"Beat about" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subject of home. I think I see the point of the whole thing. It isn't the place or the furniture that makes it home, but the love and peace that's in it. By and by our home isn't here any more. It has moved. Our minds begin to beat about in the undiscovered countries looking for it. Somehow we get it located—each ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... to do it, La Corriveau, and your reward shall be great!" answered Angelique with a burst of impatience. She could beat about the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... constables, will hold themselves warranted to interfere. In a word, return, my dear Amadis; the adventure of the Solway-nets is not reserved for your worship. Come back, and I will be your faithful Sancho Panza upon a more hopeful quest. We will beat about together, in search of this Urganda, the Unknown She of the Green Mantle, who can read this, the riddle of thy fate, better than wise Eppie of Buckhaven, [Well known in the Chap-Book, called the History of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... see that it's any good to beat about the bush," said the ship-keeper frankly. "That's just what I came here for. We could get a reward for turning the schooner over, and you could run her up as far as Fortress Monroe, ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... distresses. And while I was yet enjoying my abstracted humour, a turn of the beach brought me in view of the signal-station, with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched on the immediate margin of a cliff. The house was new and clean and bald, and stood naked to the Trades. The wind beat about it in loud squalls; the seaward windows rattled without mercy; the breach of the surf below contributed its increment of noise; and the fall of my foot in the narrow verandah passed unheard ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the old man, levelling a bony finger at him, "I think we can dispense with your services. I will give you credit for one thing: you are plain-spoken and above board. You want money and you don't beat about the bush. If you will instruct your office to send to me a bill for services, I will pay it. I engaged you, and I am ready to pay for my stupidity. My car will take you ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... acted this farce so well as Nuno, a man of some note, and well known to us when I was here in 1769. This man came, with all the savage fury imaginable in his countenance, and a large club in his hand, with which he beat about him, in order to shew us how he alone had killed the thief; when, at the same time, we all knew that he had not been out of ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Nina's father said, simply, "I'm a business man. I can't beat about the bush, and call things by pretty names. I want a favour of you, and I'm willing to pay for it. I telephoned you this morning that I wanted to see you on a matter of business. This is ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... some place where a boar is thought to lie, the first step is to bring up the pack, (11) which done, they will loose a single Laconian bitch, and keeping the rest in leash, beat about with this one hound. (12) As soon as she has got on the boar's track, let them follow in order, one after another, close on the tracking hound, who gives the lead to the whole company. (13) Even to ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... Tho' scarce accounted of. But when for me The mists of Acheron have striven up, And horror was shed round me; when my knees Relaxed, my tongue clave speechless, they forgot. And when my sharp cry cut the moveless night, And days and nights my wailings clamored up And beat about their golden homes, perchance They shut their ears. No happy music this, Eddying through their nectar cups and calm! Then I cried out against them, and died not; And rose, and set me to my daily tasks. So all day long, with bare, uplift right arm, Drew out the strong ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... sight of a grand piano or some similar instrument, there being no means of producing music in any of the rooms save the larger drawing-room, where there were half a dozen large bronze gongs, which the ladies used occasionally to beat about at random. It was not pleasant to hear them, but I have heard quite as unpleasant music both before ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... to beat about the bush, a minute ago," I said, "and now you're trying to dodge all my questions with the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... more good-humor in his laugh than he had shown before, "you needn't beat about the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you give me an answer and not beat about the bush any longer? Or do you mean that you ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... from some tree high overhead; and we all set to work like schoolboys, filling our pockets with them for the ladies at home. Now the path was lost, having vanished in the six months' growth of weeds; and we had to beat about for it over fallen logs, through tangles of liane and thickets of the tall Arouma, {221} a cane with a flat tuft of leaves atop, which is plentiful in these dark, damp, northern slopes. Now we struggled and hopped, horse and man, down and round a corner, at the head of a ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... relapsing into English. "Please don't beat about the bush, Mr. Schmick. She's over there in the unused wing, which I haven't been allowed to penetrate in spite of the fact that it belongs to me. You say you can't find the keys to that side ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... estate which is in abeyance is one regarded with open-mouthed expectancy. The toils are Fr. toiles, lit. cloths, Lat. tela, the nets put round a thicket to prevent the game from escaping. To "beat about the bush" seems to be a mixture of two metaphors which are quite unlike in meaning. To "beat the bush" was the office of the beaters, who started the game for others, hence an old proverb, "I will not beat the bush that another may have the birds." To "go about ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... his former subject. "In what sense do you understand the Articles, Mr. Reding?" he asked. That was more than Charles could tell; he wished very much to know the right sense of them; so he beat about for ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... in a large bowl and beat about half as stiff as you wish them to be when finished beating. Add cream of tartar, sprinkle it over the beaten whites of eggs lightly, and then beat until very stiff. Sift in sugar, then flour very lightly. Fold into the batter, rather than stir, with quick, even strokes with spoon. Put quickly ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... "Just so. Why beat about the bush?" He felt that she disdained subterfuges, although when necessary for her purposes, he was assured that she could use diplomacy, as a master of fence might his foils. "You, Mr. Hayden, have been lucky enough to find the lost Mariposa, the ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Themistocles must have fallen into the hands of his fellow-citizens if he had landed, but he told the master of the ship that it would be the ruin of all alike if he were found in the vessel, and promised a large reward if he escaped. So the crew consented to beat about a whole day and night, and in the morning landed safely near Ephesus. He kept his word to the captain; for indeed he was very rich, having taken bribes, while Aristides remained in honourable poverty. He went to Susa, where Xerxes was dead; but the Persians had fancied ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands a 'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... a little while. Then he gathered his courage for a great effort, for he felt that it was of no use to beat about the bush any longer. ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... Ogilvie, rather inclined to beat about the bush, "I thought you were paying her a good deal of attention. But then—she is very popular, you know, and receives a good deal of attention; and—and the fact is, she is an uncommonly pretty girl, and I thought you ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... in the service to know that some die whose names never get on any return, and so some are reported dead who decline to be buried. Let us not beat about the bush as to what I mean. We are each doing our best to obtain possession of this lovely creature, but the father holds to his promise to the long-legged noodle, and, if he is alive, our suits are hopeless. So let them ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... We beat about the forest for some hours without meeting the game of which we were in search. We once thought that we had found the lair, but we soon found that we were mistaken. One of the gentlemen, too, affirmed that he heard the growl of a bear; it must, however, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... As frequent on the stage as in the pit. Our modern wits are forced to pick and cull, And here and there by chance glean up a fool: Long ere they find the necessary spark, They search the town, and beat about the Park; 20 To all his most frequented haunts resort, Oft dog him to the ring, and oft to court, As love of pleasure or of place invites; And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's. Howe'er, to do you ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... years I beat about from factory to factory, and got unaccustomed to the village. Then I went to the village again, looked around, and I found I could not live like that any more! You understand? I CAN'T. You live here, you don't know hunger, you don't see such outrages. There hunger stalks after ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... election of the Soopreem Governors for the ten districts of the colony and to sidestep the various vague promises that he had sown so lavishly throughout the preceding two weeks, but in the department of finance there was no evasion, short of flight, and in the white light that forever beat about him escape for the moment was impossible. He sensed the growing pyramid of final retribution and began to formulate plans whereby the mantle of responsibility might be transferred to ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... even simpler," I replied. Then I raised myself to the top of the outer wall of the prison, just so that I could peer over and locate the passing sentry. For a matter of five minutes I waited and then he came in sight on his slow and snail-like beat about the structure. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he preferred being without the degree. No one could say of him that all his life long he did else than bear his convictions boldly emblazoned on his shield. There could never be any doubt of what he thought. He could not beat about the bush in his beliefs—he would not keep them secret—he did not care for unpopularity in the least. His great aim was to fight—at whatever odds— for whatever he felt by dogged conviction. He was often ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... never have the luck to do that, in a way it'll make no real difference. I've written her name in my private calendar, and shall always remember it."—She paused a moment. "We got rather near each other somehow, I think. We didn't dawdle or beat about the bush, but went straight along, passed the initial stages of acquaintance in a few hours, and reached that point of friendship ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... and seeing an hour or two earlier the night before, when they were trudging along, with beating hearts and high-strung courage, on the road between Haworth and Keighley, hardly thinking of the thunder-storm that beat about their heads, for the thoughts which filled them of how they would go straight away to London, and prove that they were really two people, and not one imposter. It was no wonder that they returned to Haworth ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... will not beat about the bush with you. My judgment is still against this marriage; you need not look so alarmed; it does not follow I shall forbid it. I feel I have hardly a right to, for my Rosa might be in her grave now ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... we must keep all our wits at work. The dogs will push on to where we hid. They will follow to the stream, and I think I have given them the slip there. Then they will beat about and follow our trail into the cypress swamp. There the horses will mislead them, and if you can only hold out, so soon as daylight comes we can strike into the pines and make for ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... sir!' returned the debtor, proud and mean by turns, and selfish at all times. 'I am her father, am I not? Why should I hint, and beat about the bush? Do you suppose, like her mother's friends and my enemies—a curse upon them all!—that there is anything in what she has done for me but duty, sir, but duty? Or do you think that my having been unfortunate is a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... to him to-night, "it must be a great comfort to you to reflect that when you come into office you will not have to beat about for a programme. You've got your Newcastle platform, and I suppose a Liberal Ministry will stand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... of cetaceous fish, of a perfectly black colour, with a white spot before the back-fin, passed by us. They were fired at from our vessel, and one of them being shot through the head, could no longer plunge under water, but began to beat about furiously on the surface, and tinged the sea with its blood. It seemed to be about three yards long, and was slender and blunt-headed, from whence our sailors called it the Bottle-nose, a name which Dale applies to a very different fish, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... soa; but thee maun—wait a bit; let's see." Here he began to beat about anxiously for an excuse, which did not present itself with the same facility as the expression of his unwillingness to undertake the job. "Eh me!—Jock Tattersall—herd and bailiff now these twenty years—that I should be brought to sich a pass; an' aw' through ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... ye think I'm bad to the core, I will soon show you that I am. It's no use, I see, to beat about the bush any longer. If I can't get you one way I will another, an' I'll have you ahead of that d—— guy who has won your heart. You're here alone with me, remember, an' that's ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... not going to beat about the bush," continued her sister-in-law abruptly. "He's working in the mines all right, but he isn't digging coal at all, though that would be bad enough. I wouldn't say a word about it, but I think you ought to know the truth and put a stop to ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... my fortune to show over Westminster Abbey an American woman whose name, by reason of her works—sound practical common-sense works,—has come to be known throughout the United States, and I heard "the wings of the dead centuries beat about her ears." I took her to Poet's Corner. She turned herself slowly about and looked at the names carved on either side of her, and then looked down and saw the names that lay graven beneath her feet; and she dropped sobbing on her knees ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... We beat about in the channel with a strong 'ead-wind for four days, and then a tug picked us up ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... this thought came to Buzz as his father flayed him with his abuse. But there was something unusual, surely, in the non-resistance with which he allowed the storm to beat about his head. Something in his steady, unruffled gaze caused the other man to falter a little in his tirade, and finally to stop, almost apprehensively. He had paid no heed to Ma Werner's attempts at pacification. "Now, ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Prendergast, now getting up and standing with his back to the fire, "I do not know that you and I need beat about the bush much longer. I suppose I may speak openly before these ladies as to what has been taking place ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... the sequel, had a more palpable loss to show. But the plain fact was that he hadn't spent a penny on it; which was no doubt the reason of the prodigious score it had since been rolling up. At any rate, beat about the case as he would, it was clear that he owed it to Anna—and incidentally to his own peace of mind—to find some way of securing Sophy Viner's future without leaving her installed at Givre when he and his wife should depart for ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... time heavy westerly winds set in against the Campbell and drove her far out of her course and for weeks she beat about in the most horrible weather. To add to their discomfort some of the water casks were stove, so that the crew were placed on short allowance until they were relieved by a barkentine named, The Girl of the Period. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to-rights. I never in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... children," said Dennis. "Of what use is it to beat about the bush and refuse to speak what's in the heart of each of us? How can we pretend that poor Sara's death is not God's own relief to him and us? We can weep, as Pen says, over the tragedy of his life, but not that he is gone. Your talk of going ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... never beat about bushes, but mostly walked through them, Sanchia's bluntness made immediate appeal. Her reply, for instance, to the enquiry, What had induced her to go on with the affair, was a counter-question. "What else could I do?" she had asked, with ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... that Council. You have to elaborate the digests of the meetings, to file schemes for the establishment of fortifications and camps; in a word, the result of these meetings passes through your hands. I will not beat about the bush, Mr. Ducaine. You can see that you have something in your keeping which, if passed on to me, would accomplish my whole aim. The army would be forced to acknowledge my claim upon them; the nation ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... us, while, houseless things, We beat about with bruised wings On the dark floods and water-springs, The ruined world, the desolate sea; With open windows from the prime All night, all day, He waits sublime, Until the fulness of the time Decreed ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... as he took his own way homeward, in a deeper fit of abstraction than was altogether usual with him, "now will Bill Hinkley beat about the bush without bouncing through it, until it's too late to do anything. He's mealy-mouthed with the woman, and mealy-mouthed with the man, and mealy-mouthed with everybody. —quite too soft-hearted and too easy to get on. Here's ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and passed and repassed the spot many times. Then I extended my beat about the neighbouring streets, loitering at every corner where a basket-girl or a flower-girl might be likely to stand. But no trace of her was to be seen. ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... say 'dead' at once, and not beat about the bush in that stupid way?" interposed the old nurse, who detested the little man's hemming and hawing over matters which she was in the habit of blurting out ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and sank. Even this fearful death did not restrain me; and I swore by the fragment of the Holy Cross, preserved in that relic now hanging round your neck, that I would gain my point in defiance of storm and seas, of lightning, of heaven, or of hell, even if I should beat about ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... a few rods of the coveted prize, which is not in one of the large hemlocks or oaks that absorb our attention, but in an old stub or stump not six feet high, and which we have seen and passed several times without giving it a thought. We go farther down the mountain and beat about to the right and left, and get entangled in brush and arrested by precipices, and finally, as the day is nearly spent, give up the search and leave the woods quite baffled, but resolved to return on the morrow. The next day we come back and commence operations in an opening in the woods well down ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... to do? A man like you wasn't made for idleness. Look here, Paul; I'm not going to beat about the bush. We've got a whopping big contract from the Chinese government, and we need a man to take charge, a man who knows and understands something of the yellow people. How about a salary of ten thousand a year for two years, to ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... in the pure air and under the unclouded dome of heaven, and thus look down on the submergence of the valley, was strangely different and even delightful to the eyes. Far away were hilltops like little islands. Nearer, a smoky surf beat about the foot of precipices and poured into all the coves of these rough mountains. The colour of that fog ocean was a thing never to be forgotten. For an instant, among the Hebrides and just about sundown, I have seen ...
— The Sea Fogs • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made little or no progress," said the doctor, who could only give a passing glance at his patients, for he was working day and night. He had not time to beat about the bush, as his kind heart would have liked, for he had ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... Since all that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, 5 The faery people of the future day—— Fond Thought! not one of all that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Ellen; don't let's beat about the bush. Nobody knows he's there, yet, except myself and—you. You met him ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... of mine: The snows have fallen o'er my crest, the winds have whistled high, For tens of years the winter's frost I managed to defy; But now the fiat has gone forth, the flame of life is dead, And nevermore I'll feel the storms that beat about ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the dead leaves ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within came forth in fits and was swallowed up ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... day chasing a deer, keeping the direction by the noise of the hounds. The deer, hard pressed, came down to the spring where Sir Launcelot was sleeping, and there sank down exhausted, and lay there a great while. At length the dogs came fast after, and beat about, for they had lost the very perfect track of the deer. Just then there came that lady, the huntress, who knew by the sounds of the dogs that the deer must be at the spring. So she came swiftly ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... was gone, the dead blue slopes of water rolled up to the horizon on every side and were met by the dead blue sky, without the break of a single sail or the flicker of a flying bird. For fifteen days they beat about without any apparent aim other than to escape the enemies whom they hourly expected to leap out from behind the sky-line. On the sixteenth day friendly signs were made to them from shore. "A fire made a great Smoak, and People beckoned ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... simply to take exercise. He therefore said to him, "Here is a ball, which I have stuffed with certain rare and costly medicinal herbs, and here is a bat, the handle of which I have also stuffed with similar herbs. Your highness must take this bat and with it beat about this ball until you perspire freely. You must do this every day." His highness acquiesced, and in a short time the exercise of playing bat and ball with the dervish greatly improved his health, and by degrees cured him of his ailment. Now, the tennis ball, to my mind, is stuffed with ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... how we beat about the bush in our talk," says Hrapp, "but I will first tell thee who I am. I have been with Gudbrand of the Dale, but I ran away thence because I slew his overseer; but now I know that we are both of us bad men; for thou wouldst not ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... at the old gear with curiosity, glancing, with her head dropped back, into the dark intricacy of rigging upheld by the ponderous mainmast as it swayed back and forth. Every time the men went hurriedly trampling to some point of the running gear she watched what they were at. For hours we beat about, in a great noise of waters, waiting for that opportunity at the entrance to home and comfort. Once Yeo took us as far towards the vague mist of surf as the dismal tolling of the Bar Buoy, but evidently did not like the look of it, and stood ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... argument that he was not near him. He supposed Joe had chosen a place to sleep in the vicinity, and thinking he might not wake in season to pass through the Gap before daylight, he commenced a search for him. He beat about the place for half an hour, calling his companion by name; but he could not see him, and no sound responded to the call but the echoes ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... slowly along the shining gravel-path with her black and gold mantle folded round her, looking altogether statuesque and unapproachable. They took one turn in absolute silence, and then Captain Winstanley, who was not inclined to beat about the bush when he had something particular to say, and a good opportunity for saying it, broke ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... and his men beat about aimlessly and conscientiously for several hours, but in vain. Jose and Gallito had long before "hit" the secret trail. So finally the sheriff, who was inclined to put less faith than ever in Hanson's representations, and convinced in ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... infectious disease. But it is an essential element in every attempt to deal with the prevention of disease. Unless we know precisely the exact incidence, local variations, and temporary fluctuations of a disease we are entirely in the dark and can only beat about at random. All progress in public hygiene has been accompanied by the increased notification of disease, and most authorities are agreed that such notification must be still further extended, any slight inconvenience thus caused to individuals being of trifling ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... when the experienced seaman I mentioned before, who was keeping a look out, called out that we were close to the breakers and surrounded by the reef. The only thing we could do was to turn seaward again and beat about till daylight. After some hours the wind fell and the worst was over; still, the night was unpleasant enough, and frequent squalls kept us awake. We were all glad when the day broke and we were able to enter the passage. We landed at Noumea ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... I exclaimed. "And if you've got any suggestions, Scott, out with them, and don't beat about! Tell me anything that'll lead to discovery, and you'll see your ten ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... "I ain't got good knowledge of the Bible, and I never figured it to be a book much on to facts. And I tell you I'm more plumb beat about it's having that elder brother, and him being angry, down in black and white two thousand years ago, than—than if I'd seen a man turn water into wine, for I'd have knowed that ain't so. But the elder brother is facts—dead-sure facts. And ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... the road opened up into a broad expanse of heather. And there we lost them. We beat about in the heather for a long time, and called loudly, but without avail. They were no doubt lying ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... dark. Frosty windows, pelted for miles by the furious gale, white outside but black within, protected the snug travellers who slept the sleep of the hurried and thought not of the storm that beat about their ears nor wondered at the stopping of the fast express at a place where it had never stopped before. Far ahead the panting engine shed from its open fire-box an aureole of glaring red as the stoker fed coal into ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... indignantly emptied upon the table. He could scarcely believe his eyes; he got up and looked in the kettle, but found no haricot. "Well," said he, with surprise, "if that don't beat me! I saw mother fill it with haricot myself; I'm clean beat about it." ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... "We beat about the bush, I think," answered the other, pushing back his chair a bit and turning towards Ruby. "My dear young lady, your father has been begging me to stay—chiefly, no doubt, out of goodwill, but partly also that I may set him in the way to work this newly found wealth of his. I am ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... worship of Venus; and the goddess of beauty rose from the sea somewhere near the spot where we now are. After getting out of the strait, and weathering Cape St. Angelo, the sea again became rough, and we beat about the point all day, much to my regret, for the quiet experienced in the bay of Servia was quite delightful, after the tossing boisterous weather we had in the Adriatic. A Greek steamer passed us in the course of the day, but ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... Leporello said to me: 'My friend, you certainly have some interest in ascertaining what became of the lady who took the name of Marigny (I state this frankly, Monsieur, to show how difficult even for one so prudent as I am to beat about a bush long but what you let people know the sort of bird you are in ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been some villain of a Dutchman who swore that he'd beat about the seas till the Day of Judgment; but depend on it, if he ever did utter such an oath, he's gone to answer for it long ago—far away from this world," said Dick Nailor, solemnly. "I've heard many, many men talk of the Flying Dutchman, ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... dissuade Charles from going out into the driving storm; but he was not moved by their entreaties. He only saw the young maiden's pale, sweet face and appealing blue eyes, and he set off with the two through the storm, which beat about them so that they were quite wet to the skin when the house of widow Stevens was reached. The man and the maid were given beds ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... said the captain, "and that's the voyage off of which I now come straight, I encountered such weather off the Horn as is not very often met with, even there. I have rounded that stormy Cape pretty often, and I believe I first beat about there in the identical storms that blew the Devil's horns and tail off, and led to the horns being worked up into tooth-picks for the plantation overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you travel down South, or away West, fur enough) picking their teeth with 'em, while the whips, made of the ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... again, "now, what is it that you really know? Don't beat about the bush any longer. Tell me, ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... winds of discord howl around, Wild disputers throw up foam, From high to low she's beat about; Frighten'd ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... was a thief, Taffy came to my house, And stole a piece of beef. I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't at home, Taffy came to my house, And stole a marrow bone. I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed, I took the marrow bone, And beat about his head. ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... comforted his nose at a brook, and was now ready to follow his friend wherever he chose to lead. They continued to beat about for birds. The birds on the Raynham estates were found singularly cunning, and repeatedly eluded the aim of these prime shots, so they pushed their expedition into the lands of their neighbors, in search of a stupider ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in this new and arduous undertaking. Added to all this, we were sore discouraged by the diminution in the strength of the squadron; for, three days before this, we had lost sight of the Severn and Pearl in the morning, and, though we spread our ships, and beat about for them for some time, we never saw them more; whence we apprehended that they also had fallen in with this land in the night, and being less favoured by the wind and the moon, might have perished by running on shore. Full ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... have been unlike the Lacedaemonians purposely to have established a disagreeable viand in their system of public feeding. Men that used iron money to prevent the accumulation of wealth, and, as youths, had volunteered to be scourged, scratched, beat about, and kicked about, to inure them to pain, were just the persons to affect a nauseous food to discipline ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... was now as dark as pitch, the moon being but young, and totally obscured with clouds. Our fires deserted by us, and beat about by the enemy's shot, began to burn red and dull, and, except when the flashes of those guns which played upon us cast a momentary glare, not an object could be distinguished at the distance of a yard. In this state we lay for nearly an hour, unable to move from our ground, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... war beat about these little savage families, the sense of common danger welded them into one. Out of grim necessity friendship came, and friendship gave birth to patriotism. Loyalty and sacrifice were not limited to the family; men fought and died for ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... brandy," he said. And Mr. Hawkins was not slow to avail himself of the permission. "Now, I'm a man who does not care to beat about the bush, my friend Hawkins," said Victor, "so I'll come to business at once. I've taken a fancy to that bay horse, 'Wild Buffalo,' and I should like to have him; but I'm not a rich man, and I can't afford a ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme would take a week to tell) what's to prevent your ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a matter of course, and not at all as a favor. He simply forgot his old book, and resolved that he would make a better one if he could. With the hot fit of resolution, the determination not to be snuffed out by one refusal upon him, he began to beat about in his mind for some new scheme. At first it seemed that he had hit upon a promising subject; he began to plot out chapters and scribble hints for the curious story that had entered his mind, arranging his circumstances and noting the effects to be produced with all the enthusiasm ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... hastily parting with his host, found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had not said that from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by the directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed that women who liked to beat about the bush in small matters have a prodigious straightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will even call grey black in order clearly to establish the presence of the black in that colour. He could hardly keep himself from going ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... "continental" marriage with the highest bidder. Eve's heart had been pretty well schooled out of her, and yet, before dinner came to an end, she found herself wishing that among the high bidders might be one very young, like the man at her side, with eyes as honest, and who, to express admiration, beat about no bushes. ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... mean? Puaka is pig, piki is to mount or climb, and enata is man. A great white light beat about my brow. "The pig men climb?" Could he mean Rozinante, the steed to whom T'yonny had entrusted me, and who had so basely deserted his trust ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... so upright, so well dressed. Here he was a changed being. His hair needed cutting; his linen was no longer irreproachable; his clothes were dusty and out of shape. The man seemed to have lost all care of himself and all pride in his work. When at last he reached the table Mr. Bundercombe did not beat about the bush. ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... aggravatingly modest," pursued Beatrix. "Couldn't say plump, like a man and brother, 'Trixy Stuart, will you marry me?' but beat about the bush, and talked of being refused, and fearing a rival, and speaking to ma and pa and Lady Helena when we got to England. But perhaps that's the way the British aristocracy make love. He asked me if there was any previous engagement, and any fear of a refusal, and that rubbish. I don't see," ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... morning all was changed. A wild gale was blowing and rain beat about them in level sheets. A wet fog came and went and gave place at last to a steady rain, as the gale gave place to a hurricane. They spent a miserable day and night shifting from shelter to shelter with the shifting wind; another day and another night. Their provisions were almost gone, the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... up in impotent wrath from his inspection of the ruined meerschaum. Gavin had turned toward him and was babbling a torrent of apology for his own awkwardness. Milo was glumly silent as the contrite words beat about his ears. But Claire, shamed by her brother's ungraciousness, spoke up courteously to relieve the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the same evening the Ayesha was sunk. On Jan. 9 they left this ship, too, before Hodeida, in the hope of being able to take the overland route through Arabia. After the loss of two months, on March 17, they again had to take a small sailboat of 75 feet length and beat about the Red Sea amid new adventures. All are in good health and spirits; they're astonished, however, and laugh, because they see themselves featured ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... we beat about the bush," said I. "You must know more of my affairs than you allow. You must know my curiosity to be justified on many grounds. Will you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eagerness ran away with me; I became almost rude. "Madam," I exclaimed, "why beat about the bush? I do not care to deceive you, and you must not deceive me. Why should we not be friends in every way, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... and I felt like breaking away right there; any one not utterly calloused would, I think, have felt the same squeamishness with that sort of a tale crowding close. If she had been expecting bad news of any kind it wouldn't have been so hard to go on; but I couldn't beat about the bush any longer, so I made the plunge with ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... asking much more than they expect to receive prevails throughout their empire, and official peculation confined in certain limits is considered entirely consistent with honesty. Their cheating, if it can be called by that name, is conducted on certain established principles. A Chinese will 'beat about the bush,' and try every plan to circumvent the man with whom he deals, but when he once makes a bargain he adheres to it unflinchingly. Among the merchants I was told that a word is as good as a bond. Their slipperiness is ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... necessary housework and despised ignoble "gentility"! No, I cannot quite accept the "stinted means" excuse; the fact is that the mean shrew is hard on her dependants solely because her nature is not good; and we need not beat about the bush any longer for reasons. A domestic servant under a wise, dignified, and kind mistress or housekeeper may live a healthy and happy life; the servant of the mean shrew does not live at all in any true sense of the word. No rational man can blame girls ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... answer, when you give me time," said Cethegus, coolly. "Because when I rushed forth, he fled with an exceeding rapid flight; leaped the low wall into the graveyard of the base Plebeians, and there among the cypresses and overthrown sepulchres escaped me for a while. I beat about most warily, and at length started him up again from the jaws of an obscene and broken catacomb. I gained on him at every step; heard the quick panting of his breath; stretched out my left to grasp him, while my ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... me, gentlemen?" said Jacques Collin. "Come, do not puzzle your heads. That person is my aunt, a very plausible aunt, a woman, and an old woman. I can save you a great deal of trouble. You will never find my aunt unless I choose. If we beat about the bush, we shall never ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... get rather angry, "Look here, Austin," she said, "I intend to get to the bottom of this business, so it's not the slightest use trying to beat about the bush. I insist on your telling me how it was you happened to get out of bed just before the accident occurred, and how the bedclothes came to be pulled away and hung where they are now. There's a mystery about the whole thing, and I hate mysteries, so you'd better ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... offspring of an old chine wrapper of Madame Piedefer's and a gown of the late lamented Madame de la Baudraye, the emissary considered the man, the dressing-gown, and the little stove on which the milk was boiling in a tin saucepan, as so homogeneous and characteristic, that he deemed it needless to beat about the bush. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Dale, I'm a very bad hand at talking, and therefore I won't beat about the bush in what I've got to say at present. Of course we've all heard of that scoundrel Crosbie, and the way he has treated ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... the scabbard and went gleaming up aloft. Then words came into the cry of the folk, and Goldilind heard it, that they cried "Child Christopher! King Christopher!" Then over her head came a sound of flapping and rending as the evening wind beat about the face of the wood; and she heard folk cry about her: "The banner, the banner! Ho for the ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... matters, which, after all, lead to nothing, or at least to nothing satisfactory. To be sure, men are strange creatures, and upon my word I sometimes think they are more troubled with shyness than our own sex. Perhaps it's their diffidence that makes them hesitate so, and, as it were, "beat about the bush," when they have only got to "flush the bird" and shoot it at once and put it in the game-bag. Perhaps it's their pride for fear of being refused. Now, I think it's far more creditable to a man to wear the willow, and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... his visit: he did not beat about the bush, nor fence at all. He declared at once what he came for. He said, "At the first sight of you, whom I have been so ungrateful to, I could not speak; but now I throw myself on your forgiveness. I think you must have seen ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... major third and strike each third in succession, ascending chromatically. Of course, each third should beat slightly faster than the one below it. For instance, in our system of two octaves, take 1C-E; this third should beat about 5 per second. Next, take 1C[]-F, which should beat about 5-1/2 per second. The beats should increase each test nearly a half beat, or the amount of 5 beats in this octave; hence, 2C-E will beat about 10 per second; or, ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... hint and went away. Grammont lurched after him, but I took him by the sleeve and said I had something to say to him. He stood with drunken gravity to listen, and whilst I beat about in my own mind for some trifle which could be made to assume a moment's importance, he forgot everything that had passed, ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... this is so like the gentlemen; they are in love with argumeunt.They go on till they reason themselves out of their reason. Why beat about the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... an example was that of the Dutch West India Company's ship St. John in 1659. After buying slaves at Bonny in April and May she beat about the coast in search of provisions but found barely enough for daily consumption until at the middle of August on the island of Amebo she was able to buy hogs, beans, cocoanuts and oranges. Meanwhile bad food had brought dysentery, the surgeon, the cooper and a sailor had died, and the slave cargo ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... great skill in navigation, made them change the route for no purpose but that of showing his skill in manoeuvring a ship. Every instant he changed the tack, went, came, and returned, and approached the very reefs, as if to brave them. In short, he beat about so much, that the sailors at length refused to obey him, saying boldly that he was a vile impostor. But it was done. The man had gained the confidence of Captain Lachaumareys, who, ignorant of navigation himself, was doubtless glad to get some one to undertake his duty. But it must ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard |
