"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no human creature gave life to the white desert where Boreas reigned, his voice alone resounding at distant intervals. The sky, nearly always gray, gave tones of polished steel to the ice of the fiord. Perchance some ancient eider-duck crossed the expanse, trusting to the warm down beneath which dream, in other lands, the luxurious rich, little knowing of the dangers through which their luxury has come to them. Like the Bedouin of the desert who darts alone across the sands of Africa, the bird is neither seen ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... table where the two newcomers sat down were astounded to see the following menu ordered and practically consumed by one man, since Werdet, being on diet, took only a soup and a little chicken: A hundred oysters; twelve chops; a young duck; a pair of roast partridges; a sole; hors d'oeuvre; sweets; fruit (more than a dozen pears being swallowed); choice wines; coffee; liqueurs. Never since Rabelais' or perhaps Louis XIV.'s time, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... kind of moody and changeable type all sizes, kinds and colors, and if this book could be printed with irregular, up and down and sidling lines—printed for people the way they are going to read it, if the sentences in this chapter could duck under into subterranean passages or could take nice little airy swoops or flights—if every line on a page could dart and waver around in different kinds and colors of type, make a perfect picture of what is going to happen to it when it ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the rivers. The sisi and the chikor are the partridges of the hills, which are also the home of fine varieties of pheasants including the monal. Quail frequent the ripening fields in April and late in September. Duck of various kinds abound where there are jhils, and snipe are to be got in marshy ground. The green parrots, crows, and vultures are familiar sights. Both the sharp-nosed (Garialis Gangetica, vern. gharial) and the blunt-nosed ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... pure chink, and all belonged to me, I would give them if I could just talk to her as I wanted to. But I was afraid to begin; for when I would think of saying anything to her, my heart would begin to flutter like a duck in a puddle. And if I tried to outdo it and speak, it would get right smack up in my throat, and choke me like a cold potato. It bore on my mind in this way, till at last I concluded I must die if I didn't broach the subject. So I determined to begin and hang on a-trying to speak, till my heart ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... wild grape glistens, On sunny knoll and tree, The slim papaya ripens Its yellow fruit for thee. For thee the duck, on glassy stream, The prairie-fowl shall die, My rifle for thy feast shall bring The wild swan from the sky. The forest's leaping panther, Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, Shall yield his spotted hide to be A carpet ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... little about Maiden Bright-eye When she fell into the water she was fortunate enough to get the bergman's cap put on her head, for now she was in danger of her life, and she was at once transformed into a duck. The duck swam away after the ship, and came to the king's palace on the next evening. There it waddled up the drain, and so into the kitchen, where her little dog lay on the hearth-stone; it could not bear to stay in the fine chambers along with the ugly sister, and had taken refuge down here. ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... much of him. He was a small, ingenuous-looking creature in those days, light-haired and blue-eyed; and when a little later he became a steerer of one of the boats, he looked very attractive in his Fourth of June dress, as a middy, with a dirk and white duck trousers, dangling an enormous bouquet from his neck. At Eton he did very little in the way of work, and his intellect must have been much in abeyance; because so poor was his performance, that it became a matter of surprise among his companions ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... yesterday afternoon trying to find out a certain T.M. battery, and what should fly by quite close and quite unconcerned but a duck! We were not very high, and it was very misty. The duck just appeared, with his neck stretched out, eager and oblivious. And then vanished into the mist again. I was thinking about that duck too much to find out what I wanted. Anyway, it was a fruitless journey. But flying amongst clouds is ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... short, and stout, and singularly duck-legged withal, the major, having had his attention called to the condition of his garments, drew forth his cotton handkerchief and hung it about his loins, as a means of protecting the exposed state of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... meant it all right. And they may not have been the same ones at all. Mr. Hammond did not say they made inquiries for us, or for that poor young fellow. What was it they called him—'The Duck?'" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... of movement, I leave his side, dart between a carriage and a van, duck under the head of a cab-horse, and board a 'bus going westward somewhere—but anyhow, going in exactly the reverse direction to the botanist. I clamber up the steps and thread my swaying way to the seat immediately behind ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... "The beautiful and gladsome songs of thy sister, whom thy heart loves, as she walks in the fields." The girl is supposed to belong to the peasant class, and most of the verses are sung whilst she is at her daily occupation of snaring wild duck in the marshes. One must imagine the songs warbled without any particular refrain, just as in the case of the modern Egyptians, who pour out their ancient tales of love and adventure in a series of bird-like cadences, full-throated, ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... to such misfortune, I related to him the whole affair, whereat, however, he only shook his head. On my asking him whether he would not see my child that same day, he answered, "Nay;" he would rather first study the Acta. And after he had eaten of some wild duck which my old Ilse had roasted for him, he would tarry no longer, but straightway went up to the castle, whence he did not return till the following afternoon. His manner was not more friendly now than at his first coming, and I followed ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... season, when the cloudy sky Upon the parched ground doth rain down send, As duck and mallard in the furrows dry With merry noise the promised showers attend, And spreading broad their wings displayed lie To keep the drops that on their plumes descend, And where the streams swell to a gathered lake, Therein they dive, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... by a mole, and you know that they are all somewhere beneath your feet: moles, pocket gophers, and the pretty striped gopher which used to sit up on his hind legs, fold his front paws, and look at you in the summer time, then give a low whistle and duck; meadow mice in their cozy tunnels through which the water will be pouring when the spring freshets come; the woodchuck in his long, long sleep, and the chipmunk with his winter store of food. And so watching, listening, and musing you come at length to the western edge of the woodland and look ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... the order given, and the result was that an hour later the largest boat, well manned, and prepared for any emergencies in the way of meeting game, from walrus to wild duck, pushed off from the ship's side, leaving her floating as snugly and as motionless as if ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... was formed in that place still called the "Bird Cage Walk;" and in the large space between this walk and the canal, and nearest the Abbey, an extensive decoy for wild fowl was constructed, popularly termed "Duck Island," and of which the famous St. Evremond was appointed a salaried governor. Charles, who was exceedingly fond of walking, and who tired out many a courtier who tried to keep up with his quick pace, was continually seen ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... young man makes love with a flow of language, a wealth of imagery, that must have taken him years to acquire. What does the novel-reading girl think, I wonder, when the real young man proposes to her! He has not called her anything in particular. Possibly he has got as far as suggesting she is a duck or a daisy, or hinting shyly that she is his bee or his honeysuckle: in his excitement he is not quite sure which. In the novel she has been reading the hero has likened the heroine to half the vegetable kingdom. Elementary astronomy has been exhausted ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... dragging the pole and line the boys had dropped along with it, was a most curious creature. It was a big fish, but a fish with four short legs on which it was walking, or rather waddling along as much as a duck, with a double supply ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... canoe. In spite of this some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, "was not'ing to ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... there was yet time. They did not realize, it is difficult for those in the same house to realize, where things were tending. Henrietta's temper became less violent; there are fewer occasions for losing a temper when one is grown up, but she took to nagging like a duck to water. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... be given a honk sounded at the door. Then a young doctor clad in white duck and carrying a three-fold ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... Harry," he said, several times. "Dinna fash yoursel', man. I'll tell ye in time for ye to duck if I see one ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... deal of shooting, and am much interested in ornithology, and specimens of our birds that you might want I should be happy to lookout for; do a good deal of coast shooting winters; have been hopefully looking for a Labrador duck for a number of seasons—fear they ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... duck and would have shot it, but the duck called to him, "Do not shoot me, dear Prince. Take me with you, and I will be a faithful servant. The time may come when you will ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... carried on. Market gardens, known as hortillonnages, intersected by small canals derived from the Somme and Avre, cover a considerable area to the north-east of Amiens; and the city has trade in vegetables, as well as in grain, sugar, wool, oil-seeds and the duck-pasties and macaroons for ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the south side stand the boundary-wall of Kew-Gardens, some buildings for soldiery, and the plain house of Ernest, duke of Cumberland. Among other persons of note and interest who reside here, are the two respectable daughters of Stephen Duck, the poet, who deserve to be mentioned as relics of a former age. In the western corner stand the buildings called Kew Palace, in which George III. passed many of the early years of his reign, and near which he began a new structure a few years before ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... communicated by Darwin to Romanes. One of his children who was just beginning to speak, called a duck a "quack." By an appreciation of the resemblance of qualities it next extended the term "quack" to denote all birds and insects on the one hand, and all fluid objects on the other. Lastly, by a still more delicate appreciation of resemblance the child called all coins ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... kitchen enters a small, fatigued Japanese, hastily buttoning a servant's coat of white duck. He opens the front screen-door and admits a handsome young man of thirty, clad in the sort of well-intentioned clothes peculiar to those who serve mankind. To his whole personality clings a well-intentioned air: his glance about the room is compounded of curiosity and a determined ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... but when cloathed, is considerably larger, for their feathers are exceedingly thick; they are webb-footed, and of a rusty black colour; they make their holes upon the hills for breeding their young in; they lay but one egg, and that is full as large as a duck's egg. ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... voyageur by the American Fur Company. On June 16, 1822, when about eighteen years of age, he was accidentally wounded by a discharge from a musket. The contents of the weapon, consisting of powder and duck-shot, entered his left side from a distance of not more than a yard off. The charge was directed obliquely forward and inward, literally blowing off the integument and muscles for a space about the size of a man's hand, carrying away the anterior ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to a greater or less extent, thrown away upon me, and if I had any trouble it rolled off from my broad shoulders as water from a duck's back and left not a trace behind. In the language of the old song, I was, "Good for any game at night, my boys," or day, either, for that matter, and the pranks that I played and the scrapes that I got into were, some of them, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... his room, and sat at the window. At this height it was unlikely that any stray bullet would come near him. But he could not see any one. He could hear the wild-fowl crying in the Park ... distinctly, in the pause of the firing, he could hear a duck's quack-quack.... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "You've forgot what you set out to do up at the alehouse just now. You was goin' to search me for witch-marks; you was goin' to duck me in the pond; you was goin' to drag all my bits o' sticks out o' my little cottage here. What's the matter with you? Wouldn't you like to be with your old woman ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... of meadow, or separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass, wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth and eaten the pads. We detected the remains of one in such a spot. At one place, where we landed to pick up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, Joe peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He then asked if we were not going to get the other duck, for his sharp eyes had seen another fall in the bushes a little farther along, and my companion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... country, not yet ravaged by either army, which it was a pleasure to those fixtures of the army called "foragers" to hunt up. The brotherhood of "foragers" was a peculiar institute, and some men take as naturally to it as the duck to water. They have an eye to business, as well as pleasure, and the life of a "forager" becomes almost an art. They have a peculiar talent, developed by long practice of nosing out, hunting up, and running to quarry anything in the way of "eatables or drinkables." ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... followed her. She was dressed in a duffel coat or pelisse, which I think country folk call a Joseph; but I followed her at a distance, through fields and owre stiles, till I saw her enter a sma' farm-house. There were some bits o' bairns, apparently hinds' bairns, sitting round a sort o' duck-dub near ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Easter eggs, the insides of which have been blown out and replaced by very fine caraway-seed candy, put in through a little hole at one end and then covered by a picture. The money I get for these eggs is for my Easter offering. Duck-eggs are the prettiest to use, because they are of such a lovely greenish-blue tint. May be some of your other readers may like to make some of these Easter eggs. Mamma says she could scarcely keep house without the ST. NICHOLAS now, and I think so too.—Your ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... realize what my life was like with Ladislaus?" she hissed. "A plaything for his brutal pleasures, to begin with; a decoy duck to trap the other men, I found afterwards; tortured and insulted from morning to night. I hated him always, but he seemed so kind beforehand—kind to my darling mother, whom you were leaving to die."—Here Francis Markrute ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... Now, the duck-pond was near-by. And at first Chirpy hadn't thought of looking there for his listener. But the second time he heard the voice he guessed that it came from the pond. So Chirpy leaped to the water's edge; and there, sitting on a lily-pad, was the tiniest ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... of the Ethiopian Eunuch by St. Philip" is a fair sample of the needlework picture of this time. The picture is a strange mixture of the early Stuart Petit Point, the Jacobean wall-hanging, and the newly revived religious spirit. The duck-pond, the swans and the water-plants might have been copied bodily from James I.'s time. The paroquet and the flying bird, and the immense leaves and blossoms, are direct from the wall-hangings, while the figures only too surely foretell the coming dark days ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... eleven a.m., for of dry land, excepting a dismal mangrove swamp extending far away on either side of us, there was none. Our shooting costumes were more light than elegant, consisting as they did of a pair of white duck trowsers, a thin jersey, no socks, a pair of white canvas shoes, and a sun helmet, the latter filled with cartridges. Struggling ashore with some difficulty, we found ourselves without further ado up to our waists in swamp, or rather a substance the colour of but ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... in the water at half-past four, just as she had said she would be. She waited for you, and tried to swim at the end of a curtain pole. I held it steady for her, but when she was the teacher, she let me duck under. And we weren't sure about the stroke anyhow. And we kept ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... the water A duck said, "Quack!" Up in the tree-top A crow answered back, Two of us amusing, Two of us confusing: So we had to give up talking, And just listen ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... himself had been born the previous day—when he found a larger grating in the floor near the rocket and realized if he was very careful he could climb out of the sewer and duck into the rocket when nobody was looking. Once inside he was pretty sure he'd find a ...
— Zero Hour • Alexander Blade
... moorland dotted with clay-works. This was Ebenezer Chapel; and my father was its deacon. Its one bell had sounded down the ridge and tinkled in my ear from half-past ten to eleven that morning. Its pastor would walk back and eat roast duck and drink three-star brandy under my father's roof after service. Bell and pastor had spoken in vain, as far as I was concerned; but I knew that all they had to say would be rubbed in with my father's ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... low and tight in the waist, with a coat-collar rolling back to reveal a vast expanse of shirt-bosom, surmounted by a cravat of awful splendor, bow-knotted and blue-fringed. His trousers were of white duck, his boots lacquered, and he carried a gold-tipped cane in his hand. So he walked up the narrow old streets from the wharf, making a sunshine in those shady places. It was the hottest hour of a midsummer afternoon; not a soul ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the land speculators to sell a farm to a respectable settler at an unusually low price, in order to give a character to a neighbourhood where they hold other lands, and thus to use him as a decoy duck for ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... great use of the game call. We all know of duck and turkey calls, but when he told me that he lured rabbits, tree squirrels, wildcats, coyote, and bear to him, I thought he was romancing. Going along the trail, he would stop and say, "Ineja teway—bjum—metchi bi wi," or "This ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... end of a stick, while a receptacle for holy water was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called Canards). And so pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted. The only trades allowed them were those of butcher and carpenter, and their ordinary occupation was wood-cutting. Their language is merely ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... signalled for the lights to be put out, and they stole forward, two black blotches on the dark water. Once they narrowly escaped running down a Customs' patrol boat, and voices cursed them with vigour out of the gloom. Again, as they were about to pass under a mooring rope, some one yelled to Foyle to duck. The warning came too late, and he would have been swept into the water but that a ready knife severed the rope. Then there was a halt for a little, while the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... white shoes, duck trousers, a white pique shirt, and a blue serge coat that fitted his graceful figure perfectly. "What did you do that for?" ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... it," the financier admitted thoughtfully. "I don't mind confessing to you on the sly that it was Nan's idea, at first, but I took to it like a duck to water. And the more I see of it ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... came to the Old Farm Yard. There stood Ducky Waddles by the old creaking gate. He had just come in from a swim in the Old Duck Pond and was combing his feathers with ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... mademoiselle!" And at the fish-stall, if she smelt of a fish, and said: "This has been frozen," the reply would be: "Bah! tell me next, will you, that I let the moon shine on their gills, so's to make 'em look fresh! So these are hard days for you, eh, my duck?" Mademoiselle wanted her to go to the Halle Centrale one day for her dinner, and she mentioned the fact in the fish-woman's presence. "Oho! yes, yes, to the Halle! I'd like to see you go to the Halle!" And she bestowed a glance upon her in which Germinie saw ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... beauty; at Mr. Jones's, they said I was a fright. They said I sang like a Patti; at Brown's, I screeched like an owl. They said I danced like Terpsichore; at Smith's, they declared I wabbled round like any other lame duck. They said my taste in dress was the pink of perfection; at the Duzenbury's, I was scandalously deficient in every thing of the sort. It's a way the young men of that day had with all the girls; and they go the same vile way now. Pray don't ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... her lord keeps his heart. The giant, like the Jewish hero, finally succumbs to feminine blandishments. "Far, far away in a lake lies an island; on that island stands a church; in that church is a well; in that well swims a duck; in that duck there is an egg; and in that egg there lies my heart, you darling." Boots, thus instructed, rides on the wolf's back to the island; the raven flies to the top of the steeple and gets the church-keys; the salmon dives to the bottom of the well, and brings up the egg from the place ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... soon begun their search. Fred, who preferred rowing to strawberry-picking, undertook to take charge of Harry, who was as eager for the water as a young duck; while Mrs. Steele, taking out her knitting, sat down beside the baskets under a spreading oak, on a knoll overlooking the river, to wait until there should be a ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... "Oria has brought me that beautiful little duck you described. I would rather take that home with me than all the other pets, and yet I should be sorry ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... navy, and with a considerable portion of broad sailor's humour and slang, observed it, and slapping him roundly on the back, cried, "Hilloa, Frank! what are you dodging about?—quizzing the rig of your convoy, because they have too much light duck set to walk steadily through ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes for ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Andy," called David from down the table. "Sure you don't need a raw egg? Phoebe has a couple up her sleeve here she can lend you. The major has persuaded her to take a bit of duck and some asparagus ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and cleaning poultry, season all fowls for several hours before cooking. Salt, pepper, and ginger are the proper seasoning. Some like a tiny bit of garlic rubbed inside and outside, especially for goose or duck. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... from this paper-canoe voyage, the author embarked alone, December 2, 1875, in a cedar duck-boat twelve feet in length, from the head of the Ohio River, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and followed the Ohio and Mississippi rivers over two thousand miles to New Orleans, where he made a portage through that city eastwardly to Lake Pontchartrain, and rowed along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... crowd opened and our hero came forward, clothed only in a shirt and duck trousers. His face was not streaked with professional paint on this occasion. It beamed with the flush and the latent fire of one who feels that he has made up his mind deliberately ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... officers carried, and the very individuality and self-reliance of the men acted as an invincible opponent to drill and discipline. Mounted on horses of all sizes and colors; equipped with all varieties of trappings; and carrying slung at their backs every known game-killer—from rifle to duck gun—they would have been a strange picture to the European officer to which their splendid horsemanship and lithe, agile figures could have added no varnish to make him believe ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... bullfrogs and water snakes, and haunted by two white cranes. Oh! the terrors of that pond! How our little hearts would beat as we approached it; what fearful glances we would throw around! And if by chance a plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang of a bullfrog, struck our ears, as we stole quietly by—away we sped, nor paused until completely out of the woods. Then, when I reached home, what a world of adventures and imaginary terrors would I have to relate to ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... They rushed from one thing to another. The strain was intolerable. After supper they went to the West End Cinema, and there, just before closing-time, a film, in which everyone was falling into a dirty duck-pond for no ostensible reason, was suddenly stopped, and there appeared across the screen the ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... any wild fowl, duck, goose, or turkey, for a large party, if you cut the slices down from pinion to pinion, without making wings, there ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... maiden," he said, "for it shall be another Eric than yon flapper-duck who holds Whitefire aloft, though it may very well chance that he shall ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... equal my jump (which, Heaven help him! he could not do), that the gallant was swinging over the pond before anyone understood what was afoot. Then they broke up the ring and closed in on us, so that I, having dropped my burden amidst the duck-weed, was fain to lose myself among the crowd and give ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... Baldus the great lawyer died of it: an Augustine friar, and a woman in Delft, that were [918]Forrestus' patients, were miserably consumed with it. The common cure in the country (for such at least as dwell near the seaside) is to duck them over head and ears in sea water; some use charms: every good wife can prescribe medicines. But the best cure to be had in such cases, is from the most approved physicians; they that will read of them, may consult with Dioscorides, lib. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... exposed to the scorn and contumely of the world!—But stop, thou child of sorrow, and humble imitator of Job, and tell me on what you dined. Was not there soup and salmon, and then a plate of beef, and then duck, blanc-mange, cream cheese, diluted with beer, claret, champagne, hock, tea, coffee, and noyeau? And after all this you talk of the mind and the evils of life! These kinds of cases do not need meditation, but magnesia. Take short views of life. What am I to do in these times with ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... O Tantlatch, that the wild goose and the swan and the little ringed duck be born here in the low-lying lands. It be known that they go away before the face of the frost to unknown places. And it be known, likewise, that always do they return when the sun is in the land and the waterways are ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... His white silk shirt hung loose on his thin, fine shoulders. His broad rider's belt, studded with blue enameled rings, encircled a waist almost as slender as Jude's own. His white duck trousers were turned up to display new riding boots, and his spurs, a graduation gift, were of silver and chimed at his ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... let's do, Uncle Wiggily. Let's take the path that leads over the duck pond ocean. That's shorter, and we can get to your bungalow before the fox can catch us. He won't dare come across the bridge over the duck pond, for Old Dog Percival will come out and bite him if ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... fasting, upon a raft of bamboo poles lashed together, and to let one or two at most at a time dive for fish, which are taken from them the moment they bring them to the surface. These birds, not much larger than the common duck, will seize and gripe fast fishes that are not less than their own weight. When the proprietor judges the first pair to be pretty well fatigued, they are suffered to feed by way of encouragement on some of the fish they have taken, and a second pair are dispatched upon the water. The fish we ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... bum hangin' round the river front in Saint Louee who hed preacher's papers, en wore a long-tailed coat. Thar wan't no low-down game he wudn't take a hand in fer a drink. His name wus Gaskins; I hed him up fer mayhem onct. I'll bet he's the duck, for he hung round Jack's place most o' the time. Whatcha want ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... to the country, we once went for a week's shooting to the Lake of Scutari. Water-fowl abound there in marvellous numbers, consisting chiefly of crane, heron, thousands of duck, and a fair number ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... being given to them of whatever food their parents may have. About nine or ten years appears to be the age at which limitations commence. Boys are now forbidden to eat the red kangaroo, or the female or the young ones of the other kinds; the musk duck, the white crane, the bandicoot, the native pheasant, (leipoa, meracco), the native companion, some kinds of fungi, the old male and female opossum, a kind of wallabie (linkara), three kinds of fish (toor-rue, toitchock, and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... was blue with smoke and noisy with rather vociferative conversation and laughter. Several groups of men were gathered in little knots. A negro in white duck moved here and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... left, loomed the Washington monument, glittering like a shaft of opals. Some orderlies dashed by on handsome bays. How splendid they looked, with their blue trousers and broad yellow stripes! This was before the Army adopted the comfortable but shabby brown duck. How he longed to throw a leg over the back of a good horse and gallop away into ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... branches that drooped to the water's edge. And suddenly I remembered and told them of another French exile, the epicurean St. Evremond, whose needs were relieved by Charles II. appointing him governor of yonder Duck Island at a salary of three hundred pounds ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... it kite-fashion to the bank. Thereafter—the boat spun dizzily—suppose the high wind got under the freed body? Would it tower up like a kite and pitch headlong on the far-away sands, or would it duck about, beyond control, through all eternity? Findlayson gripped the gunnel to anchor himself, for it seemed that he was on the edge of taking the flight before he had settled all his plans. Opium has more effect on the white man than the black. Peroo ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... one hant in my life, an' I didn' know it wuz a hant 'til Aunt Peggy (an old slave woman) tole me so. Dis hant was in de shape o' a duck, an' it followed me one day frum de big house kitchen ter de hawg pen whar I wuz gwine ter slop de hawgs. When I got back, I said, 'Aunt Peggy, dar's a strange duck done tuck up wid us!' And she say, 'hush, chile, dat's a hant!' I been seein' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... health), my lord." And his Majesty said, "Let one bring me a prisoner who is in prison, that his punishment may be fulfilled." And Dedi said: "Let it not be a man, O King, my lord; behold we do not even thus to our cattle." And a duck was brought unto him, and its head was cut off. And the duck was laid on the west side of the hall, and its head on the east side of the hall. And Dedi spake his magic speech. And the duck fluttered along the ground, and its head came likewise; ...
— Egyptian Literature
... covering; having been classed {175} with lizards by early naturalists on account of their clothing of scales, yet their mouth is like that of the hairy ant-eaters of the New World. On the other hand, the duck-billed platypus of Australia (Ornithorhynchus) is the only mammal which has teeth formed of horn, yet its furry coat is normal and ordinary. Again, the Dugong and Manatee are dermally alike, yet extremely different ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... watering from above lures the roots toward the surface and next day the hot sun kills them. The answer to that is that the rain comes from above, doesn't it? Roots have learned certain habits in the past million years and we haven't time to teach them to duck when it rains. Hank has some irrigation plan which involves sinking tomato cans in the ground ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the water is as real as the reality. The Plaza, monstrous tons of steel and stone, floats between two elements. Then darkness gathers, the reflected lights in the blackening water grow more golden, and suddenly, perhaps, a duck swims across a tenth story window and sets it dancing in golden ripples. You may fare far among the ancient and "picturesque" cities of the earth without finding a rival for this strange bit of beauty in New York, an ethereal ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... delight, she took to riding as a duck to water, and knew no fear on horseback. She had the best governess he could get her, the daughter of an admiral, and, therefore, in distressed circumstances; and later on, a tutor for her music, who came twice a week all the way from London—a sardonic man who cherished ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a-tremblin' about, you coward?" growled Bud. "He won't shoot you; but he'll beat you at this game, I'll bet a hoss, and me, too, and make us both as 'shamed of ourselves as dogs with tin-kittles to their tails. You don't know the master, though he did duck you. But he'll larn you a good lesson this time, and me too, like as not." And Bud soon snored again, but Hank shook with fear every time he looked at the blackness outside the windows. He was ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... as we could. On the following morning, before dawn, I had been lying wakefully listening for the different sounds of the bells on the animals' necks, and got up to brighten up the camp fire with fresh wood, when the strange sound of the quacking of a wild duck smote upon my ear. The blaze of firelight had evidently attracted the creature, which probably thought it was the flashing of water, as it flew down close to my face, and almost precipitated itself into the flames; but discovering its error, it wheeled away upon its ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... came out in a comfortable top buggy, which I drove myself, and brought a luncheon of cold ham and canvas-back duck and a flask of brandy. Tied the horse under a tree out of sight of the house, and stood where I could command a full view of the premises without being seen. All day yesterday, as long as it was light enough to see, I watched in vain. No one left the house, except the gallant, gay, young ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... long for Muir. It was a good supper—a mulligan stew of mallard duck, with biscuits and coffee. Stickeen romped into camp about ten o'clock and his new master ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... accordingly, and he made up for Joe's weight with a surplus of ballast. He spent the whole day in these preparations, and the latter were finished when Kennedy returned. The hunter had been successful, and brought back a regular cargo of geese, wild-duck, snipe, teal, and plover. He went to work at once to draw and smoke the game. Each piece, suspended on a small, thin skewer, was hung over a fire of green wood. When they seemed in good order, Kennedy, who was perfectly at home ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... the solar system, have always a charm, especially for the more foolish classes: but when once the birth has taken place, and the wretched mouse ducks past you, or even nothing at all can be seen to duck past, who is there but impatiently turns ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... or fine tree roots dyed in different colors, and after the pattern she chooses. Sometimes she works into the baskets the quail's crest, small red or yellow feathers from the woodpecker, green from the head of the mallard duck, or beads. She also hangs wampum or bits of abalone shell on the finest ones. The storage baskets are four or five feet high to hold grain or acorns, and the baskets to fit the back and carry a load are like half a cone in shape, ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... that Bohemian dinner. We had all the things that one does not have in a military mess on Salisbury Plain. Hors d'oeuvres, salad, fish, duck, and so forth. We were just finishing, and had lit our cigarettes while waiting for coffee, when the door porter came in and whispered to Captain Rankin that a policeman had our chauffeur in charge and wanted to see one of us. The doughty Captain went out, ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... boards, in lengths suitable for packing, connected by hinges, the different sections folding into so small a compass as to be conveniently carried upon mules. The frame is covered with a sheet of stout cotton canvas, or duck, secured to the gunwales with a cord running diagonally back and forth through eyelet-holes ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy |
