"Roost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brass band half drunk before the six o'clock train, on which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent five dollars paying the negroes to polish up their instruments and clean up the uniforms and it cost him twenty-five to bail the cornettist out of jail for roost robbing, and it takes a whole gallon of whisky to get any spirit into the drummer. He says tell you that as this is your shindig you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for me, and here's the kiss he told me to put on ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... upon his ear, and he shouted. Two sportsmen were returning from the Upper Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call. He was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said, 'he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a turkey on the ridge of a barn, for ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... no doubt you know, To which a fox is used: A rooster that is bound to crow, A crow that's bound to roost, And whichsoever he espies He tells ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... the hour was the desire to put down by a strong hand the depredations of these lawless robber hordes. Not a house in the place but had suffered from them, not a farmer but had complaints to make of hen roost robbed or beasts driven off in the night. Others had darker tales to tell; and Will Ives clenched his fists and vowed that he would be glad indeed to see the day when he and Simon Dowsett might meet face to face in equal combat. But it would be impossible to attack the robbers ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... numerous, were Crows, Kites, Hawkes, Cockadores* (* Cockatoos.) of 2 Sorts, the one white, and the other brown, very beautiful Loryquets of 2 or 3 Sorts, Pidgeons, Doves, and a few other sorts of small Birds. The Sea or Water fowl are Herns, Whisling Ducks, which perch and, I believe, roost on Trees; Curlews, etc., and not many of these neither. Some of our Gentlemen who were in the Country heard and saw Wild Geese ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... you before the neighbours. The honest softy is more often mistaken for a swindler, and accused of being one, than the out-and-out scamp; and the man that tells the truth too much is set down as an irreclaimable liar. But most of the time crow low and roost high, for it's a funny world, and you never know ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... began to break, and my head, after the labours of the night, began to nod, I was roused with a thwack betwixt my jaw and my ear which sent me backwards to the ground. When I picked myself up, I found it was the English fellow whom Ludar had put snugly to roost on the parapet an hour or two since. He had come to in no very merry frame of mind; and, finding the castle in the hands of the besiegers, and his own life not worth an hour's purchase, was minded to hit out a bit for his Queen before giving ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... fighting, George," said Phineas, chewing some checkerberry-leaves as he spoke; "but I may have the fun of looking on, I suppose. But see, these fellows are kinder debating down there, and looking up, like hens when they are going to fly up on to the roost. Hadn't thee better give 'em a word of advice, before they come up, just to tell 'em handsomely they'll be shot if ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rule Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep Under it all, his door sealed up and lost, Than the man fighting it to keep above it, Yet think of the small birds at roost and not In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? Their bulk in water would be frozen rock In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow They will come budding boughs from tree to tree Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee, As if not knowing what you ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... are all going to roost, and you must wait till morning to see the squabs, and broods of Brahmas and Leghorns. They look like snowballs ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the North hez took to brustlin' At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, I 'll tell ye wut 'll save all tusslin' An' give our side a harnsome boost,— Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question I 'm RIGHT, although to speak I 'm lawth; This gives you a safe pint to rest on, An' leaves me frontin' ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... is wont to harmonize the variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. They looked slouchy, listless, torpid,—an ill-conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of such fellows as an old woman would drive away from her hen-roost with a broomstick. Yet these were estrays from the fiery army which has given our generals so much trouble,—"Secesh prisoners," as a bystander told us. A talk with them might be profitable and entertaining. But they were tabooed to the common visitor, and it was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... extravagant theory that the cabby's singleness of purpose and concentrated view of life are the results of the hansom's peculiar construction. The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an unsharable seat, holding your fate between two thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, confined, bobbing like a toy mandarin, you sit like a rat in a trap—you, before whom butlers cringe ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... ferocity of the clans. Edinburgh opinion had changed very rapidly with regard to that same daring and ferocity. When the first rumors of the prince's advance were bruited abroad, the adherents of the House of Hanover in Edinburgh made very merry over the gang of ragged rascals, hen-roost robbers, and drunken rogues upon whom the Pretender relied in his effort to "enjoy his ain again." But as the clans came nearer and nearer, as the air grew thicker with flying rumors of the successes that attended upon the prince's progress, as the capacity of the town seemed weaker for holding out, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... hobgoblins, or probably cannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits of fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told. They scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls in a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves obscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they cannot show themselves, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and most of South America. Every farmer knows it to be an industrious scavenger, devouring at all times the putrid or decomposing flesh of carcasses. They are found in flocks, not only flying and feeding in company, but resorting to the same spot to roost; nesting also in communities; depositing their eggs on the ground, on rocks, or in hollow logs and stumps, usually in thick woods or in a sycamore grove, in the bend or fork of a stream. The nest is frequently built in a tree, or in the cavity of a sycamore stump, though a favorite ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... catching cold in searching over the house, have this morning been at the expense of new fastenings to the doors and windows. The next time, however, you rise, Richard, to alarm the family, you shall in future roost with the hens ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... the bushes, there came upon me a feeling of desolation, a consciousness that I was homeless. I made up my mind never to return to my mother and the Chatterer. I would go far away through the terrible forest, and find some tree for myself in which to roost. As for food, I knew where to find it. For the last year at least I had not been beholden to my mother for food. All she had furnished ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... say it is," grumbled Saxe; "but it seems to me that it would be easier to bear the pain. I couldn't forget a thing that's always reminding you that you are sore. But there, I am glad it's to-night. I shall go to roost in good time, so as to get a fine ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... and, to tell the plain truth, madame, we have lived nicely, although money was scarce, since she ruled the roost. Ah, these Jews are ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... days, just because they had been accustomed to feed their nestling for a certain length of time, till at last the youngsters started off to forage on their own account, and the family, as a family, broke up. From habit, however, or from good will, the youngsters kept coming back to roost on the branches beside the nest, and remained on the most friendly, though easy-going, relations with their ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... they will not go on the time there is too much attention given to dreams. A dream is a sort of a shadow, no profit in it to anyone at all. A coach now is a real thing and a thing that will last for generations and be made use of the last, and maybe turn to be a hen-roost ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... COCK.] A hen just killed from the roost, or yard, and immediately skinned, split, and broiled: an Irish dish upon any ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... extreme end of a village a Fox one day went to have a peep at a hen-roost. He had the bad luck to fall into a well, where he swam first to this side, and then to that side, but could not get out with all his pains. At last, as chance would have it, a poor Goat came to the same place to seek for some drink. "So ho! friend Fox," said he, "you quaff it off there at a ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... train pulled slowly into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summer population was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north to the south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for a certain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come—at the last moment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, 'She will, if humanly possible.' ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... came to the conclusion that they were plotting mischief; but he could form no idea of the nature of the plot—whether it was to rob a hen-roost on shore, or capture the wooden fort that frowned upon them from the heights above. He was sorry to see John permitted to enter this conclave of mischief; but because his brother apparently acquiesced in the plan, he hoped that no ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... mine in regard to the incomplete state of several of the stories of "Wolfert's Roost," he said: "Yes, we do not get through all we lay out. Some of those sketches had lain in my mind for a great many years; they made a sort of garret-trumpery, of which I thought I would make a general clearance, leaving the odds and ends to ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... too black a name in the Andredsweald. We should have to answer for every peasant we have hanged or hen roost ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... me a sneak and a tell-tale, and said that I was fitter for a nursery or a girls' boarding school than to come to sea. I said that I saw nothing sneaking in preventing men from being ill-treated, and reminded them of a proverb I had met with, "That curses, like pigeons, are sure to come home to roost at night." ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and pied. They turn up in small flocks so early in the summer that one might almost doubt if they could fly well enough to take care of themselves. On June 26th last summer nearly forty were flying about in the evening, and went across to roost on the eyot. Later numbers of blackbirds arrive, also moving down the river. Sand-martins, when beginning the migration, travel down the Thames in small flocks, and sleep each night in different osier beds. How many stages they make ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards looks like down till dey gits over three days old. You can go to a buzzard roost and see for yourself, but you sho better stay out'n de way of de old buzzard's puke. Dey sets around de little ones and keeps everything ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... life, Blackbeard afterward resumed his piratical career. He cruised around in the rivers and inlets and sounds of North Carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any longer. So they sent a deputation up to the Governor of Virginia asking if he would be pleased to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... suck the veins, and keep their victim quiet by flapping their wings over its head; they also fasten themselves upon the tail for the first reason, and a great loss of blood frequently ensues. Fowls are frequently killed by them as they roost upon their perches, for so noiseless and gentle are they in their flight and operations, that animals are not awakened out of their sleep by their attacks. The teeth are so disposed that they make a deep and triple puncture, and one was taken by Mr. Darwin in the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... stampeded for the cool wide stairs that led from the great hall. For while in summer the shadows on some vine-covered porch swallowed the lovers, in winter the stairs were generally the trysting-place—and the top step the one most sought—because there was nobody behind to see. This was the roost for which Kate and Harry scampered, and there they intended to sit until the ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upon he gave a wide berth except at night, and then he only approached them stealthily for such provender as he might filch. Before the week was up he had become an expert chicken thief, being able to rob a roost as quietly as the most finished carpetbagger on the sunny side of Mason and ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... than from a smoke hole, or from an aperture in the wall, closed at night with a tuft of grass. The calf and pig were seen as inmates, while the little furniture that appeared, was either festooned with strings of dried fish, or crossed with a perch for the fowls to roost on. ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... which he had a prodigious flock, were not yet turned into their fen, because a new scheme had occurred to Marvel, relative to some reeds with which a part of this fen was covered; on these reeds myriads of starlings were accustomed to roost, who broke them down with their weight. Now Marvel knew that such reeds would be valuable for thatching, and with this view he determined to drive away the starlings; but the measures necessary for this purpose ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, and Gladstone's greatest day was ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... and even the horses whinnied a little, though they were not what you might call children's pets, being broncos, and more apt to take a kick at you than to try to throw you a kiss. The chickens had gone to roost and didn't have much to say. They refused to come down for their supper, but the horses and the cow were very glad to get theirs. Then I milked the cow, told them all good-night, made everything about the barn as snug as I could, and shouldered my way through the storm ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... told Ellen you would. I knew it would only take a minute. Now, girl, you go home and tell Ellen, and we'll have a wedding in a fortnight and you'll come and live with us. We shan't leave you to roost on that hill-top like a lonely crow—don't you worry. I know you hate me, but, Lord, it'll be great fun living with some one that hates me. Life'll have some spice in it after this. Ellen will roast me and you'll freeze me. I ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Buckheath darkly. "She won't have to. If Gray Stoddard marries Johnnie Consadine, you and me will just about roost in the penitentiary for the rest ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... BON, I must babble about 'The Merry Men,' my favourite work. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks. Chapter I. 'Eilean Aros' - the island, the roost, the 'merry men,' the three people there living - sea superstitions. Chapter II. 'What the Wreck had brought to Aros.' Eh, boy? what had it? Silver and clocks and brocades, and what a conscience, what a mad brain! Chapter III. 'Past and Present in Sandag Bay' - the new ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yearly flooded by the river; over the reeds that fringed the elbow of the bend, and the tangled jungle of the grazing-grounds behind the still reeds. The parrots and crows, who had been chattering and shouting over their evening drink, had flown inland to roost, crossing the out-going battalions of the flying-foxes; and cloud upon cloud of water-birds came whistling and "honking" to the cover of the reed-beds. There were geese, barrel-headed and black-backed, teal, widgeon, mallard, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... awake. Roddy's bed was too short for her, and there was no ease in it, even had her mind and heart been at rest. All the fantasies she had beguiled from the boy's brain had come to roost in her own, with a hundred other vivid and painful impressions. The night, too, was fuller than usual of disquietude. The wind, which had been rising steadily, now tore at the shutters and rushed shrieking through ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... cried Mrs. Shepherd's shrill voice at the back door; 'why, don't ye hear that Mrs. Barker's hen-roost has been robbed by Dick Royston and two or three ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... New York every two weeks to see a show,' says the farmer, hanging up the receiver. 'I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight hours later. Oh, the pristine Hubbard squasherino of the cave-dwelling period is getting geared up some for the annual meeting of the Don't-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... 25 hens. With a large flock of hens the method successfully employed by one of the large coast ranches in stamping out an epidemic of the disease was to place a sulphur smudge, to which had been added a little carbolic acid, in the poultry house after the fowls had gone to roost. This was allowed to remain till the fowls began to sneeze, when it was instantly removed. The affected fowls were also treated by dipping the heads in a solution of ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... Mou said to Confucius, How dost thou still find roosts to roost on, Ch'iu, unless ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... aboriginal parent must have been a species which roosted and built its nest on rocks; and I may add that it must have been a social bird. For all the domestic races are highly social, and none are known to build or habitually to roost on trees. The awkward manner in which some pigeons, kept by me in a summer-house near an old walnut-tree, occasionally alighted on the barer branches, was {181} evident.[317] Nevertheless, Mr. R. Scot Skirving informs me that he often saw crowds of pigeons ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... in Joshua's domain was the quantity and the tameness of the game. The hen partridge scarce abandoned the roost, at the foot of the hedge where she had assembled her covey, though the path went close beside her; and the hare, remaining on her form, gazed at us as we passed, with her full dark eye, or rising lazily and hopping to a little distance, stood ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... uplifted, are very shy and cunning; as is well known, they nearly always post a sentinel in some tree top to keep watch while the rest of the flock is feeding in the field below. In the fall and winter, large numbers of them flock, and at night all roost in one piece of woods; some of the "crow roosts" are of vast extent and contain thousands of individuals. Crows nest near the tops of large trees, preferably pines, either in woods or single trees in fields. Their nests are made of sticks ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... the page, "for you will be presently interrupted; the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will wing to roost presently.—This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who was ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... with whose pedigree he was not thoroughly acquainted; and, truth to tell, he proved himself as great a thief as he was a genealogist among them. Many a time the unfortunate foxes from some neighboring cover were cursed and banned, when, if the truth had been known, the only fox that despoiled the roost was Raymond-na-hattha. One thing, however, was certain, that unless the cock was thoroughly game he might enjoy his liberty and ease long enough without molestation from Raymond. We had well nigh ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... delight, were to sleep in a balcony that ran across one end of the studio. The Marquise d'Ochte explained to them that this was quite customary in Bohemia, and that she and her husband had occupied a similar roost for several years during their ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Unintelligibility, they and it; and for commentary thereon, here and there an unmusical chatter or mew:—truest, tragicalest Humbug conceivable by the mind of man or ape! They made no use of their souls; and so have lost them. Their worship on the Sabbath now is to roost there, with unmusical screeches, and half-remember ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... He didn't even crow. I guess he didn't like the dark. He might have thought it was night, when the electric lights were turned out after Bunny had gone upstairs, and Peter may have gone to roost. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... fashion, by stealing. All she seemed to care about as her reward was pilfering, and a crown put into her hand, gave her less pleasure than a halfpenny which she had stolen. Neither was it any use to dream of ruling her as the sole male, or as the proud master of the hen roost, for which of them, no matter how broad shouldered he was, would have been capable of it? Some had tried to vanquish her, but ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... imagination—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... about Bedloe,—he'll get called in, he'll come home to roost like the rest of them," said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. "The people can't govern themselves,—only Bedloe doesn't know it. Some day he'll find ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... never will learn the art, and, as I am writing for men, and the ladies are not supposed to read this article, I will state that the fair sex show a like deficiency in this line. The first thing a woman wants to do with a fire is to make the logs roost on the andirons, the next thing is to remove every speck of ashes from the hearth, and then she wonders why the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... trick he knows. One winter morning some years ago, my friend, the old fox-hunter, rose at daylight for a run with the dogs over the new-fallen snow. Just before calling his hounds, he went to his hen-house, some distance away, to throw the chickens some corn for the day. As he reached the roost, his steps making no sound in the snow, he noticed the trail of a fox crossing the yard and entering the coop through a low opening sometimes used by the chickens. No trail came out; it flashed upon him that the fox must ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... feet high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was six ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... they saw; And when they had fed, "Neighbor Hen," the pig said, "Won't you stay here and roost in ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... hard by—a good man, and, to say truth, a good neighbour—though he was carried off from his allegiance in the late times by a d—d Presbyterian scoundrel, who calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long enough.—There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... you," said the old man. "Fun is all right in its place, but fun that hurts somebody else has a way of coming home to roost. Don't forget ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... plain ladies to enter. Two or three had yellow hair, yellower than mine, and Mrs. Ess Kay said they were actresses who always came back to New York in summer to wait for Things to turn up, just as chickens come home to roost; and that they were supposed ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... should not be carelessly hung on the hat rack in the royal hall for the flies to roost upon, but it should be thoroughly cleaned and put away as soon as the weather becomes too ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... with my fingers and thrust them aside. I would stand chewing my cud like a bull in the city market. And now he is so poor that I have to run here, there, and everywhere, and come home, like the pigeons, only to roost. Now here is this jasmine-scented cloak, which Charudatta's good friend Jurnavriddha has sent him. He bade me give it to Charudatta, as soon as he had finished his devotions. So now I will look for Charudatta. [He walks about and looks around him.] ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... the scene. Spasmodic bursts of lightning laid thin dull, unearthly flares upon the desolate land, and the rumble of apple-carts filled the ear with promise of disaster. The chickens had gone to roost; several cows, confined in a pen surrounded by the customary stockade of poles driven deep into the earth and lashed together with the bark of the sturdy elm, were huddled in front of a rude shed; a number of squealing, grunting pigs ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... be caught in an inconsistency!" he answered. "I've been afraid, though, that this desire to roost in one place was a sign of incipient ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... blossom? Gustation was meant to be delightful; and cooking is certainly half as good as tasting. At times one may have longed for the old Roman custom of two meals a day, and going to bed at chicken-time, bringing the hour of roast near the hour of roost; but this was probably in families where there were three repasts, with lunch all the way between, and an incessant buying of cookies from the baker, lest the children should go hungry. After this surfeit one pardons a recoil. Or, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... son Willie, this night, This ae night wi' me; The best hen in a' my roost Sall be well made ready ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... enemy attacked Stevenson's Division, along Buzzard Roost Ridge, east of railroad, and Mill creek gap with Geary's Division. They were easily repulsed. Lumsden's battery assisting by placing a few shells in the gap on the right of the attacking Division. ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... our track. Some indeed there are marked in a Spanish chart; but the frequency of the birds seems to evince, that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered: For the greatest part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out, that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening; for we never saw them early or late; and the hour of their arrival and departure gradually varied, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... sauntering along, and found places on the "roost." One of these was a burly fellow with a pugnacious face and a bold eye. He seemed to be no favorite among the boys, though they treated him with a certain amount of respect. Well, there is never a town or a village but has its particular bully; and for several years now Nick ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... contrast, but the corrosion of time and weather had blackened rather than mellowed the walls in a way which forcibly reminded the consul of Miss Elsie's simile of the "burnt-down factory." The view from the square tower—a mere roost for unclean sea-fowl, from the sides of which rags of peeling moss and vine hung like tattered clothing—was equally depressing. The few fishermen's huts along the shore were built of stones taken from the ruin, and roofed in with sodden beams and timbers in ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... some of his phrases always vexed her, and 'roost' was one of these phrases. In a flash he fell from a creature engagingly masculine to the use-worn daily ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... take a high part in high affairs when his own turn came. He was biding his time, and patiently looking forward to the days when he himself would sit authoritative at some board, and talk and direct, and rule the roost, while lesser stars sat round and obeyed, as he had so ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... monkey-like motions, and nip it with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths; and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious girl had committed the offence of boasting too much ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... moved from Chattanooga on the 6th of May, with the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Ohio, commanded, respectively, by Generals Thomas McPherson, and Schofield, upon Johnston's army at Dalton; but finding the enemy's position at Buzzard's Roost, covering Dalton, too strong to be assaulted, General McPherson was sent through Snake Gap to turn it, while Generals Thomas and Schofield threatened it in front and on the north. This movement was successful. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Peter had said, "and you can bet your boots no jailbird will ever roost on it if he thinks twice. And it's just that sort of thing that makes a man ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... would flap her arms and flutter back in a frightened manner and brace herself to the leap, as Gilby had done. She was aided in this representation by her familiarity with the habits of chickens when they try to get down from a high roost. The resemblance struck her; she would cry aloud to ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... are living sumptuously on our money, right around us in the city, we have to fight hard to keep skull and bones together. Bless you, there isn't a grave in our cemetery that doesn't leak not one. Every time it rains in the night we have to climb out and roost in the trees and sometimes we are wakened suddenly by the chilly water trickling down the back of our necks. Then I tell you there is a general heaving up of old graves and kicking over of old monuments, and scampering of old skeletons for the trees! Bless me, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he was able; The general purport of it was, that he had heard a letter had been sent to me, charging him, in conjunction with the king of Bony, with a design to cut us off: That the letter was altogether false, exculpating himself with the roost solemn protestations, and requiring the letter to be delivered up, that the writer might be brought to such punishment as he deserved. It is scarcely necessary to say, that I did not deliver up the letter, because ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the horses, which were nearly a mile higher up the river. Although I ran part of the way, the mud creeks filled up so rapidly, there was some risk of my being cut off from the shore and having to take up a roost on the top of the mangroves until the tide fell; I had time, however, to observe that the head of the tide carried with it thousands of fish of great variety, amongst them a very remarkable one from three to six inches in length, in form resembling ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... curse of war came home to roost. Henry V's abler but less brilliant brother, Bedford, stemmed till his death the rising tide of English faction and French patriotism. Then the expulsion of the English from France began, and a long tale of failure discredited the government. The nation had spirit enough to resent ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... principle, and a profligate in practice, he scrupled at no means to attain his object, and a violent attack on the peaceful dwelling of a defenceless woman was as consonant with his views as robbing a hen-roost. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... could not but wonder how it was this dusky hunter was able to secure the bird on such short notice. The turkeys, at the time he started to look for them, must have all gone to roost among the trees. The gloom was such that it was almost impossible for the keenest eye to distinguish them. They may have given some evidence of their presence, but Jack was surprised over the success of the red men in obtaining supper before, as may be ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... her arms, which she nearly let drop in her energies, was the coryphee of this chorus of tongues, which could be compared to nothing but bees in the act of swarming, or the cackle which the entrance of a fox causes in a hen-roost. We were no longer surprised at hearing the peasants whom we met conversing in a tone which we had mistaken for quarrelling. The French generally, indeed, are fond of noise and action and emphasis about what does not concern their own interests ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... "Spanish Voyages," "Conquest of Grenada," "Conquest of Spain," "Moorish Chronicles," and "Life of Mohammed." The influence of this historical research, too, you shall find in reading his romances: "Wolfert's Roost," "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," "Bracebridge Hall," ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... of Death, where his highness slaughters criminals in the same way as mentioned under the other tree. The space beneath the boughs is also swept clean. This tree is more spreading, and of another sort; it is crowned with the filthy vultures, which roost day and night in considerable numbers on its upper branches. Yusuf tells me the history of these trees, when the inhabitants were pagans. It was under them that the people sacrificed their oxen and sheep to the deity, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... sure enough double-in-brass roost," says I. "Don't say anything that sounds like contract, or you'll ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... most conspicuous is a Bombax or cotton-tree, 20 to 30 feet in height, with leafless horizontal branches bearing both flowers and fruit. Numbers of the Torres Strait Pigeon (Carpophaga luctuosa) crossed over from the mainland towards evening to roost; and at that time, and early in the morning, great havoc was usually made among them. Even this small spot produced a fine white, brown-banded Helix, not found elsewhere—it occurred on the branches of ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... soil being fertile exceedingly, the whole land is covered with a dense and rank vegetation. I have yet to find a square smig of it that is open ground, or one that is not the lair of some savage beast, the haunt of some venomous reptile, or the roost of some offensive bird. Crackers and Coons alike are long extinct, and these are ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... person at the head of the Militia Department known as Lieut.-General Sam Hughes, K.C.B. But there was no longer in Canada any such man as old Sam Hughes. The Fate chickens hatched in 1914 were coming home to roost. For two years the Government had carried on two wars, one with the Kaiser Wilhelm, the other with Kaiser Sam. It had to be determined that whatever defects government may have because it is a democracy—even ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the designs for the Christmas cards? Have not heard a word, pro or con. Guess no news is good news; for I notice 'rejected' work generally travels fast, to roost ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... course, for man the egoist. The more humorous spectacle is the one in which man finds himself awed by his own lies. His Gods, his myths, his phantoms come home to roost. He stands blinking in a veritable storm of lies. His yesterday's lies, his today's lies, his tomorrow's lies—all his obsolete interpretations, his canonized interpretations; all his systems, his philosophies; all his Gods ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... slow, luxurious swings while her sister was recovering from her tumbles. On this occasion, having indulged their respective tastes, they paused for a brief interval of conversation, sitting side by side on the gate like a pair of plump gray chickens gone to roost. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... Numbers, they must be united; If we have Strength, it must be all exerted; If we have Courage it must be inflamed, And every Art and Stratagem be practis'd: We've more to do than fright a Pigeon Roost, Or start a timorous Flock of running Deer; Yes, we've a strong, a warlike stubborn Foe, Unus'd to be repuls'd and quit the Field, Nay, flush'd with Victories and long Success, Their Numbers, Strength, and Courage all renown'd, 'Tis little of them that you see ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... care of it; and to do Master Fred justice, he executed the job in a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen-house with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens DID lay, he might carry off their eggs without their being missed. This hen-house stood in a little ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cacklers who harms, [25] The poor country higlers, and plunders the farms; [26] He steals all their poultry, and thinks it no sin, When into the hen-roost, in the night, he gets in; The twentieth's a thief-catcher, so we him call, Who if he be nabb'd will be made pay for all. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong as lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and a disgrace to the University—but never mind.) I often feel as if I should like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,—yes, and have it soaped from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down at the bores and the duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' association. (Jerry—still ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the other a no less attractive spot, the cabin of the indefatigable interpreter. I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now set forth the beauty and harmony of the world, seen from the loftiness of the divine roost: below all was dark, unjust, sorrowful; seen from on high, it all became clear, luminous, ordered: the world was like the works of a ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... pinched hard for the child's poor little outfit. He's got into debt for it. He's a Britisher, and has got two brothers fighting. Very dubious, dark children have been admitted already, as presumably Dutch. Dutch and colonials rule the roost here. And to leave Christianity alone, where does British Imperialism come in? It's risking spoiling a life, and the life of such a ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... and each one of them realized it. Their only safe course, indeed, was to remain hidden as they were in that cover till the night came again, when, tramp-like, they would take to the road once more, and, tramp-like, might rob some hen-roost to provide a meal for the morrow. Yet it was hard, and became harder still as the hours went by, to put up without even those scanty meals which had been accorded them ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... than six weeks these woods will be mine, and hang me, if I don't shoot every bird that has roost in them! Then, Miss Helen Armstrong, you'll not feel in such conceit with yourself. It will be different when you haven't a roof over your head". So ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... bushes. The net is first held upright about a foot from the bush, and the light thrown upon the back of it. The bush is then moderately beaten, and the birds affrighted and bewildered fly against the net, which is instantly closed. The bird is thus captured, and when a full roost can be discovered a large number may be taken in a single night. The lantern should be closed while not in actual use, and everything should be done as quietly as possible. The dark lantern in itself is useful without the net. The light often so bewilders the bird ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... through every jakes Plunging he wades besmeared, and fondly hopes In a superior stench to lose his own: But faithful to the track, the unerring hounds With peals of echoing vengeance close pursue. 160 And now distressed, no sheltering covert near, Into the hen-roost creeps, whose walls with gore Distained attest his guilt. There, villain, there Expect thy fate deserved. And soon from thence The pack inquisitive, with clamour loud, Drag out their trembling prize; and on his blood With greedy transport feast. In bolder notes Each ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... that may listen expensive, I have Vee's word for it that since Madame Battou has been doin' the marketin' the high cost of livin' has been jarred off the roost. I don't know how accurate Professor Leon is at countin' up the calories in every meal, but I'm here to announce that he always produces something tasty, with no post-prandial regrets concealed in the bottom ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... to keep his ghost in the body till his friends had got a good start away from him. As a further precaution they lit fires and put bushes in the forks of trees, with the idea that the ghost would roost in the bushes and warm himself at the fires, while they were hastening away.[224] Here, therefore, we see that the real motive for kindling fires for the use of the dead is fear, not affection. ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... I was as sorry as anybody. I climbed down from my cormorant roost, and picked my way between the alleys of aromatic piled lumber in order to avoid the press, and cursed the little gods heartily for undue partiality in the wrong direction. In this manner I happened on Jimmy Powers himself seated dripping ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... this thought came to me—'It is time that I settled down.' I don't know where the idea came from; one hears it often enough and it always seems to apply to some one else, but I don't know what brought it to roost with me. I was foolish, too: I bought ties and differently shaped collars, and took to creasing my trousers by folding them under the bed and lying on them all night—It never struck me that I was more than three times her age. I ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... in the open stubbles than in the enclosed meadows—the short white stubbs seem to reflect what little light there is. The partridges call to each other, and after each call run a few yards swiftly, till they assemble at the well-known spot where they roost. Then comes a hare stealing by without a sound. Suddenly he perceives that he is watched, and goes off at a rapid pace, lost in the brooding shadow across the field. Yonder a row of conical-roofed ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... sends the water spoutin' to the eaves. It's all plenty thrillin', you can bet! "My father, as I states, is pervadin' about, so clothed with dignity, bein' after my grandfather the next chicken on the roost, that you can't get near enough to him to borry a plug of tobacco. Once in a while he'd shasee up an' stick his hand in the water. It would be too hot, mebby. "'"Yere, you Ben!" he'd roar. "What be you aimin' at? Do you-all ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... up into the loft under the high peaked roof, where lay numberless forgotten things covered with the dim dust of years. There a flock of pigeons had made their roost, and flapped noisily out into the sunlight when he pushed open the door from below. Here he hunted among the mouldering things of the past until, oh, joy of joys! in an ancient oaken chest he found ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... were dark brown with the peaty earth which, well mixed with scattered bark, scantily covered the surface of its huge foundation rock. There was no pavement, and it was the less needed that the ways were rarely used by wheels of any description. The village was but a roost, like the dwellings of the sea birds ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald |
