit—peaches, apricots, figs, plums, nectarines, grapes, and melons—which, for want of a market, had rotted ankle-deep in some parts of the fertile old valley of Noonoon ere I received a ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... stock which were in it; swept four water-butts and three men away into the sea, like corks and straws; and sent tons of water down the forescuttle and main hatchway, which was partly opened, not to stifle the crew, and flooded the gun-deck ankle-deep. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... mud was unloaded there and thrown on the mountain, and soon the air was filled with the foulest of smells. They waded ankle-deep in filth, and their clothes, hands, and faces were covered ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... had become worn by the brush and faded by the sun and rain. In the course of the morning he lay in wait very patiently near a spot overflowed by the river, where, the day before, he had noticed lily-pads growing. After a time a doe and a spotted fawn came and stood ankle-deep in the water, and ate of the lily-pads. Thorpe lurked motionless behind his screen of leaves; and as he had taken the precaution so to station himself that his hiding-place lay downwind, the beautiful animals ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... and sprang for another rock. But her feet slipped on the seaweed, and she splashed down into a pool ankle-deep. ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Ankle-deep in the powdery sand, we entered the little town with its business row facing the water front. One glance at the empty levees told you of the town's dead glory. Not a steamboat's stacks, blackening in the gloom, ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... the rushes of a small inlet, Cheenbuk stepped out of the hole in its centre into the stream. The water was ankle-deep, but the youth suffered no discomfort, for he wore what may be styled home-made waterproof boots reaching to above the knees. These had been invented by his forefathers, no doubt, in the remote ages of antiquity—at all events, long before india-rubber ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... he was ankle-deep, and in taking a step to catch his son's arm, Squire Winthorpe felt the water splash ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... pig-sty than a human dwelling. The Germans had broken all locks and emptied the contents of all bureaus, closets, and desks upon the floor, the more easily to pick and choose what they wanted. The floors were covered ankle-deep in the resulting litter which was composed of everything from lace to daguerreotypes, from bric-a-brac to hosiery. The relics and treasures of past generations of the owner's family carpeted the house, until each room seemed in a worse state than the last, and the whole ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... towards Cap Gris Nez. The streets were narrow, tortuous, and mostly evil-smelling, with a mixture of stale fish and damp cellar odours. There had been heavy rain here during the storm last night, and sometimes Marguerite sank ankle-deep in the mud, for the roads were not lighted save by the occasional glimmer from a ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... girl who was compelled to stand in a wet place, though water overflowed sometimes into the girls' quarters from the wash-rooms, where the men worked. In some of these wash-rooms the water is at times ankle-deep, a condition due only to bad drainage, as other wash-rooms are absolutely dry. Whatever the condition of the work-rooms, the women's dressing-rooms frequently had insanitary plumbing, and were verminous and unhealthful. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... said Gettysburg, remaining ankle-deep in the mud. "Don't you know this here is the 'Laughin' Water' ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... on to her knee, and unlocked it, and came to a thick cloth, which she partly withdrew, and then there was a scream from Mrs Machin, and the hat-box rolled with a terrific crash to the tiled floor, and she was ankle-deep in sovereigns. She could see sovereigns running about all over the parlour. Gradually even the most active sovereigns decided to lie down and be quiet, and a great silence ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... the stairway a door stood open. This she entered, and found herself in the general editorial room, ankle-deep with dirt and paper. The air of the place told that the day's work was done. In one corner a telegraph sounder was chattering its tardy world-gossip to unheeding ears. In the centre at a long table, typewriters before them, three shirt-sleeved young men sprawled at ease reading the Express, which ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, We heard behind the woodbine vail The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... ceiling, and which swung to and fro with the lurching of the ship. The wind was whistling shrilly among the rigging, and every plank and board in the vessel groaned and creaked under the beating of the waves. Now and then her feet were ankle-deep in water, and she dreaded to see it sweep over the low berth. In the rare intervals of the storm she could hear the hurried movements overhead, and the shouts of the sailors as they called to one another from the rigging. But ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... all was that the reckless and romantic Henry took to night-prowling about the grounds of Conde's chateau. In the disguise of a peasant you see his Majesty of France and Navarre, whose will was law in Europe, shivering behind damp hedges, ankle-deep in wet grass, spending long hours in love-lore, ecstatic contemplation of her lighted window, and all—so far as we can gather—for no other result than the aggravation of certain rheumatic troubles which should have reminded him that ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... prostrate multitude Looked—and ankle-deep in blood, Hope, that maiden most serene, Was walking with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... mossbonkers—they drop the joined sein-ends in the water, The boats separate—they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers; The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats—others stand negligently ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs; The boats are partly drawn up—the water slaps against them; On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... But week-nights every kind of temptation and opportunity spreads before a man, and if he goes to the praying circle he must give up these things. The man who goes to the weekly service regularly through moonlight and pitch darkness, through good walking and slush ankle-deep, will in the book of judgment find it set down to his credit. He will have a better seat in heaven than the man who went only when the walking was good, and the weather comfortable, and the services attractive, and his health perfect. That service which costs nothing God accounts ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... tragic incident; to come upon it after so many days, and to find it (in the seclusion of a desert) still unchanged, must have impressed the mind of the most careless. And yet it was not that which struck us into pillars of stone; but the sight (which yet we had been half expecting) of Secundra ankle-deep in the grave of his late master. He had cast the main part of his raiment by, yet his frail arms and shoulders glistered in the moonlight with a copious sweat; his face was contracted with anxiety ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to Maragon the next morning. The city was shrouded in a low layer of cloud, and his glassed-in penthouse office was gloomy with the morning. He motioned me to sit down. I dragged one of his Bank of England chairs through the ankle-deep pile of his rug and set it down next to his ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... on the surrounding cliffs. As if they had caught fire from it, a score of torches broke into flame on the eastward rocks, and in the sudden blaze, under the detonating fire of musketry, the men of Troy could be seen tumbling out of their boats and splashing ankle-deep to the shore. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... granite rocks and the granite walls of the ramparts. But at neap tides and eaux mortes, as the French say, there is nothing but a desert of brown, bare sand, with ripple-marks lying across it, and with shallow, ankle-deep pools of salt water here and there. Afar off on the western sky-line a silver fringe of foam, glistening in the sunshine, marks the distant boundary to which the sea has retreated. On every other side of the ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... rock. It was getting dark, and we could not see very well, but I could see a nose of rock, and it looked like the end of a ledge. 'I'll get out and shove her off!' said I. I sounded with an oar, and found the water barely ankle-deep on the ledge. So I took off my shoes and stockings, rolled up my trousers a little, and stepped ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... excursion was to be their last, and Miss Midland had suggested a return to Versailles to see the park in its spring glory. They lunched in a little inclosure, rosy with the pink and white magnolia blossoms, where the uncut grass was already ankle-deep and the rose-bushes almost hid the gray stone wall with the feathery abundance of their first pale green leaves. From a remark of the girl's that perhaps this was the very spot where Marie Antoinette had once gathered about her gay court of pseudo-milkmaids, they ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... rear of our camp, we made across country to a town named Nanglooi, distant six miles. The men were in high spirits notwithstanding the difficulties we had to encounter in traversing a route wellnigh impassable from the recent rains, and ankle-deep in mud. Two broad swamps also had to be crossed, the soldiers wading waist-high in the water, and carrying their ammunition-pouches on their heads. Three hours and more were passed before we arrived at the village, and ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... appearance, each house being fitted, as at Sonmiani, with a large "badgir," or wind-catcher. Like most Eastern cities, Beila does not improve on closer acquaintance. The people are dirty and indolent. There is little or no trade, and the dark, narrow streets, ankle-deep in mud and filth, are crowded with beggars and pariah dogs, while the dull drab colour of the mud houses is depressing in the extreme. The fort and palace alone are built of brick, and, being whitewashed, relieve to a certain ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... the other—"Oh dear" said Isabel, seized with a great disposition to laugh. Lawrence was not amused. His boots were full of mud and water and he had an aching sense of injured dignity. The bog was not even dangerous: and ankle-deep, calf-deep, knee-deep he waded through it and got out on the opposite bank, bringing up a cloud of little marsh-bubbles on his heels. Isabel would have given all the money she had in the world—about five shillings to go away and laugh, but she had been well brought up and she remained grave, though ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... were Wednesday and Thursday, 23d and 24th, when we were a little more than half way across. With the wind precisely ahead and very strong, the skies black and lowering, a pretty constant rain, and a driving, blinding spray which drenched every thing above the decks, themselves ankle-deep in water, I cannot well imagine how two hundred fellow-passengers, driven down and kept down in the cabins and state-rooms of a steamship, could well be treated to a more dismal prospect. I thought the philosophy even of ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... | Playing ankle-deep in mud before a | |wildly enthusiastic gathering of football| |rooters, the gridiron warriors of Siwash | |College defeated the Tigers this | |afternoon on Siwash athletic field by the| |score of 5 to ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... as happy as happy could be. At the breakfast-table, he could hardly eat his bread and milk for looking at his shining axe, which he had laid beside him on the table; and, before it was fairly broad daylight, he was out at the wood-yard, ankle-deep in snow, cutting and chopping away at the hard-seasoned beech and maple logs, as if it lay with him, for that day at least, to keep the whole family, white and black, from freezing. By and by, however, he found this more ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... over sandy and pebbly river-bottom, or unloading and carrying around the foam of perilous rapids. For compensation there is the pleasure of splashing ankle-deep and deeper in the cool current, and casting for trout in the "laughing shallow," which I much prefer to the "dreaming pool." They who choose it may fish from boat or ledge: for me, to wade and cast is ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... first month of the year dragged itself slowly to an end, and the great city underwent all those pleasing alternations, from snow to mud, from the slipperiness of a city paved with plate-glass to the sloppiness of a metropolis ankle-deep in a rich brown compound of about the consistency and colour of mock-turtle soup, which are common to great cities at this season; and still John Saltram lingered on in the shabby solitude of his Temple chambers, slowly mending, Mr. Mew declared, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... time to turn and ask the man the way to the hotel, he had slammed the door to in her face and turned the key in the lock with a loud, resounding click, and Jessie found herself standing ankle-deep in the snow-drift, with the wind whirling about her and dashing the blinding snow in ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... eventually blew her brains out in Paris. They spattered the ceiling and ruined the carpet—I forgot the rest, (there was a lovely account of it in the People), for over-taxed nature could stand no more, and I fell asleep dreaming of reporters wading ankle-deep in blood in a Louis Quatorze drawing-room, taking notes of a terrible tragedy in high life, and was horrified to hear a loud report, followed by a gurgling sound, and, opening my eyes, beheld—Mr. Orderly holding one of my bottles of stout upside down to his lips, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... obliged to alight halfway, and walk a short distance. The Embankment had given way. Luckily the weather was favourable, inasmuch as we had only a violent storm of wind. Had it rained, we should have been wetted to the skin, besides being compelled to wade ankle-deep in mud. We were next obliged to remain in the open air, awaiting the arrival of the train from Stockerau, which unloaded its freight, and ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... hung over them, their color and every object along the shore was quite indistinct. The next morning was beautiful. Dall and I ran down to the beach before breakfast; there are no sands, unluckily, but we stood ankle-deep in the shingles, watching the ebbing tide and sniffing the sweet salt air for a long time with great satisfaction. After breakfast we rehearsed "The Provoked Husband," and from the theater ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... stopped increasing in size, they leaped in turn over the palace, landing upon the broad beach of the lake. Then they began walking along it. There was only room for one on the sand, and the other two, for they walked abreast, waded ankle-deep in the water. From the little city below them they could hear the hum of a myriad of tiny voices—thin, shrill and faint. Suddenly the Big Business Man laughed. There was no hysteria in his ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... the worst of the toil, the torment of the trail. It had no dangers, but it abounded in worriments and disappointments. As I look back upon it now I suffer, because I see my horses standing ankle-deep in water on barren marshes or crowding round the fire chilled and weak, in endless rain. If our faces looked haggard and worn, it was because of the never ending anxiety concerning the faithful animals ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... malignant thorns I ever met with. Whatever part of your garments they catch hold of, from that they have never been known to part. Presently our road became inhabited by a stream of water, and every step that avoided the stones was ankle-deep in mud. How the mule could have got on, as I could not see, I cannot imagine, but the box which it carried was not seriously damaged. The two guides in their opunkas walked firmly, but the others were tumbling frequently. The female who had come ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... underneath it. The position was exceedingly awkward, for the ladder obliged them to stoop, and they did not dare to move their feet except with caution, for fear of slipping off the beams into the water—in which, even as it was, they were ankle-deep while standing on the beams. They were soon soaked to the skin by the drippings and spirtings from the pipes, and almost incapable of hearing each other speak, owing to the din. If Rooney had dropped the lead-soled boots or the shoulder-weights, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... them. Close enough to feel the radiation of a sledge-hammer sun from their bevelled summits—close enough to be the channel, in summer, of every scorching blast diverted by them; in winter, every icy draught. Pestilential place, goal of whirlwinds and dust-devils, ankle-deep in desert drift—prototype of Berber in a sandstorm—as comfortless by night as day. But as in nature, so in the handiwork of men, even in the most repulsive shapes it is possible to find some ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... the enemy's front we tumbled into the trenches already in possession of Battalion B, and I found myself ankle-deep in mire, beside a unit of another regiment who was enjoying a cigarette and blowing rings of smoke into the air. Although no enemy was visible we got the order to fire, and I discharged three rounds ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... I had a trip down to the moraine which he had found a few days previously. After a heavy one and a half hours' walk, the last half-mile of which was along a creek bed, with water ankle-deep all the way, we reached the spot: the site of one of the large penguin rookeries up on the hills at the back of "The Nuggets." The sun showed between squalls, and Blake took some interesting photographs of rocks showing striae and other glacial ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... life, of which he was so fond of speaking, was perhaps rather like that of a shrimper who, in ankle-deep water, watches the heavily freighted whale boats come towering in. He does not quite know why he, of all men, with his special equipment for the purpose, and his expert handling of the net, does not also catch whales. That they seldom ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... the corporation for the hands are some five or six minutes' walk, not more, from the palace-like structure of the mill proper. To reach them I plod through a roadway ankle-deep in red clay dust. The sun is bright and the air heavy, lifeless and dull; the scene before me is desolate, meager ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... the Earthmen's refuge. On every side the dwarfs were climbing, were swarming up the walls in numbers so great that they concealed the metal beneath. Up, up they came, slowly but surely. And right in the center of the plain, ankle-deep in the torn fragments of the murdered Venusians, was the Martian, ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... ran along the inner side of the fence, clear of undergrowth and half filled with rotted leaves. Along this Jim followed, gun in hand, keeping his quarry's head-and shoulders well in sight over the coping. This was laborious work, for he plunged ankle-deep at every step; but the leaves, sodden with a week's rain, made a noiseless carpet, whereas the brushwood might have crackled and ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rain on that particular day, and the relief was carried out on a very black night in a steady downpour, and everyone was quickly wet through. The trenches filled with water and the men had first to wade through deep sludge and then over rain-sodden ground ankle-deep in mud. The men's clothes became caked with the mud from the sides of the trench, which increased the weight ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... time Nan's life hung in the balance. It seemed as though a straw either way would suffice to turn the scales. Dead silence reigned in the house in Thurloe Square: the street outside was ankle-deep in straw: doctors and nurses took possession of Nan's pretty rooms, where all her graceful devices and gentle handicrafts were set aside, and their places filled with a grim array of medicaments. The servants, who loved their mistress, went about with ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... detested brutes we killed I cannot say, but we did not leave off until our hands had become powerless from exhaustion, and our tomahawks were so blunted as to be rendered of no use. When we left the scene of massacre, we had to pass over a pool of blood ankle-deep, and such was the bowling of those who were not quite dead, that the deer and elk were in every direction struggling to rise and fly [see note 1]. We had been employed more than four hours in our work of destruction, when we returned to the camp, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... foam; so are the water-channels; and out of both water and pitch innumerable bubbles of gas arise, loathsome to the smell. We became aware also that the pitch was soft under our feet. We left the impression of our boots; and if we had stood still awhile, we should soon have been ankle-deep. No doubt there are spots where, if a man stayed long enough, he would be slowly and horribly engulfed. 'But,' as Mr. Manross says truly, 'in no place is it possible to form those bowl-like depressions round the observer described by former travellers.' What we did see is, that the fresh ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and there, at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by, there were peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or lounging at the doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And then there was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and vast outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an immense, old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows blinded, and green damp crawling lazily over it, from the balustraded terrace ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... off his clothes, while the others wait, O Zarathustra! he shall enter the river, and take the dead out of the water; he shall go down into the water ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, or a man's full depth, till he can ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... ready to fire. The rain continued, increasing in fury until they were enveloped in a nearly solid wall of water. In a little while the floor of the jungle became one continuous mudhole, with each step taking them ankle-deep into the sucking mud. Their climb was uphill, and the water from above increased, washing down around them in torrents. More than once one of the cadets fell, gasping for breath, into the dirty water, only to be jerked back to more solid footing by the other two. Stumbling, ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... the little pictures I shall remember belonging to Modder camp is the sight of the soldiers at early mass. You can picture to yourself a wide, flat dusty plain held in the bent arm of the river, with not a tree or bush on it; flat as a table, ankle-deep in grey dust, and with a glaring, blazing sun looking down on it. The dust is so hot and deep that it reminds one more of the ashes on the top of Vesuvius—you remember that night climb of ours?—than of ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... their way along the shadowy depths of the forest where once Twenty-Third Street had lain. Bravely and strongly the girl bore her half of the load as they broke through the undergrowth, clambered over fallen and rotten logs, or sank ankle-deep in mossy swales. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the absolute bareness of the cone became apparent the instant that I stepped out of the shadow of the pines, for I immediately plunged ankle-deep in a loose deposit of ashes and pumice-stone that yielded to my tread and slid away under me to such an extent as to make progress almost impossible. But I was determined not to be beaten; and at length, after a full hour's violent exertion, I found myself, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... trapped to buy some unchewable old poultry, tough tup-mutton, stringy cow beef, or stale fish, at a very little less than the price of prime and proper food. With savings like these they toddle home in triumph, cackling all the way, like a goose that has got ankle-deep into good luck. ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... thirty-six hours, and as we stepped into the unlighted hut, my muchacho and I, right away the floor grew sticky and slimy with the mud on our feet, and as we groped about blindly, we seemed ankle-deep in something greasy and abominable like gore. After a while the boy got a torch outside, and as he flared it I caught sight of Miller on his cot, backed up into one corner. He was sitting upright, staring straight ahead and a little down, as if in careful consideration. As I ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... give if he could find the man, if he could take Cummins back to his wife, and stand for one moment more with her hands clasping his, her joy flooding him with a sweetness that would last for all time! He plunged fearlessly into the white world beyond the lake, his wide snowshoes sinking ankle-deep at every step. There was neither rock nor tree to guide him, for everywhere was the heavy ghost-raiment of the Indian God. The balsams were bending under it, the spruces were breaking into hunchback forms, the whole world was twisted in noiseless ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... boys in bed and the little supper all ready by the fire; then I would prowl down the road with my electric torch, to meet him coming home; he would signal in the distance with his torch, and I with mine. Then the walk back together, sometimes ankle-deep in mud; then supper, making the toast over the coals, and an evening absolutely to ourselves. And never in all our lives did we ask for ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... on the march all summer, it seemed to me. We'd travel through dust ankle-deep all day that was just like ashes, and halt in the red-hot sun five minutes to make coffee. We'd make our coffee in five minutes, and sometimes we'd make it in the middle of the road; but ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... formerly, if compared to what they do now. Which might also be signified by this, that they 'issued out,' that that issues out ordinarily comes forth but slowly. Also the prophet saith, the first time he went through the waters, they were but up to the ankles (Eze 47:3,4). But what is ankle-deep to that which followeth after? It is said also to come out from Jerusalem, where, I perceive, were no great rivers, to intimate, that as long as the first priesthood, first temple, and type, were in their splendour, only the shadow of heavenly things ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that afternoon long remained with them. They were grimed with black dust and ashes, and the ranks of charred trunks cast only thin strips of shade, while a scorching sun poured down an almost intolerable heat into the deep valley. The ground was ankle-deep in dust and charcoal, and, as they floundered through it, feathery ash rose in clouds. Their clothing grew crusted with it, and it worked through and irritated their heated skin; while every now and then one of them was compelled to stop ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Appian Way stretched through its long suburb; the garret under the tiles where, just as now, the pigeons sleeked themselves in the sun and the rain drummed on the roof; the narrow crowded streets, half choked with builders' carts, ankle-deep in mud, and the pavement ringing under the heavy military boots of guardsmen; the tavern waiters trotting along with a pyramid of hot dishes on their head; the flowerpots falling from high window ledges; night, with the shuttered shops, the silence broken by some sudden street brawl, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... light and proceeded to mop up as best I could, and then endeavoured to find a dry place to sleep in. This, however, was no easy task, for my own bed was drenched and every other berth occupied; the deck, too, was ankle-deep in water, as I found when I tried to get across to the deck-house sofa. At last I lay down on the floor, wrapped up in my ulster, and wedged between the foot-stanchions of our swing bed and the wardrobe athwart ship; so that, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... pure irony, for the weather was the most disagreeable that could be imagined. A very heavy snow storm had prevailed for several days. It was now beginning to thaw, and on all the frequented thoroughfares the slush was ankle-deep. It was still cold, however; a damp chill filled the air, and penetrated to the very marrow of one's bones. Besides, there was a dense fog, so dense that one could not see one's ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... to take me aboard again," said the captain, when the wharf was reached; and the two men went slowly together into the town, along the streets of ankle-deep sand, towards the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... watch the old water-rat and the dytiscus and the tadpoles and newts, and see the frogs jump; and then walking home at dusk in the school-room of my old home; and then back to war, well-lighted "Magna sed Apta" by moonlight through the avenue on New Year's Eve, ankle-deep in snow; all in a ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... downhill was laborious, for they sank ankle-deep, but it was very much worse when they faced the ascent. Short as the hill was, it took them some time to climb; and, with the hired man's assistance, Edgar carried a heavy trunk up the last part of it. Then ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... the black, gliddery rocks. They staggered out of the water; waist-deep, knee-deep, ankle-deep; falling and rising again. They crawled up on ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... of France that had taken such heavy toll from Hun and Ally, we heard a warning shout: "Keep to the edge of the road!" We wondered at the caution. The middle of the road was comparatively clean, while towards the edges it was ankle-deep in sticky mud, and we had been floundering around in a quagmire for the last eleven days. But we soon knew the reason; for while we hesitated up came a battery of guns at full gallop—big howitzers at that. Drivers shouted; horses plunged and tugged at ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... morning of the 7th the Brigade had been under weigh for an hour and we were tramping over the uneven ground which marked the site of the enemy's old front line, battered out of all shape by seven days' artillery bombardment. The sand was more than ankle-deep and the going heavy in the extreme. The day was hot and steel helmets were never the lightest of head-gear. Still the men marched admirably and by 17.00 the Battalion was at the Wadi Hesi, twelve miles north of Gaza, where the B.G.C. gave orders to secure the ridges on ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... quaking marsh we passed, keeping the trodden trail, now wading, now ankle-deep in cranberry, now up to our knees in moss, now lost in the high marsh-grass, on, on, through birch hummocks, willows, stunted hemlocks and tamaracks, then on firm ground once more, with the oak-mast under foot, and the white dawn silvering the east, and my horse ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... recruit in Kitchener's Army, went rapidly through the first courses of his training; sleeping under canvas; marching in sun and wind and rain; digging trenches, ankle-deep, waist high, breast high in earth, till his clear skin grew clearer, and his young, hard body ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... though he made many attempts to do so. Then four sheeted ghosts glided dripping into the room and stared at him through their veils. They were the washers of the dead. Holden left the room and went out to his horse. He had come in a dead, stifling calm through ankle-deep dust. He found the courtyard a rain-lashed pond alive with frogs; a torrent of yellow water ran under the gate, and a roaring wind drove the bolts of the rain like buckshot against the mud-walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his little hut ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... the sparks fly upward; it has its hardships and privations. There were days, as the wagons dragged their slow lengths along, when the clouds obscured the sky and the wind whistled dismally; days when torrents fell and swelled the streams that must be crossed, and when the mud lay ankle-deep; days when the cattle stampeded, and the round-up meant long, extra hours of heavy work; and, hardest but most needed work of all, the eternal vigil ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... the street. He started to walk slowly and uncertainly towards it. Near by he saw a hat on the ground. It was his own. He put it on. Suddenly the street lamp went out. He walked on, and stepped ankle-deep into broken glass. Then the road was clear again. He halted. Not a sign of Christine! He decided that she must have run away, and that she would run blindly and, finding herself either in Leicester Square or Lower Regent Street, would by instinct run home. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... plodded away across the grass, sinking ankle-deep in the spongy moss among the roots of it When he had grown scarcely distinguishable in the haze he ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... not reached the long stretch where the moving Barrier, with the weight of many hundred miles of ice behind it, comes butting up against the slopes of Mount Terror, itself some eleven thousand feet high. Now we were still plunging ankle-deep in the mass of soft sandy snow which lies in the windless area. It seemed to have no bottom at all, and since the snow was much the same temperature as the air, our feet, as well as our bodies, got colder and colder the longer we ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... dreamed of giving nor did he of claiming it. At last, hearing my steps close upon him and my breathing at his very shoulder, he sprang wildly through the reeds and dashed into the treacherous morass. Ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep, we struggled and staggered, I still gaining upon him, until I was within arm's-reach of him, and had whirled up my sword to strike. It had been ordained, however, my dear children, that ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sinking ankle-deep in withered leaves and clammy mould, tripping over rotting branches that ripped their dresses, and stumbling into dripping undergrowth. There was no moon now, and it was very dark, and more than once Flora Schuyler valiantly suppressed the scream that would have ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... and Jack had shoved out the fisherman's craft, and were quickly rowing toward the rocks. The tide was now so high that Paul and the two girls stood ankle-deep in the water ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope |
