"Skirting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it touches the American coast, crosses the peninsula of Florida, and divides it into two nearly equal portions. Then, plunging into the Gulf of Mexico, it subtends the arc formed by the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; then skirting Texas, off which it cuts an angle, it continues its direction over Mexico, crosses the Sonora and Old California, and loses itself in the Pacific Ocean; therefore only the portions of Texas and Florida situated below this parallel fulfilled the requisite conditions ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed places in the order of march; but the rearguard never altered his position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in the water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs, skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was always the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first the ascent was delusively easy, the sides of the mountain sloped gradually, and the material ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... the city, into a very quiet Street behind the mouldering castle. My new home is a katchiu-yashiki, the ancient residence of some samurai of high rank. It is shut off from the street, or rather roadway, skirting the castle moat by a long, high wall coped with tiles. One ascends to the gateway, which is almost as large as that of a temple court, by a low broad flight of stone steps; and projecting from the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... bridge, there is no other outlet except towards the north. There are four principal streets: High Street, which was in all probability an extension of the "celebrate" market along the Worcester and North Road; Vine Street and Bridge Street, both skirting the boundary wall of the abbey precincts, and so probably the oldest in their origin; and Port Street, the main thoroughfare of Bengeworth, forming part of the London road beyond the river bridge. High Street, Bridge Street, and Vine Street lead from the Market Place, and here we will stand ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... up the shaky steps one by one. We crawled along the upper floor, skirting the gaping shell holes in the woodwork. We raised our hands and shaded our eyes from the glare of the light. We scanned the horizon. We had an idea, I think, that we'd see a German blocking the landscape somewhere. We were three miles away. What was ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... excitement, because I was at last "really in it." We found one wounded man very soon, lying under the hedge with the top of his head gone. Four sanitars (their relief showed very plainly in their faces) returned with him. We advanced again, skirting now a little orchard and keeping always in the shadow under the hedge. Our guide, the soldier, assured us that the wounded man was "very near—quite close." Then we came to a large barn on the edge of what seemed a silver lake but was in reality a long field under the ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Skirting the forests wherever possible, and following the break of the mammoth pine-trees when no bald opening was to hand they sped along. The dogs hauled at the easy running sled, while, with long, gliding strides, the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... other, "and get pushed for our pains on to the Teraghlind Reef. We are skirting those rocks more closely than I ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... dens of rubbish, peeped behind every row of books; but made no discovery worth mentioning, except the left leg of Annie's last doll, the stuffing of Johnnie's ball, the tiger out of George's Noah's ark, and the first sheet of Sam's Latin Grammar, all stuffed together into a mouse-hole in the skirting. ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... dark and soft and still, with braided ripples here and there, and little floating brown leaves that slithered against the boat as they passed, the creek meandered between the hills, now turning almost upon itself around a mossy, grassy stretch of meadow-land, skirting a chestnut-grove, or slipping beneath great rocks that cropped out on the hillside, where moss had crept in a lovely carpet, and graceful hemlocks found a foothold and leaned over to dip in the water and brush the faces of those who passed. Up, up, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... and skirting the river some four miles below the town, she and her knights forded it at a spot where some low long islands, or 'eyots' as we call them on the Thames, lay in this part of the Loire. On one of these, called l'Isle aux Bourdons, the provisions and stores for the beleaguered city were shipped ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... day out from Mafuta's village they struck the Hanyani River, without meeting with any adventure worthy of record, and following its right bank for a couple of days, bore away in an easterly direction, skirting the northern slope of Mount Inyota, where they struck another small stream flowing to the northward and eastward; and as this was, broadly speaking, the direction in which they wished to travel, and as Mafuta assured them that it discharged ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... remark was unquestionably true, for the road—if a mere footpath merits the name—was rugged in the extreme—here winding round the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant forest, elsewhere skirting ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... I, and again I ran my eye around the skirting of the chapparal to watch how the hunters were getting forward with the "surround." I could perceive the flashing of brilliant wings over the bramble, and hear the shrill voices of the jay-birds. Judging by these, I ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... won, or lost, or the settlement of Western Queensland been advanced by years, had the early seekers for pastoral country but known what was west of the so-called desert country, and south of the Flinders. This could only be learnt by forcing a way through the desert to the west instead of skirting its edge and going north. As it was, we, in following the Flinders down, were traversing some of the finest sheep country in the world, and did not realise there were millions of acres lying to the south, unknown, unowned. Ultimately, ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... discover danger ahead, but the groom looked with dismay at the low- spreading trees on right and left, and raced across the grass to intercept her progress. He was too late, however. Maddened by the incessant dragging of the reins Prince galloped ahead, skirting so closely a clump of trees that it was only by crouching low over the saddle that Mollie escaped accident. The watchers drew deep breaths of relief, but renewed their anxiety as once more horse and rider disappeared ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... good muster at breakfast, and everyone is smiling, having had at least one good night's rest on the voyage. The waters skirting the Irish coast sometimes outdo the fury of the broad Atlantic, and are generally just as troubled and combatant as the fiery political elements on the little island; but so far we have had a perfect passage, and the beautiful bay of Queenstown looks more charming ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... meal had been eaten, Bessie and Dolly started off, skirting the edge of the lake until they came to the beginning of the trail Miss Mercer had spoken of, which was marked by a birch bark sign on a tree. There they left the lake, and plunged so quickly into thick woods that the water ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... days of rather laborious travel—for the snow was soft—and Crown Point lay before them. They had left the lake some time before, skirting round Roger's Rock, and thus making a cut across country, and missing the perils of ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... ledge of shale, skirting the trembling sands, Through many a pool and many a pass, where the mountain laurel stands So thick and close to left and right, with holly bushes, too, The clinging branches meet midway to bar the ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... and silently pointed at them with his whip. He had no need to name them, the fugitive would have known them in another planet. It was growing late; the lonely day was waning to the lonely night. While they halted, the scream of a catamount broke from the woods skirting the bay between the capes, and repeated itself in the echo that wandered from depth to depth of the frozen wilderness, and seemed to die wailing away at the point where it first ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... breeze stirred the reeds in their bronze setting, and brought up a tang of the sea. The man slowly turned, and, skirting the edge of the hay-field, walked toward the house. His pathway ran parallel to the public highway, and from it there arose the clatter of a wagon approaching through a clump of woodland. John McIntyre ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... as to the structure of the country, long believed in by him, but now fully verified, was of much more practical importance. It had been ascertained by him that skirting the central hollow there were two longitudinal ridges extremely favorable for settlements, both for missions and merchandise. We shall ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... followed lazily along, winding hither and thither through the lowland, now skirting the base of the hills, now bending far to the other side as if resentful of such rude obstructions ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... our march to-day was up a hill, the ascent, as in all the other cases, being very steep. From its summit we could see Dilling in a horizontal distance extremely near. We then proceeded skirting the hill, and descended subsequently to the O. rivulet, which is of no size. We then ascended another considerable height, and found ourselves on the site of Ghaloom's old dwelling. The situation was delightful; to the N.E., a high range was ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... under his command. Von Gilsa's brigade has, until this morning, been half a mile farther out the pike, and across the road; but on receipt of Hooker's 9.30 order has been withdrawn, and now lies with two regiments astride and north of the pike, some distance beyond Talley's, the rest skirting the south of it. His right regiment leans upon that portion of the Brock road which is the prolongation of the eastern branch, and which, after crossing the plank road and pike, bears north-westerly, and loses itself in the woods where formerly was an old mill. McLean's ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... the mounted Abtheilung, which is there with the 3d Heavy Artillery in reserve, and from this gloomy copse issues a formidable fire; the twenty-four pieces of the 1st Heavy Artillery are ranged in the glade skirting the road from La Moncelle to La Chapelle; the battery of the Royal Guard sets fire to the Garenne Wood; the shells and the balls riddle Suchy, Francheval, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and the valley between Heibes and Givonne; and the third and fourth ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... a Welch monk—whom, though not of the faction of Gryffyth, all Welchmen respect—to the mouth of a frightful pass, skirting the river; the monk will bear aloft the holy rood in signal of peace. Arrived at that pass, you will doubtless be stopped. The monk here will be spokesman; and ask safe-conduct to Gryffyth to deliver my message; he will also bear certain ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and were speeding over the frozen prairie, skirting a small clump of scrub oak, when just before them, a solitary horseman could be seen, leisurely walking his steed. At the sudden appearance of the stranger, both men instinctively reined in their horses and pulled up short. The man ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... me with uplifted finger, and not a syllable; and down-stairs he led me, stocking soles close against the skirting, two feet to each particular step. It must have seemed child's play to Raffles; the old precautions were obviously assumed for my entertainment; but I confess that to me it was all refreshingly exciting—for once without a risk of durance if we came to grief! ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... motion again, skirting the room in column of fours, preparatory to the march-past: but now the Lieutenant-Governor surveyed it from a new, and a dual point-of-view,—as a thousand individuals, that is, each a potential factor for immeasurable good in the coming rehabilitation ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... skirting the rock's bulk till she found a break in its side, a small gorge shadowed by high walls. The cleft penetrated deep, its mouth open to the sky, its apex a chamber over which the cloven walls slanted like hands with finger tips touching in prayer. It was dark in this interior space, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... through the valley, skirting its hills, bridging its brooks, and connecting the lonely homestead with the rest of the human world, had on one side a beautiful border of all sorts of greeneries, just as Nature, with her inimitable touch, had placed ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... from the dismal wastes of the pantenal country by the encroaching floods of the rainy season reached the higher, forested region skirting the Andean foothills, she entered upon a wild orgy of terrorism ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... of steep cliffs, to the summit of which we climbed, reaching a fine level land of open downs carpeted with close, elastic turf. On we rode, up hill and down dale, through shady lanes full of the smell of lime-blossom, skirting meadows fragrant with the ripe mellow hay and honey-sweet clover, and then between plantations of aromatic, spicy fir and pine, all exhaling their perfumes under the influence of the warm sunset. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... base of the mountain, crossing and recrossing the enthusiastic mountain stream as it speeded toward the valley, when a flash of color on the farther side of the brook attracted him. He stopped, then hastily sprang across the water, climbed a few yards, and, after skirting a heavy clump of bushes, looked at Linda sitting beside them—a most astonishing Linda, appearing small and humble, very much tucked away, unrestrained tears rolling down her cheeks, a wet handkerchief wadded ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... defend. Never did a spot more easily lend itself to such rude defence by virtue of natural position, although where the construction begins the summit of the promontory is inaccessible from below. We are skirting dizzy precipices, feathered with light greenery and brightened with flowers, but awful notwithstanding, and in many places the stones have evidently been piled together rather for the sake of symmetry than from a sense of danger. The points thus protected were already impregnable. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... had been skirting the Vaudois territory, we had not set foot upon it. The line which separates it from the rest of Piedmont touches the small town of Bicherasio, on the western flank of the low hill I have mentioned; and the roofs of the little town were already in sight. Passing, on the left, a white-walled ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Skirting the healthy mountains of which I have spoken, at one part it becomes singularly lonely. For more than three Irish miles it traverses a deserted country. A wide, black bog, level as a lake, skirted with copse, spreads at ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... man had not beckoned to him before, there was no doubt that he was beckoning now. Without any hesitation, and singularly interested in the incident, Presley turned sharply aside and hurried on toward the shepherd, skirting the herd, wondering all the time that he should answer the call with so little ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Skirting the edge of the green, he rode down a rutted cart lane—farm buildings and well-filled rickyards on the left—and forded the shallow, brown stream which separates the parish of Farley from that of Sandyfield and ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... San Luis Rey. They called it San Juan Capistrano, but that name was afterwards transferred to a mission forty miles north of this place. The command rested here, July 19th. Resuming the march on the 20th, the sierra (San Onofre), whose base they were skirting, drew so near the sea that it seemed to threaten their advance, but by keeping close to the shore, they held their way, and on the 24th they encamped on a fine stream of water running through a mesa ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... cruised southward, in the belief, expressed by the name Indian which they gave the natives, that they were in the archipelago east of Asia. Skirting the northern coast of Cuba and Hayti, they sought for traces of gold, and information as to the way to the mainland. The Santa Maria was wrecked on Christmas Day; the Pinta became separated; Columbus returned in the little Nina, putting ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... life, all are more or less dependent upon the unforeseen events at sea, and the mysterious migrations of the fishy regions. The other Icelandes present were disappointed at not having been warned in time, like the fishers of Ploubazlanec, of the fortune that was skirting their very shores. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... Skirting a bluff he did not remember, he stopped in alarm, until a taller clump of trees which he thought he knew caught his searching eyes. If he were right, he must incline farther to the east to strike the shortest line to camp; ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... Noiselessly skirting the palisade, Hugh came to a gap big enough to let him squeeze through. Then he crept along between the palisade and the backs of the scattered whares—very cautiously, for he dreaded being seen by the group about the fire—until at last he stood behind the big whare-runanga. With ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... from the camp of our allies, we again took the trail. Our horses were fresh and as the Warm Springs were such splendid trailers we made good progress, especially after entering the pine timber. The Indians acted also as scouts, skirting each side of the trail and keeping well in advance. No effort had here been made by the Snakes to cover their tracks, and we followed at a rapid pace. The trail led up the west branch of Trout creek and in a southerly direction. We had not gone more than four miles ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... we set off at an easy lope, and had ridden about two miles on the back track when, skirting along the edge of one of the little canyons I have mentioned, we noticed a tiny spring of water, which, issuing from the face of the cliff close to the top, fell in a thin ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... a party of hostile Lipans made a swoop around and skirting the garrison, killing a herder—a discharged drummer-boy—in sight of the flag-staff. Of course great excitement followed. Captain J. G. Walker, of the Mounted Rifles, immediately started with his company in pursuit of the Indians, and I was directed to accompany the command. Not far away ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... acacia and rose blooms, rose steeply into the bright sunshine beyond the marshes skirting the bay glittering in light. Cherry's eager eyes missed nothing, and when they left the train at Mill Valley, and the mountain air enveloped them in a rush of its clear softness and purity, she ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... skirting a wall of the fifteenth century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he found himself before a large door of arched stone, with a rectilinear impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat medallions. A severe facade rose above ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... animals above mentioned, several others peculiar to the Puna are deserving of remark. Among these are the Tarush (Cervus antisiensis, Orb.); the timid roe, which inhabits the high forests skirting the Andes; the Viscacha (Lagidium peruanum, May, and L. pallipes, Benn.), and the Chinchilla (Eriomys Chinchilla, Licht.), whose skin supplies the beautiful fur so much prized by the ladies of Europe. The ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... could not talk, these poor loving women, so they were mostly silent, saying a word or two at intervals about Mrs. Dennistoun's work (which of course, was for Elinor), or of Elinor's village class for sewing, which was to be transferred to her mother, skirting the edges of the great separation which could ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Skirting the swamp with only the rays from the lantern to aid them was no easy task, and once Tom slipped from a clump of rushes and went down over his ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... these ruins a rivulet called Moiet Maaz [Arabic] passes through the valley, whose source is to the N.W. up in the mountain, one hour distant, near a ruined place called Maaz. This is a very romantic, secluded spot; immediately behind the town the valley closes, and a row of willows, skirting both banks of the rivulet in its descent, agreeably surprise the traveller, who rarely meets in these districts with trees raised by the labour of man; but it is probable that these willows will not long withstand the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... restlessness on the part of our birds which tells us that they have begun to hear the call of the {66} South. The Blackbirds assemble in flocks and drift aimlessly about the fields. Every evening for weeks they will collect a chattering multitude in the trees of some lawn, or in those skirting a village street, and there at times cause great annoyance to ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... spot at which he had left the car and, following the porter's directions, drove over the line at the level crossing immediately beyond the station, and proceeded up a tree-lined road until he found himself skirting the railing of an extensive ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... before him with a sweeping eastward trend, faintly bright between the thickets; and Otto paused and gazed upon it. So it ran, league after league, still joining others, to the farthest ends of Europe, there skirting the sea-surge, here gleaming in the lights of cities; and the innumerable army of tramps and travellers moved upon it in all lands as by a common impulse, and were now in all places drawing near to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brushed his way along, and ever the night grew blacker; until, from the swell of the ground beneath his feet, he knew himself skirting ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... calling here?" she asked, when we approached the old gray cottage, once my mother's home and my own. "There is a sick woman here, whom I wish to see. You can walk about the green skirting the woods, if you prefer. This enchanting breeze will give new life to your body and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... path ran by the kitchen, and skirting the garden-wall, straggled through the orchard and past the house of the overseer to the big barn and the cabins in the quarters. There was a light from the barn door, and as he passed he heard the sound of fiddles and the shuffling steps of the field hands in a noisy "game." The words they sang ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... nation was invillaged there, Skirting the flanks of that imbanded host; With chieftains of strange speech and port of war, Who, battle-armed, in weather-brawny bulk, Roamed fierce and free in huge and wild content. These gave Tecumseh greetings fair and kind, Knowing the purpose havened in his soul. And he, too, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... With slow step and vacant face—moving as if she was walking in her sleep—she led the way to the papered wall; knelt down at the skirting-board; and, taking out two small sharp nails, lifted up a long strip of the paper which had been detached from the plaster beneath. Mounting on a chair, she turned back the strip and pinned it up, out of the way, using the two nails, which she had ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... in English he had met with nothing but the dried leaves and gum-flowers of the last century. Miss Letty once lent him The Lady of the Lake; but before he had read the first canto through, his grandmother laid her hands upon it, and, without saying a word, dropped it behind a loose skirting-board in the pantry, where the mice soon made it a ruin sad to behold. For Miss Letty, having heard from the woful Robert of its strange disappearance, and guessing its cause, applied to Mrs. Falconer for the volume; ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... miseries of modern life, for which telephones are less than compensation, that ninety out of a hundred city folk have never known the comfort and satisfaction of dwelling in a house. When the sashes are flying away from the windows and the skirting boards from the floor, and the planks below your feet are a finger breadth apart, and the pipes are death-traps, it does not matter that the walls are covered by art papers and plastered over with china dishes. This erection, wherein human beings have to live and work and fight their sins and ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... watched the green river, and that set him longing for a swim. If his maps told him the truth, some few leagues on the road to Valladolid should discover him a fine wood, the wood of La Huerca, beyond which, skirting it, in fact, should be the Pisuerga. Here he could bathe, loiter away the noon, and take his merienda, which should be the best Palencia ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... the window and removed his boots. Then he crawled over the sill and hunkered down on the uncarpeted floor. The floor boards did not creak. Still crouching, his arms extended in front of him, he made his way silently across the room, skirting safely in the process two chairs and a table, and stood upright behind the crack of ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... made my way back again, skirting the firing line behind the ridge, often obliged to pull up to allow troops to pass to reinforce the line. Now and then it seemed that the fighting had ceased at the spot I happened to be in, but I soon found myself again in the thick ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... while I was out shooting, the gossamer-spiders presented an appearance quite new to me. Walking along a stream (the Conchitas, near Buenos Ayres), I noticed a broad white line skirting the low wet ground. This I found was caused by gossamer web lying in such quantities over the earth as almost to hide the grass ad thistles under it. The white zone was about twenty yards wide, and outside it only a few scattered webs were visible on the grass; ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... a place with such echoes. They shook from a footstep like nuts rattling out of a bag; a mouse behind the skirting led a whole camp-following of them; to ask a question was, as in that other House, to awaken the derisive shouts of an Opposition. Yet, in the intervals of silence, there fell a deadliness of quiet that was quite appalling by ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... appoint to pursue; appoint or allow;—and laid all the blame on Seckendorf; who perhaps deserved his share of it. Very certain it is, Seckendorf did little or nothing to Prince Karl; marched "leisurely behind him through the Ober-Pfalz,"—skirting Baireuth Country, Karl and he, to Wilhelmina's grief; [Her Letters ( OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 133, &c.).]—"leisurely behind him at a distance of four days," knew better than meddle with Prince Karl. So that Prince Karl, "in twenty-one marches," disturbed only by the elements and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... into Bithynia, where, to enforce his rule, he built several strongholds, one of which, called Alyatta, commanded the main road leading from the basin of the Rhyndacus to that of the Sangarius, skirting the spurs of Olympus.* He experienced some difficulty in reducing Caria, and did not finally succeed in his efforts till nearly the close of his reign in 566. Adramyttios was then dead, and his fief had devolved on his eldest surviving brother or nephew, Crosus, whose mother was by birth a Carian. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... would traverse them once again, and so make to the headland, above Watchet and Quantoxhead on either side, and then down along the shore, always deserted there, to the hills above Minehead, by skirting round Watchet, and so on into the great and lonely moors beyond, where I could go into house or hamlet without ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... wall of pines and hemlocks that keep off the east wind from Stillwater stretches black and indeterminate against the sky. At intervals a dull, metallic sound, like the guttural twang of a violin string, rises from the frog-invested swamp skirting the highway. Suddenly the birds stir in their nests over there in the woodland, and break into that wild jargoning chorus with which they herald the advent of a new day. In the apple orchards and among the plum-trees ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... upon a spot high up on the mountains, two miles east of Abila, as their headquarters. It was in a pass between two peaks, and gave them the option of descending either to the north or south, or of skirting along the mountains towards the sources of the Jabbok river, and thence crossing the Hermon range beyond the limits ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... these, she knew where the lack was. And perhaps Hen herself was conscious of something missing. For, having defended her uncle's Works at least as loyally as she honestly could, she gave the talk a more personal tone, skirting those phases of the matter so new-thoughty that they had never even occurred ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... slope the canal turned sharply to the left, and ran in a gradual curve, skirting the upland. Here it was a piece of new work, raw and muddy, and the little ridges of fresh earth and roots along its brink were conspicuous. The beaver now went very cautiously, sniffing the air for any hint of peril. After winding along for some twenty or thirty yards, the new ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... we entered upon a grand scene, which exhibited the commencement of the wine-producing district. The road was scarped from the mountain side several hundred feet above the river, which murmured over its rocky bed in the bottom of the gorge. We were skirting a deep valley, and upon either side the mountains rose to a height of about 1400 feet, completely covered with vineyards from the base to the summit; this long vale or chasm extended to the Troodos range, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... steep and smooth to permit a moment's dream of climbing them. Even on this warm day of August the clouds had not risen above the highest peaks; and they threw a gloom over the interior of the small island, while the skirting rocks and sea were glittering in the sunshine. Even the scanty herbage of the slopes at the top of the rocks looked almost a bright green where the sun fell upon it; and especially where it descended so far ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... was watering. The lagoon was on the extreme upper end of the range, fully fifteen miles from headquarters; and as all the saddle stock must be brought in, the day's work required riding a wide circle. Skirting the sand dunes, by early noon all the horses were in hand, save the band of thirty. There was no occasion for all hands to assist in bringing in the absent ones, and a consultation resulted in Joel and Dell volunteering for the task, while Sargent returned home ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... Willard came up from the harbour and took Miss Sally down to see Eden. Eden was a tiny, cornery, gabled grey house just across the road and down a long, twisted windy lane, skirting the edge of a beech wood. Nobody had lived in it for four years, and it had a neglected, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and a new supply had to be obtained, as their observations were still incomplete. McClelland, the elder of the two, accordingly set out alone in search of a spring or brook from which they could replenish their canteens. Cautiously descending the mount to the prairie, and skirting the hills on the north, keeping as much as possible within the hazel-thickets, he reached at length a fountain of cool limpid water near the banks of the Hockhocking river. Filling the canteens he rejoined ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... now, avoiding the light, skirting along the walls just beyond the radiance of the lamp, his feet and legs to the waist brightly lighted, but his face disintegrated in shadow, like the face ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... indentations of the coast and including the islands to the westward, its description of the landward margin of the strip was indefinite, resting on the supposed existence of a continuous ridge or range of mountains skirting the coast, as figured in the charts of the early navigators. It had at no time been possible for either party in interest to lay down, under the authority of the treaty, a line so obviously exact according to its provisions as to command the assent of the other. For nearly three-fourths ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... mind, yet not consecutively, as the car left the grounds, and turned on to the main road, leading citywards. They were still skirting the Coolidge estate, although the house behind was concealed by shrubbery. The road descending into a ravine spanned by a concrete bridge, and a rather dense growth of trees shut out the surrounding landscape. Nothing moving was in ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... of a poor man's family was a serious subject: such was the hopeless condition of a useful mechanic ready for work even in the desolate forests skirting the haunts of the savage. So fares it with the DISJECTA MEMBRA of towns and villages, when such arrangements are left to the people themselves in a ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the river-side, drooping its boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... infinitely various in form and thought, in character and act; a group of men and women, eager, passionate, indifferent; tender and ravenous, mean and noble, humorous and profound, jovial with prosperity or half-dumb with misery, skirting the central tragedy, or plunged deep into the thick of it, passers-by who put themselves off with a glance at the surface of a thing, and another or two who dive to the heart of it. And they all come out with ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... Harry gathered it quickly into a bundle and ran back to the railroad. He hurried down the track west of a curve which was a few hundred feet beyond the washout, and saw the train coming at full speed. He jumped on a fence skirting the tracks, and waved ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... graced the month of June, so balmy was the air, so warmly shone the sun from a cloudless sky. But the snow-covered mountain-range whose base we were skirting, the leafless cottonwoods fringing the Fontaine qui Bouille and the sombre plains that stretched away to the eastern horizon told a different story. It was on one of those days elsewhere so rare, but so common in Colorado, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... the outlet where the waters of the Lower Lake flowed into Lake Winthrop, Thad, happening to look back, managed to discover a canoe skirting the shore some miles distant. From the actions of those in it, they seemed desirous of remaining unnoticed; for they took advantage of every headland that jutted out; and when they had to make across the open, it was ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... went skirting widely off up one side. He proceeded slowly, with great caution, his rifle at the ready. At any moment, he knew, the hush might be split by the cracks of waylaying guns. Warily he advanced along the narrow canyon wall above the huts. No lights were lit, and the place seemed unoccupied. He was ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house,—we went into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trap-door, quite large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the existence of which ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... points—the church and the ferry, which were nearly a mile and a half apart—a village centre was to be found at Bedford, further up the highway, another in the vicinity of the Wallabout, and still another, called Gowanus, along the branch road skirting the bay. These all stood within the present ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... turned away and walked off through the park, skirting the boundary wall, Sir Marmaduke looked over his shoulder at the ungainly figure which was soon lost in the gloom, and muttered a round oath between ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... they have been called by some voyagers, shore-reefs, whether skirting an island or part of a continent, might at first be thought to differ little, except in generally being of less breadth, from barrier-reefs. As far as the superficies of the actual reef is concerned this is the case; but the absence of an interior deep-water channel, and the close relation ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... midnight, and this morning, though there is breeze enough to send us along, we are beaten back by an obnoxious swell out of the north. Here is a page of complaint, when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps been more in place. For all this time we must have been skirting past dangerous weather, in the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and getting only annoyance where we should have had peril, and ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the enclosure, and that the enemy were now occupying a ridge[6] which seemed to him to be a prolongation of the Shahr-i-Darwaza range above Kabul; then, continuing his march, he crossed a depression in this ridge called the Nanachi Kotal, and wheeling to his left, and skirting the Asmai heights on the western side, he soon came in sight of the Afghan camp, pitched on the slope of the hills about a mile ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... of his leggings which had been twisted round, and, skirting the shell hole, started out on his voyage of discovery, feeling rather dizzy at first, but surprised to find that his cap was still upon his head, for he had not yet been served out ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... their heads high above all the rest. Here the Tatar flung off her slippers and went barefoot, gathering her clothes up carefully, for the spot was marshy and full of water. Forcing their way among the reeds, they stopped before a ruined outwork. Skirting this outwork, they found a sort of earthen arch—an opening not much larger than the opening of an oven. The Tatar woman bent her head and went first. Andrii followed, bending low as he could, in order to pass with his sacks; and both soon found ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... (Vol. ii., p. 237.).—Your correspondent S.H., in noticing the old track "skirting the base of the chalk hills," and known by the name of the "Pilgrims' Road," has omitted to state that its commencement is at Oxford,—a fact of importance, inasmuch as that the Archbishops of Canterbury had there a ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... Judith had promised to meet the car with the suppers. There was a short cut from the rear of the house and Judith always took short cuts. Through the orchard, down the hill, across a stream, up the hill, skirting a blackberry thicket, through a grove of beeches, dark and peaceful with lengthening shadows falling on mossy banks, went the girl. She stopped a moment in the grove and looked out across the fertile country—everywhere more fertile than the Buck farm but ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... the last far-off ridge, that afforded a distant view of the woods skirting the Pawnee camp, they drew up; and Dick, putting his fingers to his mouth, drew a ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a lake which gave a chilly air to the landscape in the winter day, then past a strip of country meagrely wooded. We turned into a narrow road that struck the hills at once, skirting a sloping place covered with scrub and quite dark, like a black patch on the landscape. After that it was a barren pasture, prolific only in bleached boulders of rocks, of bracken that lay wasted, of ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... off, skirting the gaily-lit crescent of Regent Street. The smile almost at once died away from her lips. She leaned forward and looked at herself in one of the oblong mirrors. Her face was almost colourless, the skin seemed drawn closely round her eyes, giving ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is Kenidjack headland, Porthleden being the name of the cove that divides the promontories. Skirting the coast from Kenidjack many fine bits of rocky scenery are passed. Botallack Head, with its old engine houses perched on its rocky crags, has a singularly savage appearance. The mine is one of the oldest in Cornwall, and the ancient workings continued for a considerable distance under ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... ordered, "Across the camp. Get the child," and I sprang from the wigwam, which crashed to the ground behind me. I had thought to save skirting the woods by a run across the camping-ground; but when my Indian dashed for the child and the Sioux saw me undefended with the white woman in my arms, she made a desperate lunge at Laplante and called at the top of her voice ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... of the bell hung from within the cage-like framework surrounding the buoy, which is moored on the edge of the shoal skirting the ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... again and dropped down to the broken country at the base of the hills, skirting the flats and holding to the roughest brakes, then swung out across the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... a sort of oaesis in the Barren Grounds. There was a lake and a considerable skirting of timber around it—consisting, as we have said, of willows, poplars, spruce-pine, and dwarf birch-trees. The Alpine arbutus, whose berries are the food of many species of animals, also grew upon the side of the hills; and the Labrador tea-plant ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... I ever had," he replied, promptly. But they had not realized the difficulty of their attempt; for when little more than half-way to the foot of the mountain they came to a ledge down which there appeared no place for safe descent. As they were skirting this precipice perilously near the edge, he holding Madge's hand, some loose debris gave way beneath ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... floating vegetation, as that would be a short cut to the village or town of Magungo; but as the swell of the water against the abrupt raft of reeds threatened to swamp the canoe, I preferred coasting until we should discover a good landing place. After skirting the floating reeds for about a mile, we turned sharp to the east, and entered a broad channel of water bounded on either side by the everlasting reeds. This we were informed was the embouchure of the Somerset ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... spring, and the low-lying fields were already green with the young grass; the weeping-willows in front of the farm-houses seemed to spout up and fall like broad enormous geysers as the wind swayed them, and daffodils bloomed in all the warmer gardens. The dark foliage of the cedars skirting the road counteracted that indefinable gloom which the landscapes of early spring, in their grayness and incompleteness, so often inspire, and mocked the ripened summer in the close shadows which they threw. It was ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... now marks the summit, and indicates the spot where stood the gallows, and a stone for some time pointed out the locality where the murder was committed. When, however, the new Portsmouth Road was cut further down the hill, skirting the Punch-Bowl at a lower level, then the stone was removed to the side of the new road. At present it is an object visited by vast numbers of holiday-makers, who seem to take almost as lively an interest in the crime that was committed over a century ago as if it were ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... threatening my better impulses; and, idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse. I had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed this road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the season was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... bosom of darkness received him; through the thick barrier of trees skirting the walled precincts scarcely a light winked; only the large domed conservatory behind him threw a pale radiance before his feet as he crossed the terrace and moved off by a winding path in the direction of a small ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... roads,—limestone highways, solid, broad, faultlessly graded,—that wind from town to town, from hamlet to hamlet, over mountains, over ravines; ascending by zigzags to heights of twenty-five hundred feet; traversing the primeval forests of the interior; now skirting the dizziest precipices, now descending into the loveliest valleys. There are thirty-one of these magnificent routes, with a total length of 488,052 metres (more than 303 miles), whereof the construction required engineering talent of the highest order,—the building of bridges beyond counting, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... by the heat, a sunny plot on level ground, while other grapes men are gathering, and yet others they are treading in the wine-press. In the foremost row are unripe grapes that cast the blossom, and others there be that are growing black to vintaging. There too, skirting the furthest line, are all manner of garden beds, planted trimly, that are perpetually fresh, and therein are two fountains of water, whereof one scatters his streams all about the garden, and the other runs over against it beneath the threshold of the courtyard, and issues by ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... point was Lancaster Sound and its westward extension, Barrow Strait, whence either or both Wellington Channel and Cape Walker were to be visited. The squadron passed safely through Davis Strait, and skirting the dreaded land-ice of Melville Bay, reached Cape York after three weeks of constant and dangerous struggle with the heavy ice, which nearly destroyed the Rescue, borne almost on her beam-ends by the enormous pressure from a moving ice-pack. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... vine requires a good soil, the richer the better, but the red soil of the higher hills is not congenial, the Chinese think, to it. The undulations skirting the bases of the hills, and the deep alluvial lands, where not saturated with water, or liable ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... "porpoise" fishery, describes the scene witnessed there by him on May 1st, 1873. It was a glorious day and the belugas appeared in greater numbers than for many years. They swarmed off the mouth of the Riviere Ouelle. At high tide they came in, skirting the rocks within a stone's throw of shore and devouring greedily the innumerable small fish. The surface of the shallow water in which they swam was white with their gleaming bodies. When they puffed they ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... in the squalid quarter of the town where I had first encountered her. Thither I sped—into the dark streets, so perilous after dusk, I plunged; and at length I overtook the object of my affection, just as she was skirting the very wall of the prison. I seized her by the hand and implored her to forgive me for the manner in which I had received the last explanation to which ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... knew him best; the one who lived with him through a long and beautiful life; the one who walked hand in hand with him along the whole of a wonderful road of ever-changing scenes: now through forests peopled with fairies and dryads, griffins and wizards; now skirting the edges of an ocean with its strange monsters and remarkable shipwrecks; now on the beaten track of European tourists, sharing their novel adventures and amused by their mistakes; now resting in lovely gardens ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... went, leaving the brook, and, skirting a high hedge to the side of a small wood, he followed the well-trodden path for nearly half-an-hour, when, of a sudden, he emerged from a narrow lane between two hedgerows into ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Hofgastein, hewn out of the rocks, skirting the precipices, winds and twists around the mountain slopes. The light of the moon shone alternately on our faces and those of the ladies opposite, according to the varying directions of the road. In Aniela's face I saw nothing but a sweet sadness, and I took courage from the fact that it was neither ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... though all this racket seemed to have caused the bass to cease taking hold for some time. By skirting the more distant shores, close to where the water grass and reeds grew, they finally struck a good ground, and were amply rewarded for the efforts ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... and stepped out into a neglected garden, Stuart close at his heels. The sky was cloudy, and the moon obscured. Never glancing back, Chunda Lal led the way along a path skirting a high wall upon which climbing fruit trees were growing until they came to a second door and this also the Hindu unlocked. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... to where the slope could be reached by skirting the edge of the pool, laboriously commenced to climb, following the tracks ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... before, in a village beyond the hills skirting the plain on which the city was built, there lived a family of three; that is to say, a man and his wife and their little son. It was a supremely happy home. The husband and wife were devotedly attached to each other, and the ambition of every family amongst the four ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... the lower valleys to the tops of lofty mountains, clouds may be traced through six modifications, the cirrus being seen from the loftiest summits, while the other forms are only skirting the sides of the mountains. Mr. Mason remarks, that clouds occasionally lie so low, that before the balloon seems to have entirely quitted the earth, it has been received between their limits, and entirely enveloped within their watery folds. Clouds, on the contrary, ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... and safe, then followed him. The ascent stiffened abruptly, then ended, so that they came out on a wooded plateau a half-mile square in the center of which the crest of the mountain reared in a last upheave of perfect cone several hundred feet high. Skirting the edge of the cone they emerged from the woods and came to the border ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... covered from side to side with the interlacing boughs of grand old chestnuts; now barriered on the edge of a ravine with broken fragments and boulders of granite, garlanded by heavy vines; now skirting orchards full of promise; and all the way companied by a tiny brook, veiled deeply in alder and hazel thickets, and making in its shadowy channel perpetual muffled music, like a child singing in the twilight to reassure its half-fearful heart. Kate's face was softened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... and Edward and his uncle went alone in the dog-cart. They drove swiftly down the narrow lane, into the road that followed the winding river, and crossed the bridge at Caermaen by the mouldering Roman walls, and then, skirting the deserted, echoing village, they came out on a broad white turnpike road, and the limestone dust followed them like a cloud. Then, suddenly, they turned to the north by such a road as Edward had never seen before. It was so narrow that there was barely room for the cart to pass, and the ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... that there were any enemies upon the lake, and they consequently passed on without examining more closely the thicket by the shore. Not until it was perfectly dark did Peter give the sign for the continuance of the journey. This time, instead of skirting the lake, the canoe was steered out toward its center. For some time they paddled, and then several ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... had left the village meadows far behind, and was skirting the great marsh. Sometimes he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked far across this low wet land to see if perhaps Beppo had strayed into its uncertain foothold; but nothing could he see but the waving rushes and the tall bitterns wading about ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... regiment was now among the outlying ranges of the Hills, where a camp was made and some reconnoitring done; but, finding no Indians, General Custer continued his march, skirting the Black Hills and passing through a country which he described as beautiful beyond description, abounding with a most luxurious vegetation, cool crystal streams, a profusion of bright, sweet-smelling flowers, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... on. Neither of them spoke; the tears were in Joanna's eyes and in her heart was a devouring tenderness that made it ache. The trap lurched in the deep ruts of the road, which now had become a mass of shingle and gravel, skirting the beach. Queer sea plants grew in the ruts, the little white sea-campions with their fat seed-boxes filled the furrows of the road as with a foam—it seemed a pity and a shame to crush them, and one could tell by their fresh growth how long it was since ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... was good to know that Little Saxon had fulfilled the promise of youth. And he saw too, a morning's work ahead of him, such work as the leaping spirit of Red Reckless loved. A wild scamper across the upper end of the narrow valley, skirting the lake perhaps; a headlong race after a horse born of Brown Babe and the high spirited stallion Saxon; the swinging of a rope in a hand that had not known the feel of one for a year; and the final conquest that would come when at last that ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... of the village the road took a sharp twist, skirting a bit of rising ground. There was just a glimmer of a warning light which streamed athwart the turning ribbon of laden ants. And as Doggie wheeled through the dim ray he heard a voice that rang ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... will dissolve in the scouring process and stain the wool. With these preliminaries finished, he proceeds to cast out the locks, according to quality, into baskets or skeps provided for that purpose. After skirting or taking off the outside edges of the fleece, usually known as brokes, and the legs and tail, known as breech, he separates the other ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... with the shore was made by means of a narrow bridge or gangway, constructed in the same manner. On this rude platform huts were erected by driving small piles or stakes which projected above the floor, and to these were fastened boards standing edgeways like the skirting of our ordinary rooms, and marking out the size of each building. The walls of the huts were formed of small branches of twigs interwoven and plastered over with clay. The roof was made of straw or reeds like a thatched cottage. In size these huts were ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... hooded and aproned, with great round head and massive bosom. Her face was dull and heavy and homely, her old eyes sorrowful. She moved swiftly, carrying a basket on her arm. Opposite her, to the southward, but too far for sight, an old man came out of the lower Cresswell place, skirting the swamp. He was tall, black, and gaunt, part bald with tufted hair, and a cowed and furtive look was in his eyes. One leg was crippled, and he ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a narrow path skirting a wood, when she suddenly expressed a wish for some tall bulrushes that grew beside a stream, some distance below. Maurice went down to the edge of the water and began to cut the rushes. But the ground was marshy, and the finest were ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... way home, through the park, along a path skirting the top of a wooded ravine, a dashing rivulet making a pleasant murmur among the rocks below, and glancing here and there through the brushwood that clothed the precipitous banks, when, with a sudden rustling and crackling, a man leaped ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of desolation at the post that Jan discovered the big problem for himself and John Cummins. In the last days of the second week, he spent much of his time skirting the edge of the barrens in search of caribou, that there might be meat in plenty when the dogs and men returned a little later. One afternoon, he returned early, while the pale sun was still in the sky, ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... from the Hudson River side, you cross a rough, rolling stretch of country, skirting the base of the Catskills, which from a point near Saugerties sweep inland; after a drive of a few hours you are within the shadow of a high, bold mountain, which forms a sort of butt-end to this part of the range, and which is simple called High Point. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... possible, the fate of the ranch folk, then act as their discoveries might direct. All this Harris was turning over in mind as he hurried ahead. The road, though little worn, was distinct, and now that they were out of the bottom and skirting the stony bed of a little mountain stream, quite firm and dry. Six miles an hour, easily, his swarthy, half-naked fellows were making without ever "turning a hair." His own lean broncho, long trained to such work, scrambled along in that odd, short-legged trot, and Harris ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... or emigrant in early summer has traversed, since he crossed the Missouri, five hundred miles of almost uniformly arable soil, most of it richly grassed, with belts of timber skirting its moderately copious and not unfrequent water-courses, and he very naturally concludes 'the American Desert' a misnomer, or at best a gross exaggeration. But, from the moment of leaving the Buffaloes behind him, the country begins to shoal, as a sailor might say, growing rapidly sterile, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his own pace was not much more than a quick walk, by means of skilful short cuts and long steps, Faith had a gentle little run a good part of the way. Not down through the crowd of boys and baskets, but skirting the meadow—passing from the shelter of one great tree to another, till they reached the bank and saw the blue waters of Kildeer river at their feet. There she was permitted to sit down and rest. A little laughing and a little flushed, her happy look was almost brought back again. But she sat and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner |
