"Breast-high" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky. Hark! The brave North-easter! Breast-high lies the scent, On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent. Chime, ye dappled darlings, Through the sleet and snow. Who can over-ride you? Let the horses go! Chime, ye dappled darlings, Down the roaring blast; You shall see a ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... between Loch Arkaig, Loch Lochy, and Loch Garry. They travelled chiefly by night; the season was very wet, and the rivers were in flood, and they had to cross the River Garry Highland fashion in a line, with each man's arm on his neighbour's shoulder, for the water was running breast-high. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the skipper pulled the narrow door open to its full extent. The water inside swirled out to fill the eddy made by the opening of the door; and then, slow, terrible, wide-eyed, floating breast-high in the flood, a woman drifted out of the narrow room into the midst of the expectant men. Death had not been able to hide the agony in her staring eyes, or dull the lines of horror in her waxen, contorted face. She ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... Yet there was, thank God, no speech, no touch, no movement, other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against my cheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. There was no audible or visible expression; I saw no figure breast-high in the bracken. Yet sound there was, a moment later. For, as I turned away, a bird upon a larch twig overhead burst into ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... ground only the heads of passengers were visible above the pile. Had the coach capsized we would have been in a nice fix, as the only means of exit was by crawling up through the back of the box-seat, which rose breast-high—an awkward feat. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... he fairly seized his exhausted foe by the neck, and notwithstanding his struggles, and the violent flapping of his long unwounded wing, began to draw him towards the shore. We hurried to meet and help him. Jezebel was the first that dashed breast-high into the water; and seizing a pinion in her strong jaws, she soon drew both the swan and Fig, who would have died rather than let go, through the yielding ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... manner as to support one another against the rapidity of the river, leaving sufficient intervals between their ranks for the passage of the water. "We were nearly a hundred men a-breast," writes Lord George Murray;[157] "and it was a very fine show. The water was big, and most of the men breast-high. When I was near across the river, I believe there were two thousand men in the water at once: there was nothing seen but their heads and shoulders; but there was no danger, for we had crossed many waters, and the ford was good; and Highlanders will pass a water where horses will not, which ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... came over to the squad ship, because Sergeant Madden loathed spacesuits and there was no air on Sirene VIII. Patrolman Willis watched as the skipper came wading through the lacy, breast-high gas-frost. It seemed a pity for such infinitely delicate and beautiful objects to be ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... my back to them for a moment. Through the breast-high oval I could see down across the deck-space and out through the side dome windows. And my heart suddenly leaped into my throat. It seemed that down there in the Earthlit shadows, where the spreading base of the giant crater joined the plains, a light was bobbing. I ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... subsequent addition of Archbishop Odo, c. 950, the church having been thus turned from west to east, as at the already-described basilica of S. Lorenzo at Rome. The choir, as at S. Clemente's, occupied the eastern part of the nave, and like it was probably enclosed by breast-high partitions. There were attached porches to the north and south of the nave. The main entrance of the church was through that to the south. At this suthdure, according to Eadmer, "all disputes from the whole kingdom, which could not legally be referred to the king's court, or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... gingerly down this rocky descent! So! Here we are on the floor of the vasty deep! What a glorious race-course! The polished and printless sand spreads away before you as far as the eye can see, the surf comes in below breast-high ere it breaks and the white fringe of the sliding wave shoots up the beach, but leaves room for the marching of a Persian phalanx on the sands it has deserted. O, how noiselessly runs the wheel, and how dreamily we glide along, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... in any direction. The leading troopers reached the edge almost as the bear tumbled in. One of them, a tall and powerful man named Miller, instantly dismounted and prepared to force his way in among the dwarfed willows, which were but breast-high. Among the men who had ridden up were Moore and Bates, and also the two famous scouts, Buffalo Bill—long a companion of Captain Moore,—and California Joe, Custer's faithful follower. California Joe had spent ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... travelling to Ireland. It is a road cut out of the side of the rock, seven feet wide; the sea lies perpendicularly down, about forty fathoms on one side, and the mountain is about the same height above it on the other side. It looks dismal, but not at all dangerous, for there is now a wall breast-high along the precipice. However, there is an ale- house at the bottom of the hill on the other side, with this inscription, "Now your fright is over, take a dram." From hence I proceeded to a little town called Bangor, where ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... dark eyes, brilliantly soft, and fierily tender, encountered and held his own. The most fearful heart and the boldest one in all the Rio Bravo country exchanged a silent and inscrutable communication. Alvarita, still seated within her vine, leaned forward above the breast-high chaparral. One hand was laid across her bosom. One great dark braid curved forward over her shoulder. Her lips were parted; her face was lit with what seemed but wonder—great and absolute wonder. Her eyes lingered upon Buckley's. Let no one ask or presume to tell ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... an hour this supreme struggle with the most terrible of elements lasted. The fugitives could not tell how far they had gone, but, judging by the speed, the distance must have been considerable. The poor horses, however, were breast-high in water now, and could only advance with extreme difficulty. Glenarvan and Paganel, and, indeed, the whole party, gave themselves up for lost, as the horses were fast getting out of their depth, and six feet of water would be enough ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... on Salazar's door and called his name. Then he turned and ran to the corner, dodged round it, and crept along the breast-high adobe wall. He whistled again. A rope snapped, and there came the sound of quick trampling. A rush and the great, tawny shape of Dexter reared in the moonlight and swept over the wall. With head up, the horse snorted a challenge. Waring called softly. The horse wheeled toward him. Waring ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it does the Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the people alive who have made inventions that won't act, and all the jobbers who job in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as the Alligators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always lying by to drag ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... along the row of buildings a fire was opened on the bunk house. Apparently one man was detailed to search out a certain crevice between the logs. Harris threw himself flat against the lower log which barely shielded him. One rifleman covered a crack breast-high, another the one next below, drilling it at six-inch intervals. Shreds of 'dobe chinking littered the room. The balls which found an entrance splintered through the bunks and buried themselves in the logs of the far wall. A third marksman worked on the lower crack. ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... he shouted to his wife, who came in to meet him. "The best run o' the year, lass! Thirty miles before he earthed, the dogs running breast-high every yard of it, and the very devil of a dig-out! There was only me and parson and young Bob Eld o' Seighford in at the death. Dinner, dinner, my lass! I could eat the side of a house. Hallo, damme! What art doing ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the office. Bannon stepped into the doorway, and, with a suppressed word of impatience, stood looking at the scene within. The desk that Peterson had supplied for the use of his clerk was breast-high from the floor, built against the wall, with a high stool before it. The wall lamp had been taken down; now it stood with its reflector on the top of the desk, which was covered with books and papers. A girl was sitting on the stool, bending over a ledger and ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... king the goddesses beheld And danced around him joyously, and lo, Cymodocea, who in speech excelled, Clings to the stern; breast-high the nymph doth show; Her left hand oars the placid deep below. Then, "Watchest thou, AEneas, child divine? Watch on," she cries, "and let the canvas go. Behold us, sea-nymphs, once a grove of pine On Ida's sacred crest, the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... the pass the snow lay very deep, and we followed the course of a small stream which cut through it, the walls of snow being breast-high on each side; the path was still frequented by yaks, of which we overtook a small party going to Tibet, laden with planks. All the party appeared alike overcome by lassitude, shortness and difficulty of breathing, a sense ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... the damage had been done, and the bridge was already impassable. After a futile attempt to repair it, in which much time was lost, the indefatigable earl sent his troops through the icy water of the turbulent stream, which rose breast-high upon the eager men, and the hasty pursuit was once more resumed. A mile or so beyond the bridge the whole army was brought to a stand by a sudden discharge from a heavy gun, which did some execution; it was mounted in a breastwork ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own executioner—should commit unintentional suicide, if we ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... flails and the tail was up. Hobson pulled up to look at him for a minute. I got down and went to the wall, knowing that it afforded perfect security. Black Jack came up slowly, as if he meant no mischief. I leant over the wall, which was breast-high, and poked fun at him. In an instant, like a flash of light, he came at me. I saw his great claw over my head, and almost before I could jump back, a couple of heavy stones were driven violently off the top of the wall. To bolt and jump into the cart was almost an involuntary and instantaneous ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... this method to the photography of wild animals by night in the forests of tropical Africa, and has published an interesting book giving his photographic results. In order to take these pictures the track followed by certain animals has to be detected, and then a thread is stretched "breast-high" across the track, so that the animal coming along it by night shall pull the thread. Immediately the thread is pulled it sets an electric contact in action. There is a brief flash of one two-thousandth of a second, and a picture is taken by a camera ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... greenly as ever Those isles of the siren, your Galli; No ages can sever 200 The Three, nor enable their sister To join them,—halfway On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses— No farther to-day, Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave, Watches breast-high and steady From under the rock, her bold sister Swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... and here and there on the hill-sides there was a clump of wood. The whole scene, in spite of its green colour, had rather a desolate aspect. The sight of so much fern impresses the mind with an idea of sterility: this, however, is not correct; for wherever the fern grows thick and breast-high, the land by tillage becomes productive. Some of the residents think that all this extensive open country originally was covered with forests, and that it has been cleared by fire. It is said, that by digging in the barest spots, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... grasped his wrists. A white-haired man appeared on the other side of the parapet. He took a good, solid grip, and heaved. He drew Hoddan over the breast-high top of the wall and let him down to the ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... of high stubble field; A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines; A wagon moving in a "cloud by day." Two city sportsmen with a dove between, Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep— A solitary dove, the only dove In twenty counties, and it sick, or else It were not there. Two guns that fire as one, With thunder simultaneous and loud; Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone! And later, in the gloaming, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... his hand, but retained his guest's, saying, "We are a sort of cousins, I believe, and ought to have been acquainted before, but you know perhaps my wretched state," though what that was nobody exactly did know, particularly as Lord Montfort was sometimes seen wading in streams breast-high while throwing his skilful line over the rushing waters. "I remember your grandfather," he said, "and with good cause. He pouched me at Harrow, and it was the largest pouch I ever had. One does not forget the first time one had a ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... the mate ordered us in from fear of our being washed off. The anchors were then to be taken up on the rail, which kept all hands on the forecastle for an hour, though every now and then the seas broke over it, washing the rigging off to leeward, filling the lee scuppers breast-high, and washing ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... had come forward after throwing the last pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank stretching breast-high between them. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the centre of the island, which rose from the soil about breast-high, and appeared to have been split asunder, with an incalculably aged and moss-grown fissure, the surfaces of which, however, precisely suited each other; Mr. Hatch mentioned that there was an idea among the people, with regard to rocks ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shielded with bars of wrought-iron standing vertically. That is the "reja." None of them have either sash or glass. The gateway is closed by a heavy wooden door, strongly clasped and bolted with iron. This front wall is but one storey high, but its top is continued so as to form a parapet, breast-high above the roof, and this gives it a loftier appearance. The roof being flat behind, the parapet is not visible from below. Look around the corner at either end of this front wall. You will see no gable—there ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... the other side of the street, twenty paces farther down, at the entrance of the square. The little cemetery that surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast-high, is so full of graves that the old stones, level with the ground, form a continuous pavement, on which the grass of itself has marked out regular green squares. The church was rebuilt during the last years of the reign of Charles X. The wooden roof is beginning to rot from the top, and here ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... whole country at their command since the victory of Chuquinca; besides which their negro soldiers brought in provisions daily from the surrounding country. The royal army encamped at no great distance in an open plain, fortifying the camp with an intrenchment breast-high all round, which was soon executed by means of the great numbers of Indians who attended to carry the baggage and artillery. Giron established a battery of cannon on the top of a rising ground so near the royal camp that the balls ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... wall stands the fireplace, as monumental in size as at my grandmother's. Its arched cornice occupies the whole width of the room, for the enormous redoubt fulfils more than one purpose. In the middle is the hearth, but, on the right and left, are two breast-high recesses, half wood and half stone. Each of them is a bed, with a mattress stuffed with chaff of winnowed corn. Two sliding planks serve as shutters and close the chest if the sleeper would be alone. This dormitory, sheltered under the chimney ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... away. Imagine a stream seventy yards broad divided by a pebbly island, running over seductive "riffles" and swirling into deep, quiet pools, where the good salmon goes to smoke his pipe after meals. Get such a stream amid fields of breast-high crops surrounded by hills of pines, throw in where you please quiet water, long-fenced meadows, and a hundred-foot bluff just to keep the scenery from growing too monotonous, and you will get some faint notion of the Clackamas. The weir ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... standing breast-high in the bracken. The garden had been empty; somebody now walked ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... the pack by not fifty yards, when I saw him cut across a field to the left, while the hounds tumbled into a little boreen that runs up from the railway-station and went streaking down it singing out as if they were on a breast-high scent and in view. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... him unsought—the sweet, dark face with the expression of slight melancholy that it wore in repose, as he loved it best. It was with him when, stiff and tired, he emerged from his seclusion, and walked home through the trails of mist that hung, breast-high, on the meadow-land. It was with him under the street-lamps, and, to its accompanying presence, the strong conviction grew in him that evasion on his part was no longer possible. Sooner or later, come what ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the end of the house. There no less than sixteen bodies were found, while around the door and windows were thirteen others. All these were dead. The guns having been discharged through loopholes breast-high, had taken effect upon ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... my Father worked, in his most desperate escapades, was to wade breast-high into one of the huge pools, and examine the worm-eaten surface of the rock above and below the brim. In such remote places—spots where I could never venture being left, a slightly timorous Andromeda, chained to a safer level of the cliff—in these extreme basins, there used often to lurk a marvellous ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... a few breast-high bushes and crawled into their thin shade and lay down; before him he spread out the Quigley storekeeper's map. This he studied with thoughtful eyes. The storekeeper had said it would be no trick at all for ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the sash-window to the corner of the room and then returned. When he came to the first window in his return (the bottom of which was nearly breast-high), he rested his elbow on the bottom of the window, and the side of his face upon the palm of his hand, and stood in that leaning posture for some time, with his side partly towards her. She looked at him earnestly to see if ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... me to take my place in the stable where the lessons are given. It is a small room, empty and bare, with peat-moss litter bedding and white-washed walls. The horse is separated from the people present by breast-high wooden partitions. Opposite the four-legged scholar is a black-board, nailed to the wall; and on one side a corn-bin which forms a seat for the spectators. Muhamed is led in. Krall, who is a little nervous, makes no secret of his uneasiness. His horses are fickle animals, uncertain, ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... cries often broke the silence of her solitude—cries of frenzied revolt, wordless curses. Once she rose up suddenly, passed through the middle room, and out on to the staircase; there a gap in the wall, guarded by iron railings breast-high, looked down upon the courtyard. She leaned forward over the bar and measured the distance that separated her from the ground; a ghastly height! Surely one would not feel much after such a fall? In any case, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... two tall posts. Hugh John and Maid Margaret, the attacking party, were still invisible, probably concocting a plan. But Sweetheart and Sir Toady, laughing and jesting as at some supreme stratagem, were busily employed throwing up the snow till it was nearly breast-high. The formation of the ground was in their favour. It fell away rapidly on all sides, except to the north, where the position was made impregnable ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... water, and in time, for a small avalanche of cakes rattled down upon the place he had just left. The rising water had forced the ice up till it stood breast-high above the island ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... Phellions had long had their eye, cost them eighteen thousand francs in 1831. The house was separated from the courtyard by a balustrade with a base of freestone and a coping of tiles; this little wall, which was breast-high, was lined with a hedge of Bengal roses, in the middle of which opened a wooden gate opposite and leading to the large gates on the street. Those who know the cul-de-sac of the Feuillantines, will understand that the Phellion house, standing at right angles to the street, had a southern exposure, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... course I had pursued, for in fact it flows W.S.W. in another great bend, and they had gone far to the north without seeing it, but the country was exceedingly difficult from forest and water. As I had already seen, trees fallen across the path formed a breast-high wall which had to be climbed over: flooded rivers, breast and neck deep, had to be crossed, the mud was awful, and nothing but villages eight ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... a shoulder of a steep hill-top, three shots cracked out from in front of us to left and right. Nobody fell, but if ever there was instantaneous response it happened then. Anazeh and his four galloped forward up-hill, firing as they rode for the cover of a breast-high ridge. One man on the off-side tipped me out of the saddle, so suddenly that I had no chance to prevent him; another caught me, and two others flung me into a hole behind a stone. I heard the rear-guard scatter and run. Two men pitched Ahmed ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... over the greater part of the Southern hardwood bottom land forest reproduction is very poor. The growth of red gum during the early part of its life, and up to the time it reaches a diameter of eight inches breast-high, is extremely rapid, and, like most of the intolerant species, it attains its height growth at an early period. Gum sprouts readily from the stump, and the sprouts surpass the seedlings in rate of height growth for the first few years, but they seldom form large ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... a frail defence against the mighty arms and tremendous claws of a furiously hungry tiger; and after the first shock he crept cautiously to the hiding-place of one of the spears and drew it out, to plant the butt against one retired foot and hold it with the keen blade about breast-high in the direction of the bamboo uprights and palm lath slats that were woven ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... work, breast-high and where the lamplight fell, on the wall of the drain nearest the Treasury, and with the point of the pinch-bar began taking out the bricks. Our cracksman worked slowly and surely, laying the bricks in the bottom of the drain ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... find it worth visiting at least twice a year: in spring when the Poet's Narcissus flowers in great clumps under the north hedge, and the columbines grow breast-high—pink, blue, and blood-red; and again in autumn, for the sake of an apple which we call the gillyflower—small and shy, but of incomparable flavour—and for a gentle melancholy which haunts the spot like—yes, like a human ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... about the room, peering curiously at its rather primitive fittings. Around three sides extended a breast-high shelf, carved and cut by many a jack-knife, and beneath it a narrower one where books and slates were stowed. In front were rows of backless benches for seats, and in the centre of the room an open stove shaped like a fireplace. Around this were three long, low seats ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... from his wave, Out leaned, chin hand-propped, pensive on the ledge, A sea-worn face, sad as mortality, Divine with yearning after fellowship. He rose but breast-high. So much god she saw; So much she sees now, and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... the blast is raving and the wild tide races, The Blue Men ere breast-high with foam-grey faces; They'll plunge along with fury while they sweep the spray behind, O, they'll bellow o'er the billows and wail ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... consequently has a close affinity to the dresser. Few articles of furniture, while preserving their original purpose, have varied more widely in form. In the beginning the buffet was a tiny apartment, or recess, little larger than a cupboard, separated from the room which it served either by a breast-high balustrade or by pillars. It developed into a definite piece of furniture, varying from simplicity to splendour, but always provided with one or more flat spaces, or broad shelves, for the reception of such necessaries of the dining-room as were not placed upon the table. The early ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... and they were too strong to be pillaged by any petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjari encampment will be convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks, make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Turk, Jamshid Khan, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Charans of Murlah, recording their exemption from dind contributions, and that there should be no increase ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... palpably the marks of violence and bloodshed. There was an open space in front, where the shattered fragments of the engine lay scattered; and here the rails had been torn up by violence, and there stretched across, breast-high, a rudely piled rampart of stone. A human skeleton lay atop, whitened by the winds; there was a broken pike beside it; and, stuck fast in the naked skull, which had rolled to the bottom of the rampart, the rusty fragment of a sword. The space behind resembled ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... running him now on a breast-high scent, But he leaves us standing still; When we swing round by Westland Pound He's far up Challacombe Hill. The pack are a string of struggling ants, The quarry's a dancing midge, They're trying their reins on the edge of the Chains While ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... circumstance had opened up a stimulating line of thought. See the foxhound with hanging ears and drooping tail as it lolls about the kennels, and compare it with the same hound as, with gleaming eyes and straining muscles, it runs upon a breast-high scent—such was the change in Holmes since the morning. He was a different man from the limp and lounging figure in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown who had prowled so restlessly only a few hours before round ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... coloring of the border, corresponding with the furniture and carpets, will make them seem prettier. And now for arrangement. Take this front-room. I propose to fill those two recesses each side of the fireplace with my books, in their plain pine cases, just breast-high from the floor: they are stained a good dark color, and nobody need stick a pin in them to find out that they are not rosewood. The top of these shelves on either side to be covered with the same stuff as the furniture, finished with a crimson fringe. On top of the shelves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... have now forgot the other particulars.) He walked down by the sash window to the corner of the room, and then returned. When he came at the first window in his return (the bottom of which was nearly breast-high) he rested his elbow on the bottom of the window, and the side of his face upon the palm of his hand, and stood in that leaning posture for some time, with his side partly towards her. She looked at him earnestly to see if she knew him, but though, from her frequent intercourse with ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... washed overboard and plunged into the boiling, seething waves which thundered about them. Stevens made a bold push, however, and reached the capstan. Here he could survey the wreck, and he saw that the water was nearly breast-high on the quarter-deck ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Fidenae, it was better. We had a travesty of the taking of Troy, which was eminently ludicrous, and which deserves a better description than I can give. Troy was a space inclosed within paper barriers, about breast-high, painted "to present a wall," and within these were the Trojans, clad in red, and all wearing gigantic paper helmets. There was old Priam, in spectacles, with his crown and robes,—Laocooen, in white, with a white wool beard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... always smiling—the child playing with his beard as she stood on the seat breast-high with himself—still holding that small burning hand in his, Leam not resisting, then said in Spanish, "My soul! have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... red and honey-sweet, In summer billowed like a crimson sea Across the meadow lands. One day, I stood Breast-high amidst its waves, and heard the hum Of myriad bees, that had gone mad like me With fragrance and with beauty. Over us, A loving sun smiled from a cloudless sky, While a bold breeze kissed lightly as it passed, Clover ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the others, Jack; but I doubt if they will be in time. Water will be breast-high before they get up, and they may drop anchor down at the mouth of the Ray, and not see us. Our best chance ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... had learned how enervating were reminiscences of home; he resolutely put away the remembrance from him now, and walked on to chop the blaze on the next tree. Breast-high the mark was cut, and at one blaze another could always ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... fours was thus reduced to single file; men, guns, and waggons were huddled in confusion on the river banks; and the officers present neglected to secure the footway, and refused, despite the order of Major Dabney, to force their men through the breast-high ford. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson |
