"Nimbly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of day Drove to westward his way, And the ev'ning was charming and clear, When the swallows amain, Nimbly skimm'd o'er the plain, And the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... attitude of a cat when she is stalking a bird. When the woodchuck rose up again, Cuff was perfectly motionless and half hid by the grass. When he again resumed his clover, Cuff sped up the hill as before, this time crossing a fence, but in a low place, and so nimbly that he was not discovered. Again the wood chuck was on the outlook, again Cuff was motionless and hugging the ground. As the dog nears his victim he is partially hidden by a swell in the earth, but still the woodchuck from his outlook reports "all right," when Cuff, having not twice as far to ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... were done, and none but the combatants were in the lists, the wolf went toward the fox with infinite rage and fury, thinking to take him in his fore-feet; but the fox leaped nimbly from him, and the wolf pursued him, so that there began a tedious chase between them, on which their friends gazed. The wolf taking larger strides than the fox, often overtook him, and lifted up his feet to strike him; but the fox avoided the blow, and smote him on the face with ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... in her pocket, and looked back the way she had come, as if she had lost something; then shrugged her shoulders to signify that it didn't much matter, and with a far-away look in her eyes walked slowly into the sea; this was in order that she might spring nimbly out again with a fine pretence of confusion at her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the schooner about, and, to my delight, found we ranged ahead a knot faster on this course than the former. The enemy "went about" as quickly as we did, but her balls soon fell short of us, and, before noon, we had crawled so nimbly to windward, that her top-gallants alone were ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... to write, knowing she would get her father interested, and she soon found she had to move her fingers very nimbly in order to keep up with the flow of words that fell from his lips. Page after page fluttered to the floor till Dexie cried, "There, papa, that is enough for to-day. The house party are happily paired off and are on the way to the supper table; let us hope they will find enough to eat upon ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... Commons to attend? My uncle, Major Pendennis, was another of the guests; who for his part found the party was what you young fellows call very slow. Dreading Mrs. Hobson and her powers of conversation, the old gentleman nimbly skipped out of her neighbourhood, and fell by the side of Lord Highgate, to whom the Major was inclined to make himself very pleasant. But Lord Highgate's broad back was turned upon his neighbour, who was forced to ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had gone into the worlds to nimbly smite some city whereof the gods were weary, the gods above the twilight ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird—a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed—was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... young women of the household were present; even the young business-man who had understood the stove and the pump had looked in: no chance for an intense, segregated appreciation. There had been another weekend at the dunes, when this youth had nimbly ranged the forest and the beach to find wood for the great open fireplace; and he had come, now, at the end of the season, to make due acknowledgments for privileges enjoyed. He, for his part, was willing enough to regard ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... in a depth at least sufficient for her to float, to the entrance of the inlet, where the current ran so strongly that no ice could gather. After a severely trying amount of labor, this point was finally gained, and we stood fairly in front of the tall, thundering breakers; whereupon each man nimbly jumped to his place in the craft, that of steersman being the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Jack nimbly jumped across to the window-sill. Farmer Brown's boy's hand with the fat nuts was still there, and Happy Jack lost no time in getting one. Then he sat up on the sill to eat it. My, but it was good! It was just ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... and it took some time before he could get another chance; but at last it came, and as, full of excitement, the occupants of the boat bent over the side, there was a quick lunge, and a tremendous splashing as the captain ran nimbly up the sands, dragging after him the long bluish fish, which was immediately attacked as it lay on the sands lashing about with its tail, and throwing its head from side to side till the knife-thrusts it received, and the violent blows across the back of the head, disabled ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... told you that Josie Fifer, moving nimbly about the great storehouse, limped as she went? The left leg swung as a normal leg should. The right followed haltingly, sagging at hip and knee. And that brings us back to the reason for her being ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Nimbly as monkeys, two sailors clambered up the rigging to repair the injury done. Had they succeeded in their object, the slaver would again have got under way and escaped from our fire. All this time, Bangs and Gelid had been firing at the enemy with the most murderous precision. They lay behind ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... scientific side of his nature in the study of such forms of animal life as engaged his interest and comforted his taste—which, it must be confessed, ran rather to the lower forms. For one of the higher types nimbly and sweetly to recommend itself unto his gentle senses, it had at least to retain certain rudimentary characteristics allying it to such "dragons of the prime" as toads and snakes. His scientific sympathies were distinctly reptilian; he loved nature's vulgarians ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... taunting cries, broke in upon his meditations, and dragged him into one more race. He was bounding nimbly after them, the young pack in full cry, when he saw something that froze his blood, and stopped him as suddenly as if by a wall of rock. It was Lucy, wild-eyed and white-faced, dashing out of the house-door, while close at her heels raced her father, a stick of stove ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... play, and they hastened home. The goats were stubborn, and wished to remain on the meadow, so there was some fighting, in which the goats were victorious over the children. They escaped from the hands of their leaders, and jumped nimbly and quickly toward the ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... that he groaned aloud. But the dog only laughed. Finally they reached a place where it was quite muddy. Of course the mud was only jelly, but it hadn't dried up since the last rain. The dog jumped over the place nimbly enough, but when the King tried to do likewise he failed, and came down into the jelly with both hands and ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... they reached it, the old fire and fury surged back into the exile's veins, but heated seven fold by the ignominies which he had undergone. With a hoarse and bawling roar, such as had never before been heard in those guarded precincts, he launched himself upon his gaolers. But they nimbly slipped through the gate and dropped the massive bars ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... the second part of Faust, mould and remould the typical forms that appear in human history, preside, at the beginning of Greek culture, over such a concourse of happy physical conditions as ever generates by natural laws some rare type of intellectual or spiritual life. That delicate air, "nimbly and sweetly recommending itself" to the senses, the finer aspects of nature, the finer lime and clay of the human form, and modelling of the dainty framework of the human countenance:—these are the good luck of the Greek when he enters upon life. Beauty becomes ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... retreated nimbly down the companion, glad to get out of his reach, he looked so savage when he shoved me; but I had hardly descended two steps, when he called after me with a loud shout, that echoed down the passage way and made my ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... this territory. Major Harris describes him well. The bronzed and sunburnt visage, surrounded by long matted locks of raven hair; the slender but wiry and active frame, and the energetic gait and manner, proclaimed the untamable descendant of Ishmael. He nimbly mounts the crupper of his now unladen dromedary, and at a trot moves down the bazar. A checked kerchief round his brows, and a kilt of dark blue calico round his frame, comprise his slender costume. His arms have been deposited outside the Turkish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... disappear. His lordship, in view of the approaching election, was much more amiable and talkative than common, and he and his protege stood exchanging talk upon indifferent topics with a little crowd of church-goers, but in a while the earl climbed slowly into the carriage. Ferdinand skipped nimbly after him and the two were driven away. Reuben, with hasty nods and good-mornings at one or two who would have detained him, strode into the highway just in time to see the dove-colored dress turn at a distant ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... stepped nimbly up to the platform. "Take a seat beside me, with your field-glasses ready. Here's your ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... a cable's length from our own boat, a shell burst with a thunderous explosion, and scattering in fragments of steel, it scared the mutineers as no rifle could have done. Roaring out like stricken bulls, cursing their master in all tongues, they began to storm the cliff-side nimbly and to run for the shelter of the woods; but some fell and rolled backward to the sand, some turned on their own knives and lay dead at the gully's foot; while those who gained the summit stood all together, and wailing ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... get into the carriage except Nibble, who stood on the steps with his hands in his pockets, evidently waiting for something. The something soon proved to be Jose, the brown donkey, whom Thomas now led up the path, looking very gay with his Mexican saddle and scarlet tassels. Nibble mounted him nimbly, and took the reins and the whip. "Thank you, Tomty!" he said. "And good-bye! I wish you were going to the picnic, Tomty!" "Thank you kindly, sir!" replied Tomty. "The hens and me will be having a picnic in the ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... He sprang nimbly ashore as the boat's head touched the stairs, and after extending a hand to Mr. Chalk, which was coldly ignored, led the way up the ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... thought it was an earthquake," cried Charley as he hurled a shoe at the little darky, who dodged it nimbly. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... horn sounded; But he would know if Charles will come to them, Takes the olifant, and feebly sounds again. That Emperour stood still and listened then: "My lords," said he, "Right evilly we fare! This day Rollanz, my nephew shall be dead: I hear his horn, with scarcely any breath. Nimbly canter, whoever would be there! Your trumpets sound, as many as ye bear!" Sixty thousand so loud together blare, The mountains ring, the valleys answer them. The pagans hear, they think it not a jest; Says each to each: ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... fellow-townsman descend on the half-guarded head of a brother sailor; but, when the combatants came within oar's length of the boat, and the retreat began to resemble a flight, the esprit de corps got the upper hand in the Auchinbrecken midshipman's feelings, and, unsheathing his dagger, he jumped nimbly ashore and joined in the fray. At last the sailors got fairly into their boat without a single man being either missing or killed, although the list of the wounded included the whole party; and the landsmen, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... Prescott kept nimbly out of reach of the other's arms, though he took pains to keep himself where he could jump in with a ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... said Patty, laughing, for as she chatted, Clementine had already resumed her work, and her fingers flew nimbly along the satin seams. ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... the streets, round corners, through low arches, a long way up the steep cobbles, and suddenly down broken steps. They hurt my feet, and I stumbled and almost fell, but the hunchback walked along nimbly, hurrying ever. Then we came into an open space, and the wind caught us again, and blew through our clothes, so that I shrank up, shivering. And never a soul did we see as we walked on; it might have been a city of the dead. Then past a tall church: I saw a carved porch, and ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... fair and fiercely at his enemy's neck, but Gaznak, clutching his own head by the hair, lifted it high aloft, and Sacnoth went cleaving through an empty space. Then Gaznak replaced his head upon his neck, and all the while fought nimbly with his sword; and again and again Leothric swept with Sacnoth at Gaznak's bearded neck, and ever the left hand of Gaznak was quicker than the stroke, and the head went up and the ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... oration, which has been partly considered in the Agora this morning, and which will be further discussed at the symposium to-night. Everything is entirely informal. Even white-haired gentlemen do not hesitate to cast off chiton and himation and spring around nimbly upon the sands, to "try their distance" with the quoits, or show the young men that they have not forgotten accuracy with the javelin, or even, against men of their own age, to test their sinews ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... men, together with certain of his own company, ran nimbly aloft and began setting the sails, which, the night now having fallen pretty thick, was not for a good while observed by any of the vessels riding at anchor ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... desperately, in search of cover, and perceiving, on the further side of a low stone wall, what she took to be a wooden shelter for cattle, she quickened her steps to a run, and, nimbly vaulting the wall, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... rushes. One day two fat Huns carrying a dixie walked along the side of the great chalk communication trench, who, when Sergeant Daniels fired a shot at 1,200 yards, dropped their burden and leapt nimbly into the trench. One morning when Goolden and I were looking through a telescope we noticed a trestle table being put up near Rettemoy Farm: this was followed by half a dozen German officers accompanied by two ladies dressed in white, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... this confusion in his personal pronouns, Capua mounted nimbly on pieces of furniture, thrust his pocket-knife through a crack of the wainscot, opened the door of a small unseen closet, and, after groping about and inserting his head as Van Amburgh did in the lion's mouth, scrambled down again with his hand full of charred and blackened papers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... Nicole, being a knight, gave her a stout stallion of the value of thirty francs, and a pair of saddle-cloths; the sieur Aubert Boulle, a riding-hood, the sieur Nicole Groguet, a sword; and the said maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and said several things to the sieur Nicole by which he well understood that it was she who had been in France; and she was recognized by many tokens to be the maid Jeanne of France who escorted King ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... touch, that had beside, been, as it were, a weapon to our defence and a means to our comfort, seeing myself (as I say) now bereft of it thus wantonly, I sprang to my feet, uttering a cry of mingled grief and rage. But she, skipping nimbly out of reach, caught up one of my pistols where she had hid it behind a rock and stood regarding ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... men emerged, some of martial bearing, showing that the place was garrisoned to some extent. Garnache took little heed of them. He flung his reins to the man whom he had first addressed—the fellow had kept pace beside him—and leapt nimbly to the ground, bidding Rabecque await ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... at a distance, he galloped through the street in triumph, gave the signal, and off went the merry peal. Every eye was soon directed to this new and delightful object, when, guess the consternation that prevailed upon seeing, instead of the new "Defiance," the poor old Subscription trotting nimbly up to the George Inn door, and Tom Goodman, the guard, playing on the key-bugle, with his usual excellence, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" The scene is more easily imagined than described; it would have ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... he sprang forward with open jaws, thinking he could easily swallow a million gnats. But just as the great jaws were about to close upon the blade of grass whereto the Gnat clung, what should happen but that the Gnat suddenly spread his wings and nimbly flew—where do you think?—right into one of the Lion's nostrils! And there he began to sting, sting, sting. The Lion wondered, and thundered, and blundered—but the Gnat went on stinging; he foamed, and he moaned, and he groaned—still the Gnat went on stinging; he rubbed his head ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... That was an exhilarating ten minutes until we had surmounted every billow of the plain, spied in all directions, and assured ourselves beyond doubt that she had not run off. The horses fairly flew, spurning the hard sod, leaping the rock dikes, skipping nimbly around the pig holes, turning like cow-ponies under pressure of knee and rein. Finally we drew up, converged, and together jogged our sweating horses back to the ravine. There we learned from the boys that nothing more had ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... catch him up readily enough, and then I knew the point for which he was making. I followed doggedly. Clouds began to gather over the moon's face, and every now and then I stumbled heavily on the uneven ground; but he moved along nimbly enough, and even cried "Shoo!" in a sprightly voice when a startled plover flew up before his feet. Presently, after we had gone about five hundred yards on the heath, the ground broke away into a little hollow, where ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... monuments; Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; And now,—instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,— He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I,—that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... he found the holes which served as steps. He slowly made his way down, loose stones slipping beneath his feet, until he reached the ground, giving a sigh of satisfaction. Very good! The descent was easy; after a few more trials he would be able to get down as nimbly as the Little Chaplain. Pepet, who had followed him agilely, almost hanging over his head, smiled, like a master pleased at the lesson, and repeated his advice. Don Jaime must not forget! When he heard the challenge he must climb out of the window and down the wall, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... word from the mahout, both animals stopped short, and Rajah kneeled, when the mahout descended nimbly and began trotting back ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... was going to put on over the neck of the shuddering Matilda, and then ran nimbly before them towards the globe, on which Edmund was going to lecture, neither of them looking in Matilda's face; but Charles, who just then happened to enter, perceived that silent tears were coursing each other down her cheek. ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life: but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his Sword, and caught it, saying, Rejoice not against me, O mine Enemy! when I fall I shall arise; and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... here!" Willock commanded himself. He obeyed rather stiffly, but when he was on his feet, ax in hand, he made the trip to the wagon nimbly enough. As he drew near, he saw gray shadows slipping away—they were wolves. He shouted at them disdainfully, and without pause began removing the canvas from over the wagon. When that was done, his terrific blows resolved the wagon-bed to ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... fall in a pool of blood, losing his sword as he fell. A burly black-bearded ruffian, whom he had been engaging, instantly set his foot on the prostrate body, and shortened his hanger to thrust him through; but Roger, who was engaged with another pirate, nimbly evaded the blow aimed at him, and, with one spring, like a young leopard, was on the would-be slayer, and, taking him before he could turn, passed his sword through the pirate's body with such ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... voice and the sight of his figure Gabrielle had disappeared into the Inn as quickly as ever rabbit disappeared into its hole. Flora had no less nimbly run down to the caravan; but when she reached it she paused on the first step, attracted by the appearance of the handsomely dressed young gentleman, who appealed to her earnestly: "Why do you scatter so rashly? I should be delighted to talk ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... while after waiting till he heard a door close, Bob went cautiously into the surgery, crept to the door of the consulting-room, and listened to find out whether the doctor was there, and finding him absent, the boy went nimbly to the nest of drawers, opened one, and took out a pair of scissors before lifting a tin case from a corner—a case which looked like ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... gone but a second and emerged from the cabin in a heavy suit of oilskins. He sprang nimbly down the companionway to ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... fight ridiculously, and ever as Scaramouch passes, Harlequin leaps aside, and skips so nimbly about, he cannot touch him for his Life; which after a while endeavouring in vain, he ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... came too late; a rope handle of one of the carpet-bags broke. The swollen budget struck the unyielding ground and burst like a squash. John sprang nimbly from the saddle, but the Judge caught his leg on the other carpet-bag and reached the ground in such a shape that his horse lost all confidence and began to back wildly, putting first one foot and then another ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... trouble." And Barney arose nimbly and came to the grating. "O captain, dear, why didn't ye tell me there were ladies here? You could have spared your eloquence and your authority if you had told me that the star of beauty, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... to Darrow and asking if they still had the same raftsman on the pay-roll, but his pride forbade this. So he drove up the river road one day and stopped his car among the trees on the bank of the river from the Darrow log boom. A tall, lively young fellow was leaping nimbly about on the logs, but so active was he that even at two hundred yards The Laird could not be certain this man was his son. He returned to Port Agnew more ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... nearly finished. He is nimbly descending the ladder, with a long, guttering dip in ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... always rode beside the driver. From his youth, he said, this seat had always been the most desirable one to him. When the sleigh would strike the bare ground, and begin to drag heavily, he would bound out nimbly and take to his heels, and then all three of us—Major Pitcher, Mr. Childs, and myself—would follow suit, sometimes reluctantly on my part. Walking at that altitude is no fun, especially if you try to keep pace with such a walker as the President is. But he could not sit ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... gleam their limbs left bare; Upon their virgin rites pale moonbeams glance. Softer the music! for their foam-bright feet Print not the moist floor where they trip their round: Affrighted they will scatter at a sound, Leap in their cool sea-chambers, nimbly fleet, And we shall doubt that we have ever seen, While our sane eyes behold stray wreaths of mist, Shot with faint colors by the moon-rays kissed, Floating snow-soft, snow-white, where these had been. Already, look! the wave-washed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... at the desired haven. Therefore he laid it up in his bosom, gave thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay, and with joy and tears betook himself again to his journey. But O how nimbly now did he go up the rest of the hill! Yet, before be got up, the sun went down upon Christian; and this made him again recall the vanity of his sleeping to his remembrance; and thus he again began to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... tree he went as nimbly as any squirrel might. As he went up, Sam cautioned him to make no noise, and not to shout, but to look around carefully, and then to come down and tell what he ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... at the deliberation with which the Governor was managing the abduction, really leaving it to the child whether she should go or not, saw the look of fear she bent upon the approaching woman—a look that yielded to wonder and amazement and hope as she jumped nimbly into the machine. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... could not help feeling nervous, and he was very glad indeed when the first streaks of dawn became visible in the far east. It was a bright spring morning, and as he and his sprightly little wife hopped nimbly about on the daisy-spangled lawn, ere the dew had disappeared from the little pink and white flowers, and as they here and there picked up a worm or an insect, he felt wonderfully refreshed, indeed by the time he ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... at Thirsty Sound and by Captain Flinders at Keppel Bay,* on the east coast. Captain Cook describes the species he saw to be a small fish, about the size of a minnow, furnished with two very strong breast fins, by the assistance of which it leaped away upon being approached, as nimbly as a frog. The fish I have just noticed appeared to be of a very similar description, excepting that it did not seem to avoid the water as that of Thirsty Sound; for Captain Cook says in a subsequent paragraph ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... wiping his eyes, so comical was the monkey's seriously intent aspect, as he kept glancing up at them sharply, and then chattering and peering down at the half-denuded pigeon, his little black fingers nimbly twisting out the feathers, and his whole aspect suggestive of his being a ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... more waiting. So the author was informed in a whisper that he had better step upstairs and the Head Examiner would deal with him. And settle his hash quickly enough, thought the author as he sprang nimbly up behind the assistant examiner. He found himself in a large, imposing office where at an immense desk sat a man with a trim beard, rapidly scanning a mass of papers. The author immediately became absorbed in the contemplation of this person, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus, which, I presume, nature had placed there to defend them as they sat on the ground, for this posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind feet. They climbed high trees as nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and behind, terminating in sharp points, and hooked. They would often spring, and bound, and leap, with prodigious agility. The females were not so large as the males; they had long lank hair on their heads, but none ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... the crumbs greedily, but the monkey was not as grateful for her share as she ought to have been. She took it, smelt it, wiped it vigorously on the ground, smelt it again, and chattered angrily at the boys; then she went nimbly hand over hand to the very top of the banyan-tree she lived in; and then she deliberately broke it into little pieces and pelted the givers ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... clouds. The horses' feet were sometimes caught between close-wedged rocks, so that we had to lift them out with our hands, and our boots were with difficulty extricated from the same catch-traps; nevertheless the traitor trudged on nimbly a-head of us, heedless of our embarrassments. Had he not led us up to Rama at the beginning we should have kept upon a pleasant, well-beaten road on the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... the doors of the van and looked prudently forth. Naturally, inevitably, Jock-at-a-Venture was trudging alongside, level with the horse's tail! He stepped nimbly—he was a fine walker—but none the less his breath came short and quick, for he had been making haste up a steepish hill in order to overtake the van. And he carried a bundle and a stick in his hands, and on his head a superb but heavy ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... had ridden down the long road between the brown heathy pastures to the blue barren downland that lies under the black mountains, and had come at last to a winding path that led not only through space but through time, for it ran nimbly in and out among the seasons. It travelled under the rosy eaves of a forest of blossoming almond up to a steep as haggard with weather as a Scotch moor, and dipped again to hedges of aloes and cactus and asphodel. At one moment a spindrift of orange blossom blew about him; at another he ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... door bell cut Grace's words short. "Don't answer it until I am out of sight!" she exclaimed, scurrying nimbly toward the hall. A flash of white on the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... took him upon my back, and having carried him over, bade him get down, and for that end stooped, that he might get off with ease; but instead of doing so (which I laugh at every time I think of it), the old man, who to me appeared quite decrepit, threw his legs nimbly about my neck. He sat astride upon my shoulders, and held my throat so tight that I thought he would have strangled me, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... this is the case, I will kill you at once." So he slipped nimbly behind him, and jumping upon the rocky seat as the Giant rose from it, he thrust his sword up to the hilt in his body. After a hideous howling, ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... quantity of clean lead, and melted it with a strong fire, and then immediately pouring it out into a clean vessel of convenient shape and matter (we used one of iron, that the great and sudden heat might not injure it), and then carefully and nimbly taking off the scum that floated on the top, we perceived, as we expected, the smooth and glossy surface of the melted matter to be adorned with a very glorious colour, which, being as transitory as delightful, did almost immediately give place to another vivid colour, and ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... Rain-Deer, and let us nimbly go Our am'rous Journey through this dreery Waste; Haste, my Rain-Deer! still still thou art too slow; Impetuous ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... as are to serve for seed, viz. the first done the hardest, the reddest and best coloured, must be chosen, and put a-part; and all diligence is to be used to winde off the silk with as much speed, as may be, especially if the Worms have nimbly dispatched their work. ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... usual, apparently oblivious of all danger. One I saw quietly knitting in the cool, shaded stoep, and her busy needles only stopped for one moment, when a shell burst in the roadway beyond, then went on again as nimbly as ever. After the first shock, some people, who seem least fitted to bear a continuous strain on their nerves, become so accustomed to the hurtling of huge projectiles through the air that they show no sign of fear when danger is close to them. Women are often braver ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... see it, and we stopped at some rocks on the coast of Mull. The mouth is fortified by vast fragments of stone, over which we made our way, neither very nimbly, nor very securely. The place, however, well repaid our trouble. The bottom, as far as the flood rushes in, was encumbered with large pebbles, but as we advanced was spread over with smooth sand. The breadth is about forty-five feet: the roof rises in an arch, almost regular, to a height ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... great stretch of the imagination, have almost fancied it a road leading over a level and extensive heath towards a more civilized and substantial village than that which we were now approaching, Iligliuk walked as nimbly as the best of us: and, after two hours' and a half brisk travelling, we arrived at the huts, and were received by the women (for all the men were absent) with every expression of kindness and welcome. Each was desirous of affording ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... however, she would have seen a something in Mae's face that spoiled her for a peasant, an earnestness in her admiration, a sharp intensity in her joy, that was very different from the languid content of a Southern Italian. Her movements were rather like those of the Northern squirrel, which climbs nimbly and frisks briskly, than like the sinuous, serpentine motions of the Southern creatures of the soil. We are, after all, born where we belong, as a rule, and the rest of us soon belong where we ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... good resolution, but Turkestan is so thinly settled that before the boy could plan out a course of action he had passed the barren mountain range of Thian-Shan as nimbly as an acrobat ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... received were simply to survey the river as high as Prome, and then to return; so of course he had to obey them. Why he had not been given discretionary powers to proceed farther, I don't know. A golden opportunity was lost of catching the King of Ava by the nose, for we had so nimbly doubled on old Bundoolah that the chances were we should not have met with the slightest opposition. You may fancy, therefore, our disappointment when the order was received to ''bout ship,' and run down the stream again. But it ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... ground smooth and marked a wide space for the dancers. Presently the servant came back with Demodocus's lyre, and he took his place in the midst of them, whereon the best young dancers in the town began to foot and trip it so nimbly that Ulysses was delighted with the ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... back and over the six-foot corral-fence with something of the airy freedom of a bird. In the corral, Farrel slid off, ran with the galloping animal for fifty feet, grasping his mane, and sprang completely over him, ran fifty feet more and sprang back, as nimbly as a monkey. Panchito was galloping easily, steadily, now, at a trained gait, like a circus horse, so Farrel sat sideways on him and discarded his boots, after which he stood erect on the smooth, glossy back and rode him, first on one foot, then on the other. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Sarah double quick; and ceasing to jerk her crochet-needle in and out, she nimbly rolled up her ball of thread. "Since you're so insistent ... and since, mind you, there's no society worth calling such, on these diggings...." The truth was, Sarah saw that she was about to be left alone with Mahony—Jerry had sauntered off to meet Ned—and this TETE-A-TETE was by ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... let them file past me. Mrs. Riley-Werkheimer moved very nimbly for one who had just been revived by smelling-salts. As her husband went by, he half halted in front of me. A curious glitter leaped into ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... felt very much at home with these fierce, hairy progenitors of primitive man. He skipped nimbly out of reach of each threatening female—for such is the way of apes, if they be not in one of their occasional fits of bestial rage—and he growled back at the truculent young bulls, baring his canine teeth even as they. Thus easily he fell back into the way of his early life, ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hairbreadth escapes had rendered me unusually wary, and perceiving a number of people, among whom were two or three sheriff's officers, approaching my house, I at once interpreted their mission, and climbing through a trap-door leading on to the roof of the building, nimbly made my way to the end of the row, and slipping down a waterpipe easily eluded my enemies. London, however, being now too hot to hold me, I booked passage on board the Peterkin, a Thames trading vessel of some eighty tons, and sailed for Boston. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... that she betrayed this yearning and pining to the world at large, you are very much mistaken. As has been told, she had the right chord of genuine nobility and generosity in her, and she laboured to fit her cross to her own back, so that it might not overshadow and crush others. Her fingers went nimbly about her gifts—trifling things, only enough to gladden simple hearts. She gratified Miss Sandys by praising her rusty accomplishments in cookery; she uttered a jest or two for the benefit of Jenny and Menie, who had a liking for her, though they called her "scornful;" ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... seek: for place a formal wise man at a feast, and he shall, either by his morose silence put the whole table out of humour, or by his frivolous questions disoblige and tire out all that sit near him. Call him out to dance, and he shall move no more nimbly than a camel: invite him to any public performance, and by his very looks he shall damp the mirth of all the spectators, and at last be forced, like Cato, to leave the theatre, because he cannot unstarch his gravity, nor put on a more pleasant countenance. ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... girl on the outskirts, her face taut and glowing. He tried to reach her with a thrown club wrested from another man, but she leaped nimbly aside, shouting commands. ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... from decorous castanet-dances, in corresponding songs, and in the use of the proscribed Greek stringed instruments. It was a novelty too— not so much that a consular and -pontifex maximus- like Publius Scaevola (consul in 621) should catch the balls in the circus as nimbly as he solved the most complicated questions of law at home— as that young Romans of rank should display their jockey-arts before all the people at the festal games of Sulla. The government occasionally attempted to check such practices; as for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... shame pierced him at the reflection: "Here!" but in the next his heart yearned upon her, and he rose nimbly and naturally far beyond Lord Mayor and Prince, and the rut of the world. After a perfectly deliberate bow, he left his place, and walked down the length of the hall to her, amid the gaping gods, Loveday, too, and three others, when ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... frightful yodel and immediately with his flock stood right before the ladies, for with his bare feet he leaped as nimbly and lightly as his ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al
... countrymen, set about repairing a broken whip-stock and fitting it with a new lash; Tom Loker idly whittled a stick, and Miss Katharine drew up her low rocking-chair beside her father, and proceeded to nimbly knit a stout-ribbed stocking, intended for his comfort—for girls in those days knew how to knit, ay, and card the wool and ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... Nimbly as a cat Gilbert sprang from the saddle, still holding the pummel in his right hand, touched his horse's flank with the whip, and bounded from one tussock to another. The sagacious animal seemed to understand and assist his manoeuvre. Hardly had he gained firm ground than he was in his seat again, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... them, and more effectually prevent their return, I fired a round shot from one of my six-pounders, so as to fall into the water beyond them: This seemed to have a good effect, for they not only used their paddles more nimbly, but hoisted sail, still standing towards the shore. Soon after, however, several more canoes put off from another part of the island, and came towards us very fast: They stopped at about the same distance as the other had done, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... nimbly climb a tree, But "back down," for their frame Is made so lungs would forward press, If they ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... hands on me," promised Mr. Perkins. He dodged nimbly from side to side as the longshoreman came on, and kept just beyond the latter's grasp. Watching his chance, he darted in and landed a fourth blow—under an eye; then got away again, carefully preserving himself against ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... who sat there doggedly on Mme Bron's battered straw-bottomed chairs under the great glazed lantern, where the heat was enough to roast you and there was an unpleasant odor. What a lot of men it must have held! Clarisse went upstairs again in disgust, crossed over behind scenes and nimbly mounted three flights of steps which led to the dressing rooms, in order to bring ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain. Say, dear Hippolitus, (whose drink is ale, Whose erudition is a Christmas tale, Whose mistress is saluted with a smack, And friend receiv'd with thumps upon the back,) When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound, And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground, Is that thy praise? Let Ringwood's fame alone; Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own; Nor envies, when a gipsy you commit, And shake the clumsy bench with country wit; When you the dullest of dull things have said, And then ask pardon ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... walked ahead of Morgan appeared to be the only unshaken and unconcerned person in this place of sleeping passions. He carried a thick hickory stick with immense crook, which he pegged down in time to his short steps, relying on it for support not at all, his lean old jaw chopping his cud as nimbly as a sheep's. But when Morgan's shadow, stretching far ahead, fell beside him, he started like a dozing horse, whirled about with stick upraised, and stood so in attitude of menace and defense until the stranger ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... they have caught a Tartar, and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly, and jou jeldie (that is, trot up smartly) to quite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... are subtle dexterities, acquired by sagacious experience in searching for valuable little trinkets in great libraries, just as in other pursuits. A great deal of that appearance of dry drudgery which excites the pitying amazement of the bystander is nimbly evaded. People acquire a sort of instinct, picking the valuables out of the useless verbiage, or the passages repeated from former authors. It is soon found what a great deal of literature has ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... innings that day, too. It was a great sight to see Andy Lowes leap nimbly up the ladder and poke in window after window with his spiked ax, stepping backward now and then into nozzleman Jones's face in order to view the effect. The axmen got glory enough to last for years, and it was an axman who put ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... him, for he knows every boy and girl in Christendom; so a popgun was added to the medley of toys. Santa Claus then strapped Rob and the basket on his back. He next crept through an open window to a ladder he had placed there, down which he ran as nimbly as a squirrel. The reindeer before the sledge were in a hurry to be off, and tinkled their silver bells right merrily. An instant more, and they were snugly tucked up in the white robes—an instant more, and they were flying like the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... spade, stepped nimbly aside, and as Pete lunged past him the young farmer doubled his fist and struck his ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... half an hour Pedro was again bounding nimbly over the road, this time headed straight for Mrs. Bean's ten miles off. Jasper believed that the doctor slept most of the way for he never uttered a word from the time they started until they drew up ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... speed of a charging banth, and fortunate it was that the girl had not been caught farther in the open. As it was, her margin of safety was next to negligible, for as she swung nimbly to the lower branches the creature in pursuit of her crashed among the foliage almost upon her as it sprang upward to seize her. It was only a combination of good fortune and agility that saved her. A stout branch deflected ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... jump, and the first time nearly reached the sky; the second time he cracked it, and the third time he made a hole and crawled in. Ojeeg nimbly followed, and they found themselves on a beautiful, green plain. Lovely shade trees grew at some distance, and among the trees were rivers and lakes. On the water floated all kinds of water-fowl. Then they noticed long lodges. They were empty, except for a great many cages ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... returned she took my place on the fence. Now my wife and I look very much alike, and though she cannot perform quite as nimbly as I, the children did not know when we ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... nest was, and swung himself with great agility up the tree. Standing now upon the lowest boughs, he bent himself down to Susanna, and said, "Give it here to me, I will manage it." And Susanna now gave him the bird, without any further remark. Lightly and nimbly sprang Harald now from bough to bough, holding the bird in his left hand, and accompanied by the crying starling-parents, who flew terrified around his head. It was certainly a surprise to them when the young one was placed uninjured in the nest, ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... watching the wide waste behind her as she rode homeward, saw him and made sure of him through her glasses. The brother of Tomaso seemed to be in a hurry, and he seemed to have been waiting in some convenient covert until she had left. His horse was trotting too nimbly through the sage to have come far at that pace. Mary V could tell a tired horse as far as she could tell that ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... how it happened that none of the Usurper's troops came out to oppose this Army of Fidelity: it pottered along as nimbly as the gout of the principal commanders allowed: it consisted of twice as many officers as soldiers: and at length passed near the estates of one of the most powerful noblemen of the country, who had not declared for the Queen, but of whom her party had ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... air until they lost their momentum, then falling like chips until they rang upon the ledges at the bottom of the gorge or splashed into the stream. Biltmer shaded his eyes with his hand. There on the promontory, against the cream-colored cliff, were two figures nimbly moving in the light, both slender and agile, entirely absorbed in their game. They looked like two boys. Both were hatless and both ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... their exhausting flights— I spotted some magnificent albatross, birds belonging to the Longipennes (long-winged) family, whose discordant calls sound like the braying of an ass. The Totipalmes (fully webbed) family was represented by swift frigate birds, nimbly catching fish at the surface, and by numerous tropic birds of the genus Phaeton, among others the red-tailed tropic bird, the size of a pigeon, its white plumage shaded with pink tints that contrasted with ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... and the thing fell heavily upon the ground. Immediately on falling it gnashed its teeth and began to utter a loud wailing cry like the screams of an infant in pain. Vikram having heard the sound of its lamentations, was pleased, and began to say to himself, "This devil must be alive." Then nimbly sliding down the trunk, he made a captive of the body, and asked " Who ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... afterwards,' continues the author, 'she rose, and took her departure, attended by a large retinue. A spirited charger stood at the gate, champing the bit with fiery impatience. She put her foot in the stirrup, and vaulting nimbly into the saddle, which she bestrode like a man, started off at a rapid pace, galloping over rocks and mountains in advance of her suite, with a fearlessness and address that would have done honour to a Mameluke.' The stranger was, of course, none other than Lady Hester Stanhope, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... a ragged bough Nimbly she fastens;—O! how quick is love:— The steed is stalled up, and even now To tie the rider she begins to prove: 40 Backward she push'd him, as she would be thrust, And govern'd him in strength, though not ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... played it here, as in so many other places, with most respectable skill and success. There is a picturesque story of Pope Benedict VIII., who held a council at Laon, going from Laon to view the episcopal chateau at Anizy, with a cortege of cardinals and bishops, and on the way springing down nimbly from his horse to rescue the bishop of Cambray, obviously a prelate of much weight, under whom a little bridge gave way as they were crossing the river Lette. This was in the year 1018. A century later, in 1110, Gandri, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Jerdon says, it is one of the characteristic adjuncts of Himalayan scenery. Indeed I know of few things more enjoyable than to sit, when the sun is shining, on the bank of a well-shaded burn, and, soothed by the soft melody of running water, watch the forktails moving nimbly over the boulders and stones ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... went dashing up to the monster and barked bravely at its heels. It leaped nimbly away when the Robot stooped to seize it. Then, from the Robot's chest, the dull-red torch beam leaped out and down. It caught the little dog, and clung to it for an instant. The dog stood transfixed; its bark turned to a yelp; then a gurgle. In a moment ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... aneroids, barometers, bottles of brandy and water, and other useful articles. M. Duruof scrambled into the car, one of the men who had been weighing it down getting out to make room for him. Then M. de Fonvielle, amid murmurs of admiration from the crowd, nimbly boarded the little ship, and immediately began taking observations. There was a pause, and Mr. Coxwell, who stood by the car, prepared for the rush of the Thirty. But nobody volunteered. Names were called aloud; only the wind, sighing amongst ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... young man's hand they ran nimbly up the stairs till they came to a dimly curtained recess which, if the truth must be told, ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... been flapping under the lee of this vast sheet of canvas, swelled to their utmost tension; and the vessel lost little, if any, of the power which urged her through the water. Even while this evolution was so rapidly performed, men were seen aloft, nimbly employed, as it has been already expressed by the observant little midshipman, in securing the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... across the school-yard, climbed nimbly over the rail fence and laughed at Isabel's clumsy imitation of her. Pink azaleas grew in great bushes of bloom throughout the woods. Isabel would have stopped to pick some but Amanda said, "That withers easily. Better pick them when we ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... for the following mornings, and had indifferently left the really lovely flowers which came up regularly on every tray, to the fantastic arranging of the little dusky man who looked at her like a wistful monkey, and slipped nimbly about the room in her service; and who, likewise, rejoiced greatly over certain backsheesch which he, with the joy the native has in all intrigue, imagined to ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... then, on the other hand, it might not, and those there straps takes time to unbuckle and—" He broke off suddenly, for from somewhere on the hill below us came the unmistakable sound of wheels. Hereupon the fellow very nimbly ran across the road, turned, nodded, and vanished among the trees and underbrush that clothed the steep slope down to the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... ground, when my companion shot him dead with one of the holster-pistols which he had drawn from the pipe; and, leaping nimbly over a ditch at the side of the road, he was soon lost among the ditches and thornbushes which covered ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... old miser tied his horse to a neighbouring tree, and began to climb up the pipal himself. When the rogue observed this, he thanked all his gods most fervently, and having waited until his enemy had climbed nearly up to him, he threw down his bundle of booty, and then leapt nimbly from branch to branch till he reached the ground in safety, when he mounted the miser's horse and with his bundle rode into a thick forest, where he was not likely to be discovered. Being thus balked the ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... council; claimed the obedience of his subordinate officer; and was provoked, by an insolent reply, to call hastily for the presence of his guards. Constantine, viewing their entrance as the signal of death, drew his sword, and rushed on the general, who nimbly eluded the stroke, and was protected by his friends; while the desperate assassin was disarmed, dragged into a neighboring chamber, and executed, or rather murdered, by the guards, at the arbitrary command of Belisarius. [95] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... quite merry and happy and whistled the song, "Three tailors rode forth from the gate," as if carrying the tree were child's play. The giant, after he had dragged the heavy burden part of the way, could go no further, and cried, "Hark you, I shall have to let the tree fall!" The tailor sprang nimbly down, seized the tree with both arms as if he had been carrying it, and said to the giant, "Thou art such a great fellow, and yet thou canst not even ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so renowned for kicking with the left foot, were brought to a stand for want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner they had eaten, and would have been put to utter rout but for the arrival of a gallant corps of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who advanced nimbly to their assistance on one foot. Nor must I omit to mention the valiant achievements of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a good quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a little pursy Swedish drummer, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... wiping them—after they had stood to drip for a moment or two on a small slab of wood made for the purpose—most carefully with the little cloth. It was nice to watch her—her hands looked so white, and moved so nimbly, and—I had forgotten to mention that—looked so business-like with the brown holland cuffs braided in white which she kept for this occasion, and always put on, with the big holland apron to match, before she began operations. Yes, it had been a treat ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... horsemen, and seven javelins each, four feet in length, and pointed with steel in the same manner as the spears used by light-armed troops. The cavalry taking one of these each upon their horses, accustomed them to ride behind them, and to leap down nimbly when the signal was given. When, by daily practice, they appeared to be able to do this in an orderly manner, they advanced into the plain between the camp and the walls, against the cavalry of the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... he soone renew the same, When as most nimbly he Would dive into their cherry-baggs, ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... shone so brightly that it dazzled his eyes. Then he turned, and there was the long flight of glass steps leading up to the golden castle just as before; so thrusting the magic sword into his belt, he ran nimbly up and up and up, and not until he reached the very topmost step did he turn and look back to wave farewell to the Counterpane Fairy below. She waved her hand to him. "Remember," she called, "beware of ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... Under the eaves on all sides human heads were packed, on every head its cherished tuft of hair, like a stiff black brush inverted, in every mouth its delicious cud of areca-nut and betel, which the human cattle ruminated with industrious content. The juggler, a keen little Frenchman, plied his arts nimbly, and what with his ventriloquial doll, his empty bag full of eggs, his stones that were candies, and his candies that were stones, and his stuffed birds that sang, astonished and delighted his unsophisticated patrons, whose applauding murmurs were diversified by familiarly ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Sister Hyacinthe had nimbly alighted from her compartment, leaving the dead man in the charge of Sister Claire des Anges; and, losing her head somewhat, she ran off to the cantine van in the idea that Ferrand would be able to help her. Fortunately she found Father Fourcade in front ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... morally impossible the reader should understand this—'tis enough Dr. Slop understood it;—so taking the green baize bag in his hand, with the help of Obadiah's pumps, he tripp'd pretty nimbly, for a man of his size, across the room to the door—and from the door was shewn the way, by the good old ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... extreme end, the bench tilted up and the royal person went down. Katie, who was always yery volatile, tittered audibly and Dolores did the same. But "His Majesty" took no offence. The fact is he laughed himself, and bore it all magnanimously, in fact royally. He picked himself up as nimbly as a common person ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... to-morrow. He thinks I should see how the Courts here are conducted—and—and—the partridge-shooting will soon begin, and I have promised to be here for that, ma'am." Saying which words, Harry Warrington looked as red as a poppy, whilst Lady Maria held her meek face downwards, and nimbly plied her needle. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... nimbly out of the compound gate, making sure that she was following a road that led away from the front. Nobody halted her. Indeed, she was soon passing through a little valley that seemed as peaceful and quiet as though there was no such thing as war ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... lances through any one who should dare to come near. On this condition, Buffalmacco agreed to resume his task, and two soldiers were put on sentry close at hand. One evening, just as he was leaving the hall, his day's work finished, the soldiers saw the Lord Bishop's ape spring so nimbly into his place on the scaffold and seize the colour-tubes and brushes with such rapidity there was no possibility of stopping him. They shouted lustily to the painter, who came back just in time to see the baboon paint over for the ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... Well, I like that!" she said, with a flash of her blue eyes; and springing from her seat on the brown carpet, before he could interpose, she was climbing up the high rock as nimbly as if ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... the contrary, was a little thin woman, who looked as though she could move about nimbly at any .season; but, as she herself often said, she was a poor, unfortunate creature, and pitied herself a great deal, as she was in justice bound to do, for nobody else cared, she said, how much she had ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... out more nimbly, almost, than I could follow, to show me the "stock"—some forlorn, fantastic stumps of trees, long dead, all whitewashed with tender art! the pet coon, the tame ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... have lived very happy in this good family if it had not been for the ill-natured cook. She used to say: "You are under me, so look sharp; clean the spit and the dripping-pan, make the fires, wind up the jack, and do all the scullery work nimbly, or—" and she would shake the ladle at him. Besides, she was so fond of basting, that when she had no meat to baste, she would baste poor Dick's head and shoulders with a broom, or anything else that happened to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the phial twenty drops round her on the rock, and those twenty drops became twenty voices, so that she was bewildered with their calls, and stopped her ears, and ran from them, and descended from the eminence nimbly, slipping over ledges and leaping the abysses. And Shibli Bagarag followed her, clutching at the trailers and tearing them with him, letting loose a torrent of stones and earth, till on a sudden they stood ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... donkey-fashion, straight; You've seen them do it, when their load's too great. "If I mistake not," he begins, "you'll find Viscus not more, nor Varius, to yoar mind: There's not a man can turn a verse so soon, Or dance so nimbly when he hears a tune: While, as for singing—ah! my forte is there: Tigellius' self ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... every figure round the room in a mortal part, without receiving the least hurt, except a little scratch by falling on my face, in pushing at one at the lower end of my chamber; but I recovered so quick, and jumped so nimbly into my guard, that, if he had been alive, he could not have hurt me. It is confessed I have writ against duels with some warmth; but in all my discourses I have not ever said that I knew how a gentleman could avoid a duel if he were provoked ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... each as eager as the youngest sportsman in the troop, Sir Humphrey Davy, Dr. Wollaston, and the patriarch of Scottish belles-lettres, Henry Mackenzie.... Laidlow (the steward of Abbotsford) on a strong-tailed wiry Highlander, yclept Hoddin Grey, which carried him nimbly and stoutly, although his feet almost touched the ground, was the adjutant. But the most picturesque figure was the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp (Sir Humphrey Davy) ... a brown hat with flexible brim, surrounded with line upon line of catgut, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... a great, rolling plain, covered with buffalo grass and sage; and dropping down the arc of the sky was the setting sun, ruddy-countenanced, whose almost level rays played full upon the face of the bluff up which the pony climbed so nimbly. ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... if he saw visions. In silence the three joined the company now assembling to see the masque of the children. Bravely it went, nimbly the dancers footed it, sweetly rang the choruses, and well did the little chief and captain play their parts. At the end the Queen, saying in merry courtesy that she could do no less for him who had found her a kingdom and him who freely gave it, presented a ring set with ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... who has lost his way, Iscariot ran nimbly about the empty courtyard, stopped in his course, lifted his head and ran on again, and was surprised when he came into collision with heaps of embers, or with ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... Malipieri went up nimbly with his lantern, and knelt on the masonry to hold the top of the ladder. Sabina mounted almost as quickly as he had done, till she reached the last few steps and could no longer hold by the uprights. Then she put out her hands; he grasped then ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... soon with scarce a loving sigh She lifts it off half unaware, While through the clinging folds held high, Arachnean in a silver snare Her rosy fingers nimbly fare, Till gathered square with dainty care. But still she leaves the flowery flare —Such as Dame Venus' self might wear— Where first she placed them, since they blow More bounteous color hanging so, And seem ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... autumn, on a holiday, for I kept such as intervals of relaxation from labour, that I had drawn out my family to our usual place of amusement, and our young musicians began their usual concert. As we were thus engaged, we saw a stag bound nimbly by, within about twenty paces of where we were sitting, and by its panting, it seemed prest by the hunters. We had not much time to reflect upon the poor animal's distress, when we perceived the dogs and horsemen come sweeping along at some distance behind, and ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... the grasshopper in a moment, and fell so lightly on the grass it did not hurt him in the least, though it was as far as if Bevis had tumbled down out of the clouds. Bevis tried to catch him, but he jumped so nimbly this way and that, and hopped to and fro, and lay down in the grass, so that his green coat could not be seen. Bevis got quite hot trying to catch him, and seeing this, the grasshopper, much delighted, cried out: "Are you not the stupid boy everybody is laughing ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies |
