"Dig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... King set the diggers to work. He promised a rich reward to those men of the pick and shovel who should dig the fastest and throw up the most dirt, so that the masons could, at the earliest moment, begin ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... of leases, and, at the same time, pay off the national debt with the money that remains. With an air of strict seriousness he solemnly computes the exact sums obtainable, and impartially divides the amounts with accurate care. Then, with a dig at the strangers England was continually sending to Irish preferments, among whom he counts himself, he concludes by saying that although the interests of such cannot be expected to be those of the country to which they have been translated, yet he, as one ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... cell under our rustic roof, and fare as we fare? What to us two hermits is cheerful and happy, will to you, indeed, be miserable but it will be some solace to the goodness of your heart to witness our contentment;—to dig with M. d'A. in the garden will ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... us how he may best do it, in secrecy, without poisoning the Commandant[35] and the whole Ambulance with the spirit of return. With difficulty we convince him that it would be useless for any man to go. He would be taken prisoner the minute he showed his nose in the "Flandria" and set to dig trenches till the end of ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... children had gone into the house with the nurse girl Marian. It had become too dark for his wife to dig in the garden. It was August and the fruitful time of the year for farms and gardens had come, but his wife had forgotten fruitfulness. She was making plans for another year. She came along the garden path followed by the negro. "We will set out strawberry ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... every-day existence,—me, a man kept to the business of living from the hour I awake to the light until the hour I go to sleep; and according to the answer I may give myself on this point, is the spirit in which I dig in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... pure blundering one of the buck-shot took effect, and the brave retreated out of the melee with a sensation as if his head had been split. Some time later he was discovered sitting up doggedly on a rock, while a comrade was trying to dig the buckshot out of his thick skull ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... to himself, "if he is not stolen there is a reason for his paltry price," and he would go over all the possibilities. So that when he stood still, he would say, "Ah, this is it;" but then he saw this at once, and lost no time, and did nothing. Had he given the horse one dig with his spurs, or one cut with his whip, or an impatient jerk with his bit, the case would have failed. When a colt it had been brutally used, and being nervous, it lost its judgment, poor thing, and lost its presence ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... turned on its side. Dick and May-may-gwan removed their snow-shoes, and, using them as shovels, began vigorously to scrape and dig away the snow. Sam unstrapped the axe and went for firewood. He cut it with little tentative strokes, for in the intense cold the steel was ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... forthcoming, and we turned out, loaded magazines, and marched off in the direction from which the Boches were supposed to be coming. On our way up many dispatch riders passed, and each one had the same comforting message—'The Canadians are holding them.' We went no further, but received orders to dig ourselves in across the road, and that in the event of the Boches getting as far as this we were to hold them until the last man. Fortunately the splendid Canadians had not only held their ground, but with terrible losses had pushed the enemy two or three miles back; had, in fact, practically ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... millions of people throughout this great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens of the "System" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that the "System" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing operation repeated on them ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... dig dirt in floor with hands, and cover up when they bring him bread and water—and he hide his hands all the time, fingers so much bleed. Then when dark and no moon, him dig out last dirt, him come up outside. Him run sixty mile, him come my ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... don't know what would happen if you ate that quantity; but I'm sure you couldn't paint. You'd just have to saw wood and dig ditches to use up ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... you would be hollering for their junk out of pawn. But, Lord, the way she rigs herself up without it! Where'd you dig up the spangles, Babe? Gad! I gotta take you out to-night and buy you the right kind of a dinner. When I walks my girl into a cafe, they sit up and take notice, all righty. Spangles she rigs herself up in when another ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... the truth," Hal returned, pulling off his coat. "I'm simply going to bury the matter the way a dog buries a bone, and then some day I'll dig it up and go to work at ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... its lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea, because by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the minute you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake the name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of time trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always do mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the word first. They think to obey this scripture by first gaining the profession of salvation, presuming then that the blessings of the kingdom will follow, while they live as selfishly as before and dig deep into the things concerning the unrighteous mammon. In so doing they fail to experience the blessings of the kingdom, and also misrepresent the kingdom to the world. The word first means not only first in time, but first in importance; ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... be compared to a great temple. Pillars, each built of many curiously joined stones, standing at the very entrance, represent the departments of science so far as man has studied them. We need not dig down and study the foundations with the children; we need not study every pillar nor choose any particular one rather than some other; but we must learn something of every stone—of each great fact—in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... wasting any time, Mr. Chuck began to dig. He dug and he dug and he dug. When his neighbors grew curious and asked questions, he smiled good-naturedly and said that he was trying an experiment. When he had made a long hall which went down so deep ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... we're late already. Jesus threw a garment over Paul's shoulder and told him of the prayers he must murmur. We do not speak of profane matters till after sunrise. He broke off suddenly and pointed to a place where they might dig: and as soon as we have purified ourselves, he continued, we will fare forth in search of shepherds, who, on being instructed by us, will be watchful for a young man lost on the hills and will direct him to the Essene settlement above the Brook Kerith. Be of good courage, he will be found. ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Kan., there are great beds of solid rock salt four hundred feet below the surface. Men want to get and use two thousand barrels a day. How shall they get it to the top of the ground? They might dig a great well—or, as the miners say, sink a shaft—pump out the water, go down and blast out the salt, and laboriously haul it up in defiance of gravitation. No; that is too hard. Better ask this strong ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... bestowed on him and his simple shrine by the superstitious, devout, or worldly pilgrims who yearly and monthly visited him in search of counsel, spiritual or social. The men had mowed the grass smooth under the trees, and the shade was not so close as to make it damp. Some ryots had been called in to dig a ditch and raised a rough chapudra or terrace, some fifteen feet in diameter, opposite the dining-tent, on which elevation we could sit, even late at night, in reasonable security from cobras and ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... terror and fiery shame, and the cruel words had beaten her down, first upon her knees, and then upon her face, and they lashed her like whips of flame and tore into her flesh and made her writhe. She dared not cry out, or even sob; she could only dig into the ground with her quivering fingers, and lie there, shuddering in a fearful way. Long after the two men were gone her cruel punishment still continued, for she still seemed to hear his words, seared into her memory with fire ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... there lies at our very door a mine of wealth which it is simple folly for us to ignore. True, the shaft has become choked with the rubbish of despair, vice and crime, which will take time, trouble and untiring patience to dig through. But it needs no prophet to foresee that beneath this rubbish are veins of golden ore which will amply repay our utmost efforts to open up. The old adage that "labour is wealth," and that a nation's riches consist in its hardy sons and daughters of toil, will yet ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... party. I had invited the Imperial Commissioners to dine with me, and requested that they would send a juggler to perform before dinner. They tried to fight shy after having accepted, I suppose because they considered it infra dig. to attend at the performance of the juggler; but they came at last, and enjoyed the dinner part of the affair thoroughly. The juggler was good, but one particular feat was beyond praise. He twisted a bit of paper into the shape of a butterfly, and kept it hovering and fluttering, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... to Canada at a time when the relations with the savage tribes were becoming so strained as to threaten an impending rupture. So far had matters gone that Colonel Thomas Dongan, governor of New York, had urged the Iroquois to dig up the hatchet, and he was only too willingly obeyed. Unfortunately, the two governing heads of the colony were replaced just at that moment. Governor de Frontenac and Commissioner Duchesneau were recalled in 1682, and supplanted by de la Barre and de Meulles. The latter were far ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... their snow-shovels along with them, and they began to dig with a will. Peggy got her shovel and went out to help them, and Alice and Diana watched the merry ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... bow, prostrate himself or pray. To him, this stone or stick is consecrated. It has power to placate the spirits and ward off their evil. It is the medium of communication between him and them. Now, having attended, as he thinks, to the proprieties in the case, he proceeds to dig, plough, drain, put in order and treat soil or water, tree or other growth as is most convenient for his purpose. His fetich is erected to "the honorable spirits." Were this not attended to, some known or unknown bad luck, sinister ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... with which to dig. Near where Mollie had uncovered the piece of metal a queerly shaped stick stuck upright in the sand. Amy pulled it out, with no small effort, and ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... could not kill. When Rama saw no arms might slay The fiend who like a mountain lay, The glorious hero, swift to save In danger, thus his counsel gave: "O Prince of men, his charmed life No arms may take in battle strife: Now dig we in this grove a pit His elephantine bulk to fit, And let the hollowed earth enfold ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... sepulchre-swarms, ensheathed in their arms, To sack and to rifle their prey? How they joy in their spoil, as thy body the while Besieging, the reptile is vain, And her beetle-mate blind hums his gladness to find His defence in the lodge of thy brain! Some dig where the sheen of the ivory has been, Some, the organ where music repair'd; In rabble and rout they come in and come out At the gashes their ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... means trouble for some one, unless they can dig up something to take its place, for an Indian who has his mouth made up fer fresh meat is lierble ter become rantankerous if ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... show off a Louis XVIII boudoir suite, display space is charged up against my department! Last summer he asked me for "something by that Ring fellow, I forget the name," to put a punchy finish on a layout of porch furniture. I thought perhaps he meant Wagner's Nibelungen operas, and began to dig them out. Then I found he ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... the garden; suppose that we bring back from that which we desire to copy a bag of seeds representing all the plants which it contains. We have a plot of land of the same size as our example; we dig it and we dung it and then we scatter our seeds perfectly haphazard over its surface. What are the odds as to their coming up in an exactly similar pattern to those in the other garden. Mathematicians, I suppose, ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... came from the creekside where he had begun to dig alongside of the stakes for the foundation. He was visibly and, for him, strangely excited as ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... act, for such things always leak out somehow. You have a gardener at your house at Champigny, and suppose the idea seized upon this worthy man to dig up the ground round the wall at the end ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... pickaxe—perhaps the very one she had seen there in the winter—and a shovel. Some attempt had been made to dig over the gravelly soil for some yards from the ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... craggy hillside, Through the mosses bare, They have planted thorn-trees For pleasure here and there. Is any man so daring As dig them up in spite, He shall feel their sharpest thorns ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... cloth of gold and silver, elephant's teeth, and all other precious things from India." In Balaxiam he says are found "ballasses and other precious stones of great value. No man, on pain of death, dare either dig such stones or carry them out of the country, for all those stones are the King's. Other mountains also in this province yield stones called lapis lazuli, whereof the best azure is made. The like is not found in the ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... bury Bunnie and Snowball before I go upstairs to penance? I can dig a grave in the corner of my little garden and plant verbena and cypress ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... persisted in bringing such people[185] to that town and affiliated with them, they would no longer patronize her. "Very well" she replied, "I shall maintain my principles, and if you break up my classes I can go back to the sea-shore and dig clams for a living as I have done before." Tradition says the lecture course was a success. She continued her classes and the neighbors danced as ever to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the family living of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five children on five hundred a-year, exclusive of rates and taxes? Let them dig, and be men. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... her. So, having leave to go a little way out of the city for recreation in company with a maid that had at one time lived with them and knew all that she did, she hied her thither with all speed; and having removed the dry leaves that were strewn about the place, she began to dig where the earth seemed least hard. Nor had she dug long, before she found the body of her hapless lover, whereon as yet there was no trace of corruption or decay; and thus she saw without any manner of doubt that her vision was true. And so, saddest of women, knowing that she might ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... villages during the night; but the cattle are extremely beautiful, and the fish make the sea on this coast boil, and foam by their extraordinary numbers. The hare of the Cape and the gazell are frequently met with. The porcupines, in the moulting season, cast their quills in the fields, and dig themselves holes under the palm trees. The guinea-fowl (Pintada), the turtle-dove, the wood-pigeon are found every where. In winter immense flocks of plovers of various species, are seen on the edges of the marshes, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... crying softly, touched the blouse of the boy. "At the back of our cottage, near the bush that bears the red berries, a pot is buried," she said. "Dig it up and take it home with you and when you have a kopeck drop it in. It is ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... you may take that little right I have To this poor Kingdom; give it to your Joy, For I have no joy in it. Some far place, Where never womankind durst set her foot, For bursting with her poisons, must I seek, And live to curse you; There dig a Cave, and preach to birds and beasts, What woman is, and help to save them from you. How heaven is in your eyes, but in your hearts, More hell than hell has; how your tongues like Scorpions, Both heal and poyson; how your thoughts ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the money was the important question, and many were the ideas suggested. One boy thought they might catch rabbits next winter; another wished to go over to the big island and dig for gold which Captain Kidd was supposed to have buried there. All expressed their views except Rod. He waited until the rest ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... see by the Event to what Purpose they are, she so swiftly working her self under Ground, and making her way so fast in the Earth as they that behold it cannot but admire it. Her Legs therefore are short, that she need dig no more than will serve the mere Thickness of her Body; and her Fore-feet are broad that she may scoop away much Earth at a time; and little or no Tail she has, because she courses it not on the Ground, like the Rat or Mouse, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... old way of repairing roads, Al. They dig the dirt out of the gutters in the springtime and fill up the rut holes, and then the next spring do the same thing over again, from 'generation to generation,' as the good Book says. I'm satisfied myself," he continued, "that our county will ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... to take a sight of notice of Major. I can't say he ever stopped bein' clever to me, for he didn't; but he seemed to have a kind of a hankerin' after Major all the time. He'd take her off to walk with him; he'd dig up roots in the woods for her posy-bed; he'd hold her skeins of yarn as patient as a little dog; he'd get her books to read. Well, he'd done all this for me; but when I see him doin' it for her, it was quite different; and all to once I know'd what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... [74] Dig. 21. 1. 40-42 (from the edict of the curule aediles) Ne quis canem, verrem vel minorem aprum, lupum, ursum, pantheram, leonem ... qua vulgo iter fiet, ita habuisse velit, ut ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... your head,' said Jim appealingly. 'Leave the country, take the gold if you must, live luxuriously if you care to, but dig out of your heart this devilish malice against people who have done you no conscious wrong. Do this for your own sake; the course you have decided upon is one ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Amos, "who couldn't get all the land he wanted, I'll bet. And a sweet time the commission will have. Why, they'll have to dig into the private history of every one in Lake City. It'll ruin Levine! Oh, pshaw! No, it won't either! He can get everything whitewashed. That's the way American investigations ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... elapsed, or it would turn into slates. With these conditions de Retz would not comply, and, alarmed at his annoyance, the obliging Prelati curtailed the time of waiting to seven times seven days. At the end of that period the alchemist and his dupe repaired to the wood to dig up the treasure. They worked hard for some time, and at length came upon a load of slates, inscribed with magical characters. Prelati pretended great wrath, and upbraided the Evil One for his deceit, in which denunciation he was heartily joined ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... fervidly, and liked him. There was a quality in his speech which appealed to the eagle's heart in the boy. The Pratts no longer interested him; they had settled down into farmers. They had nothing for him to do but plow and dig roots, for which he had no love. He had not ridden into this wild and splendid country to bend his back over a spade. One day he accepted Delmar's offer and rode home to get his few little trinkets and ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... practically nothing was done but build "lion-proof" huts for those workmen who had had sufficient courage to remain. It was a strange and amusing sight to see these shelters perched on the top of water-tanks, roofs and girders—anywhere for safety—while some even went so far as to dig pits inside their tents, into which they descended at night, covering the top over with heavy logs of wood. Every good-sized tree in the camp had as many beds lashed on to it as its branches would bear—and sometimes more. I remember that one night when the camp ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... inside of the hedge being thickly grown over with weeds and grass, he did not think it necessary to dig a trench for the wire, simply bedding it beneath the foliage. But he made a spade cut across the sward from the hedge to the cottage door, sank in the wire and trod out the cut. Once he had passed ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... "Yes, crazy. But dig this, supposing that some sixth sense made it possible for one of our minus counterparts to get in contact ...
— The Minus Woman • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... track as gracefully as a lady camel in the mating season; behind the principal actors in the drama came a regiment of youths and girls, and the antics they cut were worthy of the occasion. Now and again some dusky Don Juan would dig his thumb into the ribs of a daughter of Ham. The lady would promptly squeal, and try to look coy. It is not easy to look coy when you have not got enough clothes on your whole body to make a patch to cover a black eye; but still ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... it'd be a good idea if you could dig up a gentleman friend—for her" (indicating her companion), "and then, we could go off an' have ice-cream soda ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... who stroke the heads of the dragomans sitting there at their feet, what they call their 'tootsicums,' and telling them thousands of lies. Or you must go to the thin antiquaries, with the red noses and the heads without any hair, who dig for mummies while their wives—ah, well I must not say that! But we Egyptians, we have other things to do than to go and stare at the Sphinx. We have always seen it. We know it is there, that it is not going to run away. So we prefer to enjoy our lives while we can, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... thee lord and love over all. But I cannot understand: how comes it to look sometimes as if indeinpendence must be the greater? A lie cannot be greater than the truth! I do not understand, but thou dost. I cannot see my foundations; I cannot dig up the roots of my being: that would be to understand creation! Will the Adversary ever come to see that thou only art grand and beautiful? How came he to think to be greater by setting up for himself? How was it that it looked so to him? How is ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... tomb. And if we follow him on, we next find him instructing those employed in the culinary art, so cautious is he about everything that his men eat and drink. And in order to insure temperance among the soldiers, he issued an order requiring every man found drunk to dig a grave. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... 'No, no. I'd dig the ground and grow potatoes. And I'd shave the wild-beast skins and make the wool into broad cloth. Don't exaggerate, missy. But I'm tired of this bustle. Everybody rushing over everybody, in their hurry ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... hoes, and the "gentleman" takes a siesta proportioned to his drink. The poorer classes sit at home weaving, spinning, or threading beads, whilst the wives attend to household work, prepare the meals, buy and sell, dig and delve. Europeans often pity the sex thus "doomed to perform the most laborious drudgery;" but it is a waste of sentiment. The women are more accustomed to labour in all senses of the word, and the result is that they ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... . with no lack of respect . . . some new friend of Mrs. Oglethorpe's—they were too young to remember Mary Ogden. . . . She would have many "knights" on the morrow . . . he felt on the far side of a rapidly widening gulf . . . and he had once sought to dig a gulf! Disapproved! Questioned! Tried to forget her! He wished he had ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... to a job he is not in the least fitted for, that's the affair of Providence. Providence bungled it when he, she, or it—take which pronoun you like—[Greek: tyche], as you and I know, is feminine—made me a landowner. My proper job was to dig up and decipher what is left of the Greeks. And if any one says that the two jobs are not tanti, and the landowning job is more important than the other, I disagree with him entirely, and it would be impossible for him to prove it. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the other thing, the second thing in the mind of Mr. Britling, a fear. He was prepared now to spread himself like some valiant turkey-gobbler, every feather at its utmost, against the aggressor. He was prepared to go out and flourish bayonets, march and dig to the limit of his power, shoot, die in a ditch if needful, rather than permit German militarism to dominate the world. He had no fear for himself. He was prepared to perish upon the battlefield or cut a valiant figure in the military hospital. But what he ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... and a strong; and the river Salon ran near them, so that the water could not be cut off. My Cid thought to take Alcocer: so he pitched his tents securely, having the Sierra on one side, and the river on the other, and he made all his people dig a trench, that they might not be alarmed, neither by day ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... He died there in the night, much to be regretted by all who knew him. Poor Lapouriel was a youth of charming character, fine education, the hope of his family, and an only son. The ground was so hard that we could not dig a grave, and experienced the chagrin of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... days later she received a sun-stroke, and for several days lay in a litter in an unconscious state. Brain fever followed, and no one believed that she could possibly recover. A halt was made, and the men put a new handle to the pick-axe ready to dig a grave, the site of which had been selected. But the preparations were premature. Mrs. Baker recovered consciousness, and two days later the weary march was resumed, to be crowned on March 14, 1864, with success, for on that day they saw before them the tremendous sheet of water now well ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... just eluded his grasp. Meanwhile the postman's horse, frightened at the noise and the struggle, had moved forward a pace or two. The girl saw her opportunity, and seized it in the same instant. Another dig with the spurs, and her own horse was level with the other; leaning forward she caught at the bridle, and calling to the pair, in an instant was galloping off along the highway, leaving the postman ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... when he said it—he is a regular Svengali, I believe, and the mother is completely dominated by him. One of the spooks is her own father, the other her first husband. It seems that they are willing to sacrifice the girl to their science, for it seems they are leagued to dig a hole through to us from their side, and Viola is their avenue of communication. Then, too, the girl believes in it all. She rebels at times, but she has been having these trances ever since she was ten years old." As the memory of the mother's tale freshened, Kate changed her tone. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... away to some stable work as the dinner was about to smoke in the servants' hall. He was a great eater, but what he didn't eat one day he could eat the next. Such things never ruffled him, nor was he ever known to say that such a job wasn't his work. He was always willing to nurse a baby, or dig potatoes, or cook a dinner, to the best of his ability, when asked to do so; but he could not endure to be made less of than a Protestant; and of all Protestants he could not endure to be made ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Wilbert was on his way to a ravine which lay back of the big chestnut-tree. He carried a spade, and began to dig where the grass was greenest, and slime was gathered upon the stones. At a depth of two feet he saw the hole fill with water, which speedily became clear, as he sat down to rest, and soon trickled ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is applied, there won't be a single slave-dealer left. What rich man would risk his life to devote himself to this traffic? You will have to toil, to dig and submit yourself to all kinds of hard labour; so that your life would be more wretched even ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... to a Mormon in the neighbourhood, who invited me to excavate a large mound close to his house. He would even help to dig, he said, and I was free to take whatever I might find inside of it. He was sure that there would be no difficulty about the mummies I might want to remove from ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of four months, the prisoners arrived in the old capital of Mexico, where the few strangers who had been induced to join the expedition, in ignorance of its destination, were immediately restored to liberty; the rest were sent, some to the mines, to dig for the metal they were so anxious to obtain, and some were passed over to the police of the city, to be employed in the cleaning ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Jimmum," said Nate; "we've got a spade for you. We're going to dig a cave in the side of ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... getting himself into trouble, nor of risking the just fury of an indignant British husband, who stood six feet in his stockings, nor did he desire, by any anonymous libel, to bring himself in any way under the arm of the law. All he meant to do was to dig his trench and to lay his mine, to place the fuse in Vera Nevill's hands—leave her to set fire to it—and then retire himself, covered with satisfaction at his cleverness, to his own side of ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... away so that the hunting is poor, ye sit down and fill your hearts with murder, and in the blackness of your thoughts kill my brother. Idle and shiftless and evil ye are, while the earth cries out to give you of its plenty, a great harvest from a little seed, if ye will but dig and plant, and plough and sow and reap, and lend your backs to toil. Now hear and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... conveyed to the 'taty-patch. He would make a start, maybe, that very night—or rather, that very evening in the dusk when the moon rose: for (now he came to remember) the moon would be at her full to-morrow, or next day. While the dusk lasted he could dig, up there, and no passer-by would suspect him of any intent beyond eking out the last glimpse of day. To be surprised in the act of digging by moonlight was another matter, and might start an evil rumour. For one thing, it was held uncanny, in Polpier, to turn the soil by moonlight—a deed never ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... work up. He's so tickled at gettin' back to the country and away from the city, where him and Madame Battou come so near starvin' on the street, that he goes skippin' around like a sunshine kid, pattin' the trees, droppin' down on his hands and knees in the grass to dig up dandelions, and keepin' up a steady stream of explosive French and ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... a semi-apologetic tone, as if dimly recognizing my disappointment in not going on to Chilcat. "We shall probably find stone axes and other curiosities. Chief Kadachan is going to guide us, and the other Indians aboard will dig for us, and there are interesting old buildings and ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... your side and took you in my arms; laid your head on my heart, felt your cheek touch mine. Then and there I made a covenant with my soul; and no other man's arms shall ever enfold you. Ah, my Rosa Alba! I could dig your grave with my own hands, sooner than see that thief claim you. I am a proud man, and you have dragged me through the slough of humiliation, but to-day, as I bid you good-bye, I realize how ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... more work on them than necessary. He had a disconcerting habit of starting in on a course and then if he found it uninteresting or unpromising as a contributor to the special education he was interested in, of simply dropping out of the class without consultation or permission. But he did dig hard into what he thought really counted; his record in the geology department ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... from the dunghill. No delight in life, no sweet days do they have for themselves, and they begrudge the delight of others therein. Therefore their thralls know no rest or solace; their reward of toil is many stripes, and the healing of their stripes grievous toil. To many have they appointed to dig and mine in the silver-yielding cliffs, and of all the tasks is that the sorest, and there do stripes abound the most. Such thralls art thou happy not to behold till thou hast set them free; ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... put there by him for stage purposes; it was there as a fact; and the men of whom he wrote were conscious of it, were moulded by it, were not ashamed of its influence. Nature among the mountains is too fierce, too strong, for man. He cannot conquer her, and she awes him. He cannot dig down the cliffs, or chain the storm-blasts; and his fear of them takes bodily shape: he begins to people the weird places of the earth with weird beings, and sees nixes in the dark linns as he fishes by night, dwarfs in the caves where he digs, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... hours. The grave-digger superintended the cuisine, and filled his part to admiration; in fact, he was famous in this line, and between the services, he left his cooking and joined in the dance and song. He was strong, fresh, and gay as a lark. On leaving a wedding-party, he would go and dig a grave, or nail down a coffin—a task of which he acquitted ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... you. In those that are possess'd with 't there o'erflows Such melancholy humour they imagine Themselves to be transformed into wolves; Steal forth to church-yards in the dead of night, And dig dead bodies up: as two nights since One met the duke 'bout midnight in a lane Behind Saint Mark's church, with the leg of a man Upon his shoulder; and he howl'd fearfully; Said he was a wolf, only the difference Was, a wolf's skin ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... Rollo, "have I seen men dig up so much ground without either putting anything in ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... treasure hid in a field; and of those who profess to help us to seek for it, we are not to put confidence in those who say,—Here is the treasure, we have found it, and have it, and will give you some of it; but in those who say,—We think that is a good place to dig, and you will dig most easily in such and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... forward on the plain. She was beautiful, tall, stately. She seemed to be holding something very small in her hand. She opened her hand before the people and commanded a gardener to dig a hole in the earth at her feet. Into this hole she dropped the small something which was in her hand. As soon as the earth was over it, tiny leaves came out. Then it grew instantly into a tree covered with ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... Bodder—"and I am going there too," said the serious student, "as soon as I can find out where it is: but nobody seems to know. After all, lots of chaps go abroad after their degraggers: why shouldn't I have a spade and dig in Egypt or Mesopotamia or somewhere, same ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... over the coals on a stick. We roasted some of it over the open fire. But the best way to cook fish and birds is in the ashes, under a big fire. We take the fish fresh from the creek or lake, have a good fire on the sand, dig in the sandy ashes and bury it deep. The same thing is done in case of a bird, only we wet the feathers first. When it is done, the scales or feathers and skin are stripped off whole, and the delicious meat retains all its juices and flavor. We pulled it off ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... town of homes all taking pleasant care of one another. We want to make all neighbors and all homes esthetically interesting to one another, believing that this will relate them humanely, morally and politically. We began with those who pay no one to dig, plant or prune for them, but soon we went further and ventured to open to gardens kept with hired service an allied competition for a separate list of prizes. In this way we put into motion, between two elements of our people ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... her I want—it's Durkin!" MacNutt was saying, with an oath, as they swung around the corner into the blinking and serried lights of Eighth avenue. "It's that damned groundhog I'm goin' to dig out yet!" ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... to do with the gold?" he said, quickly. "Oh, we'll take it home with us. Dig up a root or two of those ferns to put in the basket, and hide what we ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Pennsylvania, in behalf of all the English, rose with a wampum belt in his hand, and addressed the tawny congregation thus: "By this belt we heal your wounds; we remove your grief; we take the hatchet out of your heads; we make a hole in the earth, and bury it so deep that nobody can dig it up again." Then, laying the first belt before them, he took another, very large, made of white wampum beads, in token of peace: "By this belt we renew all our treaties; we brighten the chain of friendship; ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... to put two workmen on to dig out that earth at once, sir, and I want you and this gentleman, sir," he added, with a bow to the Don, "to come and be present. There might be something ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... Fueyo said. His voice was a little high, but it was well controlled and responsive. "Sure, lieutenant. I'll help if I can—but I just don't dig what you're giving ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Dormice came down to the Moles; and when the Moles found that the silly creatures were bent on their quarrel, they insisted that the combat should be with swords. Moreover, they offered to play the part of seconds, and to dig a grave ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... other, as the guest changed her position, fully revealing her face. "Tried to dig some information out of her once. Like picking prickly pears blindfold. That's Camilla Van Arsdale. What a coincidence to find ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... best she could, the Mother replied that she did not know; it depended on the will of Heaven and the Motombo. Then to prevent further argument she bade them bring their picks with which they worked the land; also poles, mats, and palmstring, and help to dig up the Holy Flower. This was done under the superintendence of Stephen, who here was thoroughly in his element, although the job proved far from easy. Also it was sad, for all these women wept as they worked, while some of them who were not ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... sat knitting and crooning together in a sunny corner of the common room in winter, or out under the stoop in summer; how she rolled down the green bank behind the house; and, when she grew big enough to be trusted with a knife, was sent out to dig dandelions in the spring, and how an older girl went with her round the village, and sold them from house to house. How, at last, her old grandmother died, and was buried; and how a woman of the village, who had used to buy her dandelions, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... immaculate white. Where the snow lies deepest in winter, there shall you find the greatest flush of new life in the spring. Down under the snow Nature's chemical laboratory is at work. Take a stick and dig under the thick white blanket into the black soil. Here are bulbs and buds, corms and tubers, rootstalks and rhizomes, which were pumped full of starch and albumen in the hot days of last August. So far as modern science is able to tell, chemical changes are in constant ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... no announcement in the Society papers. But I took this country seat especially to receive them. There's plenty of room if you dig; it is pleasantly situated and what is most important it is in a very quiet neighbourhood. So I am at home to ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... us over the ridge is the first line of the present British front. There is no time to build trenches now or to dig themselves in. They just hold the broken line of unconnected shell holes, or swarm in the great craters which are held by rapid fire machine guns. The men go out by night to relieve those who have been holding the ground during the previous ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... tell you now, lest I should forget it, that the list of all my moneys and other possessions in chattels or lands or ships or merchandise is buried beneath the floor of my office, just under where my chair stands. Lift the boards and dig away a foot of rubbish, and you will find a stone trap, and below an iron box with the deeds, inventories, and some very precious jewels. Also, if by any mischance that box should be lost, duplicates of nearly all these ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... through deep ravines formed by their own action. These hills, for more than 100 miles before you come to Pittsburg, are literally heaps of coal. In height they vary from 100 to 500 feet, and nothing more is required than to clear off the soil, and then dig ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... and commemorated better days, but was besides an exercise of culture, where all they knew of art and letters was united and expressed. And it made a man's heart sorry for the good fathers of yore who had taught them to dig and to reap, to read and to sing, who had given them European mass-books which they still preserve and study in their cottages, and who had now passed away from all authority and influence in that land—to be succeeded by greedy land-thieves and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confession of inaptitude for mechanical works. He does not seem to have been very accomplished in the handling of agricultural implements either, for it is told in the family that his little son, Waldo, seeing him at work with a spade, cried out, "Take care, papa,—you will dig your leg." ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... are usually stone-workers, making cups, mortars, images of idols and other articles. They also build tanks and wander from place to place for this purpose in large companies. It is related that on one occasion they came to dig a tank in Drug, and the Raja of that place, while watching their work, took a fancy to one of the Odnis, as their women were called, and wanted her to marry him. But as she was already married, and was a virtuous woman, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... nor the vaulted cellar chamber belonged to Sam Cleghorn or to Dick Webb, their presence and actions there were not surreptitious. Stanton Mayhew, who ignorantly owned the well, had given them plenary permission to pump and dig, mildly pitying their apparent lunacy. The palace above was his in virtue of his sensible preference for living twice as well on the Arno for half the cost on the Hudson. This rule of two, like so many foreign residents of Florence, he unquestioningly obeyed, and it constituted ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... the mountain, for all I know," said Hall. "As for his object, I confess I am entirely in the dark; but, for all that, I am convinced that we shall find no more metal if we dig ten miles ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... lay of the land, the embers of the fire showing me how the train had lain. "I don't wonder nobody was hit," I exclaimed, "if that's a sample of their shooting. Some one was a worse rattled man than I ever expect to be. Dig the bullets out, Douglas, so that we can ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Hippolyte Fauville," Mazeroux continued, "and I declare to you that it's actually in his hand ... written on the fourth of January of this year to a friend whose name we don't know, though we shall dig him out somehow, that I'll swear. And this friend will certainly give us ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... welcome. On the contrary, the failure of the potato crop, especially in its quality, as well as that in the grain generally, was not only the cause of hunger and distress, but also of the sickness which prevailed. The poor were forced, as they too often are, to dig their potatoes before they were fit for food; and the consequences were disastrous to themselves in every sense. Sickness soon began to appear; but then it was supposed that as soon as the new grain came in, relief would follow. ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... might not go out by the way in which we came, Olaf made us dig a new channel, and we went out by that, laughing. We all had to dig for our lives, ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... or other (it may be the Giant insinuated these things into my mind), a whole variety of slimy thoughts, vulgar words, bad imaginings surged through my mind and, together with a feeling that all was lost, seemed to dig down into the depths of my soul. There I lay, alone, forsaken, while the towering bulk of the Giant hovered over me ready to club me back into utter helplessness any minute. Finally I attempted to rise; but down came that dreadful club. Once more I struggled to ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... palmistry. Does not Society imitate God? At the sight of a soldier we can predict that he will fight; of a lawyer, that he will talk; of a shoemaker, that he shall make shoes or boots; of a worker of the soil, that he shall dig the ground and dung it; and is it a more wonderful thing that such an one with the "seer's" gift should foretell the events of a man's life ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... two children dig a hole And plant in it a cherry-stone: "We'll come to-morrow," one child said— "And then the tree will be full grown, And all its ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... you—never, never, never! Oh, how young and simple and foolish I was! And the magnificent way you talked about New York, and intimated that you were going to conquer the world. I believed you. Wasn't I a little idiot not—to know that you'd make for a place like this and dig a hole and stay in it, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to Sam Clemens and John Briggs and said he was going to dig up the treasure. He said he had dreamed just where it was, and said if they would go with him and dig he would divide up. The boys had great faith in dreams, especially Tom's dreams. Tom's unlimited freedom gave him ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... asleep—shove hip to haunch, Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch! Look at the purse with the tassel and knob And the gown with the angel and thingumbob! What's he at, quotha? reading his text! Now you've his curtsey—and what comes ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... as we are, you and I must do it, Bigot. Zounds! I learned to dig and delve when I was a stripling at Charlebourg, and in the trenches at Louisbourg, and I have not yet forgotten the knack of it! But where to get spades, Bigot; you are master here ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... one," he said hastily. "Who should come to see me? I'm only poor Monty. Poor old Monty's got no friends. Go away and let me dig." ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... entered the atomic age, and war has undergone a technological change which makes it a very different thing from what it used to be. War today between the Soviet empire and the free nations might dig the grave not only of our Stalinist opponents, but of our own society, our world as ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... the earth Poyor had dug up from the middle of the fortification was all heaped above him in such a manner that he could do nothing in his own behalf, and it was only necessary to dig this away. ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... good of the service. I was a slave once, but I know what I am working for now. If you have a secret I ought to know, Captain Passford, I will take it in and bury it away down at the bottom of my bosom; and I will give the whole state of Louisiana to any one that will dig ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... finished the dam, they then proceed to construct a house for themselves. First they dig a foundation of greater or less capacity, in proportion to the number of their society. They then form the walls of earth and stones, mixed with billets of wood crossing each other, and thus tying the fabric together just in the ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... it right," said the shiftless one. "I think I'll enjoy bein' a fox fur awhile. The forest is full o' holes an' dens, an' when they dig me out o' one I'll be ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fashioned with no regard to pleasing the eye. They bestow more than ordinary pains in coating certain parts of their buildings with a kind of earth, so pure and shining that it gives the appearance of painting. They also dig subterraneous caves, [99] and cover them over with a great quantity of dung. These they use as winter-retreats, and granaries; for they preserve a moderate temperature; and upon an invasion, when the open country is plundered, these recesses remain unviolated, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Seven Dials, and Bill Sikes couldn't hold a farthing dip to me. Bless you, she had my old police record at her fingers' ends, but it was fit to frame compared with the one I gave her. I had sunk as low as they dig. I divided my nights between the open parks and a thieves' kitchen in Seven Dials. If I was decently dressed it was because I had stolen the suit down the Thames Valley beat the night before last. I was on my way back when first that sleepy square, and then her open window, proved ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... called Hippy, as his mysterious friend started away. "Haven't you forgotten something? That 'snack' you promised to dig for." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... ride away. It happened that those who were in the lead were unaware of the tradition of the country, and so they began to dig him out, this old king of foxes, who had felt himself ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey |
