"Undergrowth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... considerable grove of oak-trees, she hesitated a moment, and finally left the road, entered the grove, and sat down on a rock at only a little distance from the road, yet out of sight of it. She was quite effectually screened by the trees and some undergrowth. Here and there the oaks showed shades of russet-and-gold and deep crimson; the leaves had not fallen. In the sunlit spaces between the trees grew clumps of blue asters. She saw a squirrel sitting quite ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... he heard a 'sh-'sh of the leaves, and there was the Stalo pushing his way through the undergrowth to see what chance he had of a dinner. At the first glimpse of Patto's head in the well he laughed ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... But as she passed beyond the monoliths, Lambert, in company with a policeman, made a sudden appearance and blocked her way of escape. With a grim determination to thwart him she kilted up her skirts and leaped like a kangaroo towards the undergrowth beneath the leafless trees. By this time the flames were shooting through the thatched roof in long scarlet streamers and illuminated the spectral wood ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the wekas' reach, whilst I followed F—— through tangled creepers, "over brake, over brier," towards the place from whence the noise of falling trees proceeded. By the time we reached it, our scratched hands and faces bore traces of the thorny undergrowth which had barred our way; but all minor discomforts were forgotten in the picturesque beauty of the spot. Around us lay the forest-kings, majestic still in their overthrow, whilst substantial stacks of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... truly that God had made this a country of stones, but they forgot that He had clothed the stones with trees of evergreen foliage and a dense undergrowth of shrubs and grass, to protect and hold together the thick bed of loam which the fallen leaves enriched from year to year. It was the axes of their fathers that felled the trees, to sell for fuel, and the billhooks of their mothers that hacked away the bushes and grubbed up ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... found inhabited by aged people; but as they had been residents only seven years, and twenty-four years had elapsed since my mother was laid to rest, they could give me no light or aid, save the simple suggestion that there were a number of graves covered by the undergrowth of shrubbery, and perchance hers might be one of them. Accepting the possibility I found the one I sought, which could not fail to be recognized, for strange to say, time had dealt so gently that the slender picket ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... ahead around the screening fronds of a young areca palm, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes fixed on an object in the midst of the tropical undergrowth. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... storage facilities (the Japanese Government has built one desalination plant and plans to build one other); beachhead erosion because of the use of sand for building materials; excessive clearance of forest undergrowth for use as fuel; damage to coral reefs from the spread of the Crown of Thorns starfish; Tuvalu is very concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... drooping branches as if attached by invisible threads. As he went on a deep bluish smoke issued from among some far-off poplars where a farmer was burning brush in a clearing. The smoke hung low above the undergrowth, assuming eccentric outlines and varied tones of dusk. Presently the fires glimmered nearer, and he saw the red tongues of the flames and heard the parched crackling of consuming leaves. The figures of the workers were limned grotesquely against ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... not wish to be benighted in the woods. The little village of Canterbury, which was the goal of my day's march, must lie about to the north just beyond the edge of the mountain, and in that direction I turned, pushing forward as rapidly as possible through the undergrowth. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... his power less when he describes the solitary silent places of mediaeval castles, palaces, and their rooms; of the long, statue-haunted, cypress-avenued gardens, a waste of flowers and wild undergrowth. We wander, room by room, through Adelaide's castle at Goito, we see every beam in the ceiling, every figure on the tapestry; we walk with Browning through the dark passages into the dim-lighted chambers of the town palace at ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... faring southwards, and the first waggon had met a piled-up load of charcoal coming forth from the forest at a place in the road where they were pent between a deep ditch on one hand and thick brushwood and undergrowth on the other; thus neither could turn aside, and their wheels were so fast locked that they barred the road as it had been a wall. Thus the second waggon likewise had come to hurt by the sudden stopping of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... an open space where the wild growth had been recently cut. The men debouched on to it from the undergrowth, there was a faint light from the stars on that strip of rough grass; by it she saw that they were ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... heat, G. W. reached the summit, only to sink down at once in the tangle of bushes and pant and puff. But after a while he revived; and then peering through the undergrowth he gazed down upon the plain below that ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... beneath the green domes of the forest of Fontainebleau, the deer prick their ears at the sound of the first riding-parties. Off with you! Flowers line the pathways, the moors are pink with bloom, the undergrowth teems with darting wings. All the town troops out to see the country in its gala dress. The very poorest have a favorite nook, a recollection of the bygone year to be revived and renewed; a sheltered corner that invited sleep, a glade where the shade ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... intellectual gene. Every day our companies, our railways, our debentures, and our shares, tend more and more to multiply these SURROUNDINGS of the aristocracy, and in time they will hide it. And while this undergrowth has come up, the aristocracy have come down. They have less means of standing out than they used to have. Their power is in their theatrical exhibition, in their state. But society is every day becoming ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... a museum of stone circles and dolmens, the best known of which is the "Helstone," or Stone of the Dead. On Ridge Hill, north of Abbotsbury, are the five large stones, almost lost in a tangle of nettles and undergrowth, called the "Grey Mare ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... loss. After an interval of twenty or thirty minutes I was directed to form line of battle in a partially open field facing toward the blockhouses and strong intrenchments to the north occupied by the enemy. Much difficulty was found on account of the dense undergrowth, crossed in several directions by wire fences. As a part of the cavalry division under General Sumner, the regiment was formed in two lines, the First Squadron under Major S.T. Norvell, consisting of Troops A, B, E and I, leading; the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... the thick undergrowth, the intertwining vines, and the heavy lower branches of the trees, make it difficult even to see into the dark recesses of the forest. But in the winter all is open. The low wet places, the deep holes, the rotten bogs, everything on the ground that is in the way of a good ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... along in a direction contrary to that taken by the sexton, making the best of his way until he arrived at a gap in the high-banked hazel hedge which overhung the road. Heedless of the impediments thrown in his way by the undergrowth of a rough ring fence, he struck through the opening that presented itself, and, climbing over the moss-grown paling, trod presently upon the elastic sward of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... retching from weariness, and something inside him was cold as ice, though his head burned. It was not rage or grief, but awe, for his father had fallen and the end of the world had come. The noise of the battle died, as the two pushed through the undergrowth and came into the open spaces of the wood. It was growing very dark, but still Leif dragged him onwards. Then suddenly he fell forward on his face, and Biorn, as he stumbled over him found his ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... the lines, wrenches them out of Sandy's hands, and, with a quick swing, forces the pintos down the steep side of the ravine, which is almost sheer ice with a thin coat of snow. It is a daring course to take, for the ravine, though not deep, is full of undergrowth, and is partially closed up by a brush heap at the further end. But with a yell, Baptiste hurls his four horses down the slope, and into the undergrowth. "Allons, mes enfants! Courage! vite, vite!" cries their driver, and ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... our way through the underscrub, until we finally reached a spot where, peering out from behind the trunk of a big baobab, we were able to catch an occasional glimpse of an enormous grey mass moving slowly among the trees, while the sound of swishing and snapping branches, the crackling of the undergrowth as the creature moved from time to time, and an occasional low grunt of satisfaction told us how near we were to our quarry. Luckily, too, for us, the wind was in exactly the right direction—that is to say, it was blowing from the elephant ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a hot, damp air, motionless, and heavy with the sleeping breath of countless growths could make it so, a conservatory it was. Every slightest turn had to be alertly chosen, and the tangle of branches and vines made going by the stars nearly impossible. The undergrowth crowded us into single file. We scarcely exchanged another word until our horses came abreast in the creek and stopped to drink. Conditions beyond were much the same until near the end of our detour, when my horse swerved abruptly and the buzz of a rattlesnake ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... they had gained from the heights of the Cote de Poivre, turning and twisting here and there as German voices warned them of the proximity of enemy parties, and sometimes stealing past a group of men from whom they were separated by only a few feet of thick undergrowth. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Half-way on a "dry-stretch" of seventeen miles. Big "tank" full of good water through the scrub to the right, but it is a private tank and a boundary-rider is shepherding it. Mulga scrub and sparse, spiky undergrowth. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... lad, wheeling toward the low undergrowth which concealed their visitor. "Come out into ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... my way steadily upward in a straight line through a dense undergrowth of mountain laurel, until the trees began to have a scraggy and infernal look, as if contending with frost goblins, and at length I reached the summit, just as the sun was setting. Several acres here had been cleared, and were ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... snare, called kok-o'-lang, is employed by the Igorot in catching both wild cocks and hens. It is set in their narrow runways in the heavy undergrowth. It consists of two short uprights driven into the ground one on either side of the path. These are bound together at the tops with two crosspieces. Near the lower ends of these uprights is a loose crosspiece, the trigger, which ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... contracted and rapid, with occasional islands and frequent sand-banks. These islands are furnished with a number of ponds, and at certain seasons abound with swans, geese, brandts, cranes, gulls, plover, and other wild-fowl. The shores, too, are low and closely wooded, with such an undergrowth of vines and rushes ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the stranger turned with the trail that now began to skirt its edge. This was no easy matter, as the undergrowth was very thick, and the foliage dense to the perilous brink of the precipice. He walked on, however, wondering why Bradley had chosen so circuitous and dangerous a route to his house, which naturally would be some ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... exclaimed; and in an instant they had plunged into the undergrowth, and were forcing their way at full speed through it. Man- eating tigers are rarely found in pairs, and there was little fear that another was lurking in the wood; and even had such been the case, they ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... fine grain capable of taking a high polish, and large enough to form a dining-table for twenty-four people, have been cut from them. The Borneo jungle is so dense, and is so completely overshadowed by the trees rising from it, that there is no undergrowth, and the effect of bareness is produced; though I dare say that, if one could only look down on the forest from the car of a balloon, the flora of creepers, orchids, and parasites would be very beautiful wherever the ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... muttered. "If you are deliberately trying to make men mad to get you you are succeeding infuriatingly well. If I catch you to-night it will be your fault if I tell you what I think of you. I'll tell you now, for I suppose you are hiding somewhere in this undergrowth till I give it up and you can get away home. You shall listen to me if you are here, ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... stood on a very slight rise, where the clump of swamp box terminated, a quarter of a mile away; and, sure enough, we could see, through a gap in the undergrowth of old-man salt-bush, a man chopping wood at the edge of the clump. But he seemed quite unconscious of the multitude of bullocks that, scattered all over the paddock, were laying in a fresh supply ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... first scream, the youth turned his head in the direction of the sound; but when it was repeated, he pushed aside the undergrowth and soon dashed into an open space on the banks of the stream, where ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... you wouldn't be rushing off like a house afire, to leave us here without the gun, while you lost yourself in all this tangled undergrowth," Owen suggested, reproachfully. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... cried Joel, way ahead. "Hoh! what you stoppin' down there for? Of course you won't find any until you get up nearer the top. Come on!" and he disappeared in a thick clump of undergrowth. ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... Woods. If she had done so she would have stopped them, for the White Woods was considered a very dangerous place. It was called white because it was always white even in midsummer. The trees and bushes, and all the undergrowth, every flower and blade of grass, were white with snow and frost all the year round, and all the learned men of the country had studied into the reason of it, and had come to the conclusion that the Woods lay in a direct draught from the North Pole ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... of religions exercised by the jerks, gentleman and lady, black and white, young and old, without exception. I passed a meeting-house, where I observed the undergrowth had been cut away for camp meetings, and from fifty to a hundred saplings were left, breast high, on purpose for the people who were jerked to hold by. I observed where they had held on, they had kicked up the earth, as a horse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... selling or buying. Presently he is buying again; this time, still with striking of legal attitudes, calling together of relations, and accompaniments of crabbed Latin notarial documents, a piece of ground in the suburbs of Genoa, consisting of scrub and undergrowth, which cannot have been of any earthly use to him. But also, according to the documents, there went some old wine-vats with the land. Domenico, taking a walk after Mass on some feast-day, sees the land and the wine-vats; ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak undergrowth, that, being storm-laden drooped and made more difficult her passage; how with clothing torn, and hands and face bleeding she arrived at the end of the bridge, and standing out upon the last tie she peered down into the abyss of waters with her dim light, and called ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... they came upon the tracks—to see them gave Norah a queer sense of comfort, since in a way they brought her in touch with Dad. Then they separated, beating into the scrub that hemmed them round everywhere, except when low, stony hills rose naked out of the green undergrowth. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... belief that they would increase in love to one another, and draw to themselves by their example the good and wise; believing also that if they planted the seeds of truth and unity they would be watered with deeds of faith, and by degrees overtop and destroy the evil undergrowth that abounded in the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... and Prissie had wandered away down the banks of the little stream where grew pale marsh violets, golden globeflowers, and the sweet-scented fern. Pushing through the undergrowth above the water, they found themselves in a tiny natural clearing such as poets of old would have described as a "a bower." Budding trees encircled it, a guelder rose bush overtopped it, and delicate fern-like moss sprang through the grass underfoot. There were fairies, too, in the bower; four ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... set far back from the street, was of the true Colonial type, with stately white pillars at the dignified entrance. The garden was a tangled mass of undergrowth—in spite of the snow one could see that— but the house, being substantially built, had changed scarcely ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... his guest along a bit of common, where great black junipers stood up like magnates in council above the motley undergrowth of fern and heather, and then they turned into the park. A great stretch of dimpled land it was, falling softly towards the south and west, bounded by a shining twisted river, and commanding from all its highest points a heathery world of distance, now turned a stormy purple ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in festoons across the bracken-bordered little winding pathways that led here and there through mazes of shrubbery and undergrowth, under the arched ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... visit. By land it was only fifty miles distant to the southward, possibly sixty if we had to go round the bays. The only difficulty about the trip was that there were no trails, and most of the way led through virgin forest, where windfalls and stumps and dense undergrowth mixed with snow made the ordinary obstacle race a sprint in the open in comparison. We knew what it meant, because in our eagerness to begin our dog-driving when the first snow came, we had wandered over small trees crusted with ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of hard-wood, and open, except for a thick undergrowth of moose-bush. It was raining,—in fact, it had been raining, more or less, for a month,—and the woods were soaked. This moose-bush is most annoying stuff to travel through in a rain; for the broad leaves slap one in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that business called him in another direction. No telling upon whom that wild boy might next turn his fury. So he withdrew deeper into the bushes, and as he caught a view of Mr. Newton hurrying up he decided on still more active measures, and scampered away as fast as his pack and the undergrowth would let him. ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... fawn-coloured faded grass; tangled in the film of lilac seeding grasses, spread, like the bloom on a grape, over all the heath; sparkling on the crisp edges of the heather blooms, pure white, wild-rose colour, shell-tinted, purple; emphasising every grey-green spur of the undergrowth of ground-lichen; striking every scarlet-splashed, white-budded spray of ling: an iridescent, shimmering, dancing effect of white and pink and purple flowers; of lilac bloom, of grey-green and whitish-grey buds and branches, all crisply moving ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... entering the wood, I not only found myself embosomed in the darkness of the night, but I also found myself entangled in a thick forest of undergrowth, which had been quite thoroughly wetted ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... dwelling-houses, went up as tinder and flame in a moment, and the smoky haze from the burning island spread far out to sea. And yet where the fire passed six months ago, all is now a fresh impenetrable undergrowth of green; creepers covering the land, climbing up and shrouding the charred stumps; young palms, like Prince of Wales's feathers, breaking up, six or eight feet high, among a wilderness of sensitive plants, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... even midnight did not woo to rest in that vast wilderness, Yorke had imbibed enough of forest lore to know that the noise which he had heard was produced by none of these. A rat in the water-rushes, or a stoat pushing through the undergrowth, would have announced itself in a different fashion. Again the sound was heard, and this time it was no longer the crackling of a twig, but the breaking of a branch; then cautious footsteps fell upon the frosty leaves, and, with a light leap on the bank that fringed the copse, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... even such a paepae—a paepae hae—may be called a paepae tapu in a lesser sense when it is deserted and becomes the haunt of spirits; but the public high place, such as I was now treading, was a thing on a great scale. As far as my eyes could pierce through the dark undergrowth, the floor of the forest was all paved. Three tiers of terrace ran on the slope of the hill; in front, a crumbling parapet contained the main arena; and the pavement of that was pierced and parcelled out with several wells and small enclosures. No trace remained ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which the electric road runs from East End to West End, is an attractive spot to nature lovers. Hundreds of old chestnut trees make it a favorite resort for picnic parties in summer and nut-hunters in the fall. It is altogether a charming piece of woodland without undergrowth, and needs no gravelled walks or other evidences of the hand of man to add to ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... countryside for a place of refuge. Good, fertile land, cut up into tiny fields; well-kept crops, with not a weed anywhere; here and there a little grove of trees—surely in among the trees we could be out of sight! But no! There was no undergrowth, no weeds, not even any fallen leaves. All had been gathered, carefully dried, and put in the fuel pile. Why, if a strong wind came up in the night, the owner of the trees would rise from bed and hurry ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... the Sierras. The gorges and canons of Colorado are surpassed; mountains that tower above Pike's Peak rise in steep incline from the still level of the sea; and the shores are clad in forests and undergrowth dense and impassable as the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... village. We breakfasted here; and after purchasing twelve dogs, four sacks of fish, and a few dried berries, proceeded on our journey. The hills as we passed were high, with steep, rocky sides, with pine and white oak, and an undergrowth of shrubs ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... aspect might escape the servants Marcia took her down a side staircase of the vast house, and piloted her through some garden paths. Then the girl herself, returning, opened a gate into a wood, where an undergrowth of wild roses was just breaking into flower, and was soon pacing a mossy path out of sight and sound ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Edward Henry, with all the canny provincial's conviction of his own superior shrewdness; and he repeated, so as to intensify this conviction and impress it on others, "Oh!" In the undergrowth of his mind was the thought: "How dare this man whose brains belong to me be the organizing secretary of something that I don't know anything about and don't want to know ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... she came out of the woods upon a hill-side covered with the tangled undergrowth that follows a fire upon the hills. The trunk of an old cedar tree, blackened and charred to the roots, warned her of a close approach to the river, and in the distance she saw a wreath of dim smoke curling up through the snow. Leaving the cedar-tree on her right, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... power of imitation, he is unsurpassed (and in the last-named particular unequalled) by any of our Northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as stated, not especially musical: Chick-a-re'r-chick, he seems to say, hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding your most vigilant search, as if playing some part in a game. But in July or August, if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you may listen to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... age; his face was rather hollow and worn; his eyes were very simple and pale; he was bearded with a weak beard, and in his expression there appeared a constrained but kindly weariness. This was the man who came up to me as I was drawing my picture. I had heard him scrambling in the undergrowth of the ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... a nightmare tramp. The rain never ceased. By day we lay in icy misery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditch or wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearing detection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and the resumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans, and about eight o'clock on the third evening, hobbling painfully along the road that runs from Cleves ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... steep rocky ridge with which the country at that place was intersected for a considerable distance. The ridge itself, and the pass by which it was divided, were thickly covered with trees and dense undergrowth. ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... carriage and walked with uncertain steps along a sidewalk skirting a high bluff and overlooking the river. Below the houses a tangled mass of bushes and small trees lay black in the moonlight, and in the distance the grey body of the river showed faint and far away. The undergrowth was so thick that, looking down, one saw only the tops of the growth, with here and there a grey outcrop of rocks that ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... were open and clear of undergrowth, and the troops passed through, preserving their array with little difficulty; but as the point, where the fight between the pickets had commenced, was neared, the timber became dwarfed into scrubby brush, and at some places dense ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Indians for a week afterwards. Twice I saw Little Fellow pull up abruptly and look warily through the cedars on one side. Once he stooped down and peered among the fern stems. Then he silently signaled back to La Robe Noire, pointed through the undergrowth and ran ahead again without explanation. At first I could see nothing, and regretted being led so far into the woods. I was about to order both Indians back to the tent, when Little Fellow, with face pricked forward and ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the road near the gate, and on both sides of it was a thick undergrowth of small trees and bushes; and in the shade of this foliage it had become quite dark. Christy had not taken three steps before four men sprang out of the thicket in front of him, all of them armed with muskets, and wearing a uniform of gray. Two placed themselves in front of Christy; while ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... lumbermen and the course of Nature. For when the lumbermen go into the woods, they cut roads in every direction, leading nowhither, and the unwary wanderer is thereby led aside from the right way, and entangled in the undergrowth. And as for Nature, she is entirely opposed to continuance of paths through her forest. She covers them with fallen leaves, and hides them with thick bushes. She drops great trees across them, and blots then out with windfalls. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... as the spurs caught in the undergrowth. The cameras closely recorded his efforts, and Baird applauded them. "You're getting it—keep on. That's better. Now try to run a few steps—go right ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... fringes, but he was not easy in his mind about them. Their extreme immobility might be the sign of a tense patience biding its time. Who was to say that some night the position might not be reversed—that it would not be he who stood naked save for his own pelt among the undergrowth watching some happy firelit puma licking the grease of a good meal from its paws? That was the primitive doubt. It's an attitude that one may understand even now, he said, when one faces the spring of one of the larger carnivora; and Ellen thrilled to hear him refer to this as Edinburgh ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... trampling all over, you won't know where you are when it comes to a close search," was the cheerful answer. "Now, about that gun—it must be hidden somewhere in the undergrowth. The man who fired it would never dare to carry it along an open road on a fine morning like this, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... tall grass, tropical undergrowth, under barbed-wire fences and over wire entanglements, regardless 20 of casualties, up the hill to the right this gallant advance was made. As we appeared on the crest we found the Spaniards retreating only to take up a new position farther ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... tortoiseshell and appropriately called "Melisande in the Wood," justified by the extraordinary circumstances in which she was discovered. One day at No. 35 hut hospital I saw three of the men hunting in a bank opposite, covered with undergrowth and small shrubs. They told me that for the past three days a kitten had been heard mewing, but in spite of all their efforts to find it, they had failed to do so. I listened, and sure enough heard a plaintive mew. The place was a network of clinging roots, ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... the party landed at Memloose Island. Before them, rising sharply against the evening sky, drooping cottonwoods lifted high above an undergrowth of willows. The party marched down a little trail for half the length of the island, and then, at a point where the trail divided into the sombre interior of the wooded terrain, they ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... trees, besides being hung with climbers, are also decked with orchids and with foliaceous lichens and mosses. The wild banana with its crown of glistening leaves is everywhere conspicuous. Bamboos shoot up through the undergrowth to a hundred feet or more in height. The fallen trees are richly clothed with ferns typical of the hottest and dampest climates. And dendrobiums and other orchids ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... plenty—crocketts, king parrots, leatherheads, "butcher" and "bell" birds, and the beautiful bronze-wing pigeon—while deep within the silent gullies you constantly hear the little black scrub wallabies leaping through the undergrowth and fallen leaves, to hide in still ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... in the full tide of summer, from the land of mystery at the headwaters of the rivers; the memory of his artless words brought back the dazzling sunshine, the ripened blueberries and the last blossoms of the laurel fading in the undergrowth; after him appeared Lorenzo Surprenant offering other gifts,—visions of beautiful distant cities, of a life abounding in unknown wonders. When Eutrope spoke, it was in a shamefaced halting way, as though he foresaw ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... one place a curve of the river brings it, for three hundred yards or more, close under the hanging woods, only the width of the roadway between the broad stream and living wall of trees. Here transparent bluish shadow haunted the undergrowth, and the air grew delicately chill, charged with the scent of fern, of moist earth, leaf mould, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... as they saw the lads, but these had made the best use of their time, and reached the wood some two hundred yards ahead of their pursuers. Ned dashed into the undergrowth and tore his way through it, Tom close at his heels. Sometimes they came to open spaces, and here each time Ned changed the direction of their flight, choosing spots where they could take to the underwood without showing any sign, such as broken boughs, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... that this self-justifying, self-proving purity of style, is commoner in ancient literature than in modern literature, and also that Shakespeare is not a great or an unmixed example of it. No one can say that he is. His works are full of undergrowth, are full of complexity, are not models of style; except by a miracle nothing in the Elizabethan age could be a model of style; the restraining taste of that age was feebler and more mistaken than that of any other equally ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... covered with a dense forest. On the summits this consists of comparatively stunted trees, of which every part is thickly coated with moss. In all other parts the forest consists of great trees rising to a height of 150 feet, and even 200 feet, and of a dense undergrowth of younger and smaller trees, and of a great variety of creepers, palms, and ferns. Trees of many species (nearly 500) yield excellent timber, ranging from the hardest ironwood or BILIAN, and other hard ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... one of the tropics. They are made up, in great part, of the evergreen beech (Fagus betuloides), the deciduous antarctic beech (F. antarctica),[3] and Winter's bark (Drimys Winteri), intermingled with a dense undergrowth composed of a great variety of shrubs and plants, among which are Maytenus magellanica, Arbutus rigida, Myrtus memmolaria, two or three species of Berberis, wild currant (Ribes antarctica), a trailing blackberry, tree ferns, reed-like grasses and innumerable parasites. On the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Ravine for days we marched, sometimes in dense forests so thick that a man could scarcely force himself through the undergrowth that flanked the trail, and sometimes through upland meadows so deep in tall yellow grass as to suggest a field of waving grain, then through miles of country studded with the gnarled thorn tree that looks so much like our apple trees at home. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... back and went over to Choko. She removed the ax from the pack and chopped a way through the slender undergrowth which had ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to be the eyes of great beasts of prey. And he could hear the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth, and the noises they made in the night. And dreaming there by the Yukon bank, with lazy eyes blinking at the fire, these sounds and sights of another world would make the hair to rise along his back and stand ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... its way under a pair of bars, and ran curving away into deep shadows, fringed with ferns, and overhung with the dense foliage of oak and walnut. A distant glimpse of brilliant scarlet flowers, standing like sentinels in uniform against the dark green of the undergrowth, beckoned like a hand. With a laugh Charlotte set her foot upon the bottom rail. "I'm coming," she called blithely to the scarlet flowers. "You needn't shout ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... Media post to Aegypt, there fast bound. Now to th' ascent of that steep savage Hill Satan had journied on, pensive and slow; But further way found none, so thick entwin'd, As one continu'd brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplext All path of Man or Beast that past that way: One Gate there onely was, and that look'd East On th' other side: which when th' arch-fellon saw Due entrance he disdaind, and in contempt, 180 At one slight bound high ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... be visible as a dark line, from the distance of many miles. It is, however, very poor, all the large trees having been removed. We rode for several miles into it, and found the soil dry and hard, but supporting a prodigious undergrowth of gigantic harsh grasses that reached to our heads, though we were mounted on elephants. Besides Sal there was abundance of Butea, Diospyros, Terminalia, and Symplocos, with the dwarf Phoenix palm, and occasionally Cycas. Tigers, wild elephants, and the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... himself as, at the close of that long and varied day, he stood at the mouth of a natural cave, half hidden by tangled undergrowth, which had been appointed months ago by Joanna the gipsy as the place where on May Day evening she would meet him, and tell him more of the matter so near ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... by the thorns and the thick undergrowth that had surrounded it. It was a wild, lonely country; but you know what it was like by her description, though of course you will understand that the colours have been heightened. A child's imagination always makes the heights higher ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... Jo launched headlong into the grisly. Through the matted undergrowth of years, over the high-spiked barriers of the deer-park, the Highflyer had seen not only the familiar Grey Lady in robes of rustling silk (through which you could discern the gravel and weeds on the path), but little green demons with chalk-white ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... nearly every inch of the property was covered with what is termed light bush. It might have been a slice out of the New Forest. The light bush is just as dense a wood of small trees, twenty to fifty feet in height, shrubs, creepers and undergrowth, as can well be conceived of. Where the thicket is thinner the trees are larger, and the smaller they are the denser the covert. If you wish to journey through this light bush, where there is no semblance of a track, it will take you perhaps two hours ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... vivid scarlet flowers instead of leaves. These open park-like expanses of country, however, were of comparatively limited extent, the trees for the most part growing closely together, while the space between their trunks was choked with thick undergrowth, consisting of shrubs, bushes, and long, tough, flowering creepers, so densely and inextricably intermingled that it was sometimes impossible to force a way through it, and long detours became necessary in order to make any progress. But there were other spots, again, which conveyed the ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... wilderness had created in his mind. Apprehension and loneliness disappeared with the blackness of the night. He was with one of the best scouts and hunters in the West, and the sun was rising upon a valley of uncommon beauty. All about him the trees grew tall and large, without undergrowth, the effect being that of a great park, with grass thick and green, upon which the horses were grazing in deep content. The waters of the brook sang a little song as they hurried over the gravel, and the note of everything ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... no noise, and through the undergrowth I peered upon as odd a sight as ever pleased a lover of the bizarre. A blaze of torches lighted a cleared space among the tall palm columns, and in the flickering red glow a score of naked, tattooed figures crouched about a shining mat of sugar-cane. About them great piles of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the pleasant squelch-squelch of the saddle leather, the moist earthy fragrance of the autumn woods and wet fallows, the cold white mists of winter days, the whimper of hounds and the hot restless pushing of the pack through ditch and hedgerow and undergrowth, the birds that flew up and clucked and chattered as you passed, the hearty greeting and pleasant gossip in farmhouse kitchens and market-day bar-parlours—all these remembered delights of the chase marshalled themselves in the brain, and made a cumulative ...
— When William Came • Saki
... the wood, which was very similar in character to the one we had before hunted in, with an undergrowth of willows near a stream, while in other places were clumps of wild rose trees, still covered with bloom. Penetrating into the wood, we selected a spot for our camp, where we could leave our horses under ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... sliding stones of the road, and straining backward between the shafts, would say, "A snake.... I must save Maurice." Sometimes she would hear, above the crunching of the wheels behind her, a faint noise in the undergrowth: a breaking twig, a brushing sound, as of a furtive footstep—and she would say, "A ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... The undergrowth was thick in this part; I couldn’t see before my nose, and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went, slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow. I call them trees for the bigness, but in truth they were just big weeds, and sappy ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way through the dense undergrowth. Pausing now and again to listen, they laid their course by the sounds. These sounds resolved themselves into bursts ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... coming through the bushes. I lifted my head as far as I could, and listened. For a little while nothing happened, and then, straight in front of me, I saw lights. And there was a sound of trampling in the undergrowth. ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... but a couple of days old when the two discovered it, which meant that the slow-moving caravan was but a few hours distant from them whose trained and agile muscles could carry their bodies swiftly through the branches above the tangled undergrowth which had impeded the progress of the laden carriers ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... belt and a bow and arrows slung across his back, but privation had set a deep mark upon his features and his body bore unmistakable traces of a long and arduous march. His garments were ragged, his limbs torn by rocks and thorny undergrowth, while his ears had fallen away before the rigour of the ice-laden blasts. In his right hand he carried a staff upon which he leaned at every step, and glancing to the ground Ten-teh perceived that the lower part of his sandals were worn away ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... faced to the front in line as soon as it had cleared the road, and the Second Brigade was ordered to pass in rear of the first and face to the front when clear of the First Brigade. This movement was very difficult, owing to the heavy undergrowth, and the regiments became more or less tangled up, but eventually the formation was accomplished, and the Division stood in an irregular line along the San Juan River, the Second Brigade on the right. We were subjected to a heavy fire from the forces on San Juan Ridge and Kettle Hill; ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... inn and entered at once between high-trunked forest trees, free from undergrowth. They led their horses, and could pass along without taking the wagons to pieces. Occasionally a storm arose, and at times it increased to such extraordinary force that it struck the branches of the bending pines as with gigantic wings, bending, twisting and shaking and ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... parrots, and a thousand other birds fly to and fro, and the black fire-bird darts across the sky, making lightning with every flutter of his wings, which, underneath, are painted a bright, vivid red. Serpents of all colors and sizes creep silently in the undergrowth, or hang from the branches of the trees, their emerald eyes ever on the alert; and the broad-winged eagle soars above all, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... cloud-barred sky hung over the prairie, which was fast fading into dimness; the wood looked desolate and forbidding in the dying light. He did not think any one could have seen him and his companion enter it. Then he and the man floundered through the undergrowth until they reached the sloo, where they hid themselves among the grass at some distance from the case, which had ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... lived, in an intertropical country. Of the northern elephant, it is positively known, from the Siberian specimen, that it was covered, like many other sub-arctic animals, with long hair, and a thick crisp undergrowth of wool, about three inches in length,—certainly not an intertropical provision; and so entirely different was it in form from either of the existing species, African or Indian, that a child could be ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... than elsewhere, as a great portion of the country was flooded by the river dnring the rainy season, and much rich soil had been deposited; this, with excessive moisture, had produced a forest of fine timber, with an undergrowth of thick nabbuk. We fixed upon a charming spot for a camp, beneath a large tree that bore a peculiar fruit, suspended from the branches by a strong but single fibre, like a cord; each fruit was about eighteen inches in length, by six ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... of his sudden clutch, however, and all was well. A little lower down, holding on with one hand, he took his torch from his pocket and examined the surface of the cliff. Nothing apparently had been disturbed, nor was there any sign of any heavy body having been dashed through the undergrowth. Soon he went on again, and, working a little to the left, stood for a moment upon a green, turf-covered crag, a tiny plateau covered with the refuse of seagulls and a few stunted trees, from amongst which a startled hawk rose with a wild cry. He waited here until ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on the under-surface and concave on the upper, sharply pointed and broadest near the root. Mixed with the spines on the back are long bristles, very stout, projecting some three inches beyond the spines, which are only about an inch in length; below these is a scanty undergrowth of pale coloured hairs; the tail is somewhat less than half the length of the head and body, scaly, and at the end furnished with a large tuft of flattened bristles from three to four inches long, of a ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... vast, empty garden, neglected and dead. The hedge that surrounded it was only a tangled mass of undergrowth, and the paths were buried and choked by weeds. The desolate house beyond it loomed up whitely in the shadow. It was damp and cold in the garden, but she went in, mutely obeying the blind force that impelled ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... was packed with a vast throng of people, all standing, closely crowded together, like the undergrowth in a forest. The rood-screen was open, or broken down, I could not tell which. The choir was bare, like a clearing in the woods, ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... plunging, swaying stride that was very tiring to a novice. Holding both guns Frank glanced continually ahead, aside and behind him with a delicious feeling of excited hope that at any moment some dangerous wild beast might appear. On either hand the dense undergrowth of great, flower-covered bushes and curving fan-shaped palms, restricted the view to a few yards. From its dense tangle rose the giant trunks of huge trees, their leafy crowns striving to push through the thick canopy of vegetation overhead into the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... course of the Capilano River, about a mile citywards from the dam, you will pass a disused logger's shack. Leave the trail at this point and strike through the undergrowth for a few hundred yards to the left, and you will be on the rocky borders of that purest, most restless river in all Canada. The stream is haunted with tradition, teeming with a score of romances that vie with its grandeur and loveliness, and of which its waters are perpetually whispering. ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... brute's claws. From there the spots of blood which had fallen from the bear's wound were plain enough at intervals, and they were followed for about a quarter of a mile, where the animal had plunged into the dense forest, where the trees and undergrowth presented a front that could not be penetrated by a human being, though comparatively easy ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... and call. Before, however, I could satisfy myself positively that the old snake really held supervision over her brood, the gentleman with whom I happened to be came upon the scene, whereupon the interesting family disappeared beneath the undergrowth of ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... related her plan, on which he made no comment, but, taking her by the hand as if she were a little child, he led her through the undergrowth to a spot where the trees were older, and standing at wider distances. Among them was the tree he had spoken of—an elm; huge, hollow, distorted, and headless, with ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... and left of the trail, and endeavored, as he advanced, to extend his line so as to form a junction with General Young's command on the right, and at the same time outflank the enemy on the left; but the tropical undergrowth was so dense and luxuriant that neither of the attacking columns could see the other, and all that they could do, in the way of mutual support and cooeperation, was to push ahead toward the junction of the two roads, firing, almost at random, into the bushes and vine-tangled thickets ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... animals that climb or dig. Yet it is very pretty like all the rest, and tells its own tale. There is nothing bold or vicious or vulpine in it, and his timid, harmless character is published at every leap. He abounds in dense woods, preferring localities filled with a small undergrowth of beech and birch, upon the bark of which he feeds. Nature is rather partial to him, and matches his extreme local habits and character with a suit that corresponds with his surroundings,—reddish gray in summer and white ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... maze the most remarkable of any wooded area on the island. The trees were not only immense, but the undergrowth exceedingly dense. It is not often the case that the two growths are found together, and it would have been impossible to get the wagons ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... in to shore and vanish among the tangled undergrowth. Some little time had passed since, but there was ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... they explained that they had been brought up to perform fatigue work near the German trenches, and had seized upon a quiet moment to slip into some convenient undergrowth. Later, under cover of night, they had made their way in the direction of the firing-line, arriving just in time to make a dash before daylight discovered them. You may imagine their triumphal departure from our trenches—loaded with ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... oppressive to her. There was the far-off, sweet low murmur of a placid sea rolling in upon the base of the cliffs, the constant chirping of ground insects, and the occasional scurrying of a rabbit through the undergrowth. Once a great lean rat stole up from the ditch, and—horrible—ran across his body; but at the sound of her startled movement it paused, sat for a moment quite still, with its wide-open black eyes blinking at her, and then to her inexpressible relief scampered away. She was ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nor the religions growing out of the books were extant. Furthermore, strictly speaking, it is not with any or all of these three religions that the Christian missionary comes first, oftenest or longest in contact. In ancient, in mediaeval, and in modern times the student notices a great undergrowth of superstition clinging parasitically to all religions, though formally recognized by none. Whether we call it fetichism, shamanism, nature worship or heathenism in its myriad forms, it is there in awful reality. It is as omnipresent, as persistent, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... country noted for its fine scenery. Dense woods were its chief feature. And by dense I mean well-supplied not only with trees (excellent things in themselves, but for the most part useless to the nest hunter), but also with a fascinating tangle of undergrowth, where every bush seemed to harbour eggs. All carefully preserved, too. That was the chief charm of the place. Since the sad episodes of Morton-Smith and Ainsworth, the School for the most part had looked askance at the Dingle. Once a select party from Dacre's House, headed by Babington, ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... fighting in the tangles of the Wilderness, crouching behind a charred oak stump, while he loaded and fired at the little puffs of smoke that rose from the undergrowth beyond. He saw the low marshland, the stunted oaks and pines, and the heavy creepers that were pushed aside and trampled underfoot, and at his feet he saw a company officer with a bullet hole through his forehead and a covering of pine needles upon his face. About him the small twigs fell, as ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... of Walden's Ridge is almost entirely oak and chestnut. Hickory, perhaps, comes next in frequency, and pine after. There is but little undergrowth, and where the forests have never been molested there are but few small trees. This is due to the annual fires which occur every autumn, or some time in winter, almost without exception, and overrun ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... the three riders following the path which led through the woods. The boar led them a chase which lasted until five in the afternoon, turning upon his tracks, evidently unwilling to leave the forest with its thick undergrowth. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... in the dark undergrowth. While he is busy among the bushes, breaking dry twigs, his companion puts his hand over his eyes and starts at every sound. Syoma brings an armful of wood and lays it on the fire. The flame irresolutely licks the black twigs with its little tongues, then suddenly, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... before he commenced to go out foraging on his own account. He never ventured far, but contented himself with timorous excursions along the banks of the watercourse, crouching amid the undergrowth, and ready, at the first scent of danger, to glide with flattened body back to cover. Sometimes he accompanied his mother on her visits to distant portions of the colony, but the old vole more often left her octet behind, and then he would lie huddled up with his companions, waiting for the squelching ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... as nearly as he could, and creeping behind the undergrowth, Grandpa Dun made his way laboriously to the desired spot. He had never excelled in calling turkeys, but he was a far better ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... abundant light for its survival and development. It is for this reason that there is very little growth of red gum, either in the unculled forest or on culled land, where, as is usually the case, a dense undergrowth of cane, briers, and rattan is present. Under the dense underbrush of cane and briers throughout much of the virgin forest, reproduction of any of the merchantable species is of course impossible. And even where the land has been logged over, the forest is seldom open enough to allow reproduction ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... commences within forty or fifty miles of the Rio Grande. This is poor, rocky, and sandy; covered with prickly-pear, thistles, and almost every sticking thing, constituting a thick and perfectly impenetrable undergrowth. For any useful or agricultural purpose, the country is not ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... ago I said good-by to the French Commission on the borders of a great lake in Africa. A month ago I was still walking to the rail head through the tangle of a forest's undergrowth," said Chayne, and he looked about the little restaurant in King Street, St. James', as though to make sure that the words he spoke were true. The bright lights, the red benches against the walls, the women in their delicate gowns of lace, and the jingle of harness in the streets without, ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... still among the undergrowth about the rocky places where the deer come out to sun themselves clear of the dew-wet fern, and crawled into quaggy swamps where the little black bear feeds, but he could find no sign of life. When he strained his ears to listen there was only the sound of falling water or the clamor ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... severed themselves from the protecting structure of their ranks. Even the difficulties of the ground favoured the mobile tactics of the assailants; for the horses of the Numidians, accustomed to the hill forests, could thread their way through the undergrowth at points which offered an effective check ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... or two later, when Teddy was hunting in the woods, and had paused a moment for rest, a gun was discharged at him, from a thick mass of undergrowth. Certain that the unknown hunter was at hand, he dashed in as before, determined to bring the transgressor to a personal account. Teddy could hear him fleeing, and saw the agitation of the undergrowth, but did not catch even a glimpse ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... hand they ran to a great tree which Grom had already marked for his retreat. As they climbed to the upper branches, dusk fell quickly about them, some great beast roared thunderously from the depths of the forest, and from a near-by jungle came sudden crashings of the undergrowth. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... 3 o'clock on the morning of the 13th, our own division (Third), together with the First, moved out of camp and marched to the right until it reached the Darbytown road. Here it formed line, and advancing through the thick undergrowth finally lay down in front of the enemy's works to await developments. At 10 o'clock the First Division, which, with the cavalry, had gone to the right, charged the enemy's line, but failed to break it and had to withdraw with considerable loss. About noon the regiment relieved the Eighth on ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... isn't too rough for me," she declared immediately. "I am an excellent climber," and together they started to explore the now narrowing valley, following the stream over steep rocks and fallen trees, and pushing through tangled undergrowth and among briers and bushes and around slippery banks until they came to another tortuous turn, where a second spring, welling up from under a flat, overhanging rock, tumbled down to augment the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... over with blood. This was the most terrible sight I had ever seen. I told my comrade to kill him to put him out of his misery. I could not look at him. I passed on and heard a rustling in the bushes. I distinctly saw two little boys concealing themselves in the undergrowth, thought of my own children, and passed on without noticing them. My comrade here joined me, and in a little while we met the other detachment of our party. I told them that we would be pursued, and ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... immediate shock of massed clouds without throwing forward of skirmishers or any prelude of the vanguard. Our home looked down upon a gentle incline of open grassy land to a broad belt of jungle in the middle distance; here the undergrowth and small trees had been newly cleared away, opening out a dim far view across an uncumbered leaf-strewn floor into the backward gloom of the forest. I sat with my eyes fixed upon the trees, drawing the rain on with the whole strength of desire to the parched country lying there ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... a whimper from the pack. There was not a sound save the eager rustling of the dogs through the sedge and undergrowth. The ground was familiar to Flora, and I watched her with pride as with powerful strides she circled around. Suddenly she paused and flung her head in the air, making a beautiful picture where she stood poised, as if listening. My heart gave a great ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the seven birches are just over yonder, boys!" announced Steve, who possessed good eyesight. "Twice now I've glimpsed something white among the thickets of undergrowth; and you can see that the creek is beginning to swing around so as to lead us ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... hillside across the lake. It rose very steeply from the water's edge, but the slope was uniform, and as a good deal of it consisted apparently of lightly-covered rock and gravel the pines were thinner, and there was less undergrowth than usual. Far above him the smooth ascent broke off abruptly, and, though he could not see beyond the edge, there certainly appeared to be a plateau between it and the farther wall of rock ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... thick foliage still kept its dusky green; to emerge upon open lawns where the pale gold birches looked like fairy trees, and where amber and crimson toadstools shone like jewels on the skirts of the dense undergrowth of holly and hawthorn? The liberty of it all, the delicious feeling of freedom, the release from convent rules and convent hours, bells ringing for chapel, bells ringing for meals, bells ringing to mark the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... September day, the sun rose over the eastern hills clear and beautiful. The day itself seemed to have a Sabbath-day look about it. The battlefield was in a rough and broken country, with trees and undergrowth, that ever since the creation had never been disturbed by the ax of civilized man. It ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... underbrush was higher than their heads, but they made their way quickly, and Rita soon saw that a narrow path wound along through the bush, and that the ground under her feet had been trodden many times. The trees towered high above the dense undergrowth, some leafy and branching, others, the palms, tossing their single plume aloft. Open near the wood, the wood grew thicker and thicker, till it stood like a wall on either side of the narrow footpath; the twigs and leaves, broken ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... could be seen far away in the distance. Hour after hour passed until at last evening came, and even then we were only entering upon the fringe of the great forest which rose before us, and seemed to shut out the sky as we wandered into the thickness of the undergrowth and gazed up at the lofty tops of the trees which bent each other's branches as they ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the sentence, for Clon, as if he well understood his impatience, turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood to the left, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as it was now growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs, all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... until one chances directly upon it. It was much like a furrow of Nature's ploughing, cut out to serve as a drainage for the surrounding plains. It wound its irregular course away east and west, a maze of undergrowth, larger bluff, low red-sand cut-banks and crumbling gravel cliffs, all scattered by a prodigal hand, with a profusion that seemed wanton amidst ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... to victory off Cape Trafalgar. Here, at home, on the edge of the Cleeve woods, the air hung heavy and soundless, its silence emphasised rather than broken now and again by the kuk-kuk of a pheasant in the undergrowth. Above the plantations, along the stubbled uplands, long inert banks of vapour hid the sky-line; and out of these Walter a Cleeve came limping across the ridge, his figure ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... through it, rides as fast as the thick standing trunks, and tangle of undergrowth will allow. The darkness also obstructs him; for it is night. Withal he advances rapidly, though cautiously; at intervals glancing back, at longer ones, delaying to listen, with ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... subsequently ascertained that Jack had erected a hut by the side of a ledge of rocks, which was almost inaccessible to a stranger; and this hut, being surrounded with bushes and undergrowth, and covered with vines, could not be recognized as a habitation by any one unacquainted with the fact. His wife, Marie, remained in her humble cottage in Guayave, and, it appeared still cherished affection for her husband. He was visited in the wilderness by Marie at certain ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... that terrified me; and the motor pulled up with a jerk at a spot where hardly a post served to mark where the woods commenced and the wayside grass stopped. We took one of the dim paths which the rabbits had made and forced our way through the undergrowth into the peaceful twilight of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton |
