"Slouching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, "Jimmy"—Medland was forty-one years of age, once an engineer, now a politician, by profession, a tall, loose-limbed, slouching man, with stiff black hair and a shaven face. His features were large and had been clear-cut, but by now they had grown coarser, and his deep-set eyes, under heavy lids and bushy eyebrows, alone survived unimpaired by time and ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... will warrant that little slouching cur is not he. Hereward must be half as big again, if it be true that he can kill a man with one blow of ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... was he whose back ached with the jerkin {240} His sire was wont to do forest-work in; Blesseder he who nobly sunk "ohs" And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose; What signified hats if they had no rims on, Each slouching before and behind like the scallop, And able to serve at sea for a shallop, Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson? So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on't, What with our Venerers, Prickers, and Verderers, Might hope for real hunters at length and not ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... I believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but wilfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its understanding. He was a broadshouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... (which she could convert into a madonna's by the simple trick of lifting them a trifle and showing a lower crescent of devotional white), the love of life and eagerness to enjoy that radiated from her thin admirably proportioned body, which, at this time, held in the limp slouching fashion of the hour, made her look rather small. In reality she was nearly as tall as her mother or the dignified Mrs. Abbott, who rejoiced in every inch of her five feet eight, and retained the free erect ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... not favourable to Robert. The fair proportions of the one brought out the irregular build of the other; the classical face made the plain one more homely, the erect bearing made the eye turn to the slouching carriage, and the readiness of address provoked comparison with the awkward diffidence of one disregarded at home. Bashfulness and depression had regained their hold of the elder lad almost as the younger one entered, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hanging about the stables, or cleanly housemaids on the broad verandas that in Greyport architecture dutifully gave upon the sea. Only once, as he entered the boundaries of Cliffwood Lodge, the famous seat of Renwyck Masterman, was he aware of suspicious scrutiny; but a slouching figure that vanished quickly in the lodge offered no opposition to his progress. Avoiding the pathway to the lodge, Islington kept along the rocks until, reaching a little promontory and rustic pavilion, he sat down and gazed ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... chair in his usual slouching manner with his big head sunk between his broad shoulders, his shifty, prominent eyes wandering restlessly from the face of his colleague to that ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... feed the pigs with the skim milk. It was rather hard work for her, but I never saw her equal for farm work—rough or smooth. And she used to manage to dress neat and look pretty all the time; not like some small settlers' daughters that I have seen, slouching about with a pair of Blucher boots on, no bonnet, a dirty frock, and a petticoat like a blanket rag—not bad-looking girls either—and their hair like a dry mop. No, Aileen was always neat and tidy, with a good pair of thick boots outside and a thin pair for the house when she'd done ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... he was just in time to meet Pete Warboys, who came slouching along with his hands as far down in his pockets as he could reach, his boots, two sizes too large, unlaced, and his dog close ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... crossed the Marysville and Farewell trail Racey's horse picked up a fortuitous stone. Racey dismounted. Mr. Saltoun, slouching comfortably back against his cantle, looked doubtfully down at Racey where he stood humped over, the horse's hoof between his knees, tapping with a knife handle at the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... of Pendle flung back his burning glance. Nature seemed to welter in a wide atmosphere of light, from which there was no escape. Panting and oppressed, the hounds lay basking by the wall, and the shaggy wolf-dog crept, with slouching gait and lolling tongue, from the glare into the shadow of some protecting buttress. The watchman sat beneath the low battlements, hardly able to direct his aching eyes towards the forest path below the hill. The monotony of this dull and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... bank; it lay diagonally downstream, with its stern some twenty feet from shore. Its occupant was sitting amidships, facing the bow. Mercer drew himself up until his eyes were above the stern of the boat and saw him plainly. He was slouching down as though dozing. His elbow was ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... completing the preparation of a prescription—was Philip Stukely, the apothecary's only assistant; while the other was one Colin Dunster, a pallid, raw-boned youth whose business it was to distribute the medicines to his master's customers. He was slouching now, outside the counter, beside a basket three-parts full of bottles, each neatly enwrapped in white paper and inscribed with the name and address of the customer to whom it was to be delivered in due course. Apparently ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... better repair; but the look which Noll caught of its interior, as he stood rapping by the open door, sufficed to destroy any anticipations of industry or thriftiness which he might have formed from the dwelling's exterior. Dirk was a great broad-shouldered, slouching fellow, with a general air of shiftlessness about him. At Noll's summons, he came lounging out of an inner room, and, catching ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... fastened her stolid gaze upon the pot. For a time there was absolute silence in the garret, a ray of cold winter sunshine, cold but bright (for this was Paris), streamed in through the little window in the roof, and fell on Perine's slouching figure and coarse hair. Less than five minutes, however, had passed, when the chintz curtains of the alcove shook, parted, and from between them looked out a pale and haggard ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... back into the woods, in a direction at right angles to the brook. To uninitiated eyes there was no trail; but to Jabe, and to the Boy no less, the path was like a trodden highway. The pace set by the backwoodsman, with his long, slouching, loose-jointed, flat-footed stride, was a stiff one, but the Boy, who was lean and hard, and used his feet straight-toed like an Indian, had no fault to find with it. Neither spoke a word, as they swung along single file through ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... maidenhood—a white mantilla—followed invariably at a distance by respectful admirers who never presumed to walk beside them; wives whom marriage had forced to exchange the white shawl for the black, escorted by their husbands; huge, slouching Jamaican negroes of both sexes; silent-footed, stately Barbadians who gave a touch of savagery to the procession. Some of the women wore giant firebugs, whose glowing eyes lent a ghostly radiance to hair or lace, at once weird and beautiful. Round and round the ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... here," commanded Tessibel, beckoning to the slouching squatter across the way. The man with the basket ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... distance some one was whistling a doleful tune. The spring wind blowing in their faces was fresh and moist, a soft wind laden with the smell of earth. A clumsy hound came slouching around the corner of the little porch and, wagging his tail, stopped below them; the light shone down into his big, glistening eyes. Viola spoke to him softly. He ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... string, With neck in rope and tail in knot,— Rough colts, with careless country-swing, In lazy walk or slouching trot. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... whom the boys had heard, came slouching along through the dark alley and stumbled over ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... bull, Sick in soul and body both, Slouching in the undergrowth Of the forest beautiful, Banished from the herd he led, Bulls and cows a ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... o'clock. Reims seems to be in bed and fast asleep, except for the presence in the streets of a very few persons, official and unofficial, of whom the former are evidently on the alert as to the movements, slouching and uncertain, of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... them, in which the polyglot traders bought and sold. Here were grave Armenians, scampish Greeks from the Levant, wild-eyed Bedouins, Tartars from Asia Minor, evil-visaged Italians, scowling Spaniards, hoarse-voiced, slouching Whitechapel ruffians, with a well-developed talent ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... the wagoner Is slouching slowly at his ease, Half-hidden in the windless blur Of white dust puffing to his knees. This wagon on the height above, From sky to sky on either hand, Is the sole thing that seems to move In all ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... half believed that his own mouth was open when the girl called to him. What had happened was most startlingly unexpected, and what he stared at now was a wondrous sight! Tara travelled with the rolling, slouching gait typical of the wide-quartered grizzly, and the girl was a sinuous part of him—by all odds the most wonderful thing in the world to David at this moment. Her hair streamed down her back in a cascade of sunlit glory. She flung back her head, and he thought of a wonderful ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... step sounded outside, and an elderly man, tall, slouching, carelessly dressed, entered, stumbling a little over the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... living in Europe a quarter of a million years ago. Other specimens were afterwards found elsewhere, e.g. in Belgium ("the men of Spy"), in France, in Croatia, and at Gibraltar, so that a good deal is known of Neanderthal man. He was a loose-limbed fellow, short of stature and of slouching gait, but a skilful artificer, fashioning beautifully worked flints with a characteristic style. He used fire; he buried his dead reverently and furnished them with an outfit for a long journey; and he had a big brain. But he had great beetling, ape-like eyebrow ridges and massive jaws, ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... to the main road. He halted under a street-lamp to catch the eye of any passing taxi which might happen to be disengaged. A dirty faced man in a greasy old suit and a spotted handkerchief knotted about his throat came slouching along the pavement, keeping close to the wall. On catching sight of Desmond's face by the light of the lamp, he stopped irresolutely and then advanced ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... saw him standing in the cabin-scuttle, —his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... St.-Honore things were much quieter, though there were numbers of soldiers slouching about with their muskets pointing every which way. When we arrived at last in the Rue de Courcelles (it had taken us four hours) all was as ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... groups of slouching, slouch-hatted "Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... is by maintaining an erect posture. In an erect posture the abdominal muscles tend to remain taut and to afford proper support or pressure to the abdomen, including the great splanchnic circulation of large blood-vessels. In an habitual slouching posture, the blood of the abdomen tends to stagnate in the liver and the splanchnic circulation, causing a feeling of despondency and mental confusion, headache, coldness of the hands and feet, and chronic fatigue or ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... though the whole body looked rather imposing when together, yet individually they have by no means a military air or appearance. Their uniform is extremely mean and unbecoming: it consists of a fez cap, worn slouching over the eyes and ears; an ill-made jacket of coarse blue cloth, faced and turned up with red; coarse white Russia duck trousers, always exceedingly dirty; Wellington boots in the same condition, into one of which the right ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... front of the house. He was a big, burly, broad-shouldered, bearded ruffian, with a red shirt, and a slouching felt hat. A short pipe was in his mouth, stuck into the mass of hair which covered the lower part of his face. His hair was long, and dark, and glossy, and curling; falling in rich clusters below his broad felt hat. He had gaiters and stout shoes, and was engaged upon a rifle, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... can see by their walk and hear by their talk; rough, ready, and sturdy, though not so sturdy nor so square-built as your solid men of brave old Deal; but a long way better in appearance and character than the sponging, tip-seeking, loafing fraternity of slouching, lazy robbers who on the parades of Brighton, Hastings, and Eastbourne, and other fashionable seaside resorts in this country, lean against lamp-posts with "Licensed Boatman" writ on their hat-bands, and call themselves fishermen, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... stand too straight, your looks are too high, too confident. The cares of a kingdom do not stoop the shoulders, they do not droop the chin, they do not depress the high level of the eye-glance, they do not put doubt and fear in the heart and hang out the signs of them in slouching body and unsure step. It is the sordid cares of the lowly born that do these things. You must learn the trick; you must imitate the trademarks of poverty, misery, oppression, insult, and the other several and common inhumanities that sap the manliness out of a man and make him a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Why, the girls had Glenn and Aaron on the go until old man Nate and myself could hardly get them out on a hunt at all. And when they did, provided the girls were along, they managed to get separated, and along about dusk they'd come slouching in by pairs, looking as innocent as turtle-doves. Not that those Wilson girls can't ride, for I never saw a better horsewoman than Susie—the one who took such a ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... mon beau,"—and as she said it she could not but contrast his slouching bulk with the straight, well-knit figure of the other—"why should we not take in a lodger as all the rest do? Our two rooms ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... from his concealed position Jasper was ere long able to see the dim form of a man slouching cautiously along, keeping well to the side of the road where the trees and bushes were the thickest. He even brushed the hazel bushes in passing and Jasper held his breath lest he should be detected by his breathing. He was sure now ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... had seen but one or two of his fellow lodgers, slouching forms that passed him by in the gloom of the half-lighted hallways or on the creaky stairs. His landlady he saw but once a week—on Saturday, which was settlement day. She was a forlorn, gray creature, half blind, and she felt her way about gropingly. By the droop in her spine and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... he exclaimed. "Why do you mumble your words, and why do you stand in such a slouching manner. Remember that a ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... my jacket and the long folds of my poncho. Then I went back into the great square, and across it up the street in which we had our lodgings. As I passed the house I saw Djama standing in the archway leading into the courtyard, smoking a cigar. I turned and looked him in the face as I went by, slouching and trailing my sandalled feet after the fashion of the natives. He looked at me, but I saw no recognition in his eyes. Then as I walked on there came a ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... the whiskers?" asked the disrespectful Isadore, when the real estate man came down to the dock, with the constable slouching behind him. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... gone, and instantly that memory of something hitting the ground sprang up into consciousness. I went back and commenced a search. Almost immediately I was accosted by the leader of a little gang of four or five extremely dirty and ragged boys of assorted sizes and slouching carriage who were coming from ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... one; this is No petty, slouching, opposition scheme, To be bought off like honest men and fools; Mine eye prophetic pierces through the mists That cloud the future, and I seem to see A well-devised and executed scheme Of wholesale robbery within the law (Made by ourselves)—great, permanent, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... a dog—a discomfited, shameless, ownerless outcast of streets and byways, rather than an honest stray of some drover's train. It was so gaunt, so dusty, so greasy, so slouching, and so lazy! But as they looked at it more intently they saw that the grayish hair of its back had a bristly ridge, and there were great poisonous-looking dark blotches on its flanks, and that the slouch of its haunches was a peculiarity of its figure, and ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... reply, but all eyes were at once turned upon a tall slouching man, with a forbidding cast of countenance, who had hitherto kept ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... fowls and sending them to the hedges for refuge, and sometimes a yelping dog followed for a little while and then ran back to his kennel with bristling hair, turning round every now and then to send another bark after the carriage. A lad in muddy sabots, was slouching along with his hands in his pockets, his blouse blown out by the wind and his long lazy legs dragging one after the other, and as he stood on one side for the carriage to pass, he awkwardly pulled ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... eyes were searching the loft, Clancy nudged him with an elbow. Frank turned, and Clancy made signs and pointed. Looking in the direction indicated by Clancy's finger, Frank saw the slouching ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... door, over Colter's head, as if the forest out there was a refuge. She evidently sensed more about the man than appeared in his slow talk, in his slouching position. Her lips shut in a firm line, as if to hide their trembling and to still her passionate tongue. Jean, in his absorption, magnified his perceptions. Not yet was Ellen Jorth afraid of this man, but she ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of this street of misery and entered the town. The boys had forgotten their own troubles in the contemplation of the suffering of the unhappy creatures behind them. The guards who had been slouching along at a swinging gait now straightened up and assumed a more soldierly air. At a word of command from their fat commander they halted before a building which was more imposing in appearance than its neighbors, and looked to be a public edifice of some sort. They marched, with their prisoners still ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... heard her husband's steps coming softly towards the room where she was sitting. He opened the door gently, as if he expected to find her asleep, and was afraid of awakening her. He started when he saw her; and slouching his hat over his face, threw himself into a chair without speaking a single word. Something terrible has happened to him, surely! thought Ellen; and her hand trembled so that she could scarcely hold her needle, when she tried ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... had very imperfectly revealed the person of Jem Mace. Now that Mrs Butt saw him slouching in all his native hideousness against her mantelpiece in the full blaze of a paraffin lamp, she inwardly congratulated herself that Mr Brooke was such a big strong man—almost a match, she thought, ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... flabby, the muscles limp and lacking healthy firmness. In cases where the habit has become confirmed, and where the system has been drained of this vital force, it is seen in positive ugliness, in a pale and cadaverous appearance, slovenly gait, slouching walk, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... and rough-haired, one of them carroty red, the other brindle and white, were slouching inertly along the narrow backwoods road. From habit they sagged heavily on the yoke, and groaned huge windy sighs, although the vehicle they were hauling held no load. This structure, the mere skeleton of a cart, consisted of two pairs of clumsy, broad-tired wheels, united by a long tongue ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... stood one of her daughter. Mary Chivers was as tall and fair as her mother, but large-waisted, flat-chested and slightly slouching, as the altered fashion required. Mary Chivers's mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the twenty-inch waist that May Archer's azure sash so easily spanned. And the difference seemed symbolic; the mother's life had been as closely girt as her figure. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... this correct apparition. Brimmer nodded to them coolly, as if on 'Change, and made his way out of the theatre. He had scarcely taken a few steps before a furious onset of wind and rain drove him into a doorway for shelter. At the same moment a slouching figure, with a turned-up coat-collar, slipped past him and disappeared in a passage at his right. Partly hidden by his lowered umbrella, Mr. Brimmer himself escaped notice, but he instantly recognized his late companion, Markham. As he resumed his way up the street he glanced into the passage. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... And, slouching past along the platform, all huddled-up with hands in pockets, George beheld a ragged nondescript of a man whose appearance confirmed Master Jerry's previous ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... at him curiously. The slouching figure—well shaped as it was—the rough, knotted hands, the unkempt mass of hair about his head and face, marked him for what he was—a toiler on the sea as well as on the land. He understood my scrutiny, and colored under ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... your Waterloos, but the English peasant, trimmed and trained into the game-cock of war? How many of them have been carried off to man your fleets, to win your Camperdowns and Trafalgars? and when they came ashore again, were no longer the simple, slouching Simons of the village; but jolly tars, with rolling gait, quid in mouth, glazed hats, with crowns of one inch high, and brims of five wide, and with as much glib slang, and glib money to treat the girls with, as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... entered the room heavily, with a slouching and somewhat weary gait; but one little man, with a black beard and glasses—a man somewhat of the type of Mr. Tim Healy—detached himself, and bustled forward with some ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... very interesting to contrast, and note the difference between, the "Artist" whom du Maurier brings into his society scenes and the one of Keene's drawings. In Keene's case the "artist" is generally a slouching Bohemian creature who belongs to a world of his own, and bears the stamp of "stranger" upon him in any other. But the "artist" of du Maurier, putting aside the aesthete coterie, with whom we shall deal presently, ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... rose to meet him, and Fayles for the first time took his hands down. Tall and unnaturally thin, his sallow cheeks framed in lank, sandy hair, his eyes turned down, it was hard to realise that this almost slouching fellow held the attention of the shrewd in these matters as the certain head of them all, when the present great leader should have dropped his sceptre. But this was the Webb in whose labyrinthine meshes the cartoonists delighted to picture the unhappy ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... He was slouching along, his head drooping and his broad shoulders expressing the definite antipodes of good spirits. Betty studied his back as she strode after him, her conclusion being that he was perhaps not a good-humoured man to approach at any time, and that this was by ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with the proletarians had, in a great measure, bred indifference, hurried him away to Little Bourke Street, where the narrowness of the thoroughfare, with the high buildings on each side, the dim light of the sparsely scattered gas-lamps, and the few ragged-looking figures slouching along, formed a strong contrast to the brilliant and crowded scene they had just left. Turning off Little Bourke Street, the detective led the way down a dark lane. It was as hot as a furnace from the accumulated ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... forms. When the old Puritan saw a man going to the gallows, "There," he said, "but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford". When the rich man, entering his club, sees some wretched tatterdemalion, slouching on the pavement, there, he may say, goes Sir Gorgius Midas, but for—what? I am here and he there, he may say, because I was the son of a successful stock-jobber, and he the son of some deserted mother at the workhouse. That is the cause, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... that some straggler paddled by. Presently a woman in a brown Ulster shuffled off on some errand, then a man in shirt-sleeves poked out his head, holding the door half-open, and stared up at a window opposite. After a few minutes he slunk in again, and three loafers came slouching down the street, eager for mischief or beastliness of some sort. They chose a house that seemed rather smarter than the rest, and, irritated by the neat curtains, the little grass plot with its dwarf shrub, one of the ruffians drew out a piece of chalk and wrote some words on ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Peyton, hotly. "I do! She was thrown out of her buggy through your negligence and infernal laziness! The ponies ran away, and were stopped by a stranger who wasn't afraid of risking his bones, while you were limping around somewhere like a slouching, cowardly coyote." ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... of the slope across the gulch. As he heard Judith's bantering cry, Blatch pulled up his team with a muttered curse. He looked down at her through narrowed eyes, jerking his mules savagely and swearing at them in an undertone. He was a well-made fellow with a certain slouching grace about him as he sat on his load of corn; but there were evil promising bumps on either side of his jaws that spoke of obstinacy, even of ferocity; and there was something menacing in his surly passivity of attitude. He looked at the girl and his ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... came down to the depot at Ogden. The overland of the Union Pacific was pulling east, and I was bent on making connections. Out in the tangle of tracks ahead of the engine I encountered a figure slouching through the gloom. It was the Swede. We shook hands like long-lost brothers, and discovered that our hands were gloved. "Where'd ye glahm 'em?" I asked. "Out of an engine-cab," he answered; "and where did you?" "They belonged to a fireman," said I; ...
— The Road • Jack London
... whose house I roomed, on the subject of compulsory military training for boys. He often pointed out a stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested boy who lived on the same street, and told me that if this boy had lived in Germany he would have walked straighter and developed a chest, instead of slouching through life the way he was doing. He and his wife and the grown-up daughter were devoted to their country, and often told us of how well the working-people were housed in Germany and the affairs ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... hands, and to acquire an unaccountable fascination from his connection with it. His attenuated figure, the habit of loneliness which imparted such severe and inflexible gravity to his features, his very dress, loose, careless, and slouching, all helped to give a peculiar force to his words. Had the Wandering Jew suddenly appeared before us, and mentioned the name of the dwarf, I could not have been more astonished. My steward was ignorant of my acquaintance with him, and Forrester had left England before it began. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... The heavy, slouching figure of the assistant went by to take up his master's place in the waterside house, and the beggar wasted no time in glancing after him. He knew his destination, and had no need to trouble about the ungainly, walloping creature, who kicked him as he passed. It was fresh, out in the street, ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Suppose this slouching, scowling monster did know anything? For a minute or two then Raut was really afraid for his life, but the mood passed as he reasoned with himself. After all, Horrocks might have heard nothing. At any rate, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... this point the old trapper came slouching up on his snowshoes, a twinkle of elation in his shrewd, ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... a workman of Joe's named Orlick. He was a loose-limbed, swarthy, slouching giant with a hangdog look. He used to tell Pip that the devil lived in a certain corner of the forge, and once in every seven years the fire had to be rekindled with a live boy. Orlick at heart disliked everybody—especially harmless little Pip—and often quarreled ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... were cheating the king. No amount of logic could ever persuade the small farmer that smuggling was in any way immoral, so the coastguard had to combat the cunning of the bold sailors who ran across from Cherbourg, and the still greater cunning of the slouching fellows who signalled his movements from the shore. This was his training, and when the time came for smuggling to be given over entirely to merchant seamen instead of being carried on by desperadoes, the change left ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... that though my grandfather was gone, his example and his wishes still inspired me. And though I was not a studious cadet, I was a smart soldier, and my demerits, when they came, were for smoking in my room or for breaking some other such silly rule, and never for slouching through the manual or coming on parade with my belts twisted. And at the end of the second year I had been promoted from corporal to be a cadet first sergeant, so that I was fourth in command over a company of seventy. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... jail, was always in their mouths. They had precisely the same incapacity for settling down to anything, as the prisoners used to have; they rather deteriorated one another, as the prisoners used to do; and they wore untidy dresses, and fell into a slouching way of life: still, always like the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... is at once casual and secret. Our public life is conducted privately. Hence it follows that if an English swindler wished to impress us, the last thing he would think of doing would be to put on a uniform. He would put on a polite slouching air and a careless, expensive suit of clothes; he would stroll up to the Mayor, be so awfully sorry to disturb him, find he had forgotten his card-case, mention, as if he were ashamed of it, that he was the Duke of Mercia, and carry the whole thing through with the air of a man who could ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... slanted the tops of the fore-wheels towards each other at an alarming angle. The light, graceful dress and elegant parasol of the young girl, who occupied half of its single seat, looked ludicrously pronounced by the side of the slouching figure and grimy duster of the driver, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... the boys on horseback, to procure a fresh chaise and horses, and leaving the other behind to take care of the broken one, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle set manfully forward on the walk, first tying their shawls round their necks, and slouching down their hats to escape as much as possible from the deluge of rain, which after a slight cessation had again begun to pour ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... "for I saw you to-day accompany the old Scotsman to the Castle. And, by my body, that slouching dog there should be— Hillo! comrades," cried he, amazed at his discovery, "more ghosts! May I perish if there have not been sitting in this very room while we talked of him this same sour-faced, love-sick clown, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... getting the reputation of being popular with the students, and that would never do. "I don't wish to hear more of such rumors." Just then the remnants of the internals of a Ford, hung together with picture wire and painted white, whizzed around the corner. Two slouching, hard-working "studes" caught sight of Carl, reared up the car, and called, "Hi, Doc, come on in!" Then they beheld the Head of the Department, hastily pressed some lever, and went hurrying on. To the Head it was evidence first-hand. He shook his ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... three or four others went on with him toward the Ewold bungalow. They were halted on the way by Pete Leddy, Ropey Smith, and a dozen followers, who appeared from a side street and stopped across Jack's path, every one of them with a certain slouching aggressiveness and staring hard at him. Pete and Ropey still kept faith with their pledge to Jack in the arroyo. They were without guns, but their companions were armed in defiance of the local ordinance which had been established for ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... flinging himself at the Marquise d'Espard's feet, of entreating the Comte du Chatelet, Mme. de Bargeton, Mlle. des Touches, nay, that terrible dandy of a de Marsay. All his pride had gone with his strength. He would have enlisted as a common soldier at that moment for money. He walked on with a slouching, feverish gait known to all the unhappy, reached Camille Maupin's house, entered, careless of his disordered dress, and sent in a message. He entreated Mlle. des Touches to see him for ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... proclaimed them in tones of thunder. The next morning many of the witnesses and prisoners were brought before Clarissa. Thus there were Bach, the Bancals, the soldier Colard, Rose Feral, Missonier, and little Madeleine Bancal. Bousquier was ill. The sight of the crushed, slouching, phantom-like creatures, intimidated by a hundred torments, revengefully ready for any deed, disturbed her to the core, and gave her at the same time a feeling of indelible contamination. "Is she the one?" each of the unfortunates was asked—and with insolent indifference ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Stephen Kennedy overtook him, and saying he was going in his direction, walked alongside of him—to the pleasure of Donal, who loved all humanity, and especially the portion of it acquainted with hard work. He was a middle-sized young fellow, with a slouching walk, but a well shaped and well set head, and a not uncomely countenance. He was brown as sun and salt sea-winds could make him, and had very blue eyes and dark hair, telling of Norwegian ancestry. He lounged along with his hands in his pockets, as if he did not care to walk, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... and education never took kindly to each other. From nearly all quarters the testimony is to this effect,—that he was an indolent, dreamy, frolicsome creature, with a mortal enmity to books, supplemented by a passionate regard for fishing-rods and shot-guns; disorderly in dress, slouching, vagrant, unambitious; a roamer in woods, a loiterer on river-banks; having more tastes and aspirations in common with trappers and frontiersmen than with the toilers of civilized life; giving no hint nor token, by word or act, of the possession of any intellectual gift ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... die into obscurity by itself, Long Robin made for the opening in the wall which led to the outer cave, and Cuthbert rose swiftly and silently and crept after him, gaining the opening in time to see the tall figure slouching across the moorland track in the direction of the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... see the man, the village poacher, slouching along under a hedge with the ever-faithful dog close ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... line with soldiers at each end, and every man, enlisted man and prisoner, is required to stand up straight and in line. It was at One of these times that Oliver claimed that Faye kicked him, when he was officer of the day. Faye and Major Tilford say that the man was slouching, and Faye told him to stand up and take his hands out of his pockets. A small thing to murder an officer for, but I imagine that any sort of discipline to a man of ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... door, they saw a rough-looking man slouching against the building, his hands in his pockets, his blear eyes taking in the new-comers with a look of contemptuous hostility. As they passed, he spat tobacco juice on the dog and across the feet ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sidle about, and act as if they were going to do something fearful the next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind another kind of horse,—a slouching, listless beast, with a strong slant to his shoulder; and a notable depth to his quarter and an emphatic angle at the hock, who commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an hour; but, if a lively colt happened to ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... earthquake. Sometimes in an outlying house a light in one erratic, unexpected window would give them a nameless hint of the hundred human secrets which they left behind them with their dust. Sometimes even a slouching rustic would be afoot on the road and would look after them, as after a flying phantom. But still MacIan stood up staring at earth and heaven; and still the door he had flung open flapped loose like a flag. Turnbull, after ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... two videttes in gray trot briskly from out a leafy woodland, side by side, and looking with keen eyes right and left; one, erect, boyish, bronzed; the other, slouching, bearded, huge—the boy, Daniel Dean; the man, Rebel Jerry Dillon, one of ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... to a stranger. He wore an old soft hat and rough blouse, his trousers being tucked into a pair of heavy, hobnailed boots that reached to his knees. He was tall and stooped slightly, but there was none of the slouching figure and gait that characterized those around him. His movements were quick, and, when standing motionless, there was something in his very pose that conveyed an impression of alertness and of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... hidden pathway at the foot of the hills the brigands came out singly, fourscore of them at least. Each man looked up at the plateau as he issued from the path, and the manner in which his eager steps gave way at once to an easier and more slouching gait showed plainly enough that the object of their coming had been attained, that no further hurry was necessary. Some went to the places where the fires had been, and kicked the ashes together; while others stacked their arms, and ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican rovers, mixed with loose Americans. There are few worse men on the face of the earth than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they seem almost always to be in that humor. Therefore, when I saw their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching boots, I feared that little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... was there for no good purpose, and during the moment that she waited for the boy to bring him into her room her mind formed a swift picture of an elderly fellow, slouching and shabby, red-nosed and unshaven, bearing all the marks of a parasitic ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... emperor—William, whom till that night she could not have imagined, had she imagined about such things at all, other than as sleeping in a high collar and with all his brass buttons snugly buttoned—William was coatless, and collarless, and slouching from his mouth was an ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... high seat of the wagon repaid the indifference of his surroundings with a like indifference. Unmoved by the forbidding grimness of the mountains, unthoughtful of their solemn warning, he took his place as much a part of the lonely scene as the hills themselves. Slouching easily in his seat he gave heed only to his team and to the road ahead. When he spoke to the mules his voice was a soft, good-natured drawl, as though he spoke from out a pleasing reverie, and though his words were often hard words they were carried to the animals on an under-current of ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... play a role. Not only must he search the island for the trace of his spy, but he must do it in such a fashion that his purpose would not be plain to the enemy he suspected. The wolverines could help. Shann arose, allowed his shoulders to droop, slouching to the slope with all the air of a beaten man which he could assume, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... shouldn't be round-shouldered, or have a slouching gait," said the instructor quietly; "but you will find when you come to march that the opposite extreme is attended with great inconvenience and discomfort. Until then you must depend ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... him of a commission. By means of the acquaintances he had made through his old mission class, he was able to secure enlistments rapidly, and although much of the material that he brought in was unpromising in its first appearance, he seemed to have the faculty of transforming the slouching dilapidated fellows into soldiers, and it passed into general remark that "Haldane's company was the roughest to start with and the best disciplined and most soldierly of them all when ordered to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... fire this time for sure, my man; and then little Richard Strauss will be asking for advice! What are you going to call the new symphonic poem, Pobloff? Oh, name it after me!" She shrieked down the passage way at a slouching maid, and ran out, leaving Pobloff jolly ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... fellow! Why didn't he set some village women on? Just see what they've done on my place! Hullo, here he is! Now I'm in for it!' For he saw a slouching man coming rapidly towards him from the farmyard, with the evident intention of waylaying him. The man's shabby, untidy dress and blotched complexion did not escape Sir Henry's quick eye. 'Seems to have been making a night of it,' was his ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... good-looking, almost she seemed to gleam. And Albert was a tiny bit afraid of her. She very rarely addressed Joe whilst the hay-loading was going on, and that young man always turned his back to her. He seemed thinner, and his limber figure looked more slouching. But still it had the tender, attractive appearance, especially from behind. His tanned face, a little thinned and darkened, took a ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... small consideration, my thought centring rather on the two riding in front, the Indian slouching carelessly in his saddle, his real shape scarcely discernible, while the lieutenant sat stiff and straight, with head erect, his slender figure plainly outlined against the sky-line. He alone of the four spoke an occasional word, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... chunk of coal and the slouching little bear, a touch of caution in each pretended careless action. Awful and more awful grew Grimalkin's ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... endeavoured to arrange and methodise my ideas upon the subject. From my youth I had possessed a considerable facility in the art of imitation; and when I quitted my retreat in the habitation of Mr. Raymond, I adopted, along with my beggar's attire, a peculiar slouching and clownish gait, to be used whenever there should appear the least chance of my being observed, together with an Irish brogue which I had had an opportunity of studying in my prison. Such are the miserable expedients, and so great the studied artifice, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... to whittle a piece of wood. He was a charming figure, slouching down in his chair, slim and graceful, his shapely golden head ruffled, his chin pressed against his chest. His expression was indescribably sweet and boyish, the shadow of anxiety and pain accentuating a wistful if determined cheerfulness. He was deliberately entertaining Bella, diverting her mind ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... her, and curiosity silenced the pleadings of fatigue. Hitching up her basket she proceeded in the wake of the young couple, who were walking slowly enough, the girl's bright head a little bent, the man slouching along by her side in apparent silence. All at once the observer saw Jenny's hand go to her pocket, and draw thence a handkerchief which ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... sell the new milk to the poor at cost price—say, five farthings the quart. You must not give it, or they will water their muckheaps with it. With those cows alone you will get rid, in the next generation, of the half-grown, slouching men, the hollow-eyed, narrow-chested, round-backed women, and the calfless boys one sees all over Islip, and restore the stalwart race that filled the little village under your sires and have left proofs of their wholesome food on the tombstones: for I have read every inscription, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... shouted scores of Riverport boys as the tall athlete came forward with his customary slouching gait, that seemed a part of his nature; though he could straighten up when he wanted, ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... wondering scornfully sometimes how he could ever have demeaned himself so far as to find excitement in the liquor or the company of the 'Cow.' Half-way down to the town, as he was passing the foundry, whence he had drawn the pan which had for so long made the smithy enchanted ground to him, the big slouching appprentice who had been his quondam friend and ally there, came out of the foundry yard just in front of him. David quickened ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pack of camp supplies on his broad back. He was tall, lean, leather-faced and long-jawed, with calm, light blue eyes under heavy brows; and he wore a stout, yellow-brown, homespun shirt, squirrel-skin cap, long leggings of deerhide, and oiled cowhide moccasins. He walked rapidly with a long, slouching stride that was almost a lope, his toes pointing straight ahead ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... this, he thought only of looking under each steel cap or tall, slouching hat for Jephthah. Several times a youthful, slender figure raised his hopes, and disappointed him, and he began to wonder whether Jeph could have after all stayed behind in the town, or if he could have been hurt ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... John was slouching round to the front of the car, anxious to get out of the sight and sound of her. He went with an uneven dropping movement of one ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... middle size, of slouching gait, and common-place appearance, redeemed by two fine dark eyes, which, melancholy in repose, gleamed and glowed whenever he became animated in conversation. He had warm affections, a tender, shrinking, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... seemed a trifle out of tune with her surroundings; the nice elevation of eyebrow, the slightly questioning curl of the lip as she, for the first time apparently, became aware of the man opposite, seemed to demand a prim drawing-room rather than the atmosphere of the slouching eating-house. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... for the moment was a curly-headed lad of twenty, with a shrewd, good-humored face. He stood in a slouching attitude, one shoulder much higher than the other, and as he gave forth, in a singsong voice, his emphatic rhymed directions, his fingers played idly with the red-silk lacings of his brown flannel shirt. To an imaginative looker-on those ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... caused Arthur Wardlaw considerable anxiety; for obvious reasons he did not want his father and this sailor to exchange a word together. However, that was inevitable now. The door opened; and the bronzed face and sturdy figure of Wylie, clad in a rough pea-jacket, came slouching in. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... shakings of his superb form, seemed at last to pull himself together. Having secured his belongings from out the pile of miscellaneous luggage thrown from the stage upon the platform, he advanced towards the slouching figure of a man just emerging from the baggage-room, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, his mouth stretched in a prodigious yawn, the arrival of the stage having evidently awakened him from ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... which stand on the edge of the savage wilderness we had before crossed. Here we were overtaken by a horseman; he was a powerful, middle-sized man, and was mounted on a noble Spanish horse. He had a broad, slouching sombrero on his head, and wore a jerkin of blue cloth, with large bosses of silver for buttons, and clasps of the same metal; he had breeches of yellow leather, and immense jackboots: at his saddle was slung a formidable gun. He inquired if I intended to pass the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... handling of the reins, prevented him from falling, and then rode up to the tent. ''Tis Nat,' said the man; 'what brings him here?' The new comer was a stout, burly fellow, about the middle age; he had a savage, determined look, and his face was nearly covered over with carbuncles; he wore a broad slouching hat, and was dressed in a grey coat, cut in a fashion which I afterwards learnt to be the genuine Newmarket cut, the skirts being exceedingly short; his waistcoat was of red plush, and he wore broad corduroy breeches and white top-boots. The steed which carried him was of iron grey, spirited ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow |
