"Skulk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... dishonest man. I have seen him myself, when I first came to this command, turn out all the Union men who had supported the Government, and put in their stead rebel soldiers who had not yet doffed their gray uniform. I have seen him again, during the July riot of 1866, skulk away where I could not find him to give him a guard, instead of coming out as a manly representative of the State and joining those who were preserving the peace. I have watched him since, and his conduct has been as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and, under their destroying hand, the rich and beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah seemed likely soon again to become a waste and desert place. It was a boast of theirs, that they could take any fort that could be fired; and round these places of refuge they would skulk and lurk with the greatest patience for a week at a time, quite content could they but get a single shot at such of the garrison as dared to show themselves beyond shelter of the walls. Sometimes, suddenly darting from ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... when I was promoted, so the whole duty fell heavily on me. The rest had been wounded at some time or other before, and then never pushed on much to get back to their regiment; many when recovered preferring to skulk in the hospitals in paltry situations such as doorkeepers or ward-masters, so getting a little extra pay, and then, as I shall again have occasion to show, being too ready to make their appearance when the war was over. Fortunately, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... catch the duck's eye. Having got your birds safely inside, catch them quietly and quickly, and having pinioned them, take them, if possible, to a cage with some part of it projecting out into the water. You, of course, feed them regularly, and are careful to give them some artificial cover to skulk in, as for some time the pain of the wound and the fright they have had makes them terribly shy. This cage, once constructed, is most useful for such work, and can be built at trifling cost, and the size I would recommend is about fifteen yards long by five yards wide, with a height of five ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... Gregson, the poacher and squatter, had come into disagreeable contact too often in former days for them to be perfectly cordial at any future time. Even now, when there was no immediate cause for anything but gratitude for his child's sake on Gregson's part, he would skulk out of Mr. Horner's way, if he saw him coming; and it took all Mr. Horner's natural reserve and acquired self-restraint to keep him from occasionally holding up his father's life as a warning to Harry. Now Gregson had nothing of this desire for avoidance with regard to Mr. Gray. The poacher had ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... here. It is a terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... into the open. Now a short piece of this open—fifty yards or so, perhaps— was visible from the lower end of the field, where Hobson and David were still coquetting with each other. Johnny tried to skulk over this open ground. He might as well have sought to evade the eyes of Argus. The long-sighted bird caught the very first glint of his cap. Insult and mealies were alike unavailing now. He forsook the sire and made at the son with his great ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... that men loved her no longer. They ran and threw themselves at the feet of the women that had hated her. She laughed in scorn and said that she wanted no such love, and that when one returned—he had gone as Ambassador to the Court of France—he would show the world that his love did not skulk in the hilt of a dagger. People marvelled at this because she had flouted her very skirts in his face, had not thrown him so much as the humblest flower of hope. When they heard he was coming, they held their breath ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Clinker (published in 1771) makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... over. When I swore to give myself to this Society—to obey the commands of the Council—then my responsibility ceased. What I have to do is to be faithful to my oath, and to the promise I have made." Almost unconsciously he glanced at the ring that Natalie had given him. "You would not have me skulk back like a coward? You would not have me 'play and not pay?' What I have undertaken to do ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... sailed through to the lake; and that though I had not perceived it, yet this beautiful spot might be very well peopled. But, says I again, if there be any such beings as I am fancying here, surely they don't skulk in their dens, like savage beasts, by daylight, and only patrole for prey by night; if so, I shall probably become a delicious morsel for them ere long, if they meet with me. This kept me still more within doors than before, and I ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... and all the rest of you will board with me. Lads, I'll depend upon you to carry that craft. I know what privateersmen are like, when they see cold steel in their faces. They'll come on boldly enough at first, but when once beaten back, they'll turn tail like hounds, and skulk for shelter below." ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way as if afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a guerrilla, or bushwhacker, is an armed man who recognizes none of the rules of civilized warfare, and very often has no commander. In France he is called a "franc-tireur," or free-shooter. The guerrilla goes out to live on the country, to skulk, to war on the weak, and never attack save from ambush, or when the odds clearly are on his side. His military status is barely one remove from ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Extremely sinned against as well as sinning; Hack, spendthrift, starveling, duellist in turn; Too cross to cherish yet too fierce to spurn; Begrimed with ink or brave with wine and blood; Spirit of fire and manikin of mud; Now shining clear, now fain to starve and skulk; Star of the cellar, pensioner of the bulk; At once the child of passion and the slave; Brawling his way to an unhonoured grave— That was DICK SAVAGE! Yet, ere his ghost we raise For these more decent and less desperate days, It may ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... slash him and nick him, While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him, Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, Me'll fight you, begar, if you'll come from your door!" Our case is the same; if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... action, and that they cannot get over the feeling. But what part of you is afraid? Your flesh, which is afraid of pain, just as a beast is of the whip. Then your flesh perhaps says, Run away—or at least skulk and hide—take care of yourself. But next, if you were a coward, the law would come into your mind, and you would say, But I dare not run away; for, if I do, I shall be shot as a deserter, or broke, and drummed out of ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... nothing. The rascals could skulk about by night, tear up rails, and hide them where they might be found by a man with half an eye, or half-destroy a bridge; but there was no shoot in them. They have not faith enough in their cause to risk their lives for it, even behind a tree ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... were only two or three, I'd come out and face 'em," he said, "but the odds are too great. I must skulk back in the darkness, and ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportment depends upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at the girls as ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... out into the open. They were still in the shelter of the trees. "The Normans rule, and honest men must skulk and hide," observed Humphrey, ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... craven alarms, Have all run away from the summons to arms; They haven't the pluck of a pigeon—I'll go And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk in Soho!" ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... SEEK. A childish game. He plays at hide and seek; a saying of one who is in fear of being arrested for debt, or apprehended for some crime, and therefore does not chuse to appear in public, but secretly skulks up and down. See SKULK. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... he thought, when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other God has it in ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... smile, which, in common with all other tokens of emotion, seemed to skulk under his face, rather than play boldly over it—'to return to the point from which we have strayed. I have a little party of—of—gentlemen with whom I am connected in business just now, at my house tomorrow; and your mother has promised that you shall keep house for me. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... gentle desultory shower had the sound of rain in springtime. From every side they were startled by noises they could not place. Strange movements and rustlings caused them to peer sharply into the shadows; footsteps, that seemed to approach, and, then, having marked them, skulk away; branches of bushes that suddenly swept together, as though closing behind some one in stealthy retreat. Although they knew that in the deserted garden they were alone, they felt that from the shadows they were being spied upon, that ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... been but a frigate, my excellent friend, the manoeuvre would have been unnecessary. Peste! it is not a single republican ship that can make a stout English frigate skulk along the rocks and fly like a thief ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim—"What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... does he leave you here alone and skulk about from hiding-place to hiding-place like a criminal?" ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... following the amorous warmth that transports them, fall miserably into the nets." "You say true," said Aristippus. "Well, then," pursued Socrates, "is it not scandalous for a man to be taken in the same snares with irrational animals? And does not this happen to adulterers, who skulk and hide themselves in the chambers and closets of married women, though they know they run a very great risk, and that the laws are very strict and rigorous against those crimes? They know themselves to be watched, and that, if they are taken, they shall not be let go with impunity. ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... he had catched a bullet with his ankle over in the north at Culloden. So it was no wonder that he liked to crack about these times, though they had brought him muckle and no little mischief, having obliged him to skulk like another Cain among the Highland hills and heather, for many a long month and day, homeless and hungry. Not dauring to be seen in his own country, where his head would have been chacked off like a sybo, he took leg-bail in a ship over the sea, among the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Mellicent, will be filled with those court-flies who fed on the goodly vine till they had sucked all its juices, and, now winter is come, care not for its nakedness, but seek some covert where they may skulk till summer returns. You and I should make a notable appearance among those who call splendor, life; and subtlety, knowledge; we could neither speak their language nor enter into their views.—While we pined with desire ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... speaking,—few who have earned the right to speak; maxims enough to regenerate a universe,—a woful lack of great hearts, in which reason, right, and truth, regal and militant, are fortified and encamped! Now this disposition to skulk the austere requirements of intellectual growth in an indolent surrender of the mind's power of self-direction must be overcome at the outset, or, in spite of your grand generalities, you will be at the mercy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... mysterious. But the American representative of the family is a bird of different manners. Unlike his namesake across the water, our cuckoo never—or so rarely as practically to be never—shirks the labor of nest-building and raising a family. He has no reason to skulk, and though always a shy bird, he is no more so than several others, and in no ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... there was something to be done on deck, and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. "Where's that skulk, Chips?" shouted ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned him once. The soldier would not ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and has been hiding about in the woods during all this business. Well, if that is all, we may as well turn in again. Monsieur need have no fears," added he, addressing Isidore; "the best way is to take no notice of her. At all events, if she does skulk about, she is more likely to warn us of any danger than to bring it upon us." With these words the guide, followed by Pritchard, again entered the house, ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... of a person, and a tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat,—a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite. See, now! He means to skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... forth, and so will I. Sorry sight! to view Jabaster, with a stealthy step, skulk like a thing dishonoured! Oh! may the purpose consecrate the deed! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... but the brave Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires, When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave, Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave From mounts of glare ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... gave a groan; And as he wept, within the watery glass He saw the big round drops, with silent pace, Run trickling down a savage hairy face. 70 What should he do? Or seek his old abodes, Or herd among the deer, and skulk in woods? Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails, And each by turns his aching heart assails. As he thus ponders, he behind him spies His opening hounds, and now he hears their cries: A generous pack, or to maintain the chase, Or snuff the vapour from ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... for the blessings of liberty; that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men. It is the general's express orders that, if any man attempt to skulk, lie down, or retreat without orders, he be instantly shot down ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... must confess that I was entirely at a loss. I could not move a foot across the deck without being discovered, since it was merely the fact that I was in the lee of the cabins and in the deeper shadows of the dawn that enabled me to skulk where I was. Yet I was reluctant to go back without having carried the search a stage further. It was obvious from the calm which reigned among the mutineers that the Prince and his following were either dead or prisoners. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... suddenly very much alone. Here was one of his kind with whom he would like to pass the time of day—smoke with him and if circumstances permitted, drink with him, and swap the gossip of the range. Instead, he must skulk in the thicket like a coyote until the man passed. A great wave of self-pity swept over him. He, Jack Purdy, was an outcast. Men would not drink with him nor would women dance with him. Even at this moment men were riding the range in search ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... Colonies sent men, and Lord Howe brought thousands of English soldiers. England was our friend then," said Nathan. "They had thousands of boats, and rafts to carry their big guns. They had big flags, and music; and they didn't lurk or skulk about. Their boats came right down the lake in fine shape; they landed, and marched toward the fort. But the French were ready for them, and beat them back. However, the next year the English and Americans drove ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... do it under a week. It occurred to him he would see her every day till the yacht was afloat. No, he wouldn't intrude, but he was master and owner of the brig after all. He didn't mean to skulk like a whipped cur about ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Porter, of vain-glorious memory, (who once wrote a book of Voyages,) was, and may be still, the marine commandant, and distinguished himself by threatening to blockade Cuba, and by being obliged to skulk at Key West, to avoid destruction by the gallant Laborde. The Mexicans require no navy, and cannot maintain one; the sooner, therefore, they restrict it to a very few revenue cutters the better. The nature ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall. It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into temptation; but not lawful to skulk from those ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... share to every seaman alike. Think ye this bloody pick-purse dealt fairly by his crew? In yon sea-chest be the lawful shares of all the woesome lads he marooned this day. An' as much more as he durst skulk ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... could live in Kansas at all, with a price set upon his head, and so large a number, including the authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, "It is perfectly well understood that I will not be taken." Much of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did not care to go in after him. He ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... catching flounders in the sea as the tide ebbed. Venture among them with fear in your heart and they would fly at your legs and throat like wild beasts; but twirl a big stick jauntily, or better still go quietly on your way without concern, and they would skulk aside and watch you hungrily out of the corners of their surly eyes, whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mastiff's. When the moon rose I noticed them flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, miles away from the hamlet; ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... of this, was attacked, when alone, by two men; when he defended himself with much address, and would have defied and foiled them both, had they kept fairly and openly in his front; but one of them, with the treachery common to those savage people, contrived to skulk behind, and throw a spear into his side, the weapon penetrating seven inches into the cavity of his body, and, from its direction, being supposed to have wounded the intestines. He was taken on board the Reliance, where at first the wound was attended with ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... fools; Placed above want, shall abject thirst of wealth, So fiercely war 'gainst my soul's dearest health, That, as a boon, I should base shackles crave, And, born to freedom, make myself a slave? That I should in the train of those appear, Whom Honour cannot love, nor Manhood fear? That I no longer skulk from street to street, Afraid lest duns assail, and bailiffs meet; 130 That I from place to place this carcase bear; Walk forth at large, and wander free as air; That I no longer dread the awkward ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... nuke-kubi? 'Kubi' signifies either the neck or head. 'Nukeru' means to creep, to skulk, to prowl, to slip away stealthily. To have a nuke-kubi is to have a head that detaches itself from the body, and prowls ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... not that I am an advocate for plunder—on the contrary, I would much rather that all our fighting was for pure love; but, as every thing of value falls into the hands of the followers, and scoundrels who skulk from the ranks for the double purpose of plundering and saving their dastardly carcasses, what I regret is, that the man who deserts his post should thereby have an opportunity of enriching himself with impunity, while the true man gets nothing; ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... and sorely tried! —But he, for whom they died, Skulk'd like the wolf in Cranborne, torn and gaunt:— Till, dragg'd and bound, he knelt To one no prayers could melt, Nor bond of blood, nor fear of fate, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Thrice he swung it so that I might not mistake the sound, and that was the last I saw of him, hugging his five arrows, with the moon gone pale like a meal-cake, and the tame wolves that skulk between the huts for scraps, slinking off as he ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... hope, which all the legions in hell cannot shake. Between you and me the battle has only begun, and nothing but your death or my victory will end it. You have your revenge; I intend to enjoy mine. Though he burrow as a mole, or skulk in some fastness of Alaska, I will track and seize that cowardly miscreant, and when the law receives its guilty victim, you shall be freed from suspicion, freed from prison, and most precious of all boons, you shall be freed forever from the vile contamination ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... out her appearance so terrified Gray Wolf that he tried to get up and skulk away, weak as he was. Waubenoo, glad that her enemy was so conquered that he would not be likely to trouble her much more, did ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... cast upon him, he valued independence in others, and his wide experience taught him that the friend who would not hesitate to stand up firmly against him when he thought him wrong, would be the last to skulk from his side in the hour of danger, and from the defence of his memory when his ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... Ralph, with a look of deep and unutterable scorn. "But to thee!—words would fail to express my contempt, my derision, my defiance of thy puny power! Read, and skulk ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... exasperated and harassed brute, "ah, show yourself, will you?" He brought the rifle to his shoulder and covered point after point along the range of hills to the west. "Come on, show yourself. Come on a little, all of you. I ain't afraid of you; but don't skulk this way. You ain't going to drive me away from my mine. I'm going ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... will create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am positive that we need not seek ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... her reputation by a base and cowardly plot concocted with a wicked old woman, who would blast the whole family if she could, because M'Loughlin transported her felon son; you, now, like a paltry clown as you are, skulk out of the consequences of your treachery, and refuse to give satisfaction for the diabolical injury you have inflicted on ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to stay there. The Abolitionists will ferret 'em out, and be down there with their devilish habeas corpus. I want you to go on board 'The King Cotton,' take the captain aside, and tell him, from me, to remove them forthwith from Castle Island, keep them under strong guard, and skulk round with them in the best hiding-places he can find, until a ship passes that will take them to New Orleans. Of course, I need not caution you to be silent about this affair, especially concerning the slaves being mortgaged to me. ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... manhood, here Born and bred up to read the word aright That sunders man from beast as day from night. That red rank Ireland where men burn and slay Girls, old men, children, mothers, sires, and say These wolves and swine that skulk and strike do well, As soon might know ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to tell me something, then he gets embarrassed, back-fires, and stalls. He and Theophilus have been sneaking out in the early dawn, too. Wow! What did he sneak out of the dorm. that way, with a football, for? He looked like a yeggman working night shift. Why should he skulk out with a football? He has never explained his dad's letter, or told just what Mr. Hicks meant by calling him the "Class Kid" of Yale, '96, and saying those members of old Eli wanted him to star! Oh, he's a tantalizing wretch, and I'd like to solve ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... fortifications were superfluous, because our navy was the defence to which the nation was wont deservedly to trust; some that they were needless, because no other nation was in a condition to attack us; others that they were disgraceful, because it was un-English and mean to skulk behind stone walls, and because Lycurgus had refused to trust to stone walls for the safety of Sparta; and one member, the chief spokesman of a new and small party, commonly known as the "peace-at-any-price party," boldly denounced the members ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... that he was on his way to Chicago, it gave her more delight than any other writing of his had ever given her. She need not skulk any more. Her problem was as far from solution as ever, but she wanted a respite from it, and she gave herself up to a few days of rapture. She was free from her work at the studio, and she was like a girl home from boarding-school ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... how could such a match be broke? See then what mortals place their bliss in! Next morn betimes the bride was missing: The mother scream'd, the father chid; Where can this idle wench be hid? No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came, And thought his bride had skulk'd for shame; Because her father used to say, The girl had such a bashful way! Now John the butler must be sent To learn the road that Phyllis went: The groom was wish'd[1] to saddle Crop; For John must neither ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... which would have been obvious to a reader of men, and would have approved them as, in their way and of their race, trustworthy. Here, the reader of men would say, are a brace of assassins who hold a sort of honor in their hearts, who would never skulk in a corner to stab an enemy in the back, nor wrong a wretched woman who plainly was unwilling to be wronged—a brace of heroes. And the reader of men would for once in a way, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... zigzags; so steep is it that the country people call it the 'Devil's Staircase.' Any army holding the top of the pass would have an ascending enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of Highlanders, accustomed to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to rush down the most rugged hillsides with the swiftness ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... discharged the rifle, the report was unusually faint, owing to the state of the air; so much so, that my companions, who were not fifty yards behind, scarcely heard it. The wild animals in the jungle which skirted the road, and which, in general, skulk in silence and secresy in their haunts, rent the air with their howlings. The very order of nature seemed about to be reversed, while the long streamers of grey moss swayed backwards and forwards mournfully from the trees, adding to the solemnity of the scene. As the party slowly ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... respect for the Word or its ministers. A bit farther I met a boy carrying a load of turnips. To him, too, I was faithful, and he went on, taking, without knowing it, a precious leaflet with him in his bag. Glorious work! If Wesleyans will but go on claiming even the highways for God, sin will skulk yet."' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... night is in Suite L. Go to it—that's the shortest way to put Roebuck and Dominick out of business. Face 'em and they'll skulk." ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is exalted, not as the word of man, but, in deed ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... complexion? Because I have made fifty thousand this last year in Timbuctoo bonds, must I convert it all into a house, so large that it will not hold me comfortably,—so splendid that I might as well live in a porcelain vase, for the trouble of taking care of it,—so prodigiously "palatial" that I have to skulk into my private room, put on my slippers, close the door, shut myself up with myself, and wonder ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... the agility of a boy, his nose bleeding and a stone in each hand. The timid flock looked all aghast, while the audacious offender, so far from having shown any disposition to skulk, stood shaking his head and threatening, as if he had a mind to follow up the dastardly attack. The squire let fly one stone, which grazed the villain's head and killed a lamb. With the other he crippled ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... giant, hated of the king, has come, and darkens the highways with his stride. Or my eyes play me false; for it has oft befallen bold warriors to skulk behind ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... out that his wife was to blame. But I settled his doubts by telling him, that I would have him on my shoulder naked, unless he came in five minutes; not that he could do much good, but because the other men would be sure to skulk, if he set them the example. With spades, and shovels, and pitch-forks, and a round of roping, we four set forth to dig out the sheep; and the poor things knew ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... upon the peril of his skin, to see that all the negroes were off to the field in the morning. 'Ocra,' said the overseer, one evening, to the driver, 'if any pretend to be sick, send me word—allow no lazy wench or fellow to skulk in the negro house.' Next morning, a few minutes after the departure of the hands to the field, Ocra was seen hastening to the house of the overseer. He was soon in his presence. 'Well, Ocra, what now?' 'Nothing, sir, only Rachel says she sick—can't go to de field to-day.' 'Ah, sick, is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... day, written in a stirring salt-water rhythm.[7] It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay, in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as having deserted their ships to skulk on shore. They are described ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... he would understand it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... came home haggard and blue in the lips to tell Leonora that he must fly. There were days when he returned from the chase, or rather from the skulk, elated, youthful, his pockets full of money and his imagination afire with hopes of substantial wealth. But his course was steadily downward, his methods steadily farther and farther from the line of the law. Dumont came just in time to ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... than his neighbours when it came to facing the foe. Moreover the life in common would help the men to know each other, and it is only by such knowledge, as a rule, that a common conscience is engendered; those who live apart, unknowing and unknown, seem far more apt for mischief, like those who skulk in the dark. [26] Cyrus thought the common life would lead to the happiest results in the discipline of the regiments. By this system all the officers—brigadiers, company-captains, captains of the squads—could ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Julian had been, and what inseparable friends he had always been with Lillyston, and how admirably he had recited on speech-day, and how stainless his whole life had been, and how vice and temptation seemed to skulk ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... countrymen.... Do not, I beseech you, impute my lingering in Europe to any indifference to my own country or my friends.... I am determined not to return home until I have sent some writings before me that shall, if they have merit, make me return to the smiles, rather than skulk back to ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... abide to the end. As all old soldiers know, the fighting line, granting that enough remain to make a fighting line, is never so strong as the moment after the first shock of battle has shaken out the men that always straggle on the march and skulk on the field. When, therefore, the first compact line faced about, it was with determination and with hope; yet scarcely had the fires of resolution been relit and begun to kindle to a glow than they were suddenly extinguished and all was plunged in gloom by the unlooked-for order to retreat. Upon ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... lay green meadows, and beyond these pasture-lands that stretched away to the wilderness plains where little patches of grass grew among the bushes and between the great rocks. There were caves among these rocks where wolves used to skulk and sometimes robbers hid. So the shepherds who guarded their flocks in these wild pastures dared not ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... The Fox will skulk in ferny brake, Yet loves the haunts of men; And prowls around the farm, to pounce On ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... do not skulk in corners and watch other people's doings," replied the young fellow, who, however, had only just come on deck, and was ignorant of the scene between Claude and Marguerite. "Let me catch you plotting any villainy against the Sieur de Pontbriand, ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... twilight fell from the leaden sky, and the shadows began to skulk behind the bushes, and the birds gathered to their nests with sleepy twitter, she tripped over a little stone, fell weakly to the ground, and lay still. She had not the strength to get to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... whatever go by; but it did seem to me to be a fine waste of ammunition, and a very stupid application of a scientific ideal; for while shelling it the Germans must have noticed that there was nothing at all on the road. We naturally decided not to go up that road in the car, but to skulk through a wood and meet the car in a place of safety. The car had, sooner or later, to go up the road, because there was not another road. The Commandant who was with us was a very seasoned officer, and he ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... "you'll have the game-keeper putting a charge of shot into you. Come out, man, and don't skulk behind ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... piously preserved in the family chronicle which I follow), was trained to break into a gallop as soon as the vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine miles between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died unmarried; the other imitated her father, and ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Yet half an hour of night, the good, hiding, practicable night; and lo! at a touch the gas-jet of the universe turned on; and up with the sun gets the providence of honest people, puts off his nightcap, throws up his window, stares out of house—and the rogue must skulk again till dusk. Yet half an hour and, Macaire, you shall be safe and rich. If yon fool—my fool—would but miscarry, if the dolt within would hear and leap upon him, I could intervene, kill both, by heaven—both!—cry murder with the best, and at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evil god," they cried aloud with angry faces, "oh, wicked spirit! you have a bad heart. See what a wrong you have purposely done us. If your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this? If you are indeed a god, come out across the line, and let us try issues together. Don't skulk like a coward in your hut and within your taboo, but come out and fight us. We are not afraid, who are only men. Why are you ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... hearers. He was, at least, severely punished. The Germans, enraged by his provocative behaviour and what they thought to be his German birth, demanded him to be tried before court-martial; he had to skulk inside the sentries of the American consulate, to be smuggled on board a war-ship, and to be carried almost by stealth out of the island; and what with the agitations of his mind, and the results of a marsh fever contracted in the lines of Mataafa, reached Honolulu a very proper ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... terrible his grasp. But what he does, my Lords, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great motives that placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But a quibbling, pilfering, prevaricating State-Necessity, that tries to skulk behind the skirts of Justice;—a State-Necessity that tries to steal a pitiful justification from whispered accusations and fabricated rumors. No, my Lords, that is no State Necessity;—tear off the mask, and you see coarse, vulgar ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... dove, "O nightingale, what's the use, You bird of beauty and love, Why behave like a goose? Don't skulk away from our sight, Like a common, contemptible fowl: You bird of joy and delight, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... quarters of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and warpaint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is for ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lions,'" observed the Old Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to be urged in favor of mountain lions that they never forces themse'fs on no gent; they're ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... in tens of thousands—to an institution of long standing and high character in the city of which he was a quiet resident. The source of such a gift could not long be kept secret. It, was our economical, not to say parsimonious Capitalist who had done this noble act, and the poor man had to skulk through back streets and keep out of sight, as if he were a show character in a travelling caravan, to avoid the acknowledgments of his liberality, which met him on every hand and put him ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his country, an' Metoosin is pretty near bound to drive him around to us. We'll let him do the open hunting an' we'll skulk. The bear can't get past us both without giving one of ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... and affiliated centres. In the conduct of details Spartan self-restraint was everywhere manifest. Members were urged to be brief in their remarks and business-like in their methods. Officials must give a solemn promise not to skulk, or make off, owing to persecution; and members were warned that noisy declamation was not a proof of zeal but might be a cloak for treachery. Above the chairman's seat was suspended a card with the words—"Beware of Orators." One would ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... there, with the lanthorn, had marked the fellow skulk behind the haystack, when he himself was going out to snare rabbits. He had seen our advertisement of Watts' person, and knew that we were then at a public house some miles off. He came to us—conducted us to the spot—we heard voices—showed up the glim—and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my soul," he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are they who skulk aside, As to get out of reach, And in their clothing strive to ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... were thus set at rest. They had no fear of prairie-wolves; which, though fierce enough when attacking some poor deer or wounded buffalo, are afraid of anything in the shape of man; and will skulk off, whenever they think the latter has any intention to attack them. This, however, is seldom the case, as the prairie hunter does not care to waste a bullet upon them; and they are often permitted to follow, and squat themselves ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... defeat. I saw him in Flanders after this, whence he went to Rome to the head-quarters of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and war-paint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighboring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is for ever ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the garish mantel. Still desolate and cheerless shows the noble edifice. The gaunt chimney yawns still in sick anticipation of deferred smoke. The "irons," innocent of coal, and polished to the tip, skulk and cower sympathetically into the extreme corner of the fender. The very rug seems ghastly and grim, wanting the kindly play of the excited flame. We have no comfort in the parlour yet: even the privileged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... brother, when Monso came to tell you, under cover of night, that we were spies of the Iroquois. The presents he gave you, that you might believe his falsehoods, are at this moment buried in the earth under this lodge. If he told the truth, why did he skulk away in the dark? Why did he not show himself by day? Do you not see that when we first came among you, and your camp was all in confusion, we could have killed you without needing help from the Iroquois? ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... was gray with age, and in many places laden with ivy. In deep gray shadow, that contrasted with the dim fires of evening reflected on the foliage above it, in a gentle hollow, stretched a lake that looked cold and black, and seemed, as it were, to skulk from observation with a ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... private malice bears, Is ever blazon'd with some public good; Behind that artful fence, skulk low, conceal'd, The bloody purpose, and the poison'd shaft; Ambition there, and envy, nestle close; From whence they take their fatal aim unseen; And honest merit is their ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... distance between the two posts is ninety-five miles. Springing to their feet, the soldiers fought off the Indians till they could harness the teams and start for Fort Reno. The fight was very severe, the Indians having every advantage of position, as they skulk over the bluffs and come in upon soldiers and others when least expected. By a bold dash at them, Lieutenant D—— succeeded in driving them off. They had shot an arrow into the shoulder of a dog belonging to one of the soldiers. The dog ran ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... and then reached over to give Bo a tap. He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they disappeared. Not only Dale's intensity, but the very silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have felt it, too, for she was trembling all over, and holding tightly to ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... hare, Sufficeth some, I find, to scare. And here, the terror of my tramp Hath put to rout, it seems, a camp. The trembling fools! they take me for The very thunderbolt of war! I see, the coward never skulk'd a foe That might not ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... compensate him for this unlooked-for deficiency of game, he will find himself beset with "varmints" innumerable. The wolves will entertain him with a concerto at night, and skulk around him by day, just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into badger-holes; from every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape and dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide away from under ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... evening, of which you will hear, that what happened there was to have its hold on Julianna Colfax, who had not then been thought of as coming into the terrible clutches of that which has followed us like a skulk o' night. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... to being every mean, unknowable thing that Weary could call to mind—and his imagination was never of the barren sort—Weary generously permitted him to get upon his feet and skulk out to where his horse was tied. After that, Weary gave his unruffled attention to the stage driver and discovered the unwelcome fact that there was no letter and no telegram for one William Davidson, who looked a bit ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... You let me go I keel you," shrieked Pedro. But the words, that would have made the bear cringe and skulk a few hours before, held no terror for him. He was master now, and this man who had clubbed and prodded, sworn at, and outraged him, was a pigmy in his arms. His powerful jaw too was close to the man's neck. One ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... would Morgan permit them to go? Would he come forward to bear his share of it, or would he skulk away like a coward and leave him, the bondman, to defend the name of his dead master's wife at the cost of his own honor and ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... but he has the people's interests next his heart; and you mark me—you, sir, who are a Liberal, and the enemy of all their governments, you please to mark my words—the day will come in Gruenewald, when they take out that yellow-headed skulk of a Prince and that dough-faced Messalina of a Princess, march 'em back foremost over the borders, and proclaim the Baron Gondremark first President. I've heard them say it in a speech. I was at a meeting once at Brandenau, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 him from the house. "Is that you, Nokes, at this time of night?" asked Mr. Medlicot. Nokes grunted out some reply, intending to avoid any further question. But his ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... he come and stay at Barham till further notice? They'd all be delighted to have him: It was only ten miles off Merefield, and perhaps—Because Frank was not going to sponge upon his friends. Neither was he going to skulk about near home. Well, if he was so damned obstinate, why didn't he go into the City—or even to the Bar? Because (1) he hadn't any money; and (2) he would infinitely sooner go on the tramp than sit on a stool. Well, why didn't he enlist, like a gentleman? Frank dared say he would ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... would bear him safe away, Even Gwarthlev, who deserved a comely name; {104d} Before, the victorious chief would turn aside the ebbing tide; His command was ever to go forward, {105a} loth was he to skulk. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... but no more risky than bluffs he had seen work before. And they did need the weapons. Cutting westward now only kept them well inside Union territory. Somehow they would have to skulk or fight their way down through the southern part of Kentucky and then probably all the way across Tennessee—a tall order, but one which was ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... the North Star. [b] A strap used in carrying burdens. [c] Wolves sometimes attack people at night but rarely if ever in the day time. If they have followed a hunter all night, or "treed" him they will skulk away as soon as ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... Yes, yes! They have been kept in cotton-wool forty years, madam. Little candle holders, you perceive. A pretty fancy, eh? I happened to remember them the other day,—hunted 'em up,—the result, thanks to Mrs. Grahame and Elizabeth Beadle. Mrs. Beadle, ma'am, I desire that you will come in, and not skulk in the doorway there, as if you had reason to be ashamed of your handiwork. My housekeeper, Mrs. Beadle, ladies and gentlemen: a good woman, if she will allow me to say so, and a good cook. Now, Guiseppe, a knife for Miss Grahame, and we will test the quality of this ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... now to relate the external history of the composition of Paradise Lost. When Milton had to skulk for a time in 1660, he was already in steady work upon the poem. Though a few lines of it were composed as early as 1642, it was not till 1658 that he took up the task of composition continuously. If we may trust our ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... heard the same consul, when spakin to a gintleman, say that the law was only an abuse of power, to put money into the pockets of yourself and a few like ye. And whin meself and Flin put the irons on a big nigger that the captain was endeavoring to skulk by keeping him in the forecastle of the ship, he interfered between me and me duty, and began talking his balderdash about the law. Sure, with his own way, he'd have every nigger in the city an abolitionist in three weeks. And sure, Mr. Sheriff, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... now heard. Even those who had shown an inclination to skulk, laboured away with might and main. In a few more hours ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats—that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a man when ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Peter; and if it had been ten years back, instead of at present, I should have been ready enough to change our plans. But what is the use of going to sea now? The French and Spanish navies skulk in harbor, and the first time our fellows get them out they will he sure to smash them altogether, and then there is an end to all fighting. No, Peter, it looks tempting, I grant, but we shall see ten times as much ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... you lazy hound!" roared Brookes. "I've had my eye upon you. Your master's out, and so you think you're going to skulk, do you? If there's any more of it, over you go to Dillon's for a taste of ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... must have set up some plan for avoiding pursuit. Rouse the Apaches? Or prepare an ambush? Either could work. Then Bayliss' men could be a saving factor. If the Kentuckian could locate Rennie, and ride in to his camp—or skulk close enough to it—that ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... skulk about like vagabonds, without heads, without hands, without souls; having neither you nor me to conduct them. They tell me, they shall rust beyond the power of oil or action to brighten them up, or give ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... companion; "you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... where she was, she had forsaken her old Quarters to, and he no more knew where to find her then he did his Trull. His Children were took care of by his Wife's Relations, or else they must have gone a begging. Whilst he being threatned with a Goal for Mortgaging his Lands twice over, was fain to Skulk about, and to play least in sight: Thus he that but a while ago profusely spent his Money on a Whore, was now reduc'd to that condition that he wanted Bread: Whilst both the Bawd and Whore which he had wasted all upon, forsook him without so much as minding what became of him; but left ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... compensation over and above saving his crop for him. I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... offended at a step which might weaken the administration in time of stress; and even if the President had transcended the Constitution, they preferred to deny rather than to admit the fact. When Douglas afterward charged Lincoln with lack of patriotism, Lincoln replied that he had not chosen to "skulk," and, feeling obliged to vote, he had voted for "the truth" rather than for "a lie."[60] He remarked also that he, with the Whigs generally, always voted for the supply bills. He took and maintained his position with entire manliness ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... moment, through the influence of bad companions, he fell, and for some time we lost sight of him. A long time afterward we caught a glimpse of his bloated, sin-stained face, just as he was turning to skulk away to avoid recognition. Where this poor human wreck is now leading his miserable existence we cannot say, but have no doubt he is haunting the dens of iniquity and sin in the cities, seeking to find a little momentary pleasure in the gratification of his appetites and passions. A hopeless ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... all bad, and I'll trouble you not to use such a word as that about Molly Gibson, as I've known all her life. It's odd, if you will. I was odd myself as a girl; I never could abide a plate of gathered gooseberries, but I must needs go and skulk behind a bush and gather 'em for myself. It's some folk's taste, though it mayn't be Miss Browning's, who'd have all the courting done under the nose of the family. All as ever I said was that I was surprised ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that were hammering at the door with the handles of their swords, 'come out at once and skulk there no more, for know ye well thou art so beset ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... of things, this evil is indeed altered, and the ruin of the creditor's effects is better prevented; the bankrupt can no more skulk behind the door of the Mint and Rules, and prevent the commissioners' inspection; he must come forth, be examined, give in an account, and surrender himself and effects too, or fly his country, and be seen here no more; and if he does come in, he must give a full account ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... daughter, Tudor, and not fear. [Goes out on the gallery. The guards are all driven in, skulk into corners Like rabbits to their holes. A gracious guard Truly; shame on them! they have shut ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... detain you a moment longer on statistics, and show that it has increased the value of property in every city that has had a park, by bringing houses all about the parks, and by detaining as inhabitants of the city, to be taxed in the city, those men who skulk in small towns to throw the burden of the expense of their own city on those who stay behind. [Applause.] All we want to do to-night is to say to the city government that we are in earnest about this matter, and that we want the work done ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... had to skulk here for hours, waiting for an opportunity to cross unseen," said I, on rejoining her, "but our gods above are victorious, and we share their victory. So now for the 'Ring of Bells.' There's a gate at the bottom of the hill. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... (deceive) 545. be concealed &c v.; suffer an eclipse; retire from sight, couch; hide oneself; lie hid, lie in perdu [Fr.], lie in close; lie in ambush (ambush) 530; seclude oneself &c 893; lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep^, play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark; cryptic, cryptical^; private, privy, in petto, auricular, clandestine, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Christians worshipped in the Catacomb, one man, no worse than the rest, though no less foolish, will have pointed to its mouth, and said, 'Obscene rites are practised in that darkness. The devotees of an execrable creed skulk there out of sight.' Not till the time was ripe, did lightning split the face of the rock, and lay ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... commonwealth for U. S. Grant as President, in 1872. In the chief city of this State the first Federal Congress met, and on the first day of its first session spent the entire time in discussing the slavery question. Through the streets of this same city Mr. Douglass had to skulk and hide from slave-catchers on his way from the hell of slavery, to the land of freedom. In this city, a few years later, he was hounded by a pro-slavery mob,—but at last he represented the popular will of its noblest citizens when they had chosen him to act for ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... soul abhors, Whose outward words his secret thoughts belie, Hear then what seems to me the wisest course. On me nor Agamemnon, Atreus' son, Nor others shall prevail, since nought is gain'd By toil unceasing in the battle field. Who nobly fight, but share with those who skulk; Like honours gain the coward and the brave; Alike the idlers and the active die: And nought it profits me, though day by day In constant toil I set my life at stake; But as a bird, though ill she fare herself, Brings to her callow brood the food she takes, So I through many a ...
— The Iliad • Homer |
