"Scratching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Potts produced some peculiarly objectionable and shapeless woollen articles which he almost threw at me, saying that they were all he had in stock. Now I detest woollen socks and never wear them. Still, I made a purchase, thinking with sympathy of my old gardener whose feet they would soon be scratching, and while the parcel was being tied up, said in an insinuating voice, ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... yell as Boduoc thrust his spear up through the hole when he saw a pair of eyes, shining in the firelight, appear at the edge. At the same moment there was a sound of scraping and scratching at some of the other holes. The roof was constructed of rough poles laid at short distances apart, and above these were small branches, on which was a sort of thatch of reeds and rushes. Standing close under ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... plumage; these birds are very cautious and shy, and run rapidly through the underwood, rarely flying unless when closely pursued. The shell of the egg is thin and fragile, and the young are hatched entirely by the heat of the sun, scratching their way out as soon as they are born, at which time they are able to shift for themselves. [Note 25: For a further account of the LEIPOA, vide CHAPTER III. of Notes on ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... speech the Cook looked up and down, scratching his head in doubt, for he loved good feasting. At last he drew a long breath and said to Little John, "Well, good friend, I like thy plan right well; so, pretty boy, say I, let us feast, with all my heart, for one of us may sup ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... what I can do for you," said Heye, at parting, alternately snapping his suspenders and scratching his head. Though he was in his stocking-feet and coat-less, though the back of his neck was a scraggle of hair, Parker Heye was preferable to the three Swiss waiters snoring in the hot room under the eaves, with its door half open, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... were gone forth to pay visits; the clerks, shut away in their own room, were busy, scratching up a lovely case for nisi prius; the cook had thrown the sifted cinders on the kitchen fire, and was gone with the maids to exchange just a few constitutional words with the gardener; and the whole house was drowsy with that by-time when light and shadow seem to mix together, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... end, so as to pick up a coloured liquid and transfer it to the tablets as required. Until recently, it was thought that the Chinese scratched their words on tablets of bamboo with a knife, but now we know that the knife was only used for scratching out, when a character was ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... went to bed, when he had put out his light, he saw that the moon was very bright; and he opened the window and looked out, and saw the gleaming stream and the grey valley; he was turning away, when he heard a light sound of the scratching of claws, and presently the cat sprang upon the window-sill and entered the room. It was now cold and he got into bed, and the cat sprang upon his pillow; and Roderick was so glad that the cat had returned that while he caressed it he talked ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... into the loft, the Boy Stands watching, very still, prickly and hot with joy. He sees the dusty sun-mote slit by streaks of red, He sees it split and stream, and all about his head Spikes and spears of gold are licking, pricking, flicking, Scratching against the walls and furniture, and nicking The darkness into sparks, chipping away the gloom. The Boy's nose smarts with the pungence in the room. The wind pushes an elm branch from before the door And the sun widens out all along the floor, Filling the barn-chamber with white, straightforward ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... the hills, and who has been blind these three years: the marvellous grey-beard copied the book ages ago, when he was young and had a younker's itching for knowing more than his neighbours, from the manuscript of a travelling Tyrolese, and took the trouble of scratching likenesses of all the foolish pictures in it. Now however that he is blind, he can't see to read it; so I have bought it for young master Lorenz, our William here; and lo! the coxcomb ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... he stood there beside me, scratching his head. Evidently it was no less difficult for him to readjust his preconceived conclusions than it is for most human beings; but finally the idea percolated—which it might never have done had he been a man, or I might qualify that statement ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stretched their slow length into obscurity. The sound of breathing again became audible; the shape reappeared in the aisle, and recommenced its mystic dance. Presently it was lost in the shadow of the largest tree, and to the sound of breathing succeeded a grating and scratching of bark. Suddenly, as if riven by lightning, a flash broke from the centre of the tree-trunk, lit up the woods, and a sharp report rang through it. After a pause the jingling of spurs and the dancing of torches were revived ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... own. They were thin, like the rest of her body—the elbows thick, out of proportion to the arm itself. She bent it, and felt the sharp bone tentatively with her hand. Sally looked up, and she converted the motion of feeling into that of scratching, as though the place had irritated. Then she continued ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... There is no doubt, that if the stones could have talked, and if they had had no more sense than we have, whenever they found that their neighbor stones were rubbing them, they would have screamed out, "Oh! how you scratch;" never dreaming that they were scratching the other stones just as much at the same time. But fortunately the stones could not talk; and though they had not so much sense as we have, they had less nonsense, and that served them as well—so they took their rubbing quietly; and hence the smoothness of their surface, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... never seen, and touching up the bad engravings from his works submitted to him almost every day,—engravings utterly destitute of animation, and which had to be raised into a specious brilliancy by scratching them over with white, spotty lights, he gradually got inured to many conventionalities, and even falsities; and, having trusted for ten or twelve years almost entirely to his memory and invention, living I believe mostly in London, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... scratching," said the doctor, "to get a living out of Cobhurst, and I hope these young people will not come to grief while ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... was small, thin, and unwholesome looking; his red face, covered with an eruption, told of tainted blood; and he had, moreover, a trick of continually scratching his right arm. A wig pushed to the back of his head displayed a brick-colored cranium of ominous conformation. This person rose from a cane-seated armchair, in which he sat on a green leather cushion, assumed an agreeable expression, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... soft scratching, repeated, at the door. When it came again he rose and opened the door—at once the tall, shaggy dog slipped through the opening and glided past him. It startled Byrne oddly to see the animal stealing away, as if Barry himself had been leaving. He called to the beast, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... place over here," Evie exclaimed, wistfully. "You've got so many ornaments out-of-doors. Ma says she can't even grow a nasturtium on our place without the hens scratching it up." ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... take the cat away, but he held on tight, scratching all the time; and he bit me, he was so crazy. I finally got him and threw him out of the window, which was ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... wife was written that morning while Olga lay on the study-sofa, comfortably lazy for once, and listened to the scratching of his pen. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... be his lord. And then came the closing of the doors, and the Doctor in his robes, and the service, which, however, didn't impress him much, for his feeling of wonder and curiosity was too strong. And the boy on one side of him was scratching his name on the oak panelling in front, and he couldn't help watching to see what the name was, and whether it was well scratched; and the boy on the other side went to sleep, and kept falling against him; and on the whole, though many boys even in that part of the school were serious ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... couldn't do that, Miss," said the baggage-man, scratching his head. "We'd get into trouble ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... joyfully. For a long time, Margery sat aloof, playing with the baby. But when the excavating of the cave began, she succumbed, and began to grovel in the sand with the other two. She was allowed to come in as Friday's father, and baby Patience, panting at her work of scratching the sand with a crooked stick, was entered as the Parrot. Constant small avalanches of sand and soil from the bank powdered the children's hair ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... lady did not understand that. She merely wondered why the leopard had changed his behavior so suddenly. She now noticed that the leopard was bending down, and scratching the floor of the cage near the front of the bars—just as a pet cat or dog will scratch the floor outside your door to be let in. The lady wondered still more, and came a ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... hear something?" It was cousin Jack's hoarse whisper that broke the silence and awakened Mary from a beautiful dream and her eyes popped open wide. She snuggled closer to Mother and stared into the moonlight. All she could hear was a funny, little scratching sound, unlike any she had ever heard around camp, and she knew not what it meant. None of her little animal friends made ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... spent her heart on it. A note to her friend, the English lady, protested her love for Alvan, but with less abandonment, with a frozen resignation to the loss of him—all around her was so dark! By-and-by there was a scratching at her door. The maid whom she trusted brought her news of Alvan: outside the door and in, the maid and mistress knelt. Hope flickered up in the bosom of Clotilde: the whispers were exchanged through ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for each peasant Has something to tell 480 Of the crazy Pomyeshchick; His ears burn, I warrant, When we come together! And Klim, Son-of-Jacob, Will run, with the manner Of bearing the commune Some news of importance (The pig has got proud Since he's taken to scratching His sides on the steps 490 Of the nobleman's manor). He runs and he shouts: 'A command to the commune! I told the Pomyeshchick That Widow Terentevna's Cottage had fallen. And that she is begging Her bread. He commands you To marry the widow To Gabriel Jockoff; 500 ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... That Brimfield did not add another touchdown was only because her line, overanxious, was twice found off-side and penalised. Even then the ball went at last to within six inches of the goal line and it was only after the nimble referee had dug into the pile-up like a terrier scratching for a bone in an ash-heap that the fact was determined that Thacher had saved her bacon by the width of the ball. She kicked out of danger from behind her goal and after two ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... returned the smith, scratching his head as if a little puzzled; "but I know that poor men won't be overtaxed. They say they are better off with you than with the Barons before, and therefore they love you. But men in business, Tribune, poor men with families, must ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... calm, starry nights. Maloney's selfish prayer had been favourably received. Nothing came to disturb or perplex. There was not even the prowling of night animals to vex the rest of Mrs. Maloney; for in previous camps it had often been her peculiar affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent. But on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. I ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... irregularly. Though most common in summer, it is often severe in hot, close stables in winter. Pimples, vesicles, and abrasions may result, but as the itching is quite as severe on other parts of the skin, these may be the result of scratching merely. It is especially common and inveterate about the roots of the mane ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... of bread and part of another left beside some cooked chicken, and a number of live ones were scratching the ground outside, as if they had no concern in what ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... heard a scratching sound," said a voice, which Jack and Bob recognized as that of Higginbotham. "But I guess it was made by mice. This old house ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... being smaller than the other. This was a very proper provision; a large terrier might be incapable of penetrating into the earth, and a small one might permit the escape of the prey. Many terriers have lost their lives by scratching up the earth behind them, and thus depriving themselves of all ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a variety of uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when poor Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children opposite, by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into a pillow: lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether, with his head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out of the tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep himself, and dreamed, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... bottle of brandy, the neck of which was still held in his shut hand. The savage had emptied it to the last drop. Dick Sand's first idea was to take possession of his jailer's weapons, which might be of great use to him in case of escape; but at that moment he thought he heard a slight scratching at the lower part of the door of the barrack. Helping himself with his arms, he succeeded in crawling as far as the door-sill without ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... to see and hear; for instance, a covey of partridges, troublesome birds that come scratching and fidgeting about when one wants to sleep, were running to and fro in a ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... you?' said the corporal, bending forward and scratching his back with both hands, very pleased at the chance of some distraction. 'It's abreks one has to hunt here and not boars! You've not heard anything, Uncle, have you?' he added, needlessly screwing up his eyes and showing his ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... Scratching a match Ben followed her, so that she could see her way. For the instant the fireside was deserted. And then both of them grew breathless and alert as the brush cracked and rustled just ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... what scratching, what bristling and what hustling; The cock stands on the fence, the wind his ruddy plumage rustling; Like a soldier grand he stands, and like a trumpet glorious Sounds his shout both far and near, imperious ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... blue cutaway and square hat above large slops crossed the quay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards them at an amble, scratching actively ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... "Scratching herself!" slipped from Ideala, involuntarily, to her own horror and the delight of some. But she recovered herself quickly, and turning to the good Bishop, who was looking mildly astonished and much amused, she said: "There, my Lord, ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... approach, and beg defiantly. 'I am hungry. Give me something. Listen to me, Signor. I am hungry!' Then, a ghastly old woman, fearful of being too late, comes hobbling down the street, stretching out one hand, and scratching herself all the way with the other, and screaming, long before she can be heard, 'Charity, charity! I'll go and pray for you directly, beautiful lady, if you'll give me charity!' Lastly, the members ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Hairs Cause.—"A few years ago, I had trouble with my eyes. They felt as though there was something in them scratching the eye-ball. I went to an eye specialist, and he gave me two little vials of medicine to drop into my eyes six times a day. I doctored with him several months, and while the medicine reduced the inflammation largely, it did not relieve ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... social ostracism to the support of these preposterous theories and explanations of God and Man. Such theories"—went on Vivie, though her mother's attention had wandered to some escaped poultry that were scratching disastrously in seed beds—"Such theories and explanations, mark you—do listen, mother, since you asked ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... lairds were startled out of their propriety, and there was a general fear that she would meet some terrible accident. And Lizzie, instigated by jealousy, learned to ride as hard, and as they rode against each other every day, there was a turmoil in the hunt. Morgan, scratching his head, declared that he had known "drunken rampaging men," but had never seen ladies so wicked. Lizzie did come down rather badly at one wall, and Lucinda got herself jammed against a gate-post. But when Christmas was come and gone, and Portray Castle had been ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... he said slowly but with great conviction, scratching at his stomach as if he kept his ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... gotten him in after that sort, and laid him on a bed: she rent her garments upon him, clapping her breast, and scratching her face and stomach. Then she dried up his blood that had berayed his face, and called him her lord, her husband, and emperor, forgetting her own misery and calamity, for the pity and compassion she took of him. Antony made her cease ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... longer a giant of energy, initiating out of ample experience a tremendous and superb enterprise. He was suddenly diminished to a boy, or at best a lad. He really felt that it was ridiculous for him to be sketching and scratching away there in the middle of the night in his dress-clothes. Even his overcoat, hat, and fancy muffler cast on a chair seemed ridiculous. He was a child, pretending to be an adult. He glanced like a child at Mr. Enwright; he roughened ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... for the head"—Vicia Caroliniana—Vetch: Decoction drunk for dyspepsia and pains in the back, and rubbed on stomach for cramp; also rubbed on ball-players after scratching, to render their muscles tough, and used in the same way after scratching in the disease referred to under [^u][n]nagei, in which one side becomes black in spots, with partial paralysis; also used in same manner in decoction ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... was invited to a regular party. There was the invitation, in a three-cornered billet, sealed with a transparent wafer: "Miss C. Rudd requests the pleasure of the company of," etc., all in blue ink, and the finest kind of pin-scratching writing. What a precious document it was to John! It even exhaled a faint sort of perfume, whether of lavender or caraway-seed he could not tell. He read it over a hundred times, and showed it confidentially to his favorite cousin, who had beaux of her own and had ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a chatterbox you're getting to be, Unc," remarked the Magician, who was pleased with the compliment. But just then there came a scratching at the back door ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... dismay, when she leaped up on the stone-wall not far from her house Mrs. Fox could see Spot scratching at her door. And she guessed at once that ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... into his boots! In what manner came you by your end, Probka Stepan? Did you, for good wages, mount a scaffold around the cupola of the village church, and, climbing thence to the cross above, miss your footing on a beam, and fall headlong with none at hand but Uncle Michai—the good uncle who, scratching the back of his neck, and muttering, 'Ah, Vania, for once you have been too clever!' straightway lashed himself to a rope, and took your place? 'Maksim Teliatnikov, shoemaker.' A shoemaker, indeed? 'As drunk as a shoemaker,' says the proverb. I know what you ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... gobbling down a small cart-load of cord-wood with a garnish of a peck of paving-stones! A night in a station-house may not be so very unpleasant a thing, when taken from choice and with a certainty of the door being laughingly opened in the morning: Whiskey Tom or Scratching Sall, who visit the institution perforce, for small burglaries or big vagrancies, with a prospect of "six months" or "two years" at the end, may form a very different opinion ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Hold left hand as in a. Use the index finger of the right hand as a match, scratching it on the palm of the left hand and lighting the tips of each finger as ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... authority, placing in parliament, and many things more. And I fear me this land is not yet ripe to be ploughed: for, as the saying is, it lacketh weathering: this gear lacketh weathering; at least way it is not for me to plough. For what shall I look for among thorns, but pricking and scratching? What among stones, but stumbling? What (I had almost said) among serpents, but stinging? But this much I dare say, that since lording and loitering hath come up, preaching hath come down, contrary to the apostles' times: for they preached and lorded not, and now they lord and ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... wrong message, she was so angry that she threw a stick at him and split his lip, which is the reason why the hare's lip is still split. So the hare ran away and is still running to this day. Some people, however, say that before he fled he clawed the Moon's face, which still bears the marks of the scratching, as anybody may see for himself on a clear moonlight night. So the Hottentots are still angry with the hare for bringing death into the world, and they will not let initiated men partake of its flesh.[67] There are traces of a similar ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... busy scratching up the more or less kindly fruits of the earth for her family and didn't make the slightest sign of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... pet," said the pilot, gently scratching its head, and the snake opened its mouth and disclosed two sharp, pointed teeth right in the middle ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... hardly follow what you say. It's so complicated—a bit over my head, you know. But you astonish me! Are they in the habit of hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew, and they open the door. You lie on the paper—the sacred paper He's scratching on—He moves away, marvelous condescension!—and leaves you his soiled page. You meander up and down his scratching table, obviously in quest of mischief, your nose wrinkled up, your tail giving quick little jerks back and forth like a pendulum. She watches you laughing, while ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... which I heard myself for the first time this morning from Mr. Hervey. I am sure I am much obliged to him for having the courage to speak the truth to me." Here she repeated what Mr. Hervey had said to her. Lady Delacour never raised her eyes whilst Belinda spoke, but went on scratching out some words in what she was writing. Through the mask of paint which she wore no change of colour could be visible; and as Belinda did not see the expression of her ladyship's eyes, she could not in the least judge of what ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... just had 'em! They couldn't take their eyes off me. If I squirmed, they howled. If I stood on one foot, scratching the torn leg of my stocking with the other—you know, Mag!—they yelled. If I ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... explain as an emblem of the primitive waters the coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers of California, brought their ancestors into the world; or the wolf, which the Lenni Lenape pretended released mankind from the dark bowels of the earth by scratching away the soil. They should rather be interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, a wild people in Texas, of predatory and unruly disposition. They celebrate their origin by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, is buried in the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Skipper Bill, but yet doubtfully, "that 'tis one o' the Pony Islands. They lies hereabouts," he continued, scratching his head, "long about thirty mile off the mainland. We're on a westerly shore, and that means Islands, for we've never come t' the westerly coast o' Newfoundland. If I could get a peep at the Bald-head ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... their story, and he stood for a moment scratching his head, as if he were much puzzled to know what to ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... All my history, Bible and English, came to me through picture-books. I wept tenderly over the endangered eyes of Prince Arthur, yet I put out the eyes of many kings, princes, and governors who incurred my displeasure, scratching them with pins till only a white blur ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... a shrubbery in almost pitch darkness, and scratching my hands and face badly, I succeeded in gaining the rear of the little marble temple, and on hearing De Gex's voice I drew back and waited, scarce daring to breathe. I could hear my own heart beat as I listened intently ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... of them called it—now what was it?" said the child, looking up at the ceiling and absently scratching her head, as if to ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... or how it is to be taken out. The cave was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, or almost of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts at the latter posture. His sole amusement was the perusal of his old friend Titus Livius, varied by occasionally scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it made,' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... him, they found that the fig-leaves go covered his eyes, as to render him completely blind. What prevented him from scratching them off with his huge claws was, that these were so wrapped up in the leafy envelope as to render them perfectly useless, and no longer dangerous, had any one engaged with him in ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... together and tumbled to the ground, and seeing his success Jim kicked again and again, charging into the vegetable crowd, knocking them in all directions and sending the others scattering to escape his iron heels. Eureka helped him by flying into the faces of the enemy and scratching and biting furiously, and the kitten ruined so many vegetable complexions that the Mangaboos feared her as much ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... flung his arms round her, pressed her face roughly against his shoulder, smothered her cries remorselessly. Then raising her, aided by the man with the musket, he bore her, vainly struggling—and, it must be owned, scratching—after the ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... my dear" said Aunt Rachel to her favourite niece, Urith Trevelyan, who was spending the Easter holidays with her. "You look fit to be a sister in mind, though I hope not in manners, to the Persian poet, who described himself as 'scratching the head of Thought ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... his features were frightful. Of red eyes and grim visage, the monster beheld, while casting his glances around, the sons of Pandu sleeping in those woods. He was then hungry and longing for human flesh. Shaking his dry and grizzly locks and scratching them with his fingers pointed upwards, the large-mouthed cannibal repeatedly looked at the sleeping sons of Pandu yawning wistfully at times. Of huge body and great strength, of complexion like the colour of a mass of clouds, of teeth long and sharp-pointed and face ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... remarkable as a man of greedy and selfish views in life, excited some suspicion in the breast of an old sagacious countryman, a neighbour of Dr. Macleod, who asked him what he thought of John as a preacher, and of his doctrine. Scratching his head, as if in some doubt, he replied, "I'm no verra sure o' Jock. I never ken't a man sae sure o' Heaven, and sae sweert to be gaing tae't." He showed his sagacity, for John was soon ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... in great trouble and perplexity about Maurice, but his present strongest instinct was to get at a very fat fowl which, unconscious of danger, was scratching up worms at its leisure within almost ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... scratching sound began in the wall close to her head. "The mouse, the mouse," thought Mell, and she gave a shriek so loud that it would have scared away a whole army of mice. The shriek sounded all over the house. It woke the children in their beds, and rang in the ears of Mrs. Davis, who was ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... at whose other end there lay a ball of iron, weighing, M'sieu, some eighty pounds. That was for the great shy bear, rocking along ire his quest of berries or some tree that should ring hollow under his scratching claws, bespeaking the hive of the wild bees. The oiled and fur-wrapped Indian stoops down and looks along the dip. Ah! There he sees that which brings a glint to his small eyes. No bear, M'sieu, nor yet the trap he had left, but a thrashed and ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... his uncle exclaimed gayly. "What cares a prefect of Rome for the scratching hens of Lorium? As for me, most noble Prefect, I am but a man from whom neither power nor philosophy can take my natural affections"; and, as the parrot swinging over the door-way croaked out his "Salve!" (Welcome!), arm-in-arm uncle ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... well tell yer the whole on't", said Micah, scratching his head. "Yer see, he was one o' these Catholics, this Pat was, and the fellers went to the priest (he lives deown river, little better'n ten mile from here) in course to git him to dew what's to be done to the funeral, and the tarnal old heathen ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... disorder. The disease, once dormant, now fell on him suddenly and with full force. Perhaps these mental symptoms were its first indication. More annoying to his comfort, ulcers broke out all over his body. The itching drove the man nearly frantic. His mad scratching spread the sores. The boils developed. They ran with pus. So terrible was the stench that few would stay by him. The women fled the room in terror, driven away by the running stream of physical corruption, ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... neighbours, it behoved me now, in my turn, to try and see what I could do for myself; so, notwithstanding the remonstrances of my friend James Batter—whom Nanse, knowing I had bare feet, had sent out to seek me, with a pair of shoon in his hand; and who, in scratching his head, mostly rugged out every hair of his wig with sheer vexation—I ran off, and mounted the ladder a second time, and succeeded, after muckle speeling, in getting upon the top of the wall; where, having a bucket slung up to me by ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... cried Gobseck; the harsh, shrill tone grated upon our ears like the sound of a brass candlestick scratching ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... paper to the window, flattened it against the panes and read clearly the words, "If my" under the scratching lines, and smiled to himself as he guessed what the sentence ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... walked off, metaphorically speaking, scratching his head, as honest Giles had done literally in his perplexity the night before. He promised to call back in an hour or two, when he had been to the station and found out about the trains ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... was calling to the other Germans. Minna came and chirruped too—there was a sound of dull scratching on the window—then a little burst of admiration from Emma and Minna together. Miriam looked round—in Emma's hand shone a small antique watch encrusted with jewels; at her side was the new girl. Miriam saw a filmy ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... at her the same way, sort of absently scratching his head; but had to give it up, and said he didn't know—"must have been something that happened ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that he dug me out, but he roused my courage. I commenced to free my arms, my head, the rest of my body. Seeing this, he began scratching-with all his might around me, and then caressed me, licking my wounds. The lower part of my right leg was torn off, the left wounded in the calf, a piece of shell in the back, two fingers cut off, and the right arm ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... stops, When he opens his chops; I'm quite overrun With rebus and pun. Before he came here, To spunge for good cheer, I sat with delight, From morning till night, With two bony thumbs Could rub my old gums, Or scratching my nose And jogging my toes; But at present, forsooth, I must not rub a tooth. When my elbows he sees Held up by my knees, My arms, like two props, Supporting my chops, And just as I handle 'em Moving all like a pendulum; He trips up my props, And down my chin drops From my head to my heels, Like ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... said the rustic, scratching his head violently, as if to extract his ideas by the roots. "There be a voine large house on the road, about a moile vurther on. It's noa an inn, but the colonel zees company vor the vun o' the thing—'cause he loikes to zee company ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... herself in the thickest of the fight. To advance was impossible, to turn back equally so, and while meditating some means of escape she lost her footing and fell across a wheelbarrow which stood upon the platform, crumpling her bonnet, and scratching her face upon a nail which protruded from the vehicle. Nearer dead than alive, she made her way at last into the depot, and from thence into the cars, where, sinking into a seat, and drawing her shawl closely around her, the better to conceal the sad condition of her dress, she indulged ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... the table, and for some time there was silence in the room except for the scratching of his pen. Brand lounged in the easy-chair—amused himself by speculating as to the end of his adventure. Presently there was a sharp tap at the door. A messenger entered, and conversed for awhile with Domiloff in Russian. He was ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... raised her head from the pillow. It was a faint scratching—at the door, or at the window? She ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... rattling stir in the bare limbs above me. Was it some monster of the woods? Although I have more courage than most women, it startled me, and I stood still. The light came clearer; there was a rush toward me that shook the boughs. I peered upward. It was only a squirrel, now scratching his ear, as he looked down at me. He braced himself, and seemed to curse me loudly for a spy, trembling with rage and rushing up and down the branch above me. Then all the curious, inhospitable folk of the timber-land came out upon their ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... dinner being over, they had returned to the drawing-room. Rosa was writing at the table, and there was no sound in the room except the scratching of her pen, the falling of the slips of "copy," and the dull reverberation of the bell of St. Clement's Danes, which was ringing for evening service. Glory was sitting at the desk by the window, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... she said, not to herself but to an old blue hen who was scratching around the hollyhocks, clucking loudly. The hen had a motherly air, having launched so many families, and Mrs. Buck felt instinctively she ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... lumbering lad of about fifteen, half asleep, on the front seat, was holding the reins in his limp hands. But he was the only creature on the premises, except the horses, that was not acutely awake and supremely busy. Even the hens and geese, scratching and squawking about the garden, seemed to know that something unusual was in progress, and gathered about the door in excited groups. Inside the house there was a tremendous clatter; dishes rattled, feet ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... newspaper office and asked to be allowed to review a novel with the express intention of damning it because he had some grudge against the author. Half the exalted scribblers in London are busily employed scratching each other's backs, and if you aren't in their little gang, you either are not noticed at all in their papers or you are unfairly judged or very, very faintly praised. You've either got to be in a gang in London or to be so immeasurably great or lucky ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... perpetual stream, flowing in and flowing out. To be hungry and always eating, to be thirsty and always drinking, and to have all the other desires and to satisfy them, that, as I admit, is my idea of happiness.' And to be itching and always scratching? 'I do not deny that there may be happiness even in that.' And to indulge unnatural desires, if they are abundantly satisfied? Callicles is indignant at the introduction of such topics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are introduced, not by him, but by the maintainer ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... for a moment, drew out another letter, glanced through it, carefully scratching out a word or a line here and there, and handed it ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... He was already scratching his vise upon her passport. As he wrote, he said, cordially: "I hope your husband is all right again." The woman did not reply. So long was she in answering that they looked up at her. She was chilled with waiting in the cold rain. She had been on a strain, and her lips began to tremble. To hide ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... I don't know but it is," conceded Anson, scratching his head; "I hadn't paid much 'tention to it before. It certainly is a lee-tle too short. Lemme see: ain't no way o' lettin' it ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... Bridget now as she entered and settled on her shoulders and head, and pecked boldly at her shoes expecting to be fed. All the different little creatures in cages roused themselves too, and gave signs that they knew her in their various ways—by small scratching noises, by ruffling of feathers, and tiny squeaks. The jackdaw, who was free, at once came down from the rafters, and, standing before her in slim elegance, raised his blue-grey crest and said "Jark," the only word he knew. They ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... piece of paper I was hunting for. I wasn't scratching, either. Here it is. This is ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... she was disposed to laugh. "Really, Mr. Peck," she began, "I can't think it's so important that a little thing like Idella should be kept from coveting a kitten as that she should be kept from using naughty words and from scratching and biting." ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... ones! Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathered a few red hips to stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to the prison-drift and clucked and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble 'peete, peete,' and scratching with his sharp claws on the thinned granular sheet he soon broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled out of the hole. But that was all; the others, scattered he could not tell where in the drift, made no reply, gave no sign of life, and he was forced to leave them. When the snow melted ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... heard at the other end of the hall, the sound of the scratching of a match. A light appeared under the door of the front room, the door opened a crack, and a frowsy head was thrust out, with a candle held high above it, and eyes that were full of sleep peering into the ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... etchucation, mem! As if tey couldn't know ta silfer from ta prass! If tey wass so stupid, her nose would pe telling tem so. Efen old Tuncan's knife 'll pe knowing petter than to scratch ta silfer—or ta prass either; old Tuncan's knife would pe scratching nothing petter tan ta skin ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald |
