"Knee-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one they emerged from tents and sprang through the white leaping edge into the rocking blue, as other bathers were doing all round the bay. When Mrs. Hilary came out of her tent, Neville was waiting for her, poised like a slim girl, knee-deep in tumbling waves, shaking the water from ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... studied him. Helen, who had strolled a few yards away, was knee-deep in the golden brown bracken, picking some gorgeously coloured leaves from a solitary bramble bush. Lessingham had thrown his cap onto the ground, and his wind-tossed hair and the unusual colour in his cheeks were both, in their way, becoming. His loose but well-fitting ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... farmers who wade through mud knee-deep to plant the rice by hand, cultivate it with primitive tools, and harvest it with sickles. And after all this, they must often sell the rice they grow, and themselves buy cheaper millet or poorer rice for their own ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... mounted escort for Gershom and the kiddies as far as the schoolhouse, and then rode on to Dead Horse Lake, in the hope of getting a few duck. But the weather was too fine, though I managed to bring down a couple of mallard, after one of which Susie, having removed her shoes and stockings, waded knee-deep in the slough. She enjoys that sort of thing: it's something so entirely new to the child of the city. And Susie, I might add, is already looking much better. She is sleeping soundly, at last, and has promised me there shall be no more night-caps of veronal. What is more, I am getting to know ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... submerged. The last of them showing above, is the wreck of a grand forest giant, with branches undecayed, and still carrying the parasite of Spanish moss in profusion. This hanging down in streamers, scatters over the surface and dips underneath, like the tails of white horses wading knee-deep. In its midst appears something, which would escape the eye of one passing carelessly by. On close scrutiny it is seen to be a craft of rude construction—a log with the heart wood removed—in short, a canoe of the kind ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... magnifying mirrors they seemed but yards away, though they were wandering knee-deep in the marshes at the far end of the lake. All their repulsive details ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... And with the bright, keen morning not a vestige of the ship, but here a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill a great dog watching over a little child that he'd kept warm all night. Dan, he'd got up at turn of tide, and walked down,—the sea running over the road knee-deep,—for there was too much swell for boats; and when day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her up to town. He didn't take her home, for he saw that what clothes she had were the very finest,—made as delicately,—with seams like the hair-strokes on that heart's-ease there; and he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... suggested rather than defined itself. A landscape developed such as Turner in a quiet mood might have evolved, and with it a feeling of fantasy, of remoteness, of pure, true classicism. A note of pipes was in the air, sheep bleated, and Daphne, knee-deep in the grass, surging an answer to the pipes, went down to ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Point, St. Mary's Island, Madagascar. Here they found the wrecks of several merchant ships that had been run ashore by the pirates. Scattered on the beach were lying their cargoes, china ware, rich drugs and spices, cloth, guns, and other articles, lying where the pirates had cast them. Men waded knee-deep in pepper, cloves, and cinnamon, such was the quantity. In shallow water were lying the remains of a fine Jeddah ship that had been taken, with thirteen lakhs of treasure on board, by a pirate named Conden, who commanded a ship ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... experience of Wapping, Poplar, Rotherhithe, Limehouse, and Deptford, when they really came to life, there was precious little sleep, and no vegetables worth mentioning. They were quick and lusty. There they stood, long knee-deep and busy among their fleets, sometimes rising to cheer when a greater adventure was sailing or returning, some expedition that was off to find further avenues through the Orient or the Americas, or else a broken craft bringing back tragedy ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... claim for the ballot suggests nothing more than a rough polling-booth where coarse, drunken men, elbowing each other, wade knee-deep in mud to drop a little piece of paper two inches long into a box—simply this and nothing more. The poet Wordsworth, showing the blank materialism of those who see only with their outward eyes, says of his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and they waded through the water knee-deep to shore. The wreckage lay a hundred yards further up, on ground quite twenty feet higher than that on which they were standing. The bales were all marked with the ship's name. There were no signs of casks or boxes, these had doubtless been smashed into splinters. ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... an instant poised, but one could not say uncertain, she hung shining before me—for her dress was white, and it took and took and took the rose-colour as if she were a white rose, blushing. She then plunged directly into the water, which was knee-deep at least, and waded straight ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... delicate and skilful art. They live in the shallows near the beach, digging their holes in the sand under two or three feet of water. When the wind ruffles the surface, it is impossible to see the holes, but on calm days we waded knee-deep in the clear water, stepping carefully and peering intently for the homes of the sea-centipede. Finding one, we cautiously lowered into the hole a spool ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... had come too late to stop these last divers. A solitary midshipman, hatless and with his blouse half off, stood beside the ensign, both of them knee-deep in discarded parts of uniform, while Eph peered ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... yards below, turned their heads at sound of the stumble, and their keen eyes exchanged glances. Presently one of them shed his moccasins and waded in toward the mud cloud on the face of the rippling waters, and, while his companions stood at the bank, began searching in the knee-deep puddle. Presently again he swooped, thrust down a bare, brown arm almost to the shoulder, and drew forth a dripping object a foot long, covered with rust and mud. "Huh!" was all he said, as he splashed back to shore, exhibiting his prize to his fellows. Then together the three went a jog trot ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... was Fisbee's reply; and he fled guiltily into the "store-room," and Parker closed the door. They stood knee-deep in the clutter and ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... annihilated? I conjure Thee, by Thy love to me forthwith to pour out upon us Thy rain-clouds of grace!' He spake and hardly had he made an end of speaking, when the heavens clouded over and there came a rain, as if the mouths of waterskins had been opened; and when we left the oratory, we were knee-deep in water,"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... were intact and that, so far as he could ascertain by feeling, the shaft was not bent. But things looked pretty dismal below-decks. The forward cabin was awash, as was the engine-well, and the after stateroom was knee-deep. They gathered on the bridge deck ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... difficulty that we found a camping-place, this evening. For several miles, the approaches were nearly knee-deep in mud for a dozen feet back from the water's edge, or else the banks were too steep, or the farmers had cultivated so closely to the brink as to leave us no room for the tent. In one gruesome spot on the Ohio bank, where ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... miles on shingle Or flounder knee-deep in a bog Than listen to a speech from PRINGLE Or hearken to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... canoe grounded on the reed-grown mud the doctor's deep-voiced "Thank God!" met with no response. The wild-looking figure scrambled off the boat, and plunged nearly knee-deep into the mud. Those on the bank seemed to concern him not at all, for he turned, as was perhaps his long habit, to ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... ho! Shell-bracelets ho! Fair maids and matrons come and buy!" Along the road, in morning's glow, The pedlar raised his wonted cry. The road ran straight, a red, red line, To Khirogram, for cream renowned, Through pasture-meadows where the kine, In knee-deep grass, stood magic bound And half awake, involved in mist, That floated in dun coils profound, Till by the sudden sunbeams kist Rich rainbow ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... fish-hooks. The fibres of the aloe are unusually strong; they make better cordage than hemp, but will not bear the wet so well"—a sight caught my eyes which caused me to stare. A tall young fellow, with his trousers tucked up, was wading knee-deep in the bottoms beside the road. He wore a suit ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... is the interest which men, even upright and honorable men, take in the aims they follow, that they believe it possible to wade knee-deep through mud, and then ascend to the temple of fame without dragging the mud with them, and ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... it seemed more than rain—there were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By noon of the second day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; coops floated in slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep in certain places; the horses drew back—it was like fording a stream. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... down to the clear stream, To cross the sparkling shallows; there The cattle love to gather, on their way To the high mountain pastures and to stay, Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, Knee-deep in the cool ford; for 'tis the last Of all the woody, high, well-water'd dells On Etna, . . . . . . glade, And stream, and sward, and chestnut-trees, End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare Of the hot noon, without a shade, Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare; The peak, round ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... of one of the great names of France stood knee-deep in the sun-tanned grass and looked slowly round as if seeking to imprint the scene upon his memory. He turned to glance at the crumbling church behind him, built long ago by men speaking the language in which his own thoughts found shape. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... in at the open window seemed to bring nature strangely near to her. Looking away, where the trees did not intercept the view, it was all green country—gently- sloping hills, and the long Eyethorne wood, and rich meadow-land, where sleepy-looking cows stood in groups or waded knee-deep in the pasture. It was like an earthly paradise to her senses, but just now her mind was clouded with a great distress. Mary's strange words to her, and the warning that she would be cast out of Mary's heart, that it would be ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... South, and were for ever skimming over the brook, just dipping their wings into its limpid waves, then off again with the joyous 'Twit, twit, twit.' The meadows, too, were yellow with buttercups, in which the cows waded knee-deep. Talk of the Field of the Cloth of Gold! Francis the First would have been a clever man could he have made such an one!—no earthly king could create golden ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... very steep, and at last turned into a high, deep gorge out of which came a brawling stream of milky-colored ice-water, some twenty or thirty yards across. Without hesitation Leo plunged in and waded across, proving the stream to be not much more than knee-deep. And truth to say, Uncle Dick was proud of his young comrades when, without a word or a whimper, they unhesitatingly plunged in also and waded through after their leader. Nothing was said about the incident, but it was noticeable that Leo seemed more gracious thereafter toward the young ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... beach of Apemama was our daily resort. The coast is broken by shallow bays. The reef is detached, elevated, and includes a lagoon about knee-deep, the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. The beach is now of fine sand, now of broken coral. The trend of the coast being convex, scarce a quarter of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the land being so low, the horizon appears within a stone-cast; and the narrow prospect enhances the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rampart, these same troops, After the taking of the 'Cavalier,' Just as Koutousow's most 'forlorn' of 'hopes' Took like chameleons some slight tinge of fear, Open'd the gate call'd 'Kilia,' to the groups Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thaw'd into a ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... railways, the factory, the workshop, the banks and offices. In the munition works, in the shipyards, in the engineering shops, in the aeroplane sheds, they work in tens of thousands—risking life and health in some cases, but thinking little of it, compared with what their men are doing, knee-deep in snow and mud and water in the trenches. "Is the work heavy?" you ask. "Not so heavy as the soldiers'." "Are the hours long?" "Six days and nights in the trenches are longer." "We are going to win and you are going ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... portion of the suburb, which was almost knee-deep in mud—for it had been raining nearly all day, and had only cleared up after sunset—the individual whom we have been describing stopped at the corner of a street, and gave a ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... round Christ Church meadows, part of our way lying along the banks of the Cherwell, which unites with the Isis to form the Thames, I believe. The Cherwell is a narrow and remarkably sluggish stream; but is deep in spots, and capriciously so,—so that a person may easily step from knee-deep to fifteen feet in depth. A gentleman present used a queer expression in reference to the drowning of two college men; he said "it was an awkward affair." I think this is equal to Longfellow's story of the Frenchman who avowed himself very much "displeased" at the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the ripe red apples that had fallen from the tree. Uncle Bart's son, Cephas (Patty's secret adorer), was a painter by trade, and kept his pots and cans and brushes in a little outhouse at the back, while Uncle Bart himself stood every day behind his long joiner's bench almost knee-deep in shavings. How the children loved to play with the white, satiny rings, making them into necklaces, hanging them to their ears and weaving ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... states that the ground at St. Pierre Vaast has been converted into a marsh in which half-frozen soldiers, wet to the skin and knee-deep in mud, absorb ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... on him absolutely in every crisis, and he never lets me down. And, what's more, he can always be counted on to extend himself on behalf of any pal of mine who happens to be to all appearances knee-deep in the bouillon. Take the rather rummy case, for instance, of dear old Bicky and his uncle, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... marched back. Every house in Neuilly and Courbevoie was full of troops, and regiments were camping out in the fields, where they had passed the night without tents. Many of the men had been so tired that they had thrown themselves down in the mud, which was almost knee-deep, and thus fallen asleep with their muskets by their sides. Bitter were the complaints of the commissariat. Bread and eau de vie were at a high premium. Many of the men had thrown away their knapsacks, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... so did the roars of the Firedrake. Presently they sounded more like groans; and at last the Remora slipped up his legs above the knees, and fastened on his very heart of fire. Then the Firedrake stood groaning like a black bull, knee-deep in snow; and still ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... "It must be knee-deep round the bend," said Chris. "Yes, I'll forgive you, Bertie. I daresay it wasn't altogether your fault, and I expect your head aches, doesn't it? I hope it isn't very bad. Is there a very big lump? ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... to shiver en shake, en say, "Oh, my! OH, my lan'!" en de win' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos' choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep toward home mos' dead, he so sk'yerd—en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin AFTER ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... danger. Presently a crimson face rose over the boat's stern, blowing like a grampus. A pair of dripping epaulets followed; and then the Admiral stood up, knee-deep in water, and swore and ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... would clear up. I had arranged to go for a spin on the bike with some fellows out by Malahide. But the roads must be knee-deep. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... either side the broad walk were tall mounds of the snow that Martin had shovelled aside. Bobby found these waist-deep. The lawn itself was only knee-deep, but it offered a beautiful smooth surface. Duke appeared about this time and frisked back and forth madly, his forefeet extended, his chest to the earth, his face illuminated with a joyous doggy grin. He would run directly at Bobby, as though to collide with him, swerve at the last moment ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... the gulches. On the benches, in the snow, holes appeared, as though red-hot stones had been thrown upon the surface. The little settlement by the mouth of the Minook sat insecurely on the boggy hillside, and its inhabitants waded knee-deep in ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... fill the heart with pity. Oh, ye Rutowskis, Bruhls, though never so decorated by twelve tailors, what a sight ye are at the head of men! Dark night, wild raging weather, labyrinthic roads worn knee-deep. It is broad daylight, Wednesday, 13th, and only the vanguard is yet got across, trailing a couple of cannons; and splashes about, endeavoring to take rank there, in spite of wet and hunger; rain still pouring, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... the ankles of Black Devil. The moon had not yet risen when the timber disappeared at the foot of the first shoulder. Douglas pulled up the panting horses, turned back to the wind and rested for a few moments, then put Tom to the climb. The snow was without crust but it was knee-deep and Tom didn't like it. He floundered and snorted, but Douglas spurred him relentlessly and they crested the shoulder without pause. Here, however, Doug decided to wait ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... but these beat all I had ever imagined. I could see no hair on them; and I saw them quite close; for in the hurry each horse, as his turn came, was run out alongside the boat; the man who led him standing knee-deep until the kegs were slung across by the single girth. As soon as this was done, a slap on the rump sent the beast shoreward, and the man scrambled out after him. There was scarcely any talk, and no noise except that caused by the wading of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... widening mouth of the bay, the break in the reef by which ships enter, and, beyond, the sea. To the right, the inlet, sweeping boldly round the promontory, runs far away into the land; where, save in one direction, the hills close in on every side, knee-deep in verdure and shooting aloft in grotesque peaks. The open space lies at the head of the bay; in the distance it extends into a broad hazy plain lying at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills. Here is the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the stock, I sounded the water. It was a little under knee-deep. The noise it made, plunging down into the Pit, was deafening. Then, with a call to Pepper, I stepped out into the flood, using the gun as a staff. Instantly, the water boiled up over my knees, and nearly to the tops of my thighs, with the speed at which it was racing. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... summoned to visit an old man who was dying, who desired holy baptism. Immediately we set out for his house, where he lived in his grain-field, a little more than a quarter of a legua from the village. Struggling through mud almost knee-deep, we reached his wretched abode, where we found the poor man in such extremity that speech had failed him. Knowing that he was a catechumen, and considering the statements of all those present that he had sent for me in order to be baptized, and fearing that he might die on my hands, I ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... Midnight was given royal quarters in the old log-stable, which had been re-covered and almost rebuilt for his especial delectation, the great square stall, with its bed of dry oak leaves, in which he stood knee-deep, being sufficient to satisfy even Miss Mollie's fastidious demands for the comfort of her petted steed After a time Eliab Hill, to whose suggestion the whole plan was due, became ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... partisan of the cross-God men, and an innovator of ritual, found amusement in watching the Baptist missionaries standing knee-deep in the river washing the souls of ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... most expensive hothouse plants and vegetables. The scene was tropical beyond the wildest imagination of the geography man. The trees was all sky-scrapers; the underbrush was full of needles and pins; there was monkeys jumpin' around and crocodiles and pink-tailed mockin'-birds, and ye stood knee-deep in the rotten water and grabbled roots for the liberation of Guatemala. Of nights we would build smudges in camp to discourage the mosquitoes, and sit in the smoke, with the guards pacin' all around ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... manager continues to wade knee-deep in tragedy, in spite of the state of the weather. The fare is, however, too good for any change in the carte. "Werner" forms a substantial standing dish. The "Boarding School" makes a most palpable entree; while "Bob Short," and "My Friend the Captain," serve as excellent after-courses. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... then went crashing in white foam a few yards beyond, must inevitably transfix the frail craft on one of these jagged points. But at length they managed to run the bow of the gig into a somewhat sheltered place, and two of the men, jumping knee-deep into the water, hauled the keel still farther over the grating shell-fish of the rock; and then Macleod, scrambling out, assisted Miss ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Champigny (they used to call him Champignon) was walking along his levee front, calculating how soon the water would come over, and drown him out, as the Louisianians say. It was before a seven-o'clock breakfast, cold, wet, rainy, and discouraging. The road was knee-deep in mud, and so broken up with hauling, that it was like walking upon waves to get over it. A shower poured down. Old Champigny was hurrying in when he saw a figure approaching. He had to stop to look at it, for it was worth while. ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... me; living only in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever stronger and stronger within me. I will not tell her! I will never tell any one. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart—out of the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... in her ear, "you must promise or die. I have sworn never to go to prison again if I wade knee-deep in blood." ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Knee-deep, through clover, to the poplar grove, I waded, where my pets were wont to rove: And there I found the foolish mother hen Brooding her chickens underneath a tree, An easy prey for foxes. "Chick-a-dee," Quoth I, while reaching for the downy things That, chirping, peeped from out the mother-wings, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for, as we were by now no more than knee-deep in the water, I knew we must be well up towards the headwaters and it came over me that we had not turned off anywhere as sharply as we should had we turned up either the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... there are quaint, quiet nooks tucked away at the end of leafy lanes; still streams overhung with feathery foliage; gray rocks lichen-covered; low-ground meadows, knee-deep in lush grass; restful, lazy lakes dotted with pond-lilies; great, wide-spreading trees, their arms uplifted in song, their leaves quivering ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his pan with the sand and gravel and ran knee-deep out into the running stream. In his eagerness he splashed over a part of his material with the wash, but he, excused himself by thinking that this was his first pan, and that with the rest he would be more careful. ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... fresh pipe clay? To burnish your buttons, to brighten your guns? Or wait for May-day, and warm spring suns? Are you blowing your fingers because they're cold, Or catching your breath ere you take a hold? Is the mud knee-deep in valley and gorge? What are you ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... well-sweep mounted high,— Mounting still, from the crafty foe Creeping and crawling up below; And, when thou canst no farther go, See thee crouch for the fearful leap Off the top of the old well-sweep, Then, with a swift and dizzy sweep, Plunge in the crusty snow knee-deep. Nor, for a lameness gotten so, Shall I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... way with an easy descent, so that it was very shallow where the reeds grew, and they stood very close together upon a large compass of ground. I had no sooner entered the reeds a few yards, to cut some of the longest, but (being about knee-deep in the water and mud, and every step raising my feet very high to keep them clear of the roots, which were matted together) I thought I had trod upon a trunk of one of the trees, of which, as I said, there was ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... representing Louisiana? A Pennsylvanian was sure to be right on the tariff, and a Louisianian was sure to be wrong. Therefore a Pennsylvanian was a much better representative than a Louisianian. Besides, SYPHER's hands were not red with loyal blood, neither had he waded knee-deep in patriotic gore. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... the outlines of rounded objects that could not be ocean waves. They were too white for these. They could only be the sand-hills, which they had seen before the going down of the sun. As they were now but knee-deep in the water, and the night was still misty and dark, these objects could be at no great distance, and deep water need no longer ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... like vermin for the sake of precious stones in the earth. Thalassa brought up before the young man's eyes a vivid picture of an African diamond rush of that period—a corrugated iron settlement of one straggling street, knee-deep in sand, swarming with vermin and scorpions, almost waterless, crowded with a mongrel, ever-increasing lot of needy adventurers brought from all parts of the world by reports of diamonds which could ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor. In some places, immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house roofs, bore down along the streets masses of confused ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... bridge, Forrester at its head. He grabbed the girl again, handing the goblet back to his corps of three carriers, and bowed and grinned at his worshippers behind him, surging forward, and at some others standing under the bridge, ankle-deep, shin-deep, even knee-deep in the rushing water, craning their necks upward to get a really good view of their God as he passed over. There were over ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... track and cut right across the hill in the direction from which they seemed to proceed. With his last remaining strength he struggled with the bushes, fell, scrambled to his feet, and continued. Then the neighing ceased and he found that he was in the ravines, knee-deep in snow, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... other things, of riding through a hothouse, and how I enjoyed it. A morning scamper through a conservatory when the syringas and Jonquils and Jack roses lie cuddled up together in their little beds, is a thing to remember and look back to and pay for. To stand knee-deep in glass and gladiolas, to smell the mashed and mussed up mignonette and the last fragrant sigh of the scrunched heliotrope beneath the hoof of your horse, while far away the deep-mouthed baying of the hoarse ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... to-night—he, John, Berry, and Boylett, all taking money and going mad together—you cannot imagine. They turned away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. He has kept quite well, I am happy to say, and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... hour the horse could not go beyond a walk, sinking knee-deep in snow; for only the Chapdelaines used this road, laid out and cleared by themselves, and not enough travelled to become smooth and hard. But when they reached the beaten highway Charles Eugene trotted ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... was compelled to make considerable detours to the right or left in order to pass them. Sometimes widths of sluggish water were met with. For a long time Harry continued his way, leaping lightly from tuft to tuft, where the grass grew thickest, sometimes wading knee-deep in the slush and feeling carefully every foot lest he should get to a depth whence he should be unable to extricate himself. Every now and then he shouted at the top of his voice, in hopes that he might be heard by some human being. For hours he struggled on. He was now exhausted ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... hall in the most natural manner, and so behind among the empty bottles, and along the plank into the tent; then, after a while, out again. She would never be disturbed now, and the wild beast was back at his claim, knee-deep, and busy among the digging and the wetness, in another pair of overalls just like the ones that were now under some stones at the bottom of a mud-puddle. And then one very bad long scream came up to the ditches, and Drylyn knew the women ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the surprise of those watching events from the shore when they saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the visitor and in its place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters were just about reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this surprise came, and it was augmented when, with the protection of the guns of the vessel, the men in these cutters showed themselves to be ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... feared, but we might go and look at it. I only remember the extreme solitude of the region, and scrambling and sliding down a most precipitous pali, hearing a roar like cataract upon cataract, and coming suddenly down upon a sublime and picturesque scene, with only standing room, and that knee-deep in water, between a savage torrent and the cliff. This gulch, called the Scotchman's gulch, I am told, because a Scotchman was drowned there, must be at its crossing three-quarters of a mile inland, and three hundred feet above the sea. In going to Waipio, on noticing the deep holes and enormous ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... stood out in bright relief from a background of mossy tree-trunks and rocks. After an hour's walking, made laborious by the spongy character of the ground,—a mixture of loose soil and decaying vegetation, in which one sank knee-deep,—the gleam of the ice began to shimmer through the trees; and issuing from the wood, the party found themselves in front of a glacier wall, stretching across the whole valley and broken into deep rifts, caves, and crevasses of dark blue ice. The glacier was actually about a mile wide; ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... The little stream, too indolent to pass, Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs, That build amid the glare a shadowy house, And with a Paradisal freshness brims Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade; The antic water-fly above it skims, And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade, Or knee-deep ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... us had the stores ashore. Our strength was nearly exhausted and it was heavy work carrying our goods over the rough pebbles and rocks to the foot of the cliff, but we dare not leave anything within reach of the tide. We had to wade knee-deep in the icy water in order to lift the gear from the boats. When the work was done we pulled the three boats a little higher on the beach and turned gratefully to enjoy the hot drink the cook had prepared. Those of us who were comparatively fit had to wait until the weaker ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... had seemed to read upon the malignant face of Buck at the time they left him standing knee-deep in the river. Afterwards he called on Fred to describe what he had seen, and the impression it made ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... flashed with keen hostility. Then he vanished over the dike, and was soon splashing through the muddy shallows of the ford. The water was fast deepening, and he thought to himself, "If Monsieur the abbe doesn't hurry, he will have to swim where I am walking but knee-deep!" ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... closed the gate, and we both waited until they came up. There were a hundred and seventy-five sheep in the flock, and they brought them up for the purpose of turning them into the vatches. Here they would be knee-deep in rank vegetation, and the poor things, glad to get to such juicy meat, would eat ravenously. The result of this would be that they would get filled with wind and would swell horribly, and if not immediately relieved would die a painful ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... are compelled to wear, as I have said, silk stockings and knee-breeches, slippers and shoe-buckles. One can support this costume in tolerable comfort in a warm room, but in getting from the carriage to the door it is often like walking knee-deep in a tub of cold water. A cold hall or a draught from an open door will give very unpleasant sensations. In many of the large rooms of the palaces huge fireplaces, with great logs of wood, roar behind tall brass fenders. Once in front of one of these, the courtier who isn't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... who had fastened his fangs into my friend before my eyes. I never dreamed of giving nor did he of claiming it. At last, hearing my steps close upon him and my breathing at his very shoulder, he sprang wildly through the reeds and dashed into the treacherous morass. Ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep, we struggled and staggered, I still gaining upon him, until I was within arm's-reach of him, and had whirled up my sword to strike. It had been ordained, however, my dear children, that he should die not the death of a man, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accursed plague! If there was much game of your sort there would not be much sport; it would be preferable to work like a nigger!' So we all three arrive—the two tracks and I—at the top of the Schneeberg. There the wind had been blowing hard; the snow was knee-deep—but no matter! I must get on! I got to the edge of the torrent of the Steinbach, and there I lost the track. I halted, and I saw that, after trying up and down in several directions, the gentleman's boots had gone down the Tiefenbach. That was a bad sign. I ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... dawn over the infinite sea. The air and water melted into a pearl gray. Far out toward the east, the waters began to blush at the kiss of the coming sun. The pearl gray slowly turned into purple. So startling was the vision, she swam in-shore and stood knee-deep in the shallows to watch the magic changes. In breathless wonder she saw the sea and sky and shore turn into a trembling cloud of dazzling purple. A moment before, she had caught the water up in her hand ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... would kill himself; but he kept on day after day, and had not even a cold until February. Then there came a south rain and a thaw, and Barney went to the swamp and worked two days knee-deep in melting snow. Then there was a morning when he awoke as if on a bed of sharp knives, and lay alone all day and all that night, and all the next day and that night, not being able to stir without making the ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and a very vigilant watch was therefore kept during the night. Somewhat to their surprise, however, it passed away quietly, and the next morning they resumed their march. They were passing the borders of a thick wood, nearly knee-deep in grass, when Roger felt his foot strike against a hard substance which emitted a hollow sound, as it gave way before him. Stooping down, he rose with a human skull in his hand, white and clean. He and Vaughan examined it: the top showed a deep cleft. Others at the same time ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... I shuddered to see him wade knee-deep in the stream—but he succeeded. Both gentlemen leaped safe on shore. The younger tried desperately to save his boat, but it was too late. Already the "water-boar" had clutched it—the rope broke like ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... that he was on the very fringe of the forest, and therefore no great way from Christchurch. The sun was lying low in the west and shooting its level rays across the long sweep of rich green country, glinting on the white-fleeced sheep and throwing long shadows from the red kine who waded knee-deep in the juicy clover. Right glad was the traveller to see the high tower of Christchurch Priory gleaming in the mellow evening light, and gladder still when, on rounding a corner, he came upon his comrades of the morning seated astraddle upon a fallen tree. They had a flat space before ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... June, was very quick and pleasant, through a neat country and many tidy towns. In the meadows the elms seemed to droop like our own rather than to hold themselves oakenly upright like the English; the cattle stood about in the yellow buttercups, knee-deep, white American daisies, and red clover, and among the sheep we had our choice of shorn and unshorn; they were equally abundant. Some of the blossomy May was left yet on the hawthorns, and over all the sky ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... light came into Phil Adams's eyes, as he stood knee-deep in the boiling surf, and for an instant I think he meditated plunging into the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... presence of "nilgau-like markings on their feet," and "in the one being born with teeth protruding through the jaws, and the other not so." They have different habits, and their voice is entirely different. The humped cattle in India "seldom seek shade, and never go into the water and there stand knee-deep, like the cattle of Europe." They have run wild in parts of Oude and Rohilcund, and can maintain themselves in a region infested by tigers. They have given rise to many races differing greatly in size, in the presence of one or two humps, in length of horns, and other respects. Mr. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... with a long halter or tethering-rope: thus I ordered the syce and another man to jump into the river and secure the crocodile by a rope fastened round the body behind the fore-legs. This was quickly accomplished, and the men remained knee-deep hauling upon the rope to prevent the stream from carrying away the body. In the mean time Monsoor had mounted my horse and galloped off for assistance to the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... when the ground is bare." After the storm is fairly launched the winds not infrequently awake, and, seeing their opportunity, pipe the flakes a lively dance. I am speaking now of the typical, full-born midwinter storm that comes to us from the North or N. N. E., and that piles the landscape knee-deep with snow. Such a storm once came to us the last day of January,—the master-storm of the winter. Previous to that date, we had had but light snow. The spruces had been able to catch it all upon their arms, and keep a circle of bare ground beneath them where the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... not unfriendly excitement. Smaller birds alighted on the raised poles, and several—a robin, a catbird and a little brown wren—ventured with hesitating boldness to peck at the crumbs the girls threw to them. Deer waded knee-deep in the shallow water, and, lifting their heads, instantly became motionless and absorbed. Occasionally a buffalo appeared on a level stretch of bank, and, tossing his huge head, seemed inclined to resent the coming of this ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Rebecca, in which, after nineteen days of sea-sickness and miserable tossing in the strait, he succeeded in entering Port Phillip on the 29th of May, 1835. Next morning he landed near Geelong and walked to the top of the Barrabool Hills, wading most of the way through grass knee-deep. On the following day he went in search of the aboriginals, and met a party of about twenty women, together with a number of children. With these he soon contrived to be on friendly terms; and after he had distributed among them looking-glasses, blankets, handkerchiefs, apples ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... he did religiously over his own precious self, in my after-cabin, as far from the end of the ship where the danger was as he could get. Some one else disinfected el proa, not he! Abundant as the stuff was, I had to look sharp for enough to wash out forward while aft it was knee-deep almost, at three dollars a jar! The harpy that alighted on deck at Maldonado sent in his bill for one ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... ceremony and that a similar practice can be prove for the ancient Greeks.[54] At the present day the Jews of Tunis exhibit a Fish's tail on a cushion at their weddings.[55] In some parts of India the newly-wedded pair waded knee-deep into the water, and caught fish in a new garment. During the ceremony a Brahmin student, from the shore, asked solemnly, "What seest thou?" to which the answer was returned, "Sons and Cattle."[56] In all these cases there can be no doubt ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... climb and climb Half up their breasts, just stagger as they seize Some grey crag, drop back with it many a time, And straggle blindly down the precipice. The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick That June-day, knee-deep with dead beechen leaves, As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves Are all the same too: scarce have they changed the wick On good Saint Gualbert's altar which receives The convent's ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... was the logs of which the huts were constructed. Nevertheless the scene was to a certain extent enlivened by the spectacle of two peasant women who, with clothes picturesquely tucked up, were wading knee-deep in the pond and dragging behind them, with wooden handles, a ragged fishing-net, in the meshes of which two crawfish and a roach with glistening scales were entangled. The women appeared to have ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... wet boy, and didn't his teeth chatter! In fact, all three of us were wet, for, in our excitement, Addison and I had gone in knee-deep, and the water had splashed over us. In that bitter cold wind we felt it keenly. Tom was nearly torpid; he seemed unable to speak, and we could hardly make him take a step. His face and ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... population had swelled from three to thirty thousand. It now wandered in a slender, sinuous line along the coast for miles, because only the beach afforded dry camping ground. Mounting to the bank behind, one sank knee-deep in moss and water, and, treading twice in the same tracks, found a bog of oozing, icy mud. Therefore, as the town doubled daily in size, it grew endwise like a string of dominoes, till the shore from Cape ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... the men dashed knee-deep into the water to relieve Walter of his burden; and as they did so, a dozen of the women stretched out their hands, and received the still unconscious form of her who had been rescued; meanwhile the knight and Guy Muschamp ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... later that she saw him again. She had gone out to gather goldenrod for the great blue vases that stood on the dining-room mantel-piece, and was standing knee-deep in the ragged field, when he leaped the fence that divided the farms and crossed to where ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... exceptions, and one woman at least I know more various, and more delicious also, since love's ocean hath gone over her head, than ever she was when, like a timid bather, she shivered on the brink or made little fearful plunges, as it were knee-deep, and so ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... again, returning to the train with a feeling which was almost that of getting back to their own rooms. Then they came to great steppes covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood knee-deep in this grass, and at the villages and way-stations were people wearing sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered with silver buttons. In one place there was a wedding procession waiting for the train to pass, with the ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... passed cavities where the great shells had burst. But most of these were ancient marmite holes and the grass was again growing in them, or water stood slimy and knee-deep, and, on the edges of these pools, frogs ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... hundred had pushed their march through forest and quagmire, through swollen streams and inundated savannas, toiling knee-deep through mud, rushes, and the rank, tangled grass,—hacking their way through thickets of the yucca or Spanish bayonet, with its clumps of dagger-like leaves, or defiling in gloomy procession through the drenched forest, to the moan, roar, and howl of the storm-racked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... behind them Moses and Amandy Hatch, with their farm team, and all the little Hatches,—Eben and George and Judy and Liza. As they jogged along they drank in the fragrance of the dew-washed meadows and the pines, and a great blue heron stood knee-deep on the far side of Deacon Lysander's old mill-pond, watching them ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Europe, he raised a company in his native country, and served with it on the Continent during the campaign of 1794. Under a heavy fire of the enemy, he was one of the last men who retreated with it along a single plank, knee-deep in water, from the siege of Nimeguen. In a few months after the disastrous retreat on the Continent, in the winter 1794, he was ordered to the West Indies, and, in the outset of his ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... but very bad walking. The boys sank knee-deep in the soft moss, and as they went farther, steering only by the sun, they found the moss sank till their feet reached the water below and they were speedily wet to the knees. Yan cut for each a ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 'How far?' I ask. '180 yards,' says my guide. 'Pop!' remarks a third person just in front. 'A sniper,' says my guide; 'take a look through the periscope.' I do so. There is some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly upwards with knee-deep grass, then rusty wire again, and a red line of broken earth. There is not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes are always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me are watching them. There are dead Germans in the grass before us. You need not see them to know that ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moor a sea of shallow mist was rolling; and the trees in the valley, like browsing cattle, stood knee-deep in whiteness, with all the air above them wan from an innumerable rain as of moondust, falling into that white sea. Then the moon passed behind the lime-tree, so that a great lighted Chinese lantern seemed to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... most instances were only a few days old but were thickly clustered on the walls and ceilings, and each and every one was squeaking at the top of its tiny lungs. The place must have been occupied for scores, if not hundreds, of years for the floor was knee-deep ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... scuppers were awash, and the hawse-holes spouted like fountains after every plunge. Once the Captain ordered all men aloft, just in time to escape a gigantic dull green roller that broke like a Niagara over the schooner's bows, smothering the decks knee-deep in a twinkling. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... were away all Sunday, and I spent the whole day with a volume of Dana Gibson's drawings, the only book I could find. I did go for a short walk, but the dust was nearly knee-deep, and, except the little bungalow and outhouses, there ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I came ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... just as if it was a torrent of water. The other night I hung up my hammock in my tent and in the middle of the night there was a terrific storm, and my tent and hammock came down with a run. The water was running over the ground in a sheet, and the mud was knee-deep; so I was a drenched and muddy object when I got to a neighboring tent, where I was given a blanket, in which I rolled up ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... to appeal to you to save me from my friends," I said, "if Tip Pulsifer goes digging gold and Nanny Pulsifer gets religion and old Mrs. Bolum belies her nature and forgets me. But anyway, if Captain and I sit here at night knee-deep in dust and cobwebs, at least we can swell our chests and talk about our brother in the city, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... living the life of a dog, stripped to the waist, for he was working in a temperature of a hundred degrees. Now the way was blocked by a spring, and he had to work standing in the water; now by a deposit of loam, and he stood almost knee-deep in the mire; the atmosphere was nearly always foul, and many of his fellow-labourers succumbed to it; but new ones were ever ready to take their place. Finally Andrea, too, succumbed, and was taken into the hospital. He ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... oppressive day; the air was filled with mosquitoes,—"so thick," says Champlain, "that we could hardly draw breath, and it was wonderful how cruelly they persecuted us,"—their route lay through swampy soil, where the water at places stood knee-deep; over fallen logs, wet and slimy, and under entangling vines; their heavy armor added to their discomfort; the air was close and heavy; altogether it was a progress fit to make one sicken of warfare in the wilderness. After struggling onward till they were almost in despair, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris |
