"Skulk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... money—though at that very instant there was actual proof of his scheme in the preparations he had made to jam the steering-gear when the anchor was raised after the tanks were replenished—it was not in the man's nature to skulk into comparative safety because a foreigner, a pirate, a not-to-be-mentioned-in-polite-society Portygee, opened fire on him in this murderous fashion. Moreover, Coke's villainy would have sacrificed no lives. The Andromeda might be converted into scrap iron, and thereby give back, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... brute 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 ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... the established custom and etiquette which are her safeguards. The daughter of a poor laborer would demand all this as a matter of course, and shall the beautiful Zell Allen, who has had scores of admirers, have all this reversed in her case, and be compelled to skulk away from the home in which she should be openly married, to hunt up a man at night who has made the pitiful promise that he will marry her somewhere at some time or other, on condition that no one shall know it till he is ready? Mark it well, the man who so insults ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... agreed on, somehow, that you should come this way, when you left Guilford, which was understood would happen soon. If I hadn't fell in with you as I did, it was my notion to take Lightfoot here, or at Dunning's, and then go back and skulk there somewheres till you was ready to come; but finding you and things all coming so handy like, when we got to where the road turned off, I thought I'd let you follow me into it, if you would, and say nothing till ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... 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: ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... confidence as a protection, should wish 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, and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... sermon, preached by a 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. They were all the more influential from the circumstance that their show of argument ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... hope's sake, or more faithless fear, From truth of single-sighted manhood, here Born and bred up to read the word aright That sunders man from beast as day from night. That red rank Ireland where men burn and slay Girls, old men, children, mothers, sires, and say These wolves and swine that skulk and strike do well, As soon might know sweet ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... uncertain) 475; bamboozle &c (deceive) 545. be concealed &c v.; suffer an eclipse; retire from sight, couch; hide oneself; lie hid, lie in perdu [Fr.], lie in close; lie in ambush (ambush) 530; seclude oneself &c 893; lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep^, play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark; cryptic, cryptical^; private, privy, in petto, auricular, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 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 ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... not, nor attempt 345 With all the utmost valor that he boasts To force a pass; dogs shall devour him first. To whom brave Hector louring, and in wrath. Polydamas, I like not thy advice Who bidd'st us in our city skulk, again 350 Imprison'd there. Are ye not yet content? Wish ye for durance still in your own towers? Time was, when in all regions under heaven Men praised the wealth of Priam's city stored With gold and brass; but all ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... "'Ere, don't you skulk up there!" added a coarser voice. "We know y'er there; and if yer don't come down to us, why, we'll come up ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... 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 ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... said, before leaving the coronel's grounds. "But from here on they will not do at all. The weakest moonlight—yes, even starlight—would make them stand out in the darkness like tombstones. A few days more and we shall be in the cannibal country. And it is an old trick of those eaters of men to skulk along the shore by night, watching a camp until all are asleep, and then sneak up with spears ready. A rush and a swift stab of the spears into those white nets, and you are dead or dying from the poisoned points. I would ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... of all were thus set at rest. They had no fear of prairie-wolves; which, though fierce enough when attacking some poor deer or wounded buffalo, are afraid of anything in the shape of man; and will skulk off, whenever they think the latter has any intention to attack them. This, however, is seldom the case, as the prairie hunter does not care to waste a bullet upon them; and they are often permitted to follow, and squat themselves unmolested around the hunter's camp, within ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the winter has driven a number of wolves to hover about the Settlement in search of provisions; they are perfectly harmless however, as they are met singly, and skulk away like a dog conscious of having committed a theft. But in packs, they kill the horses, and are formidable to encounter. In the pursuit of buffaloes and the deer on the plains, they are known to form a crescent, and to hurry their ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... 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 ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... of horses are piously preserved in the family chronicle which I follow), was trained to break into a gallop as soon as the vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine miles between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died unmarried; the other imitated her father, and married 'imprudently.' ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... please allow me 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 you ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... Remember, officers and soldiers, 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
... Plautus, now because of its being too revolting, now because of its being too laughable, is innocuous. His moral land is one of black and white, mostly black, without many of those really dangerous half-lights and shadows in which too many of our present day playwrights virtuously invite us to skulk and peer and speculate. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... misanthrope continued to pour forth his invectives with a fluency peculiar to himself. The truth is, Mr. Ferret had been a party writer, not from principle, but employment, and had felt the rod of power, in order to avoid a second exertion of which, he now found it convenient to skulk about in the country, for he had received intimation of a warrant from the secretary of state, who wanted to be better acquainted with his person. Notwithstanding the ticklish nature of his situation, it was become so ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... institution of long standing and high character in the city of which he was a quiet resident. The source of such a gift could not long be kept secret. It, was our economical, not to say parsimonious Capitalist who had done this noble act, and the poor man had to skulk through back streets and keep out of sight, as if he were a show character in a travelling caravan, to avoid the acknowledgments of his liberality, which met him on every hand and put ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... companion; "you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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?' 'Nothing, sir, only Rachel says she sick—can't go to de field to-day.' 'Ah, sick, is she? ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 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 on the ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way as if afraid, and stand silent amid the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... attack people at night, but rarely, if ever, in the day time. If they have followed a hunter all night, and "treed" him, they will skulk away as ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Sires, Laureled by Freedom? For, 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 off ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... 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 power all ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... these pasture-lands that stretched away to the wilderness plains where little patches of grass grew among the bushes and between the great rocks. There were caves among these rocks where wolves used to skulk and sometimes robbers hid. So the shepherds who guarded their flocks in these wild pastures dared ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... there was something to be done on deck, and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. "Where's that skulk, Chips?" shouted Jermin ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... 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. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... 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
... 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. ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... he said, and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... have set up some plan for avoiding pursuit. Rouse the Apaches? Or prepare an ambush? Either could work. Then Bayliss' men could be a saving factor. If the Kentuckian could locate Rennie, and ride in to his camp—or skulk close enough to it—that should ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... calls '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
... a note, he thought, when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other God ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... '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 about ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... pictures of my hero in those strange letter days, so remote to my childish mind. He crosses the Channel in December, just to skulk for one dark night against the railings of the London Square where she dwelt, in the hope of seeing her shadow on the blind. For some reason which I could not comprehend, the lovers were forbidden to meet. It rains, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... gentlemen, I want to detain you a moment longer on 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 ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... 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 his cane and looking at the ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... not secure me, as most of my remaining property is vested in real estate. And even if it would, I could not consent to it: I could not consent to banish myself from my country; to flee like a felon; to skulk from society with the base view of defrauding my creditors. No, I have lived honestly, and honestly will I die. By fair application and long industry my wealth has been obtained; and it shall never justly be said, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... farther I met a boy 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
... and threw themselves at the feet of the women that had hated her. She laughed in scorn and said that she wanted no such love, and that when one returned—he had gone as Ambassador to the Court of France—he would show the world that his love did not skulk in the hilt of a dagger. People marvelled at this because she had flouted her very skirts in his face, had not thrown him so much as the humblest flower of hope. When they heard he was coming, they held their breath to see if the magnet had been in the dagger for him too. He arrived in ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... its eggs, usually two, never more 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, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... have had to skulk here for hours, waiting for an opportunity to cross unseen," said I, on rejoining her, "but our gods above are victorious, and we share their victory. So now for the 'Ring of Bells.' There's a gate at the bottom of the hill. Come along, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... 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
... uncertain) 475; bamboozle &c. (deceive) 545. be concealed &c. v.; suffer an eclipse; retire from sight, couch; hide oneself; lie hid, lie in perdu[Fr], lie in close; lie in ambush (ambush) 530; seclude oneself &c. 893; lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep[obs3], play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c. v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark; cryptic, cryptical[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... outward words his secret thoughts belie, Hear then what seems to me the wisest course. On me nor Agamemnon, Atreus' son, Nor others shall prevail, since nought is gain'd By toil unceasing in the battle field. Who nobly fight, but share with those who skulk; Like honours gain the coward and the brave; Alike the idlers and the active die: And nought it profits me, though day by day In constant toil I set my life at stake; But as a bird, though ill she fare herself, Brings to her callow brood the food she takes, So I through many ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... her 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 ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... half, Brother 'gainst brother ranging. Kingdoms Seven Of this still fair and once heroic land, I say, beware that hour! If come it must, Then fall the thunder while I walk this earth, Not when I skulk in crypts!' The others mute, From joy malicious some, some vexed with doubt, Birinus made reply: 'My Lord and King, Inly this day I gladden, certain now That neither fancy-drawn, nor anger-spurred, Nor seeking crowns, for others or thyself, Nor shunning woes, the worst that ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... like a thief, you have crucified my pride. I hate you! Go back to the dregs and lees of life, skulk in your tavern, forget, what I shall never forget, that so base a thing as you ever came ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Peter; and if it had been ten years back, instead of at present, I should have been ready enough to change our plans. But what is the use of going to sea now? The French and Spanish navies skulk in harbor, and the first time our fellows get them out they will he sure to smash them altogether, and then there is an end to all fighting. No, Peter, it looks tempting, I grant, but we shall see ten times as much with the army. We must go and settle the thing to-morrow. There ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... state of things, this evil is indeed altered, and the ruin of the creditor's effects is better prevented; the bankrupt can no more skulk behind the door of the Mint and Rules, and prevent the commissioners' inspection; he must come forth, be examined, give in an account, and surrender himself and effects too, or fly his country, and be seen here no more; and if he does come in, he ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... manufacturers, have, by their supineness and want of public spirit, contributed towards the bringing of this ruin upon themselves and upon you. They have skulked from their public duty. They have kept aloof from, or opposed all measures for a redress of grievances; and indeed, they still skulk, though ruin and destruction stare them in the face. Why do they not now come forward and explain to you the real cause of the reduction of your wages? Why do they not put themselves at your head in petitioning for redress? This would secure ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... zones of both divisions of the continent, and in the colder regions of the Hudson's Bay territory they are among the best known of wild animals. They frequent the mountains, they gallop over the plains, they skulk through the valleys, they dwell everywhere—everywhere the wolf seems ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... in the Catacomb, one man, no worse than the rest, though no less foolish, will have pointed to its mouth, and said, 'Obscene rites are practised in that darkness. The devotees of an execrable creed skulk there out of sight.' Not till the time was ripe, did lightning split the face of the rock, and lay bare ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the dread of dangers which, however, would not light upon her head. Oh, brave as generous!" she exclaimed, with a burst of tremendous delirium, terminating in a shriek; "oh, brave as generous!—scarcely lion-like, however, for the noble beast rushes upon his victim. He does not prowl, and skulk, and sneak, watching, cat-like; crouching and base, in stealth and darkness. Very noble, but mousing spirit! Beware! Do I not know you now! Fear you not that I will show your baseness, and declare the truth, and guide ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... is," replied the other, sulkily. "No thanks to you for having to skulk like a fox. As I told you in my letter, the police are after me, and if I cannot get out of the country ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... of the public mind was chiefly derived from the worst members of the Whig party, from men who were plotters and libellers by profession, who were pursued by the officers of justice, who were forced to skulk in disguise through back streets, and who sometimes lay hid for weeks together in cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen who had formerly been the ornaments of the Country Party, the statesmen who afterwards guided the councils ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 (Aubrey-Phillips), he had finished ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... goods. It will change the fashion. The demand will create the 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 not seek broadcloth ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... least have done something for somebody before this scrap. Rupert, you can thank Heaven you don't feel as I do—that you've nothing positive to do to-morrow—that you're not pulling your weight. I shall just skulk about, like a dog worrying the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... in Him and fear nothing and nobody—captain, bosun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers ahead; but just to mind Him and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel, or hang on by the leeward earing for that matter. For, you see, what does it signify whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I didn't skulk? or rather," and here the old man took off his hat and looked up, "so long as the Great Captain has His way, and things is done to His mind? But how ever a man like you, goin' to the college, and readin' books, and ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Ralph, with a smile, which, in common with all other tokens of emotion, seemed to skulk under his face, rather than play boldly over it—'to return to the point from which we have strayed. I have a little party of—of—gentlemen with whom I am connected in business just now, at my house tomorrow; and your mother has promised that you shall keep ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the black book; Thou hear'st no further of this case."—But, Lord! I might not in two years his bribes record. There's not a dog alive, so speed my soul, Knoweth a hurt deer better from a whole Than this false Sumner knew a tainted sheep, Or where this wretch would skulk, or that would sleep, Or to fleece both was more devoutly bent; And reason good; his faith was ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... of the coveted owl, he swung down from branch to branch, dropped easily from the lowest upon the ground, picked up his hat, and prepared to skulk along the "short cut," strike the road, and come home by that route as if he had just returned ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... into the open. Now a short piece of this open—fifty yards or so, perhaps— was visible from the lower end of the field, where Hobson and David were still coquetting with each other. Johnny tried to skulk over this open ground. He might as well have sought to evade the eyes of Argus. The long-sighted bird caught the very first glint of his cap. Insult and mealies were alike unavailing now. He forsook ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... all the former have left the service, and that very few of the latter remain. Commodore Porter, of vain-glorious memory, (who once wrote a book of Voyages,) was, and may be still, the marine commandant, and distinguished himself by threatening to blockade Cuba, and by being obliged to skulk at Key West, to avoid destruction by the gallant Laborde. The Mexicans require no navy, and cannot maintain one; the sooner, therefore, they restrict it to a very few revenue cutters the better. The nature of the country and the destructive climate of the coast, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • 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 place ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected. 'Is Heathcliff not here?' she demanded, pulling off her gloves, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... before the break of day Saint Reynard through the hedge had made his way; The pale was next, but proudly with a bound He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground: Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed Of coleworts he conceal'd his wily head; Then skulk'd till afternoon, and watch'd his time (As murderers use) ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... it. When I discharged the rifle, the report was unusually faint, owing to the state of the air; so much so, that my companions, who were not fifty yards behind, scarcely heard it. The wild animals in the jungle which skirted the road, and which, in general, skulk in silence and secresy in their haunts, rent the air with their howlings. The very order of nature seemed about to be reversed, while the long streamers of grey moss swayed backwards and forwards mournfully from the trees, adding to the solemnity of the scene. As the party slowly wended its ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... this business. Well, if that is all, we may as well turn in again. Monsieur need have no fears," added he, addressing Isidore; "the best way is to take no notice of her. At all events, if she does skulk about, she is more likely to warn us of any danger than to bring it upon us." With these words the guide, followed by Pritchard, again entered the house, leaving Isidore alone ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... 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 movement ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... 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 ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... will you?" He brought the rifle to his shoulder and covered point after point along the range of hills to the west. "Come on, show yourself. Come on a little, all of you. I ain't afraid of you; but don't skulk this way. You ain't going to drive me away from my mine. I'm going ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim—"What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Achilles' battle-eager son: "Calchas, brave men meet face to face their foes! Who skulk behind their walls, and fight from towers, Are nidderings, hearts palsied with base fear. Hence with all thought of wile and stratagem! The great war-travail of the spear beseems True heroes. Best ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... not skulk in corners and watch other people's doings," replied the young fellow, who, however, had only just come on deck, and was ignorant of the scene between Claude and Marguerite. "Let me catch you plotting any villainy against the Sieur de Pontbriand, ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... 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 mammoth ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... burrow in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square or Argyle buildings. What in short can a lord do nowadays, that is lost in a great old solitary castle, but skulk about, and get into the first hole he finds, as a rat would do in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... light of day, in a lumber garret, whence there was no drawing him forth but by the sound of the chopping-knife, as if chopping up his victuals, when he would steal forth with humble and downcast look, but would skulk away again if ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... arrived, saying that he was on his way to Chicago, it gave her more delight than any other writing of his had ever given her. She need not skulk any more. Her problem was as far from solution as ever, but she wanted a respite from it, and she gave herself up to a few days of rapture. She was free from her work at the studio, and she was like a girl home from boarding-school ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... 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 were once kindred ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... think 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
... suddenly 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 ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... in California. In Ohio he is a common summer resident, breeding in the 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 ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... found that our inquiries and our reports, our laws and our admonitions, were alike despised, that enormities increased in proportion as they were forbidden, detected, and exposed,—when we found that guilt stalked with an erect and upright front, and that legal authority seemed to skulk and hide its head like outlawed guilt,—when we found that some of those very persons who were appointed by Parliament to assert the authority of the laws of this kingdom were the most forward, the most bold, and the most active in the conspiracy ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... beech partridge, however, was a bird of a different mind. No dog ever stood him for more than a second; he had learned too well what the thing meant. The moment he heard the patter of a dog's feet on leaves he would run rapidly, and skulk and hide and run again, keeping dog and hunter on the move till he found the cover he wanted,—thick trees, or a tangle of wild grapevines,—when he would burst out on, the farther side. And no eye, however keen, could catch more than a glimpse of a gray ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... pitched battle or so 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 ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... a dove, "O nightingale, what's the use, You bird of beauty and love, Why behave like a goose? Don't skulk away from our sight, Like a common, contemptible fowl: You bird of joy and delight, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... officers of regiments are to see their supernumerary officers so posted as to keep their men to their duty; and it may not be amiss for the troops to know, that, if any infamous rascal shall attempt to skulk, hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his commanding officers, he will instantly be shot down as an example of cowardice. On the other hand, the General solemnly promises that he will reward those who shall distinguish themselves by brave and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... know, that all the chimney-sweepers' boys, where Members of Parliament chiefly lodge, are hired by our enemies to skulk in the tops of chimneys, with their heads no higher than will just permit them to look round; and at the usual hours when members are going to the House, if they see a coach stand near the lodging of any loyal member, they call "Coach, coach," ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... reasonably hope better, yet was he so restless and uneasy at those hardships which he fancied were put upon him, that he chose rather to rob than to labour; and leaving the farmer in whose service he was, used to skulk about Bushey Heath, and watch all opportunities ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... not asleep, my brother, when Monso came to tell you, under cover of night, that we were spies of the Iroquois. The presents he gave you, that you might believe his falsehoods, are at this moment buried in the earth under this lodge. If he told the truth, why did he skulk away in the dark? Why did he not show himself by day? Do you not see that when we first came among you, and your camp was all in confusion, we could have killed you without needing help from the Iroquois? And now, while I am speaking, could we not put your old men to death, while your ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... 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 ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... 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 cried, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the building. It did not matter what sort of day it was, whether the sun shone with its summer intensity, or whether the snow fell in thick flakes—whatever the condition of the outside world, out all the working women had to go. None could skulk behind; all had to ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... immediately to a cabin at a short distance, and there remain quiet, without a light, which they did with all possible haste. The men were terrified at this bold act of their leader; and many with dismay at the thought of resistance, began to skulk behind fences and old buildings, when he opened the door and requested every slave to leave who felt unwilling to fight. None were urged to remain, and those who stood by ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... you young blackguard?" he cried, seizing me by the collar, and dragging me to the foot of the ladder that led out of this bloody den. "Skulking, eh! I'll teach you to skulk; I'll cure you o' that, my lad! I'll tan your skin for you," and at each emphatic word he gave a blow with a rope's end that raised a bar of livid flesh across my back. "There," he cried, giving me a final ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... stated that Drury did not skulk in the background when he published his book in 1727; but, on the contrary, invited the public to Tom's Coffee-house, where he engaged to satisfy the incredulous, and resolve the doubting. By the 3rd edition of Madagascar, 1743, it farther appears that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... man in my situation, and with my feelings, would think it necessary to retreat, and prudent to secure his safety by flight; but flight is unworthy of him who can combat and conquer: the man who is sure of himself does not skulk away to avoid danger, but advances to meet it, armed secure ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... painful predicament, and Reginald was justly horrified. Could he venture out and display the weakness of the British Navy in the face of a crew of unwashed Greek matelots? On the other hand, could he skulk in his cabin and allow the Master to doubt his courage and resource? He rose and lurched unsteadily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... anything else; though he tried to make out that his wife was to blame. But I settled his doubts by telling him, that I would have him on my shoulder naked, unless he came in five minutes; not that he could do much good, but because the other men would be sure to skulk, if he set them the example. With spades, and shovels, and pitch-forks, and a round of roping, we four set forth to dig out the sheep; and the poor things knew that it was ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... him!—out of his kingdom. This was a while and a half ago, my dear; but Dutch William left the stolen crown to Anne, and Anne, in turn, left it to German George. So that now the Elector of Hanover reigns at St. James's, while the true King's son must skulk in France, with never a roof to shelter him. And there are certain gentlemen, Dorothy, who do not consider that this ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... the colors on the Old 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 extinguished and all was plunged in gloom by the unlooked-for ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... this afternoon—confiscated 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 Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... 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 obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as Probationary Odes for the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... been but a frigate, my excellent friend, the manoeuvre would have been unnecessary. Peste! it is not a single republican ship that can make a stout English frigate skulk along the rocks and fly ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hawking to the youths of both sexes under seventeen, and the Education Acts not being sufficiently strong to lay hold of their dirty, idle, travelling tribes to educate them—except in rare cases—they are allowed to skulk about in ignorance and evil training, without being taught how to get an honest living. No ray of hope enters their breast, their highest ambition is to live and loll about so long as the food comes, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path. He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of Massasoit's shall pounce ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... year in Timbuctoo bonds, must I convert it all into a house, so large that it will not hold me comfortably,—so splendid that I might as well live in a porcelain vase, for the trouble of taking care of it,—so prodigiously "palatial" that I have to skulk into my private room, put on my slippers, close the door, shut myself up with myself, and wonder why I ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... Morgan permit them to go? Would he come forward to bear his share of it, or would he skulk away like a coward and leave him, the bondman, to defend the name of his dead master's wife at the cost of his own honor and liberty, perhaps ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... lad 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.
... the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... peculate, purloin, poach, abstract, rob, defraud, pirate, plunder, crib, pillage, rapine loot, thieve, embezzle, peculate, plagiarize; insinuate, creep furtively, go stealthily, sneak, slink, skulk; ratten. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... is 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... for the master's mate, and other officers accordin' to their employment, with one share to every seaman alike. Think ye this bloody pick-purse dealt fairly by his crew? In yon sea-chest be the lawful shares of all the woesome lads he marooned this day. An' as much more as he durst skulk away with." ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... him till something happened a couple of months ago, but now it can't go through. I'll have to down him. It isn't concerning you—I'm not a welcher. No, it's a thing I can't talk about, a thing that's made me into a wolf, made me skulk and walk the alleys like a dago. It's put murder into my heart. I've tried to assassinate him. I tried it here last night—but—I was a gentleman once—till the cards came. He knows the answer now, though, and he's ready for me—so one of us ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Tudor, and not fear. [Goes out on the gallery. The guards are all driven in, skulk into corners Like rabbits to their holes. A gracious guard Truly; shame on them! ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... But when we try to prepare for what is coming, we must do it secretly—in underhand ways, for fear the newspapers will get hold of it and ridicule us, and accuse us of trying to drag the country into war. That's why we have to prepare under cover. That's why I've had to skulk around these hills like a chicken thief. And," he added sharply, "that's why that boy must not know who I am. If he does, the General Staff will get a calling down at Washington, and ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... that both Mopsey and the Captain knew well enough all along that this was Mr. Tiffany Carrack they had been pursuing, and that as they watched him from the distance emerge from the vat, return to the homestead, and skulk, dripping in, like a rat of outlandish breed, at his chamber-window, they were amply avenged: the Captain, for the freedom with which the city-exquisite had treated the Peabody family, especially the good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the slighting manner in which ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... decay, The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands, Lie in the silent moonshine: and the owl, (Strange! very strange!) the scritch-owl only wakes! Sole voice, sole eye of all this world of beauty! Unless, perhaps, she sing her screeching song To a herd of wolves, that skulk athirst for blood. Why such a thing am I?—Where are these men? I need the sympathy of human faces, To beat away this deep contempt for all things, Which quenches my revenge. O! would to Alla, The raven, or the sea-mew, were appointed To bring me food! or rather that my soul ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... been thrashed and is a prisoner. Except the Army of the West, and the division on the Mar road, which is commanded by an old woman, we have nothing on foot but scattered, ragamuffin regiments. Savannah is under fire; that will teach Osbourne to skulk in cities instead of going to the front with the poor devils whom he butchers by his ignorance and starves with his peculations. What we want to know is, when is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and so will I. Sorry sight! to view Jabaster, with a stealthy step, skulk like a thing dishonoured! Oh! may the purpose consecrate the deed! the die ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... the Press, indulges all.—I must and will repeat it, Newspapers deserve the patronage of every friend to his country. And whether the defamers of them are arrayed in robes of scarlet or sable, whether they lurk and skulk in an insurance office, whether they assume the venerable character of a priest, the sly one of a scrivener, or the dirty, infamous, abandoned one of an informer, they are all the creatures and tools ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... the shot, but because his manhood felt a call upon it not to skulk in obscurity from an open enemy, Septimius at once stood forth, and confronted the same handsome young officer with whom those fierce words had passed on account of his rudeness to Rose Garfield. Septimius's fierce Indian ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... put in Hilton, giving the blusterer a contemptuous glance. "Mr. Furneaux, you seem primed with information. Why should Mr. Trenholme, if that is his name, have the audacity to call on Miss Manning? He might have the impudence to skulk among the shrubs and watch a lady bathing, but I fail to see any motive for his visit ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... and, for a fact, there was no mistake in my surmises. So promptly issuing the annual allowances to them, I now come to report to you, worthy senior, that your creditors have gone, and that there's no need for you to skulk away. But I've had some tender pheasant prepared; so please come, and have your evening meal; for if you delay any longer, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... go by; but it did seem to me to be a fine waste of ammunition, and a very 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 ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... the women of America are accustomed to skulk from their enemies when their presence may avail to encourage their friends, and they may be of use to the wounded?" she answered, looking at the same time towards Madeline, in the expectation that she would utter ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... yet have the dingy festoons of pink and 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 kitten, wandering in vain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... promotion and 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
... cards or other games of chance, and advised to ponder the importance of the cause in which they were enlisted. "But it may not be amiss for the troops to know," he added, "that if any man in action shall presume to skulk, or hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his commanding officer, he will be instantly shot down." And with this exhortation and warning Washington ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is exalted, not as the word of ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... 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 her back alive or dead. See ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... his country, an' Metoosin is pretty near bound to drive him around to us. We'll let him do the open hunting an' we'll skulk. The bear can't get past us both without giving ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... 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 rant and you roar, Through the horrible grin of your larva's ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... dragoon of Cornel Gardener's, 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 a sybo, he took leg-bail in a ship over the sea, among the Dutch ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... their wives and 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 holes ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... of his Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and warpaint, skulk about a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet spirit is ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... come when I could no longer skulk behind a printing press. That bulwark had been torn down, and now I must literally open my mouth for the dumb, or be one of those dogs spoken of in Scripture who would not bark. The resolve to speak at that meeting had come in an instant as a command ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... he 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 with a shaking hand; 'there's money, my dears. I shall shut up this shop to-night. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... specious shield, which private malice bears, Is ever blazon'd with some public good; Behind that artful fence, skulk low, conceal'd, The bloody purpose, and the poison'd shaft; Ambition there, and envy, nestle close; From whence they take their fatal aim unseen; And honest merit ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... this Society—to obey the commands of the Council—then my responsibility ceased. What I have to do is to be faithful to my oath, and to the promise I have made." Almost unconsciously he glanced at the ring that Natalie had given him. "You would not have me skulk back like a coward? You would not have me 'play and not pay?' What I have undertaken to ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... 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 lowered eve ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... but no more risky than bluffs he had seen work before. And they did need the weapons. Cutting westward now only kept them well inside Union territory. Somehow they would have to skulk or fight their way down through the southern part of Kentucky and then probably all the way across Tennessee—a tall order, but one which was just ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... and apron thrust a plaintively meowing cat from the portico into the street. Trotter quickened his steps, tingling, abashed, shaken with an inordinate and ridiculous sense of guilt. He felt that he wanted to keep out of the light, that he ought to skulk in the shadows until he was free of the weight on his arm. He hurried on until he became desperate, determined to end the farce at any hazard. So, as he passed a building where a house front was being converted into a low-windowed shop ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the noble Venetians have a little suite of apartments in some out-of-the-way corner, near the grand piazza, of which their families are totally ignorant. To these they skulk in the dusk, and revel undisturbed with the companions of their pleasures. Jealousy itself cannot discover the alleys, the winding passages, the unsuspected doors, by which these retreats are accessible. Many an unhappy lover, whose mistress disappears on a sudden with some ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... thicket, and suggested firing a few shots into it. We all had long-range guns, the distance from bank to bank was over two hundred yards, and a fusillade of shots was accordingly poured into the motte. To my surprise we were rewarded by seeing fully twenty Indians skulk out of the upper end of the cover. Every man raised his sights and gave them a parting volley, but a mesquite thicket, in which their horses were secreted, soon sheltered them and they fell back into the hills on the western side of the river. With the coast thus cleared, half a dozen ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... two or three, I'd come out and face 'em," he said, "but the odds are too great. I must skulk back in the darkness, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... say he is a criminal, and not 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 ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli |
