"Skirting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all I should never have left home, but for an incident which happened a few days after Belloc's departure. One evening I had wandered across the meadows skirting the river, and, busy with my thoughts, had unconsciously strayed into the private grounds at Vancey. The voices of men in earnest conversation broke my dream, and I found myself at the back ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... later was established the mission of San Luis Rey. They called it San Juan Capistrano, but that name was afterwards transferred to a mission forty miles north of this place. The command rested here, July 19th. Resuming the march on the 20th, the sierra (San Onofre), whose base they were skirting, drew so near the sea that it seemed to threaten their advance, but by keeping close to the shore, they held their way, and on the 24th they encamped on a fine stream of water running through a mesa at the foot of a sierra, whence ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... Skirting the trunks of mighty trees, stealing beneath whispering pines, White Aster threads different parts of the solitude, where she encounters deer and other timid game, seeking some trace of her father. She is so intent on this quest that she does not mark two dark forms which ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... never to go, but I thought Bobsey protested a little too much. Away we went down the hill, skirting what was now a good- sized brook. I knew the trees, from a previous visit; and the maple, when once known, can be picked out anywhere, so genial, mellow, and generous an aspect ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... meal Sir Donald lay down at a little distance and took a nap. The rest of the party strolled together through the timber skirting the shore. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... of their circuit, the walls of La Rochelle were inaccessible to the land forces; and the deep foss skirting them was full of water, except on the north and north-east. The fortifications, everywhere formidable, had, therefore, been constructed with extraordinary care in these directions; for it was here that the brunt ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... hole the course lies inland. For the next ten holes you play directly away from the sea. Then the fifteenth takes a sharp turn to the left, skirting the deer-park of Mote Abbey, while the sixteenth bears to the left again, heading straight for the club-house and the coast ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... went out from the enclosure by the steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow, occasionally stumbling over twisted furze-roots, tufts of rushes, or oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... couple of hundred feet to go," was the reply. "Come ahead. I'll help you pull that bobsled," and now Uncle Barney took hold, and once again they started forward, this time skirting the lower extremity of Snowshoe Island. Here there were a great number of pines and hemlocks growing amid a perfect wilderness of rocks, now all ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... before. The road crept and curled down the hill, now covered from side to side with the interlacing boughs of grand old chestnuts; now barriered on the edge of a ravine with broken fragments and boulders of granite, garlanded by heavy vines; now skirting orchards full of promise; and all the way companied by a tiny brook, veiled deeply in alder and hazel thickets, and making in its shadowy channel perpetual muffled music, like a child singing in the twilight to reassure its half-fearful heart. Kate's face was softened and full of rich expression; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of merely skirting the subject; but I find I am involved in considerations deep as society—deep as the origins of the human race. In their proper place I like all pets, with the exception of snakes. The aggressive pug is bad enough, but the snake is a thousand times worse. When possible, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... steamer which sails from the pier opposite Danieli's on all fine afternoons except Sundays and holidays requires four hours; but if the day be fine they are four hours not to be forgotten. The way out is round the green island of S. Elena, skirting the Arsenal, the vastness of which is apparent from the water, and under the north wall of Murano, where its pleasant gardens spread, once so gay with the Venetian aristocracy but now the property of market gardeners and lizards. Then through the channels ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... he said firmly, well knowing that if the sailors and firemen lumbering close behind had not heard her earlier comment it was due solely to the blustering wind. They were skirting the seaward face of the rocky islet on which they had found salvation. The sun was blazing at them sideways from a wide expanse of blue sky. The rear guard clouds of the gale were scurrying away over the horizon in front of their upward path. Somehow, Philip's sailor's brain was befogged. Those ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... moment it dazzled eyes yet clogged with the heaviness of sleep. Then I perceived what afforded me so severe a shock that I ducked hastily down into my covert, every faculty instantly alert. Close in against the reeds, as though skirting the low line of the shore, loomed the black outline of ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... they were in Auburn. They drove through "Old Town," passed the courthouse and through the newer portion of the village; by the Freeman Hotel and the railroad-yards, through the "subway" under the tracks, and turned off to the right, leaving the highway for the first time and skirting the olive-orchards on the hill. Then, sweeping around a wide curve they caught the first glimpse of the American River deep down in its historic canon. On, over a narrow, red-dirt road, closer down to the gorge, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... like a sailing-yacht catching the breeze beyond the harbor bar, recovered itself, and lifted the blazing car above the gesticulating arms of the people. A long murmur followed it as it glided gently away, skirting the prodigious belfry with the apparent precaution of a living thing that longed for, and sought, the dim freedom of the sky. The children instinctively stretched out their arms to it. All faces were lifted towards the stars, as if a common aspiration at that moment infected ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Round Cobham, skirting the park and village and passing the Leather Bottle famous in the page of Pickwick, was a favourite walk with Dickens. By Rochester and the Medway, to the Chatham Lines, was another. He would turn out of Rochester ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... luckless captive hand and foot, pinned him face downward in the sward, and so leaving him with only his boots for a memento,—happily for him the night was no more than goose-flesh cool,—we raced back to our peeping-place on the skirting ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... lay, for several miles, over a succession of small hills, intersected by valleys covered with stunted oak trees, and with here and there a solitary pine. Just at a point, when they were winding round a ridge of hills, which they imagined separated them from the Sacramento Valley, having a small skirting of timber on their left hand, he, Don Luis, being slightly in advance of Bradley and Malcolm, happened to turn his head round, when he saw a horseman stealthily emerging from the thicket, at a point a short distance in their rear. In a very few moments another ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... world had been conceived by us as a practical finish to a theoretical education; and the bicycle feature was adopted merely as a means to that end. On reaching London we had formed the plan of penetrating the heart of the Asiatic continent, instead of skirting its more civilized coast-line. For a passport and other credentials necessary in journeying through Russia and Central Asia we had been advised to make application to the Czar's representative on our arrival at Teheran, as we would ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... almost hopeless, the two captives were led deeper into the forest paths. Drew realized that they were skirting the barren hillside and gaining a position nearer to ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, Hans Mueller was still in sight, skirting the base of a sharp incline. Through the trembling heat waves he seemed a mere moving dark spot; like an ant or a spider on its zigzag journey. The grass at the base of the rise was rank and heavy, reaching almost to the waist of the moving figure. Rowland watched it all absently, meditatively; ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... last heard it, I was with a companion, and our attention was arrested, as we were skirting the edge of a sloping, rather marshy, bowlder-strewn field, by the "zeep," "zeep," which the bird utters on the ground, preliminary to its lark-like flight. We paused and listened. The light of day was fast failing; a faint murmur ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... of woodland, skirting the eastern side of a wide, fertile river-bottom, and giving to the settlement the ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... regal folds enwraps The world, and with the nearer breath of God Doth burn and quiver, held so far retir'd Its inner hem and skirting over us, That yet no glimmer of its majesty Had stream'd unto me: therefore were mine eyes Unequal to pursue the crowned flame, That rose and sought its natal seed of fire; And like to babe, that stretches forth its arms For very eagerness towards the breast, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... stile. Finlay sank helplessly in a heap in front of it. He could not, or would not, put his feet on the stone steps. Without a word his two guards lifted him over and set him down among the graves. Donald crossed last. Moylin, skirting the north side and east end of the church, led the way to a corner of the cemetery where as yet there were no graves. Here, barely visible among the tangle of brambles, nettles, and high grass which surrounded it, was the vault. Kneeling down, Moylin fumbled ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... Varennes. The mountains of Boucherville, Beloeil, Chambly, and Vermont shadowy bounded the horizon; and, turning from these, abrupt before him rose the awful and spectral presence of Mount Royal. Skirting its foot he now proceeded, brushing away the shining dew, disturbing the lazy lizard and the serenading grasshopper, and hearing below him the harsh croaking of the bullfrog in the pool; whilst, ever and anon, the gust awoke, with a huge sigh, the dreaming maples, poplars, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... region from the Hudson River side, you cross a rough, rolling stretch of country, skirting the base of the Catskills, which from a point near Saugerties sweep inland; after a drive of a few hours you are within the shadow of a high, bold mountain, which forms a sort of butt-end to this part of the range, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... of service to some one —if, unhappily, any should follow in my footsteps—who would be better prepared to face the dangers and the difficulties of the forest beyond. Listen, then, to these instructions; On the ledge skirting the south cliff, and leading up to the gorge, there is a cave, which may be recognized from the existence near it of a bath hewn out of the lava by human hands. That cave is the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... As the Astronef was skirting the side of one of these ranges Redgrave allowed it to approach more closely than he had so far done ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... Virginia from the Shenandoah Valley, and beyond this valley the Alleghenies separated the rest of the state from those counties which we now know as West Virginia. By the time of the Revolution, in the Carolinas and Georgia, a belt of pine barrens, skirting the "fall line" from fifty to one hundred miles from the coast, divided the region of tidewater planters of these states from the small farmers of the up-country. This population of the interior had entered the region in the course of the second half of the eighteenth ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... pulled a long bulrush from a clump that grew at the side of the bog. Then she walked along the edge, skirting with care the deceitful green that looked so fair and lovely, till she came to where a slender birch hung its long drooping branches out over the bog. Clinging to one of these branches, Peggy leaned ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... with satisfaction, his big hat in hand, his long curly black hair flowing in the gentle breeze. He found himself in tunnels of verdure, the sunlight shut off by the heavy leafage; then the path debouched into the open and, skirting closely the rocky wall, it widened into an island of green where a shady pagoda invited. He sat down for a few minutes and congratulated himself that he had escaped the intimate discomforts of the omnibus he discerned on the opposite bank, packed with stout people. This was the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... rode along the dead level which stretches between the hills skirting Falls-Park and those bounding the town of Ivell, trotted through that borough, and out by the King's-Hintock highway, till, passing the villages he entered the mile-long drive through the park to the Court. ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... I followed, and, presently, skirting the crowd, we came unseen to a little side entrance that led to a stair, up which we passed. The stair ended in a passage; we turned down it till we found a door on the left hand. Charmion entered silently, and I followed her into a dark chamber. ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... of the kind, in company with the Squire, in one of the finest parts of the park. We were skirting a beautiful grove, and he was giving me a kind of biographical account of several of his favourite forest trees, when he heard the strokes of an axe from the midst of a thick copse. The Squire paused and listened, with ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily, love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment—more especially other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... Skirting farther round the pasture, I heard voices and much laughter proceeding from the interior of the wood. Voices, male and feminine; laughter, not only of fresh young throats, but the bass of grown people, as if solemn organ-pipes should pour ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... almost south, skirting the ridges of the mountain as long as he could; then they saw him scrambling up a lofty wooded ridge, and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... but had deceased in favor of Benton. From Laramie we whirled northwest, through a broad valley enlivened by countless antelope scouring over the grasses; thence we issued into a wilder, rougher country, skirting more mountains ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... road, with its villanous paving of cobbles and coal dust, its mills to the right, down below in the hollow, skirting the course of the river, and its rows of workmen's homes to the left, climbing the hill—in a tremor of excitement. Six years! Would anyone recognize him? Ah! there was Jerry's 'public,' an evil-looking weather-stained hole; but another ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the sharp slope of grass which so frequently connects the base of a mountain with the more civilised forests and the pasturages below. The maire led us for some distance along the top of this grass slope, towards the west, skirting the rocks till they became precipitous and lofty, when he said we must be near our point. Still we went on and on without seeing any signs of it, and our guide seemed in despair; and I, for one, entirely gave up the third cave to the same fate as the second, and became very sulky and remonstrative. ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... up from the harbour and took Miss Sally down to see Eden. Eden was a tiny, cornery, gabled grey house just across the road and down a long, twisted windy lane, skirting the edge of a beech wood. Nobody had lived in it for four years, and it ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... paddle in, we carried our belongings high up the side of the hill, safely out of reach of the water when it should rise, and then started to pick our way around the face of the clifflike hill, with the intention of skirting the bay and reaching the Post at once from the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... described. An owl might be peeping out from the ivy with which it was clad. Of the observer the station might be such that the owl, now emerged from the mantling, presented itself to his eye in profile, skirting with the Moon's limb. All this is well. The perspective is striking; and the picture well defined. But the poet was not contented. He felt a desire to enlarge it; and in executing his purpose gave it accumulation without ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the lazy sons of Skirting Ishmael is prowling out of his camp to-night," said the young bee-hunter, with great vivacity, and in tones that might easily have been excited to a menace, "he may have an end put to his journey sooner than either he or ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the railway. By turning aside from it, walking through a field, fording a river, penetrating first through a dark aspen grove, then through a red pine belt, skirting some ravines, threading a way across a village, trudging wearily through dried-up river-beds and on through a marsh, the village of Pochinki is ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... emigrant in early summer has traversed, since he crossed the Missouri, five hundred miles of almost uniformly arable soil, most of it richly grassed, with belts of timber skirting its moderately copious and not unfrequent water-courses, and he very naturally concludes 'the American Desert' a misnomer, or at best a gross exaggeration. But, from the moment of leaving the Buffaloes behind him, the country begins to shoal, as a sailor might say, growing rapidly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dilapidation which had struck me as I approached. The court-yard was tufted over with grass, seldom from year to year crushed by the carriage-wheels, or trodden by the feet of visitors. This melancholy verdure thickened where the area was more remote from the centre; and under the windows, and skirting the walls to the left, was reinforced by a thick grove of nettles. The avenue was all grass-grown, except in the very centre, where a narrow track still showed the roadway The handsome carved balustrade of the court-yard was discoloured ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... his cousin until they had left for the upper realms, where, surrounded only by silence, they could converse while the busy motor hummed and the aeroplane headed as they willed, either high above the hills, or skirting the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... heads just at that moment, for the two guards, who might otherwise have seen him, both dodged behind rocks. When they looked again in the direction of their prisoners they did not know that one of them was apprising the British leader of the fact that a body of the enemy was at that moment skirting his right flank in cover of an old watercourse, so as ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... o'clock the posse and I were in the saddle and skirting the San Francisco peaks. There was no use of pressing the ponies, for our game wasn't trying to escape, and, for that matter, couldn't, as the Colorado River wasn't passable within fifty miles. It was a lovely moonlight night, and the ride through ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... reflected. Of course Tom knew of it, for Steve had sat at the 'varsity training table at supper-time and he could still hear in imagination the buzz of interest that had filled the hall when, somewhat consciously skirting the second team table, he had walked to the corner and sank into a seat between Fowler and Churchill. They had been very nice to him at the 'varsity table. Only Roberts, who might be expected to view his appearance with misgivings, had eyed him askance. Poor Joe Benson was confined ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... want to try again the famous Northwest Passage? What for? Captain MacClure had discovered it in 1853, and his lieutenant, Cresswell, had the honor of first skirting the American continent from Behring Strait to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... and finally detected a slight acrid odour in the light, clear breeze. He looked wisely around him; Geraldine was skirting a fallen tree on her skis; he started on and was just rounding a clump of brush when there came a light, crashing noise directly ahead of him; a big, dark, shaggy creature went bounding and bucking across his line of vision—a most extraordinary ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... off Holyhead, the passengers of the "Royal Charter" pressed Captain Taylor to steer as closely as possible to the coast, in order to afford them a glimpse of its bulky dimensions. This he readily complied with, and they were soon skirting the rock-bound shores ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... about fourteen miles from Medlicot's Mill. Nokes had walked this distance in the morning, and now retraced it at night— not going right across Gangoil, as he had falsely boasted of doing early in the day, but skirting it, and keeping on the outside of the fence nearly the whole distance. At about two in the morning he reached his cottage outside the mill on the river-bank; but he was unable to skulk in unheard. Some dogs made a noise, and presently he heard a voice calling ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... horses were quite gentle, and they had no difficulty in swimming them across. A young colt, too feeble to swim, placed its fore feet on its mother's flanks and was ferried across in that way. Then they were driven over a narrow trail skirting the cliff, 300 feet above the river. No one, looking from the river, would have imagined that any trail, over which horses could be ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... the house with Marheyo,' said Toby, 'we struck across the valley, and ascended the opposite heights. Just beyond them, my guide informed me, lay the valley of Happar, while along their summits, and skirting the head of the vale, was my route to Nukuheva. After mounting a little way up the elevation my guide paused, and gave me to understand that he could not accompany me any farther, and by various signs intimated that he was afraid to approach any ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... left the road and were speeding over the frozen prairie, skirting a small clump of scrub oak, when just before them, a solitary horseman could be seen, leisurely walking his steed. At the sudden appearance of the stranger, both men instinctively reined in their horses and pulled up short. The man at that moment, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... quite dark when we entered the town of Barnstable, making as much noise as if the devil had broken loose and come to carry off the inhabitants, who were a timid people, but sharp enough to cut the best side of a trade. The bright blue waters skirting the town seemed reflecting ten thousand curious shadows, while several tall steeples of churches, (showing that the people had theology without stint, and to their liking,) loomed out through a gray mist that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... of August, 1850, Sir Charles Malcolm wrote to Dr. Carter in these terms:—"I have communicated with the President of the Royal Geographical Society and others: the feeling is, that though much valuable information could no doubt be gained by skirting the coast (as you propose) both in geology and botany, yet that it does not fulfil the primary and great object of the London Geographical Society, which was, and still is, to have the interior explored." The Vice-Admiral, however, proceeded to say that, under the circumstances of ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... had passed New Madrid, when, one afternoon, Burr standing near the stern of his boat—amused himself by contemplating a procession of flying clouds in distorted shapes of dragons, hippogrifs, witches, and ghosts. The boat was close to shore, skirting a low bluff, covered with shrubs and trees. A majestic poplar standing on the river's edge drew the colonel's attention by its noble aspect. At the very moment when the prow drove opposite the monarch ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... they have been called by some voyagers, shore-reefs, whether skirting an island or part of a continent, might at first be thought to differ little, except in generally being of less breadth, from barrier-reefs. As far as the superficies of the actual reef is concerned this ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... extraordinary lightness, and he ran the distance, finding the hard, sandy soil like a track under his feet. The slope, when he had reached it, proved to be abrupt and boulder-strewn, and the path had an ugly trick of avoiding steepness by skirting horrible precipices. Luckily the moon was bright, and the man was an old mountaineer; otherwise he might have found a grave in the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... long, regular swell, impatiently waiting until Sunday should be over and she could work cargo. Round us on all the other sides were wooded hills and valleys, and away in the distance to the west showed the white town and castle of Elmina and the nine-mile road thither, skirting the surf-bound seashore, only broken on its level way by the mouth of the Sweet River. Over all was the brooding silence of the noonday heat, broken only by the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... came pouring down from the wooded hills to the westward, flowed round the foot of other hills, skirting a meadow and a pond, and then went on easterly about its business. Almost overhanging the road, like a mill jutting upon its journeyman stream, was an aged house. Still older were the two lofty oaks standing mid-meadow and imaged again in the pond. Younger than oaks ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... returned, I feel, Odd secrets of the line to tell! Some sailor, skirting foreign shores, Some pale reporter from the awful ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... farther out the pike, and across the road; but on receipt of Hooker's 9.30 order has been withdrawn, and now lies with two regiments astride and north of the pike, some distance beyond Talley's, the rest skirting the south of it. His right regiment leans upon that portion of the Brock road which is the prolongation of the eastern branch, and which, after crossing the plank road and pike, bears north-westerly, and loses itself ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Sahwah had not been there. The mystery was still a mystery. But from the height of the farmhouse we saw what we had not seen from the level of the road, and that was that there was another road running parallel to the one we had been on, skirting the swamp on the other side and bordered by thick trees. From the gate we had thought that those trees grew in the swamp, as we could not see the road beyond it. Sahwah must have blundered into that road in the darkness, we concluded, and thought she was going ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... our arrival in Naples, we took the seven o'clock train, which leaves the Nineteenth Century for the first cycle of the Christian Era, and, skirting the waters of the Neapolitan bay almost the whole length of our journey, reached the railway station of Pompeii in an hour. As we rode along by that bluest sea, we saw the fishing-boats go out, and the foamy waves (which it would be ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... Eden Bower was going down Fifth Avenue in her car, on the way to her broker, in Williams Street. Her thoughts were entirely upon stocks,—Cerro de Pasco, and how much she should buy of it,—when she suddenly looked up and realized that she was skirting Washington Square. She had not seen the place since she rolled out of it in an old-fashioned four-wheeler to seek her fortune, eighteen ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... miles Nimrod was content with the highway, now trotting beautifully, now breaking into a canter. But all at once he turned at right angles in the middle of the road, cleared the skirting fence like a hunter, and took a bee-line across the fields. Compelled sometimes to abandon it, he showed great judgment in choosing the place at which to get out of the enclosure, or cross the natural obstruction. On and on he went, over hedge after hedge, through field after field, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... in the foothills. The horses grazed along the edge of a tiny stream while Cheyenne and Bartley ate the cold chicken sandwiches. In half an hour they were riding again, skirting the foothills, and, it seemed to Bartley, simply meandering about the country, for now they ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... we left the river, we worked toward the west till we came to a small stream that flowed through marshlands. Here we turned away toward the north, skirting the marshes and after several days arriving at what I have called Long Lake. We spent some time around its upper end, where we found food in plenty; and then, one day, in the forest, we ran foul of the Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes, nothing more. And yet they were not so different ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... forward cautiously, still holding Ruth. He seemed to be skirting the edge of a vast crater. At the edge of it he found the top, revolving slowly. And Cliff's voice ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... northern side of the range, the journey is one of wondrous beauty, for the country strikingly resembles Swiss Alpine scenery. In cloudless weather we glided swiftly and silently under arches of pine-boughs sparkling with hoar-frost, now skirting a dizzy precipice, now crossing a deep, dark gorge, rare rifts in the woods disclosing glimpses of snowy crag and summit glittering against a sky of cloudless blue. The sunny pastures and tinkling cow-bells of lovely Switzerland were wanting, but I can never forget the impressive grandeur of those ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... running rivers; gondolas half full of water, everything soaked. I had a room in the top of the Palazzo da Mula on the Grand Canal just above the Salute and within a step of the traghetto of San Giglio. By going out of the rear door and keeping close to the wall of the houses skirting the Fondamenta San Zorzi, I could reach the traghetto without getting wet. The Quadri was the nearest caffe, anyhow, ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... crowded with ambulances. They followed each other in a long, slow, apparently unending procession across the bridge which led into the town from the railway station. They split off into small parties turning to the left and skirting the sea shore along the broad, glaring parade, or climbed with many hootings through the narrow streets of the old town. Staring after them as they passed us we saw inside figures of men very still, very silent, ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... tiny hook that he had carried in his hat, and for the rest of the distance to the canon's mouth he collected such grasshoppers as lingered too long in his shadow. Entering the canon, they followed up the stream, clambering over broken rocks, skirting huge boulders, and turning aside to go around a gorge that narrowed the torrent and flung it down in a ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... reported that Tenney had been over and promised to appear next morning with his axe. Then Raven went off for a walk along the road skirting the base of the mountain. Possibly he chose it because it led to the woman's old home, and the thought of her was uppermost in his mind. The road itself was still and dark, subdued to a moving silence, it might almost ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... directions, the way was now along a road leading down the island. It ran not far from the river bank and through grounds having a border of trees skirting the water's edge. At last the "little big" house was reached. All the members of the family were away for the summer except one daughter who, with a friend from Richmond for company, was in charge of the servants ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... patrol on the edge of the woods skirting the Vaga River was having considerable difficulty extricating itself, however, and without faltering Lieut. Cuff immediately deployed his men and opened fire again upon the enemy. During this engagement, he, with several other daring men, became separated from their fellows and ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... melodramatic, superb! But here they were, skirting the very gates of Paris, apparently fleeing before the enemy, and this without having made any very determined effort at resistance. Poor protectors they must have looked! Those simple peasants would not understand the efficacy, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... This time, however, fortune favoured the luckless Trenck, and though he and Schell were both in uniform, they rode unobserved through the village while the rest of the people were at church, and, skirting Wunschelburg, crossed the Bohemian frontier in the course ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... scarcely noticed at first—so calm was the water, and so regular were the buoys, like milestones along a road—that the northern line of coast was rapidly receding and that the 'river' was coming to be but a belt of deep water skirting a vast estuary, three—seven—ten miles broad, till ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Skirting the edge of the Marshes, we push again through straggling scrub, then past more marshes, and into woods where we follow a winding trail till it leads us into a little clearing. In the center of the clearing stands a cluster of log buildings—stables ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... its pace, but losing time in skirting the frequent bits of high ground. As he rode down into a deep arroyo, a horseman came galloping into its lower end and raced almost upon him before seeing him. His hand darted like lightning to his gun, and the weapon snapped into aim at his hip. The horseman came to a rearing halt, ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... desperation, and hydrophobia from excess of water, is threatening to supervene. Young Prince de Ligne, son of that brave literary De Ligne the Thundergod of Dandies, fell backwards; shot dead in Grand-Pre, the Northmost of the Passes: Brunswick is skirting and rounding, laboriously, by the extremity of the South. Four days; days of a rain as of Noah,—without fire, without food! For fire you cut down green trees, and produce smoke; for food you eat green grapes, and produce colic, pestilential dysentery, (Greek). ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... be skirting that hill along the creek," said Mrs. Wyman. "We'll see in a minute if they ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... edge, verge, brink, brow, brim, margin, border, confine, skirt, rim, flange, side, mouth; jaws, chops, chaps, fauces; lip, muzzle. threshold, door, porch; portal &c (opening) 260; coast, shore. frame, fringe, flounce, frill, list, trimming, edging, skirting, hem, selvedge, welt, furbelow, valance, gimp. Adj. border, marginal, skirting; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and a clear sky. I knew the way perfectly, even by moonlight. We took no wrong turns, had no stops, and made excellent time toward the Navajo Well twenty miles away. On we went over the open country, skirting the Vermilion Cliffs on ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the time very noisy to our left, and as we moved on it was plain that we were skirting the centre of the scrimmage in an attempt to take the enemy in flank. Now our squad columns were sent forward parallel, eight yards apart, ready at command to spring out in one long line, the men side by side. Through a cedar swamp we now made our way among ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the cavalry, with a few infantry uniforms skirting them, were sitting in the pleasant cooling evening air, fanned by the fresh springing breeze, outside one of the Piazza Bra caffes, close upon the shadow of the great Verona amphitheatre. They were smoking their attenuated ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he went, leaving the brook, and, skirting a high hedge to the side of a small wood, he followed the well-trodden path for nearly half-an-hour, when, of a sudden, he emerged from a narrow lane between two hedgerows into a ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... in a village beyond the hills skirting the plain on which the city was built, there lived a family of three; that is to say, a man and his wife and their little son. It was a supremely happy home. The husband and wife were devotedly attached to ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... through which they passed was not only well wooded, but well watered by numerous rivulets. Their path for some distance tended upwards towards the hills, now crossing over mounds, anon skirting the base of precipitous rocks, and elsewhere dipping down into hollows; but although thus serpentine in its course, its upward tendency never varied until it led them to the highest parts of a ridge from which a magnificent prospect was had of hill and dale, lake, rivulet and ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... at last the zest of coasting and of handling those gigantic skates on level stretches, she accompanied him from hill to hill, through fences, skirting thickets, till they reached a hollow at the heart of a farm where a brooklet led into deeper woods. The afternoon was passing; the swarthy clouds marched grimly from the east; but the low sun red-lettered the day. The country-bred Carl ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... there the trees spread themselves more freely and, through the darkness, Henrietta had glimpses of furtive little paths, of dips and hollows. A small pool, thick with early fallen leaves, had hardly a foot of gleaming surface with which to gaze like an unwinking eye at the emerging stars. But this skirting of the wood came to an end and there stretched before their feet, which made the only sound in the quiet night, a broad white road where the arched gateway of a distant house looked like ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... still a week before the Wonder would sail for its northern port of call, both of the ships wended their way to the east, skirting the coast as closely as possible, John on the Pioneer ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... he was skirting the Vale of Cephisus, along the foot of lofty Parnes, a very tall and strong man came down to meet him, dressed in rich garments. On his arms were golden bracelets, and round his neck a collar of jewels; and he came forward, bowing courteously, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... good-sized stream, and evidently the cause hitherto of the Lesser Slave's rich chocolate colour; for, above the forks, the latter took its hue from the lake, but with a yellowish tinge still. From this point the river was very crooked, and lined by great hay meadows of luxuriant growth. Skirting these, reinforced as we were, we soon pulled up to the foot of the lake, where stood a Hudson's Bay Company's solitary storehouse. There some change of lading was made, in order to reach "the Island," some seven miles up, and the only ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... and the appearance of some houses indicated the situation of a village at the place where the stream had its junction with the ocean. The vales seemed well cultivated, the little inclosures into which they were divided skirting the bottom of the hills, and sometimes carrying their lines of straggling hedgerows a little way up the ascent. Above these were green pastures, tenanted chiefly by herds of black cattle, then the staple commodity of the country, whose ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a delicious walk. First along the foot of the mountain, skirting a little channel of running water which brings the outflow of another fountain to enrich a part of the plain. It was made good for the cultivation of a large tract; although very wild and disorderly cultivation. As we went, every spot within sight was full of interest; rich ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... wonderful tonic to him. His diary still contains a note of occasional long walks; and once more he was the centre of a circle of friends, whose cordial recollections of their pleasant intercourse afterwards found expression in a lasting memorial. Beside one of his favourite walks, a narrow pathway skirting the blue lakelet of Sils, was placed a gray block of granite. The face of this was roughly smoothed, and upon it was cut ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... into two wide areas, the French plain, whose waters run from East to West into the Atlantic, and the German plain, whose waters run from South to North into the North Sea and the Baltic. These wide expanses are connected by a narrow strip of territory through which all communications skirting the hills and mountains of the South must necessarily be concentrated, and whose waters follow a north-westerly direction towards the Straits of Dover. This small plain, only 90 miles wide from Ostend to Namur, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... obeyed him silently, and in a few minutes they were skirting the side of the mountain by a narrow leaf-strewn path, taking the opposite direction to that followed by the two officers and bluejackets. Half an hour's walk brought them to the river bank, which was clothed with tall spear-grass. ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... hour they left the hotel together, to which he was shortly to return alone. The spoke no word to each other on their way to the Hanging Outlook. The path was practically level, skirting the mountains, for the Hanging Outlook was not much higher above ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... bend in the road to Bernay stands the village of Serquigny. It is just at the edge of the forest of Beaumont which we have been skirting, and besides having a church partially belonging to the twelfth century it has traces of a Roman Camp. All the rest of the way to Bernay the road follows the railway and the river Charentonne until the long—and when you are looking out for ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... wash. Save for these big floating houses, and broad bowed, coughing motor-barges, "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" had the wide waterway to themselves; and when we had taken a southerly course, to enter a channel between low-lying islands, we were in Zeeland. Still, though we were skirting the shore of the island of Schouwen, it was as if it ducked its head rather than submit to the ignominy of being seen by strangers. It was just as Alb said, "Zeeland was witch-like, illusive, with the power of ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson |
