"Skulk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... then he did his Trull. His Children were took care of by his Wife's Relations, or else they must have gone a begging. Whilst he being threatned with a Goal for Mortgaging his Lands twice over, was fain to Skulk about, and to play least in sight: Thus he that but a while ago profusely spent his Money on a Whore, was now reduc'd to that condition that he wanted Bread: Whilst both the Bawd and Whore which he had wasted all upon, forsook him without so much as minding what became ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... daughters. Why do the women go to look? as Colonel Ward asked, in his indignant refusal even to listen to the petition. Sunday is the one day when they can stay at home with safety, and leave their husbands to skulk in the river ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... bespoke: Guess, how could such a match be broke? See then what mortals place their bliss in! Next morn betimes the bride was missing: The mother scream'd, the father chid; Where can this idle wench be hid? No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came, And thought his bride had skulk'd for shame; Because her father used to say, The girl had such a bashful way! Now John the butler must be sent To learn the road that Phyllis went: The groom was wish'd[1] to saddle Crop; For John must neither light nor stop, But find her, wheresoe'er she fled, And bring ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... to prefer my calling to yours," said the soldier, curtly. "You can do as you like with your running-gear; I recognize no authority but that of the minister of war. I have my orders; I shall take the field with veterans who don't skulk, and face an enemy ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... 'exempts' amounted to a hundred and eighty. As there was a growing suspicion about many of these last, Carleton paraded them for medical examination at the beginning of March, when, a good deal more than half were found quite fit for duty. These men had been malingering all winter in order to skulk out of danger; so he treated them with extreme leniency in only putting them on duty as a 'company of Invalids.' But the slur stuck fast. The only other exceptions to the general efficiency were a very ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... to be done on deck, and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. "Where's that skulk, Chips?" shouted Jermin down ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... hour, had it not been for the necessity of re-stowing the bread lockers. You burrowed on that occasion, Quartermaster, as handily as a fox; and how the d—-l you knew so well where to find the spot is a matter of wonder to me. A regular skulk on board ship does not trail aft more readily when the jib is to be stowed, than you went ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... water where we camped, but still ample for my time. The grass and herbage here were splendid and green. When the men found I would not allow them to skulk about the camp, and apparently desired no intercourse with them, some of them brought up first one, then another, and another, and another, very pretty young girls; the men leading them by the hand and leaving ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... necessary to skulk around here in the woods to avoid being seen by Sam Haines, there is no reason why I should not make the most of my time," he said to himself, as hope began to spring up once more in his breast. "There is little chance I shall be able to raise any money for the mill now, when I have been ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... craven alarms, Have all run away from the summons to arms; They haven't the pluck of a pigeon—I'll go And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... plump of wild fowl, A stand of plovers, A watch of nightingales, A clattering of choughs, A flock of geese, A herd or bunch of cattle, A bevy of quails, A cast of hawks, A trip of dottrell, A swarm of bees, A school of whales, A shoal of herrings, A herd of swine, A skulk of foxes, A pack of wolves, A drove of oxen, A sounder of hogs, A troop of monkeys, A pride of lions, A sleuth of ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... attitude of your companion is striking and memorable. You see effects and groups every moment that you would give money to be able to carry away with you in enduring form. How the shadows leap, and skulk, and hover about! Light and darkness are in perpetual tilt and warfare, with first the one unhorsed, then the other. The friendly and cheering fire, what acquaintance we make with it! We had almost forgotten there ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... were now heard. Even those who had shown an inclination to skulk, laboured away with might and main. In a few more hours their ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... with the agility of a boy, his nose bleeding and a stone in each hand. The timid flock looked all aghast, while the audacious offender, so far from having shown any disposition to skulk, stood shaking his head and threatening, as if he had a mind to follow up the dastardly attack. The squire let fly one stone, which grazed the villain's head and killed a lamb. With the other he crippled a favorite ewe. The ram still showed fight, and the vengeful proprietor would probably ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... having ruined her reputation by a base and cowardly plot concocted with a wicked old woman, who would blast the whole family if she could, because M'Loughlin transported her felon son; you, now, like a paltry clown as you are, skulk out of the consequences of your treachery, and refuse to give satisfaction for the diabolical injury you have inflicted ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... than Zeff. In truth, my negro property is all getting careless about paying wages. Old Trot runs away whenever he can get a chance; Brutus has forever got something the matter with him; and Cicero has come to be a real skulk. He don't care for the cowhide; the more I get him flogged the worse he gets. Curious creature! And his old woman, since she broke her leg, and goes with a crutch, thinks she can do just as she pleases. There is plenty of work in ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... communicated. When he heard that part of it in which he says he had written to his landlord in Deal, he cried, "Body o' me! that was old Ben Block; he was dead before the letter came to hand. Ey, ey, had Ben been alive, Lieutenant Bowling would have had no occasion to skulk so long. Honest Ben was the first man that taught him to hand, reef, and steer. Well, well, we must all die, that's certain—we must all come to port sooner or later, at sea or on shore—we must be fast moored one day: death's like the best ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... matter." He raised his head, and now he could again speak steadily. "I don't figure to skulk more than I must. Let them say what they will, eight decades from now. I'll ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a sherk,—one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine" is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work—a green-horn—a land-lubber. To ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... got nothing. The rascals could skulk about by night, tear up rails, and hide them where they might be found by a man with half an eye, or half-destroy a bridge; but there was no shoot in them. They have not faith enough in their cause to risk their lives for it, even behind a tree or from one of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... doth Virtue skulk where none may see In the great world's corners dim? And the just man mark the knave go free, While ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... that, as he had resolved to remain in Hillaton, he would keep his resolution, and that, as he had plainly stated his purpose to lift himself up by his own unaided efforts, he would do so if it were possible; and if it were not, he would live the life of a laborer—a tramp, even—rather than "skulk back," as he expressed it, to those who ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... for the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr. Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him, but was too frightened. The ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... of the plan was desperate and simple. It was neither more nor less than this: I knew the house and every turn and passage in it, and when the hour should strike I said I should go down and skulk among the guests, and at the crucial moment find or seize a weapon and fling myself upon this bridegroom as he should kneel ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... he would understand it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, and be ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... some trains and made the crews haul them out of town. They shook their fists at the mines and the works as if they had been the haunt of the devil. I couldn't bring myself to skulk. I rode Nell right down to the station and sat there till the last carload pulled out with the men and women standing together on the platform to ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin— In the hour that I meet you ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that you skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate! Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, But here in the shadows I wait, ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... strength and thinness of coat go hand in hand with incapacity for toil. (12) The lanky-legged, unsymmetrical dog, with his shambling gait and ill-compacted frame, ranges heavily; while the spiritless animal will leave his work to skulk off out of the sun into shade and lie down. Want of nose means scenting the hare with difficulty, or only once in a way; and however courageous he may be, a hound with unsound feet cannot stand the work, but through foot-soreness will eventually ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am positive that we need ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were amongst us we might kill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant yelling of madly ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of the desert were now in an awkward predicament; for although they had been safe from the peccary, the cougar could climb a tree like a squirrel. A noise, however, disturbs him from his meal, and swinging the dead animal on his back, he begins to skulk away. But he is interrupted before he can reach cover; and as the new-comers prove to be twenty or thirty peccaries, summoned to the field by the dying screams of their comrade, he has more to do than to think of his dinner. To fling down his burden, to leap upon the foremost of his enemies, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... high on the most rugged cliffs, sleeping and basking in the sunshine, and watching with wonderfully keen sight the valleys below. His hearing equals his sight, and if danger threatens, he always hears it in time to skulk away unseen. At night he steals down the mountain side toward deer or elk he has located during the day. Keeping to the lowest ravines and thickets, he creeps upon his prey. His cunning and ferocity are keener and more savage in proportion to the length of time he has been without ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... flabby, flimsy. List, roll, catalogue, register, roster, schedule, inventory. Loud, resonant, clarion, stentorian, sonorous. Low, base, abject, servile, slavish, menial. Loyal, faithful, true, constant, staunch, unwavering, steadfast. Lurk, skulk, slink, sneak, prowl. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... pretend to be virtuous—if he is an atheist, let him say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious—if he's a beggar and can't help himself, let him admit the fact—if he's a millionaire, don't let him skulk round pretending he's as poor as Job—always let him be himself and no ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join. And thou! his aide-de-camp, lead on my sons, Light-arm'd with points, antitheses, and puns. Let Bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear, Support his front, and Oaths bring up the rear: And under his, and under Archer's wing, Gaming[285] and Grub Street, skulk behind the king. 310 Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own, And I, a nursing mother, rock the throne; 'Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw, Shade him from light, and cover him from law; Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band, And suckle ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... he feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast: Not such as prate of War, but skulk in Peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Yet with smooth smile his Tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most— Their birth, their ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... had already gathered, and were waiting in the woods until the herd should leave. They now made fires around the mammoth to keep off the wolves and hyenas that had already begun to skulk about. And then they killed ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... extensive swamps and wet meadows. The nest is a rude affair made of grass and weeds, placed on the ground in a tussock of grass in a boggy tract of land, where there is a growth of briers, etc., where he may skulk and hide in the wet grass to elude observation. The nest may often be discovered at a distance by the appearance of the surrounding grass, the blades of which are in many cases interwoven over the nest, apparently to shield the bird from the fierce rays of the sun, which are felt with redoubled ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... the sound of rain in springtime. From every side they were startled by noises they could not place. Strange movements and rustlings caused them to peer sharply into the shadows; footsteps, that seemed to approach, and, then, having marked them, skulk away; branches of bushes that suddenly swept together, as though closing behind some one in stealthy retreat. Although they knew that in the deserted garden they were alone, they felt that from the shadows they were being spied upon, that the darkness of the ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... the proprietor of a respectable boarding house for students, doing average well. At rare intervals, however, he lapsed into his old ways. During such occasions he kept to the river side of the town. Sober, he was good-natured and obliging; drunken, he was sullen, with a disposition to skulk out of sight and be alone. His daughter Dennie had her father's good-nature combined with a will ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... contemplates with misery: that is, the return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... beseech you, impute my lingering in Europe to any indifference to my own country or my friends.... I am determined not to return home until I have sent some writings before me that shall, if they have merit, make me return to the smiles, rather than skulk back to the pity, of ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... Lads, I'll depend upon you to carry that craft. I know what privateersmen are like, when they see cold steel in their faces. They'll come on boldly enough at first, but when once beaten back, they'll turn tail like hounds, and skulk for ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... toilettes; and the throng of handsome young officers in showy and diversified uniforms, simply overwhelmed us with feelings of mingled excitement and embarrassment. I felt, myself, like a uniformed Eskimo at a Charity Ball, and should have been glad to skulk in a corner behind the band! All I wanted was an opportunity to watch, unobserved, the brilliant picture of colour and motion, and to feel the thrill of the music as the band swept, with wonderful dash, swing, and precision, through the measures of a spirited Polish mazurka. General Kukel, however, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... stupid application of a scientific ideal; for while shelling it the Germans must have noticed that there was nothing at all on the road. We naturally decided not to go up that road in the car, but to skulk through a wood and meet the car in a place of safety. The car had, sooner or later, to go up the road, because there was not another road. The Commandant who was with us was a very seasoned officer, and he regarded all military duties as absolute duties. The car must return along ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... mate. They are very aristocratic kin of these robins. A little before them will come two other blood-relations, Mr. and Mrs. Brownthrasher, who, notwithstanding their family connection with the high toned woodthrush and jolly, honest robin, are stealthy in their manner, and will skulk away before you as if ashamed of something. When the musical fit is on them, however, they will sing openly from the loftiest tree-top, and with a sweetness, too, that ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Mellicent, will be filled with those court-flies who fed on the goodly vine till they had sucked all its juices, and, now winter is come, care not for its nakedness, but seek some covert where they may skulk till summer returns. You and I should make a notable appearance among those who call splendor, life; and subtlety, knowledge; we could neither speak their language nor enter into their views.—While ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... While Sawney with backsword did slash him and nick him, While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him, Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, Me'll fight you, begar, if you'll come from your door!" Our case is the same; if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... thing to be expected, and submitted to as their share of the general ruin,—to be compensated by the final suppression of the common foe. To have endured this, and even to have submitted, for a time, to the searching of ships, so that not one Englishman should be allowed to skulk from such a fight, had not been pusillanimity, but magnanimity. But if, as English Whigs and American Democrats contended, Napoleon Bonaparte was the armed soldier of democracy, the rightful heir of the Revolution, the sole alternative to anarchy, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... out-of-work labourers was extreme. They would go to the woods and gather faggots of dead wood, which they would try to sell in the villages; but there were few who could afford to buy of them; and at night they would skulk about the fields to rob a swede or two to satisfy ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... began to entertain hopes of his ultimate recovery. But alas! in an evil moment, through the influence of bad companions, he fell, and for some time we lost sight of him. A long time afterward we caught a glimpse of his bloated, sin-stained face, just as he was turning to skulk away to avoid recognition. Where this poor human wreck is now leading his miserable existence we cannot say, but have no doubt he is haunting the dens of iniquity and sin in the cities, seeking to find a little momentary pleasure in the gratification of ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... I was," said Percy when he had gone, "not to make him write my impot! Just like me. Catch our lot not going to that meeting! We aint going to skulk. Whew! there goes the quarter to! I shall never get done this ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... that evening, of which you will hear, that what happened there was to have its hold on Julianna Colfax, who had not then been thought of as coming into the terrible clutches of that which has followed us like a skulk o' night. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... will, lad; and I am glad to see you, for I was afraid that you had come to harm," answered Reuben, in a kind tone. "I said as how I was sure you wasn't one to skulk. ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Forge road meant to abide to the end. As all old soldiers know, the fighting line, granting that enough remain to make a fighting line, is never so strong as the moment after the first shock of battle has shaken out the men that always straggle on the march and skulk on the field. When, therefore, the first compact line faced about, it was with determination and with hope; yet scarcely had the fires of resolution been relit and begun to kindle to a glow than they were suddenly ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... showed himself there unless when hard pressed indeed, and then he would skulk in, seeking for shelter and food, and pleading with bated voice his husband right to assistance and comfort. Nor was his plea ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... at frequent times—he starts to tell me something, then he gets embarrassed, back-fires, and stalls. He and Theophilus have been sneaking out in the early dawn, too. Wow! What did he sneak out of the dorm. that way, with a football, for? He looked like a yeggman working night shift. Why should he skulk out with a football? He has never explained his dad's letter, or told just what Mr. Hicks meant by calling him the "Class Kid" of Yale, '96, and saying those members of old Eli wanted him to star! Oh, he's a tantalizing wretch, and I'd like to solve his mystery, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... quite unconsciously, and when Hale smothered a laugh, he looked around to see what had amused him. Darkness fell quickly, and in the gathering gloom they saw two more figures skulk into the cabin. ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... a better job of brainwashing, if they expected him to skulk in like a scared rabbit! He held his head high and moved across the floor step by steady step, trying not to limp or display that he felt tired ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... "Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my soul," he ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Yours is the faineant spirit of the decadent, masquerading in the garb of a sham primitivism. Were you born into the world, do you think, to loiter through life an idle worshipper at the altar of beauty? Who are you to dare to skulk in the quiet places, whilst the battle of life ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tell, pursu'd them; and each god, conceal'd "In feign'd resemblance, cheated there his power. "Jove, (so she sung) a leading ram became; "(Whence still the Lybians form their Ammon horn'd) "The crow Apollo hid: a goat the son "Of Semele became: Diana skulk'd "In shape a cat: a snow-white cow conceal'd "The form of Juno: Venus seem'd a fish: "And 'neath an Ibis Hermes ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... protection: and honest man was never in any age among the titles of nobility, and has always been the appellation used toward the feeble and inferior by the prosperous. Nichols said on the present occasion, 'If this man is permitted to skulk away under such pretences, trial is here a mockery.' Finding no support, he threw up his office as Controller of the Navy, and never afterward entered the House of Commons. Such a person, it appears to me, leads ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... from the mill and seeing Therese's horse fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a greeting to Therese. His father he did not address. The old man looked from son to visitor with feeble expectancy ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... calls itself a town, and, moreover, from that town I have received an invitation to what calls itself a cotillon party! and yet, right and left, stretch the swamps and forests of Georgia, where the red men have scarcely ceased to skulk, and where the rattlesnakes and alligators, who shared the wilderness with them, still lurk in undisturbed possession of the soil, if soil that may be called which is only either muddy water or watery mud, a hardly consolidated sponge of alluvial matter, receiving hourly additions from the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... which the apostles published their testimony to the world bears every mark of truthfulness. Deception and forgery skulk, and try to spread themselves at first in holes and corners, but he that doeth truth cometh to the light. Had the apostles been conscious of falsehood, would they have dared to assert that Jesus was risen ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... was promoted, so the whole duty fell heavily on me. The rest had been wounded at some time or other before, and then never pushed on much to get back to their regiment; many when recovered preferring to skulk in the hospitals in paltry situations such as doorkeepers or ward-masters, so getting a little extra pay, and then, as I shall again have occasion to show, being too ready to make their appearance ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... based on the fact that we are not passively obedient instruments, but very nervous and restless people, who wish to finish things quickly and to know in advance where we are going. It must be based on the fact that we are very proud people, but people who would all skulk if we were not seen, and who consequently must always be seen, and act in the presence of our comrades and of the officers who supervise us. From this comes the necessity for organizing the infantry company solidly. It is the infantryman on whom the battle has the most violent effect, for he is ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... nuke-kubi? 'Kubi' signifies either the neck or head. 'Nukeru' means to creep, to skulk, to prowl, to slip away stealthily. To have a nuke-kubi is to have a head that detaches itself from the body, and prowls ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... had owned to being every mean, unknowable thing that Weary could call to mind—and his imagination was never of the barren sort—Weary generously permitted him to get upon his feet and skulk out to where his horse was tied. After that, Weary gave his unruffled attention to the stage driver and discovered the unwelcome fact that there was no letter and no telegram for one William Davidson, who looked a bit glum ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... skulk up there!" added a coarser voice. "We know y'er there; and if yer don't come down to us, why, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... where is the Doggerbank hero, That made "Hogan Mogan" to skulk? Poor Keith's gane to hell to be fuel, The auld rotten wreck of a Hulk. And where is our King's Lord Lieutenant, Sae fam'd for his gratefu' return? The birkie is gettin' his Questions To say in Saint ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... reconcile these people to the Sioux, who were the bogie-men of the plains, and who conducted themselves in every affair of peace or war with the arrogance of incontestable power. Not death itself could extinguish the hatred that was felt for them by the weaker tribes, compelled to skulk and tremble. ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... he feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot can boast: Not such as prate of war but skulk in peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah, Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most - Their birth, their blood, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... are the tenets of the modern nullification school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free discussion—that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth? Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us—of that Union proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—of that Union never to be ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... classes, nothing can be more insolent than that of the third-class dandies who reserve their valour for the interior of the town, or who, if ever they venture outside of its fortifications, take care to skulk beneath the protection of the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... their unholy ends, and effect the ruin which will give to her another fat colonial province. While the more wily French emperor, looking to our possible success, and anxious for a subterfuge beneath which he may skulk in that event, and so escape the retribution which will assuredly fall upon his head, has really outwitted his island rival, in his Mexican expedition, whereby he hoped to 'kill two birds with one stone,' securing, in either event, the richest portion of the American continent, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... down by at Prestonpans, and he had catched a bullet with his ankle over in the north at Culloden. So it was no wonder that he liked to crack about these times, though they had brought him muckle and no little mischief, having obliged him to skulk like another Cain among the Highland hills and heather, for many a long month and day, homeless and hungry. Not dauring to be seen in his own country, where his head would have been chacked off like ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... said, and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... metropolitan bishop before an asylum for the blind, the halt, and the legless, on "The Moral Dangers of Foreign Travel." But still they were infinitely mischievous, considered as pretences under which Northern men could skulk from their duties, and as sophistries to lull into a sleepy acquiescence the consciences of those political adventurers who are always seeking occasions for being tempted and reasons for being rogues. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... who, but the brave Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires, When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave, Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave From mounts of glare ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... instructed his own detachment, "we won't march forward, and we won't skulk, either. We'll simply stroll along. The instant that I hear any sound showing that we're discovered, I'll give the order to charge. When that order comes—remember that we simply must fight our way through the gate ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... never destined to taste those five hundred dollar mouthfuls. It happened in this way: as the Boodah's searchlights, destroyed in the battle, were not yet repaired, in the interval some lawless ships took the chance on dark nights to skulk past with extinguished lights; now, the captain of Frankl's chartered steamer had that bright idea (being of adventurous turn), when night fell forty knots east of the Boodah, so he came to Frankl, and broached ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... now to relate the external history of the composition of Paradise Lost. When Milton had to skulk for a time in 1660, he was already in steady work upon the poem. Though a few lines of it were composed as early as 1642, it was not till 1658 that he took up the task of composition continuously. If we may trust our only authority ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... and even to enforce by reiteration of argument upon his conscience and his reason, some such conviction or suspicion as to his own character, tells much rather in disfavour than in favour of its truth. A man whose natural temptation was to swerve, whose inborn inclination was to shrink and skulk aside from duty and from action, would hardly be the first and last person to suspect his own weakness, the one only unbiassed judge and witness of sufficiently sharp-sighted candour and accuracy to estimate aright his poverty of nature and the malformation of his mind. ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... blows as the magnitude of the crime justified. He was frequently cautioned, upon the peril of his skin, to see that all the negroes were off to the field in the morning. 'Ocra,' said the overseer, one evening, to the driver, 'if any pretend to be sick, send me word—allow no lazy wench or fellow to skulk in the negro house.' Next morning, a few minutes after the departure of the hands to the field, Ocra was seen hastening to the house of the overseer. He was soon in his presence. 'Well, Ocra, what now?' ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... deevil. You let me go I keel you," shrieked Pedro. But the words, that would have made the bear cringe and skulk a few hours before, held no terror for him. He was master now, and this man who had clubbed and prodded, sworn at, and outraged him, was a pigmy in his arms. His powerful jaw too was close to the man's neck. One crunch would ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... the offer with joy and thankfulness. I longed for a change somewhere, I cared not where, and, if skulk I must, an errand like this would please me vastly more than hiding for a week in ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... defiantly. "Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... but it ain't," replied Lassiter. "Oldring's an honest thief. He don't skulk behind ridges to scatter your cattle to the four winds. He rides down on you, an' if you don't like it you can throw ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... it at night— not going right across Gangoil, as he had falsely boasted of doing early in the day, but skirting it, and keeping on the outside of the fence nearly the whole distance. At about two in the morning he reached his cottage outside the mill on the river-bank; but he was unable to skulk in unheard. Some dogs made a noise, and presently he heard a voice calling him from the house. "Is that you, Nokes, at this time of night?" asked Mr. Medlicot. Nokes grunted out some reply, intending to avoid any further question. But his master came up to the hut door ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Lords, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great motives that placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But a quibbling, pilfering, prevaricating State-Necessity, that tries to skulk behind the skirts of Justice;—a State-Necessity that tries to steal a pitiful justification from whispered accusations and fabricated rumors. No, my Lords, that is no State Necessity;—tear off the mask, and you see coarse, vulgar avarice,—you see speculation, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... answered. 'I have not committed forgery. But I do not wish to skulk or hide myself. I understand a warrant is out against me in London. I have come to Scotland, hurriedly, for the sake of getting married, not to escape apprehension. I am here, openly, under my own name. I tell you the facts; 'tis for you to decide; ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty; that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men. It is the general's express orders that, if any man attempt to skulk, lie down, or retreat without orders, he be instantly ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... to interrupt their work here. It is a terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much disheartened, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... and becomes a social outcast, an object of fear and horror, shunned by all. He may not cultivate a garden, nor show himself in public, nor traverse the village, nor walk on the roads and paths. Like a wild beast he must skulk in the long grass and the bushes; and if he sees or hears any one coming, especially a woman, he must hide behind a tree or a thicket. If he wishes to fish or hunt, he must do it alone and at night. If he would consult any one, even the missionary, he does so by stealth and at night; he seems ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... is, my dears; he must be found,' said the Jew greatly excited. 'Charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring home some news of him! Nancy, my dear, I must have him found. I trust to you, my dear,—to you and the Artful for everything! Stay, stay,' added the Jew, unlocking a drawer ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportment depends upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... as at sea, the sailor's course, when the gang was on his track, followed the lines of least resistance, only here he became a skulk as well as a fugitive. It was not that he was a less stout-hearted fellow than when at sea. He was merely the victim of a type of land neurosis. Drink and his recent escape from the gang got on his nerves and rendered him singularly ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... white paper disappeared from the garish mantel. Still desolate and cheerless shows the noble edifice. The gaunt chimney yawns still in sick anticipation of deferred smoke. The "irons," innocent of coal, and polished to the tip, skulk and cower sympathetically into the extreme corner of the fender. The very rug seems ghastly and grim, wanting the kindly play of the excited flame. We have no comfort in the parlour yet: even the privileged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... a few days. I hardly feel as if I could wait a few hours. Oliver must come, even if—if the consequences are likely to be fatal. An Ostrander once accused cannot skulk. Oliver has been accused and—Send that!" he quickly cried, pulling forward the telegram he ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... statistics, and show that it has increased the value of property in every city that has had a park, by bringing houses all about the parks, and by detaining as inhabitants of the city, to be taxed in the city, those men who skulk in small towns to throw the burden of the expense of their own city on those who stay behind. [Applause.] All we want to do to-night is to say to the city government that we are in earnest about this matter, and that we want the work ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... and then reached over to give Bo a tap. He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they disappeared. Not only Dale's intensity, but the very silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have felt it, too, for she was trembling all over, and holding tightly ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to be urged in favour of mountain ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... political trickster and a dishonest man. I have seen him myself, when I first came to this command, turn out all the Union men who had supported the Government, and put in their stead rebel soldiers who had not yet doffed their gray uniform. I have seen him again, during the July riot of 1866, skulk away where I could not find him to give him a guard, instead of coming out as a manly representative of the State and joining those who were preserving the peace. I have watched him since, and his conduct has been as sinuous as the mark left in the dust by the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... of it," he answered. "They may be honest traders; but they may be Illanon pirates from Sooloo, on the coast of Borneo, bound on some plundering expedition. The rascals often venture into the China seas, and sometimes right up the strait of Malacca, though they like best to skulk about their own coasts, and steal out on any craft passing that way. If there is a good breeze we need not fear them; but they are fellows not to be trifled with. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... carrying a load of turnips. To him, too, I was faithful, and he went on, taking, without knowing it, a precious leaflet with him in his bag. Glorious work! If Wesleyans will but go on claiming even the highways for God, sin will skulk yet."' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... caitiffs!" said Ralph, with a look of deep and unutterable scorn. "But to thee!—words would fail to express my contempt, my derision, my defiance of thy puny power! Read, and skulk back to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... of the very walls of Winchester; and, under their destroying hand, the rich and beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah seemed likely soon again to become a waste and desert place. It was a boast of theirs, that they could take any fort that could be fired; and round these places of refuge they would skulk and lurk with the greatest patience for a week at a time, quite content could they but get a single shot at such of the garrison as dared to show themselves beyond shelter of the walls. Sometimes, suddenly darting from their hiding-place, they would pounce upon little children ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... you? Ain't you his son? Don't it all belong to you, whether you takes it or whether you don't? Are you going to skulk behind them heads in Birmingham and leave us at their mercy, let 'em grind us to powder for their own profit and no one to say them yea or nay? There was a rumour of that got about, how you was going to shunt us on to them, you skulking blackguard. I wouldn't believe it. I told 'em as how Masters' ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... ground, without any nest, in the field, so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey-spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... and that they cannot get over the feeling. But what part of you is afraid? Your flesh, which is afraid of pain, just as a beast is of the whip. Then your flesh perhaps says, Run away—or at least skulk and hide—take care of yourself. But next, if you were a coward, the law would come into your mind, and you would say, But I dare not run away; for, if I do, I shall be shot as a deserter, or broke, and drummed out of the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... quickly, and having pinioned them, take them, if possible, to a cage with some part of it projecting out into the water. You, of course, feed them regularly, and are careful to give them some artificial cover to skulk in, as for some time the pain of the wound and the fright they have had makes them terribly shy. This cage, once constructed, is most useful for such work, and can be built at trifling cost, and the ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... life. Once he was shot in the neck, and, as the bullet could not be removed, it ever after troubled him to wear armor. His officers pleaded with him to spare himself, but his reply was that Caesar and Alexander did not skulk behind the lines; a general must lead if he expected ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... very much alone. Here was one of his kind with whom he would like to pass the time of day—smoke with him and if circumstances permitted, drink with him, and swap the gossip of the range. Instead, he must skulk in the thicket like a coyote until the man passed. A great wave of self-pity swept over him. He, Jack Purdy, was an outcast. Men would not drink with him nor would women dance with him. Even at this moment ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... anything so odd!" she at last exclaimed to herself, in her own room. "And was ever anything so meanly done as what I did—to skulk away like that from a man who was only civil and kind!" Clearly she did not think his barefaced praise of her ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy |
