"Croaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dreadful, its waste and desolation were appalling. And yet it lived with a life of its own. Wild fowl flew in wedges from the sea to feed in its recesses, alligators and hippopotami splashed in the waters, bitterns boomed among the rushes, and from every pool and quagmire came the croaking of a ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... piping of hylas came from a marshy strip of woodland that ran through the centre of the town and a toad was croaking at the foot of ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... darkness the hooded figures stood a moment listening, and then a croaking, breaking, husky, merry voice began ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Benderloch, and through Appin and even up to Glencoe, by some strange spasm of physique—for she was frail and famished—the barefooted old cailleach of Carnus came after us, a bird of battle, croaking in a horrible merriment over our operations. The Dark Dame we called her. She would dance round the butchery of the fold, chanting her venomous Gaelic exultation in uncouth rhymes that she strung together as easily as most old ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... lived in a slimy bog, And caught a cold in an awful fog. The cold got worse, The frog got hoarse, Till croaking he scared a polliwog!" ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... tears glittered on her long lashes when she at last fell into a light slumber, and the old pendulum's rusty voice croaking out: 'Give all—take no—thing' echoed hoarsely through her dreams like a harsh command which it was more or less difficult to obey. But life, as we all know, is not made up of great events so much as of irritating trifles,—poor, wretched, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and chin, she might have produced an impression of eternal spring-tide. As it was, the comic papers would have found her cruelly easy to caricature, had she been a statesman. The parrot screamed at her approach, croaking out an air, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... greater. Its pavilions were lofty, and its domes were shining; its rivers were running, its trees were fruitful, and its gardens bore ripe produce. It was a city with impenetrable gates, empty, still, without a voice but the owl hooting in its quarters, and the raven croaking in its thoroughfare-streets, and bewailing those who had been ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... were expelled. St. Hilarion (288-371), we are told, courageously confronted and relieved a possessed camel. "The great St. Ambrose [340-397] tells us that a priest, while saying mass, was troubled by the croaking of frogs in a neighboring marsh; that he exorcised them, and so stopped their noise. St. Bernard [1091-1153], as the monkish chroniclers tell us, mounting the pulpit to preach in his abbey, was interrupted by a crowd of flies; straightway ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... time Pyrot, burnt by the sun, eaten by mosquitoes, soaked in the rain, hail and snow, frozen by the cold, tossed about terribly by the wind, beset by the sinister croaking of the ravens that perched upon his cage, kept writing down his innocence on pieces torn off his shirt with a tooth-pick dipped in blood. These rags were lost in the sea or fell into the hands of the gaolers. But Pyrot's ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... security, by the weird cries of the night birds, the incessant howling of the jackals, the maniacal laugh of the prowling hyena, the occasional roar of the lion, the loud whirr of myriads of insects, the croaking of bull-frogs, and the other multitudinous nocturnal sounds which floated in through the open windows of their state-rooms. They were early astir in the morning, eager to commence their investigations as are school-boys to plunge into the enjoyments of a long-anticipated holiday. Moved ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... not at least tolerable were rejected, as unfit to preach! Saadi seems to have had a great horror of braying orators, and relates a number of anecdotes about them, such as this: A preacher who had a detestable voice, but thought he had a very sweet one, bawled out to no purpose. You would say the croaking of the crow in the desert was the burden of his song, and that this verse of the Kuran was intended for him, "Verily the most detestable of sounds is the braying of an ass." When this ass of a preacher brayed, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... gathered into motley groups around two weatherbeaten store-houses—the overseer has retired to his apartment-when they wait the signal from the head driver, who figures as master of ceremonies. One sings:—-"Jim Crack corn, an' I don't care, Fo'h mas'r's gone away! way! way!" Another is croaking over the time he saved on his task, a third is trying to play a trick with the driver (come the possum over him), and a third unfolds the scheme by which the extra for whiskey and molasses was raised. Presenting a sable pot pourri, they jibber and croak among themselves, laugh and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... known only to themselves. They hopped and flapped awkwardly over the rough surface of the windfall to where the dead snake lay and began to tear at the flesh. As they ate they quarrelled noisily among themselves croaking and sighing with hoarse voices and striking at one ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... came swimming all about,—little and big, young and old; but when they saw poor Froggy caught fast, instead of trying to free him, they began peeping and croaking and "kerchugging," until such a noise went up from the pond as ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... he said, in a harsh, croaking voice. "Play for the two thousand. Win it, if you can. You want it bad. I want to keep it bad. It's nice to have; it makes a man feel warm—money does. I'd sleep in ten-dollar bills, I'd have my clothes made of them, if I could; ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... With startled faces. Voices rose and fell, As I recall them, in a great vague dream, Curious, pitiful, angry, thrashing out The tragic truth. Then, all along the Cheape, The ballad-mongers waved their sheets of rhyme, Croaking: Come buy! Come buy! The bloody death Of Wormall, writ by Master Richard Bame! Come buy! Come buy! The Atheist's Tragedy. And, even in Bread Street, at our very door, The crowder to his ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... away sleep, and all desire to sleep—and punctually at eight o'clock she came down to breakfast. Mr. Churton alone was in the room, looking as usual intensely respectable in his open frock-coat, large collar, and well-brushed grey hair. He was standing before the open window looking out, humming or croaking a little tune, and jingling his chain and seals by way ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... flapping in the wind, and their faded leaves fluttering down into the muddy pool below. Here and there stood a small dwarf pine, a resting-place for the crows, who, scared by the passing carriage, flew loudly croaking over the travelers' heads. There was no house to be seen on the road, no pedestrian, and ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... floats Between your marble lips, nor sweetly rise The tender songs of gentle melodies From croaking caverns of your iron throats; But from your dirges of destructive pain, Wild clash of wretched sound is borne to me, Where death and failure, tears and misery, In ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... merely been "deadened," by girdling them near the ground. These dead trees were all standing in ghastly nakedness, and so thick in many places that it must have been difficult to plow through them, while flocks of crows and buzzards were sailing around them or perched in their tops, cawing and croaking, and thereby augmenting the woe-begone looks of things. The planter himself was of a type then common in the South. He was a large, coarse looking man, with an immense paunch, wore a broad-brimmed, home-made straw hat and butter nut jeans clothes. His trousers were of the old-fashioned, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... train was grinding along discordantly with the brakes on, and, after a little preliminary jolting and banging over the points, drew up at a long lighted platform, where melancholy porters paced up and down, croaking "Market Rodwell!" like so many ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... in an Age of Gold,—Age, at least, of Paper and Hope! Meanwhile, trouble us not with thy prophecies, O croaking Friend of Men: 'tis long that we have heard such; and still the old world keeps wagging, in ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... one in trouble, and I had always something to employ me. M. d'Estampes, to make pastime and pleasure for the Seigneurs de Rohan and de Laval, and other gentlemen, got a number of village girls to come to the sports, to sing songs in the tongue of Low Brittany: wherein their harmony was like the croaking of frogs when they are in love. Moreover, he made them dance the Brittany triori, without moving feet or hips: he made the gentlemen see and ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... should I do, but praise God without ceasing? It is as proper to us to praise God, as for a bird to chaunt. All beasts have their own sounds and voices peculiar to their own nature, this is the natural sound of a man. Now as you would think it monstrous to hear a melodious bird croaking as a raven, so it is no less monstrous and degenerate to hear the most part of the discourses of men savoring nothing of God. If we had known that innocent estate of man, O how would we think he had fallen from heaven! We would imagine that we were ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... first the tiny man with the long arms, pale, sad face, and queer croaking voice had alarmed the little ones, because they had never seen any one the least like Bambo before. But when they discovered how gentle was the touch of those thin hands and bony arms, how kind and soothing the tones of that croaky voice, all their fears vanished. Darby determined ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... more troubled than before. 'He came along holding to my stirrup leather. That's what made me so late. He told me he was a staff officer; and then talking in a voice such, I suppose, as the damned alone use, a croaking of rage and pain, he said he had a favour to beg of me. A supreme favour. Did I understand him, he asked in a ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... friends of this strong, stubborn and all-important sick man could not conceal the fact that they were nervous and that they dreaded the probability of disaster in the shape of serious illness. His croaking laugh, his tearing cough and that flushed face caused Dorothy more pain than she was willing ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... but the frog-men, recovering from their own first surprise, were running forward with great hopping steps! The two fliers flung themselves back in a floating leap toward the reeds, but the green monsters were quick after them. A croaking cry came from one and as another raised his tube-and-handle, something flicked from it that burst close beside Norman. There was no sound or light as it burst, but the reeds for a few ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... the more perplexing they appeared. To rid himself of these thoughts he lay down on the fresh-made bed, intending to go over them again the next day with a clearer mind. But he could not fall asleep for a long time. Along with the fresh air, through the open window, came the croaking of frogs, interrupted by the whistling of nightingales, one of which was in a lilac bush under the window. Listening to the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhludoff recalled the music of the inspector's daughter; ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the city lights, will tell me it is night. I want to hear the cricket and whip-poor-will as we heard them in the evenings long ago, as we listened with bated breath to the jack o'-lantern legends that stirred our childish fancy until the croaking of the frogs sent us to bed ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... underfoot and in the crevices of the rocks. They found a jellyfish—a pulpy translucent mass; and once even caught a sight of a seal in the hollow of a breaker, with sleek and shining head, his barbels bristling, and heard his hoarse croaking bark as ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... shrieked, caressing the hand of the Roman. Now his head rose, and for a little his old vigor and menacing voice returned to him. "He has run me through with the blade of remorse and put upon me the chains of infirmity," he complained, an ominous, croaking rattle in his throat. "To-day, to-day, my wrath shall descend upon him and my gratitude upon you! These forty years have I been seeking a man of honor. At last, at last, here is the greatest of men! I, Herod, surnamed the Great, king of Judea, conqueror of hosts, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... this age is curst— We can no more tell which is worst, Than erst could Egypt, when so rich In various plagues, determine which She thought most pestilent and vile, Her frogs, like Benbow and Carlisle, Croaking their native mud-notes loud, Or her fat locusts, like a cloud Of pluralists, obesely lowering, At ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... they were set right again by some ravens, which flew before them when on their march, and waited for them when they lingered and fell behind; and the greatest miracle, as Callisthenes tells us, was that if any of the company went astray in the night, they never ceased croaking and making a noise, till by that means they had brought them into the right way again. Having passed through the wilderness, they came to the place; where the high-priest at the first salutation bade Alexander ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... down went Mark, humming his tune again, and changing the humming to singing about the three ravens sitting on a tree, though in this instance, excepting the young in the nest below, there were only two, and instead of sitting, they were sailing round and round, croaking and barking angrily, the cock bird, if it was not the hen, making a pretence every now and then, to dart down and strike at the would-be marauder, who ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was on her lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... know," said his mother, "that if once I let you out, I should find you croaking at a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them out of it. Sometimes she seemed to be stuck fast, and it was only with a great effort that she could pull out, first one foot, and then the other. A lively green frog hopped along beside her, and seemed to say, in his funny, croaking voice, "Never mind the mud, you'll soon be through it." When she had at last reached the end of the slippery, sticky marsh, and stood once more on firm ground, she looked back at the tiny thread of golden light which trailed ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... legend here, a tale of the croaking old ones That Johnny Appleseed came here, planted some orchards around here, When nothing was here but the pine trees, oaks and the beeches, And nothing was here but the ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... harsh cry overhead and lifting her eyes she saw a bird, larger than any she had ever seen before, with great, spreading wings, wheeling round and round in wide circles, and uttering a piercing, croaking ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... the leader of the robbers, You the plotter of this mischief, The contriver of this outrage, I will keep you, I will hold you, As a hostage for your people, As a pledge of good behavior!" And he left him, grim and sulky, Sitting in the morning sunshine On the summit of the wigwam, Croaking fiercely his displeasure, Flapping his great sable pinions, Vainly struggling for his freedom, Vainly calling on his people! Summer passed, and Shawondasee Breathed his sighs o'er all the landscape, From the South-land sent his ardor, Wafted kisses warm and tender; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... since the croaking of the pond-frogs and the first white of the dog-wood blossoms. Now the golden dandelions in endless profusion, spotting the ground everywhere. The white cherry and pear-blows—the wild violets, with their blue eyes looking ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... moon which never came, having taken place at quite another hour. A cloudless night, dripping with moisture, the electric lights of distant Foggia gleaming in the plain. There are brick-kilns at the foot of the incline, and from some pools in the neighbourhood issued a loud croaking of frogs, while the pallid smoke of the furnaces, pressed down by the evening dew, trailed earthward in a long twisted wreath, like a dragon crawling sulkily to his den. But on the north side one could hear the nightingales singing in the gardens below. The ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... dinner and during the evening, now and then causing his father some irritation by croaking, "Taw, p'taw-p'taw!" while the latter was talking. And when bedtime came for the son of the house, he mounted the stairs in a rhythmic manner, and p'tawed himself through the upper hall as far as ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... with aquatic animals, when at its height at the rise of the Moon. O Karna, thou challengest Dhananjaya, the son of Pritha, to battle even like a calf challenging a smiting bull of keen horns and neck thick as a drum. Like a frog croaking at a terrible and mighty cloud yielding copious showers of rain, thou croakest at Arjuna who is even like Parjanya among men. As a dog from within the precincts of the house of his master barks at a forest-roaming tiger, even so, O Karna, thou barkest at Dhananjaya, that tiger ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Liberty curtain is beautiful, is only one of her charms, and almost an accidental one. The highest and most valuable quality in Nature is not her beauty, but her generous and defiant ugliness. A hundred instances might be taken. The croaking noise of the rooks is, in itself, as hideous as the whole hell of sounds in a London railway tunnel. Yet it uplifts us like a trumpet with its coarse kindliness and honesty, and the lover in 'Maud' could actually ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... me, and set your feet where I set mine," said Nerina to the little soldier of the Abruzzo, and she put down her foot on the first pile, sunk almost invisible under the bright green slime, where thousands of frogs were croaking. ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... room below whose striking he could hear each hour. Between each time it struck he felt as if weeks elapsed. Sometimes it was months. He had begun to be light-headed and to think queer things. Once or twice he heard a man talking in a croaking wail, and after a few minutes realised that it was himself, and that he did not know what he had said, though he knew he had been arguing with Linthicum, who was proving to him that his claim was ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... take you to Cakras; flow, O moon, and envelop Indras.'" [250] Here in India we again find our old friend "the frog in the moon." "It is especially Indus who satisfies the frog's desire for rain. Indus, as the moon, brings or announces the Somas, or the rain; the frog, croaking, announces or brings the rain; and at this point the frog, which we have seen identified at first with the cloud, is also identified with the pluvial moon." [251] This myth is not lacking ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... the appearance of strange birds or animals, or the meanings of others. The screeching of the owl, the bleating of the doe, or barking of the fox, were evil auguries, while the flight of the eagle and the croaking of the raven were omens of good. She put faith in dreams, and would foretel good or evil fortune from them; she could read the morning and evening clouds, and knew from various appearances of the sky, or the coming or departing of certain birds or insects, changes in the atmosphere. ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... dismal fear of approaching winter was stealing through the gay, though fresh, smile of fading nature. High above me, a cautious raven flew by, heavily and sharply cutting the air with his wings; then he turned his head, looked at me sidewise, and, croaking abruptly, disappeared beyond the forest; a large flock of pigeons rushed past me from a barn, and, suddenly whirling about in a column, they came down and stationed themselves bustlingly upon the field—a sign of spring autumn! Somebody rode by beyond the bare hillock, making much noise ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... Perlmutter remarked as they sat in their showroom ten days after the events above noted, "I did mix up in Alex Kronberg's family matters and, with all your croaking, what is the result? Alex has got a good partner; Uncle Mosha has got a good home, and ourselves we got a good order for three thousand dollars, which otherwise we ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... their glandular secretions. When teased, the creature swells itself out to such an extent one almost expects to see him burst; he follows his tormentors about with slow awkward leaps, his vast mouth wide open, and uttering an incessant harsh croaking sound. A gaucho I knew was once bitten by one. He sat down on the grass, and, dropping his hand at his side, had it seized, and only freed himself by using his hunting knife to force the creature's mouth open. He washed and bandaged the wound, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... around, conscious of one purpose, and by a marvellous understanding and co-operation create for themselves a symphony with beauties and harmonies of its own, and such as to stand unrivalled in man's musical world. In the great chorus are voices from the lowest bass of the croaking bullfrog, squatting in the marshes, to the myriads of tiny green tree tenors, between which are millions of altos, contraltos, sopranos, coloraturas and other voices not yet in our musical vocabulary. These are ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... tune chaunted in the centre. As they went round and round, shaking their paws up and down before them, the scene was very absurd, and I could have laughed had I not felt disgusted at such a degradation of rational and immortal beings. This dance lasted a long while, until the music turned to croaking, and the perspiration was abundant; they stopped at last, and then announced that their exercise was finished. I waited a little while after the main body had dispersed, to speak with one of the elders. "I will be with ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the river they had reached was so perfectly still that every cloud in the sky, every mangrove, root and spray, and every bending bulrush, was perfectly reproduced in the reflected world below. Plaintive cries of wild-fowl formed appropriate melody, to which chattering groups of monkeys and croaking bull-frogs contributed a ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... of whip or spur. By the time I had crossed the river into El Afroun, I found my horse so entirely knocked up, that it was clearly impossible to proceed. So, of necessity, I turned into the auberge, and had a very good dinner, enlivened by a serenade from a legion of frogs, croaking dolefully in ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... good-natured sightseers into their main tent with extravagant stories of the wonderful Romany dancing girls whose unequaled dancing might be seen for the small sum of ten cents. While aged gypsies crouched here and there croaking mysteriously of their power to reveal the future, and promising health, wealth and happiness to those who crossed their out-stretched palms ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... alight upon, came back. I took out a swallow and let it go: the swallow went, turned about, and as there was no place to alight upon, came back. I took out a raven and let it go: the raven went, and saw that the water had abated, and came near the ship flapping its wings, croaking, and returned no more." Shamashnapishtim escaped from the deluge, but he did not know whether the divine wrath was appeased, or what would be done with him when it became known that he still lived.** He resolved to conciliate ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... something else to say? Can I help what they say, or shall I even stoop to listen when they say it, who will say anything of queens, without shame for the envious venom of their own base insignificance, knowing all the time absolutely nothing, but making mere noise, like frogs all croaking together in a marsh? Or if I must absolutely answer, in spite of my disdain, how can I prevent any lover, such as thyself, from persuading himself of what he wishes to believe? For all of them resemble thee, behaving like ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... in these reflections a pair of ravens fluttered around his head and, croaking loudly, alighted on the dusty ruins of one of the shattered houses. He involuntarily glanced around him and noted that they had perched on the corpse of a murdered Hebrew, lying half concealed amid the rubbish. A smile which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... what that old croaking vulgarian and general leveller and democrat says, to me! A democrat is my aversion, anyhow. I wonder papa, can tolerate that coarse old Jackson man in his sight. 'Adams and the Federal cause forever,' say I; and all aristocratic people are on that side. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... as bad as I thought their cause, for the boldness with which they silenced all opposition and all croaking, by press or by individuals, within their control. War at all times, whether a civil war between sections of a common country or between nations, ought to be avoided, if possible with honor. But, once entered into, it is too much for human nature to tolerate an enemy ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... coming of darkness the air was filled with the noises of the swamp; the croaking of multitudes of frogs, the hooting of owls, and the hoarse ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sound of his good Leah or Rachel or Deborah (I don't remember her name) keeping order among his little ones. She kept very good order, too, so that most of the time you could hear the scratching of the laborious pens accompanied by the croaking of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Sand; a quiet region of narrow, winding, shady lanes, where you may wander long between the tall hedges without meeting a living creature but the wild birds that start from the honey-suckle and hawthorn, and the frogs croaking among the sedges; a region of soft-flowing rivers with curlew-haunted reed beds, and fields where quails cluck in the furrows; the fertile plain studded with clumps of ash and alder, and a rare farm-habitation standing amid orchards and hemp-fields, or a rarer ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... even less. One stood apart from the group. He was similarly dressed but instead of a drawn sword, he carried a drum hung about his chest. This fellow drawled out signals the tone of which suggested a mighty easy-life, and then croaking a strange song, he would strike the drum. The tune was outlandishly unfamiliar. One might form the idea by thinking it a combination of the Mikawa Banzai and ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking. ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... we are, croaking over our petty disappointments, and forgetting the worst share that falls upon papa. Failing this money, how will he go to the ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... ever going to let up croaking? If you're afraid of this thing, get out of it. Haven't I got enough to ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... clouds that covered the moon had just thinned enough to render darkness visible, and nothing was to be heard save the continual croaking of the frogs, which are very large and numerous in the marshes of the Danube, when four boats pushed off and proceeded quickly, yet quietly, up ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... fame; Fonblanque, the editor of the Examiner; and the young Duc de Richelieu. Of Fonblanque, Willis observes: 'I never saw a worse face, sallow, seamed, and hollow, his teeth irregular, his skin livid, his straight black hair uncombed. A hollow, croaking voice, and a small, fiery black eye, with a smile like a skeleton's, certainly did not improve his physiognomy.' Fonblanque, as might have been anticipated, did not at all appreciate this description of his personal defects, when it afterwards appeared in print. Edward Bulwer was quite unlike what ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... search of big game. He paused every now and then to look at the ice on the summits of the distant mountains. The sunlight falling on it imparted to it many different hues, and made it sparkle like flaming jewels. He stopped repeatedly to listen to the croaking of the raven, the cawing of the crows, and the piping of the bullfinches—sounds of which he was never weary, and never ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... him to sit down at last by ordering the paddlers nearest him to throw him overboard, but nothing would stop his evil croaking any more than flat refusal to admit the truth of what he gloated over lessened our ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... I shan't come back just for a quart or two of beans," was the youth's answer. If the silence was sometimes oppressive during the day it was doubly so at night. Occasionally some birds would break the stillness, or they would hear the croaking of frogs in the marshes, or the bark of a distant fox, but that was all. If any big game was at hand it took good care to keep ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... gray-green leafage, young with early spring, the pinnacles of the Certosa leap like flames into the sky. The rice-fields are under water, far and wide, shining like burnished gold beneath the level light now near to sun-down. Frogs are croaking; those persistent frogs whom the muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat, well-watered soil. Nightingales here and there, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the great nobles was "the silence of the frogs,[14]" which, whenever the lady was confined, bound the peasants to spend their days and nights in beating the swamps with long poles to save her from being disturbed by their inharmonious croaking. And if this or any other feudal right was dispensed with, it was only commuted for a money payment, which was little ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... and he was listening intently, first to the right, whence he had come, then to the left, and then he turned his ear towards the trees, through which the path led away towards the hut where the men slept. But there was no sound except the sighing of the wind. The frog by the pool had stopped croaking, and the melancholy cry of the ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... making the journey than old Mr. Crow ever took, Freddie at last reached the railroad, where he promptly sat himself down between the rails to wait for a train. And there Freddie Firefly stayed all alone, in the dark, with nothing to keep from feeling forlorn except the croaking of a band of noisy ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... answered in queer, croaking tones, so different from his usual deep and vibrant ones. "That's the odd part of it. I have no real pain. It isn't sore at ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... looked; then, terrified by the light and noise, she had rushed from her cell to see. The aspect of the Place, the vision which was moving in it, the disorder of that nocturnal assault, that hideous crowd, leaping like a cloud of frogs, half seen in the gloom, the croaking of that hoarse multitude, those few red torches running and crossing each other in the darkness like the meteors which streak the misty surfaces of marshes, this whole scene produced upon her the effect of a mysterious battle between the phantoms of the witches' sabbath and the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... voice of the raven was heard croaking on the summit of the pine-tree, and the tortured girl hurried out to inquire what news he brought. The raven had had the good fortune to meet with the son of a magician in the garden of the king, who perfectly understood the language of birds. To him the bird delivered the message of the maiden, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... murmur of a distant torrent came to them. The hoarse croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets were mingled with the hooting of owls and the nearer hum of mosquitoes. Bats and moths were flitting on silent wings among the trees, and there was a rustle of dry leaves, as unseen animals of the night ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... been croaking out their hoarse cries all winter, seemed to get sulky and vexed that they were now so little admired, and so they flitted away farther north and buried themselves in the interior ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... of the bag came a voice like the croaking of a frog from the bottom of a deep well, and this was the man's story:—"Yesterday evening I was wandering on the shores of Lake Peipus, and lost my way. Presently I came to a footpath which led me to a poor hut, where I thought ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... wearing. How did you get into it so quick? And, putting one thing with another, I judge you made a good fast get-away too. Say, listen, Trencher, you might as well come clean with me. I'll say this for Sonntag—he's been overdue for a croaking this long time. If I've got to spare anybody out of my life I guess it might as well be him—that's how I stand. He belonged to the Better-Dead Club to start with, Sonntag did. If it was self-defence and you can prove it, I've got no kick coming. All I want ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... out on a balcony. The stars glowed above the palms; a frog was croaking. He managed to draw his chair so that he could look at her unseen. How deep, and softly dark her eyes, when for a second they rested on his! A moth settled on her knee—a cunning little creature, with its hooded, horned owl's face, and tiny black slits of eyes! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... my own supper for you, Goody, which is no better than a dry crust. But if you like to step in and warm yourself, you can do so, and welcome." "Thank you, my dear," said the old woman in a feeble, croaking voice. She then hobbled in and took ...
— Cinderella • Henry W. Hewet
... young were deposited. As not one was to be seen in the day, the old ones were probably, at that time, out at sea searching for food, which in the evening they bring to their young. The noise they made was like the croaking of many frogs. They were, I believe, of the broad-bill kind, which, are not so commonly seen at sea as the others. Here, however, they are in great numbers, and flying much about in the night, some ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... know Aunt Hannah. She cannot help looking on the darkest side. When I was a boy, she was always prophesying I'd be hung, you know. Positively, sometimes she made me fear I might be," said Ishmael, smiling, and turning an affectionate glance upon his croaking relative. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... noise that even the jackdaw did not seem to notice my entrance, and I looked to his cage on the side table. To my surprise the cage door was standing wide open and Peter was not there. But presently, from the school room, I heard him chattering and croaking. Following the sound of his voice I discovered the bird perched high upon the dominie's desk looking down at Baudrons, who crouched below him on the floor in the very act of preparing to spring, his checks swelled out and his great tail lashing ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... especially when clown swallowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he would laugh so outrageously that the lovely princess by his side would have to say, 'My gracious monarch, do compose yourself.' 'George, be a king!' were the words which she,"—his mother,—"was ever croaking in the ears of her son; and a king the simple, stubborn, affectionate, bigoted man tried to be." "He did his best; he worked according to his lights; what virtues he knew he tried to practise; what knowledge ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... brushed past so as to cause it to drop to the ground. She hastily plucked a few feathers, put them with the herbs and roots already gathered, and turned homeward. Everything was quiet and still around her, only at a short distance two crows flew up croaking. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... from this to the glow of the fire many times, but gradually my head grew heavier and heavier, until, at length, the stars became confused with the winking sparks upon the hearth, and the last that I remember was that the crackle of the fire sounded strangely like the voice of the Ancient croaking: ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... radiance of their happiness, and this thin, tall girl, all in black, with black hair fluttering round her pale face, seemed like a big black bird of evil presage: her skirts flapped round her knees like wings and her voice sounded cold and harsh like the croaking of a raven. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... made a word and said: "Why paceth the fool up and down our hall, doing nothing, even as the Ravens flap croaking about the crags, abiding the war-mote and the ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... this erroneous instruction of children in singing! away with this abortion of philanthropy and the musical folly of this extravagant age! Can such a premature, unrefined, faulty screaming of children, or croaking in their throats, without artistic cultivation and guidance, compensate for the later inevitable hoarseness and loss of voice, and for the destruction ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... into the bulrush beds, 'Midst the reeds and osier heads, In the rushy soaking damps, Where the vapours pitch their camps, Follow me, follow me, For a midnight ramble! O! what a mighty fog, What a merry night O ho! Follow, follow, nigher, nigher - Over bank, and pond, and briar, Down into the croaking ditches, Rotten log, Spotted frog, Beetle bright With crawling light, What a joy O ho! Deep into the purple bog - What a joy O ho! Where like hosts of puckered witches All the shivering agues sit Warming hands and chafing feet, By the blue marsh-hovering oils: O the fools for all their moans! Not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Sigurd, On the ways that go southward, There shalt thou hear The ernes high screaming, The ravens a-croaking As their meat they crave for; Thou shalt hear the ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... titillation he began to give forth broken, subdued croaks, and I wondered if he were going to break out in song. He did not, but he seemed loath to go his way. How different he looked from the dark-colored frogs which in large numbers make a multitudinous croaking and clucking in the little wild pools in spring! He wakes up from his winter nap very early and is in the pools celebrating his nuptials as soon as the ice is off them, and then in two or three days he takes to the open woods and assumes the assimilative ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Beneath the water.—Ver. 376. Some commentators are so fanciful as to say, that the repetition of the words 'sub aqua,' in the line 'Quamvis sint sub aqua, sub aqua, maledicere tentant,' not inelegantly [non ineleganter] expresses the croaking noise of the frogs. A man's fancy must, indeed, be exuberant to find any such resemblance; more so, indeed, than that of Aristophanes, who makes his frogs say, by way of chorus, 'brekekekekex koaex koaex.' Possibly, however, that might have been the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... means, you croaking old raven!" cried Ingleborough cheerily. "It's because they want to save their ammunition! They only want to fire when they have something worth firing at. As for the enemy, they have the whole town to ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." ...
— Le Corbeau • Edgar Allan Poe
... massacre," says a contemporary, "a number of crows flew croaking round and settled on the Louvre. The noise they made drew everybody out to see them, and the superstitious women infected the King with their own timidity. That very night Charles had not been in bed two hours when he jumped up and called for the King of Navarre, to listen to a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among the cardinals as to whom they should ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... convenient for what we were thinking of,' put in the eldest, with her croaking voice. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing |
