"Digging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interest them as they walked: men were busy draining, and building stone walls; ploughing and sowing, and digging, and planting. Yet, in the midst of all this busy life, George detected in his father's manner an air of melancholy. He looked into his son's face with affection, and pointed out to him with an apparent interest, ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... had not the heart to submit it to you. I sent it direct to Morley, with a Spartan billet. God knows it is bad enough; but it cost me labour incredible. I was so out of the vein, it would have made you weep to see me digging the rubbish out of my seven wits with groanings unutterable. I certainly mean to come to London, and likely before long if all goes well; so on that ground, I cannot force you to come to Scotland. Still, the weather is now warm and jolly, and of course ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "The accidental digging up of a skeleton, and the unwary and emphatic declaration of Aram's accomplice that it could not be that of Clarke, betraying a guilty knowledge of the true bones, he was wrought to a confession of their deposit. The learned homicide was seized and arraigned, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... as he had recovered from his fright and an illness which followed, he returned to his digging. It was necessary for him to bore under the subterranean gallery of the principal rampart, which was a distance of thirty-seven feet, and to get outside the foundation of the rampart. Beyond that was a door leading to the second rampart. Trenck was forced to work naked, for ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... good deal to do with fitting it on the last two or three years; and often, when looking my audience over in lecturing about Tony and his hardships, I am thinking about Mulberry Street and the old days when problems, civic or otherwise, were farthest from my mind in digging out the facts that lay ready to the hand ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... alike to artificial and to natural mounds. "We visited," he states, "two 'Fairy Knowes' in the side of the hill near the turning of the road from Reay Wick to Safester, and found that these wonderful relics were merely natural formations. The workmen were soon convinced of this, and our digging had the effect of proving to them that the fairies had nothing to do with at least two of these hillocks." The same may surely be said of that favourite and important fairy haunt Tomnahurich, near Inverness, though Mr. MacRitchie seems ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... write to live, you may cast up some rubbish from the surface; yet by the continual digging you will reveal all ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... she exclaimed, and then fell fainting in his arms. Laying her tenderly on the veranda, he directed a surgeon to attend her, and mounting his horse, rode rapidly in the direction taken by his brothers. Soon he saw them a quarter of a mile ahead. Taking a white handkerchief he held it aloft, and digging the spurs deep into his horse's flanks, he rode with increased speed, all the time hallooing at the top of his strong voice. John heard; but, thinking it a summons to surrender, he urged his horse forward, hoping to gain the sheltering wood. But the horse, in attempting to jump across ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... wild oats. It is this doctrine which was indirectly responsible for the hanging and burning of eccentric old women on the charge that they were witches. As men found a divine sanction for keeping women in subjection, so in those days of superstition did they blaspheme their Creator by digging out of the Old Testament, as a justification for their brutality, the text, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... human nature cannot resist digging in the melancholy hope of turning up grewsome remains. I know that you are all itching to put shovel into the debris of Casey's dreams, and to see just what ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... trained by the excellent Semler [famous over Germany, in Halle University and SEMINARIUM, not yet in England]—were sent into the Country: multitudes of German Mechanics too, from brick-makers up to machine-builders. Everywhere there began a digging, a hammering, a building; Cities were peopled anew; street after street rose out of the heaps of ruins; new Villages of Colonists were laid out, new modes of agriculture ordered. In the first Year after taking possession, the great Canal [of Bromberg] was dug; which, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... right," Urquhart said, "there isn't a way. I'm cornered this time. But there's just a chance for you—if you work at it. It'll begin to freeze—in fact, it has begun already. Now if you can find the shovel, you might employ yourself finely, digging a stairway. You'll ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... did we dig trenches. No, not the same thing as digging trenches anywhere! For it is really nearly as easy to dig trenches in the ocean. For every spadeful you throw out two fall in, and if, by the use of much cunning, you do manage to get a hole dug, then you ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... men as a rule set up their own houses as soon as they are able to do so; it is a life of work and buoyant anticipation, where men are equipping for the struggle, and laying the foundations of fortune, or digging the pit of indigence. Such conditions beget and foster good fellowship, and those who have spent time in lodgings can look back to whole-hearted and disinterested friendships, when all were equal before high heaven, hail-fellows well met, who knew no artificial distinctions of rank—when ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... dry, and fortune as it falls, good or bad; learning that a meal which is scanty fare for one becomes a banquet for two—provided the other is the right person; learning that there is some skill in everything, even in digging bait, and that what is called luck consists chiefly in having your tackle in good order; learning that a man can be just as happy in a log shanty as in a brownstone mansion, and that the very best pleasures are those that do not leave a bad taste in the mouth. And ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... bier borne by six piskies, and on it was the body—no bigger than a small doll, he said—of a beautiful lady. The mournful procession moved forward to the sanctuary, where Richard observed two tiny figures digging a wee grave quite close to the altar table. When they had completed their task, the whole company crowded around while the pale, lovely corpse was gently lowered ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... Alexander de Byknore; Henry de Chaworth had fifty-nine mines, and some forges; the timber wood of Kilcote was held by Bogo de Knoville; William Bliss held 180 acres of assart, and seventeen acres of meadow land; certain miners, named William de Abbensale, Walter and Elys Page, had been found digging mine at Ardlonde belonging to the Abbot of Flaxley, who at once removed them, and filled up the place. The question was now also raised as to the Crown possessing the right of conferring the tithes of ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... far into the night, the office force wrought unceasingly, digging away at the mountain of preliminary correspondence; and by the next morning the wire replies were beginning ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... of this important city was long doubtful; but in 1881 one of the most skilful and indefatigable searchers, Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, a gentleman who began his career as assistant to Layard, made a discovery which set the question at rest. He was digging in a mound known to the Arabs by the name of Abu-Habba, and had made his way into the apartments of a vast structure which he knew to be a temple. From room to room he passed until he came to a smaller chamber, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... belonging to the Parrish for Parrishioners, a catalogue of fees for burial under various conditions. Then follow The Parrishe's dutyes for the Bells (knells, peals, with small or large bells). Finally, The Clarke his dutyes for Parishioners (Bann-askings, weddings, churchings, grave digging, tolling the bells for funerals in various ways, and on specified occasions, etc.). All the above fees are doubled in case of non-parishioners. See also the Salehurst tariff of 1597, most comprehensive ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... left the house. I cannot understand how public opinion tolerated for so long the abominable cruelty of forcing little boys to clamber up flues. These unhappy brats were made to creep into the chimneys from the grates, and then to wriggle their way up by digging their toes into the interstices of the bricks, and by working their elbows and knees alternately; stifled in the pitch-darkness of the narrow flue by foul air, suffocated by the showers of soot that ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... turned away into the woods, to go slowly from tree to tree, to dig at them with his knife, to squint and stare, to shin a few feet up a trunk now and then, examining every protuberance, every round, bulbous scar. At last he shouted, and Houston hurried to him, to find the giant digging excitedly at a lodgepole. "I have ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... church—it took a good while; he leaned against low things and looked up at it while he smoked another cigarette. It struck him as a great pity such a pile should be touched: so much of the past was buried there that it was like desecrating, like digging up a grave. Since the years were letting it down so gently why jostle the elbow of slow-fingering time? The fading afternoon was exquisitely pure; the place was empty; he heard nothing but the cries of several children, which sounded sweet, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... large enough!" cried Shep, and then all went to work with vigor, pulling back such rocks as they could move and digging at the dirt with their bare hands. They had to make a regular tunnel ten or more feet long and it took them over an hour to do it. Their arms and backs ached from the labor, and their hands were scratched and their ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... the good-natured or liberal actions ascribed to the usurer, Levy had steadily pursued his own interests, he saw that Levy meant to get him into his power, and use his abilities as instruments for digging new mines, in which Baron Levy would claim the right of large royalties. But at that thought Randal's pale lip curled disdainfully; he confided too much in his own powers not to think that he could elude ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... slow, lingering, tormenting mutilation was practised on the living, as well as on the dead; and, in every instance, the brutality of the women exceeded that of the men. I cannot picture the hellish joy with which they passed from body to body, digging out eyes, wrenching off lips, tearing the ears, and slicing the flesh from the quivering bones; while the queen of the harpies crept amid the butchery gathering the brains from each severed skull as a bonne-bouche for ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... a hurry lest somebody ask him to treat; who has a chronic toothache —in the stomach—which nothing but drugstore whiskey will relieve; who keeps a jug of dollar-a-gallon bug-juice hid under his bed and sneaks to it like a thieving hyena digging up a dead nigger—rents his property for saloon purposes, then piously prays the Lord to protect the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... It continued to advance in the same direction, without intermission, for three days, and completely covered over the mound we had erected, and buried us all within. The intense heat of the place was intolerable; but guessing, by the cessation of the noise, that the storm was passed, we set about digging a passage to the light of day again, which we effected in a very short time, and ascending, perceived that the whole had been so completely covered with the sand, that there appeared no hills, but one continued plain, with inequalities or ridges on it like the waves of the sea. We soon extricated ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... the spare sails, and had fallen asleep, when Krantz set off to explore the island upon which they had been thrown. It was small, not exceeding three miles in length, and at no one part more than five hundred yards across. Water there was none, unless it were to be obtained by digging; fortunately, the young cocoa-nuts prevented the absolute necessity for it. On his return, Krantz passed the men in their respective stations. Each was awake, and raised himself on his elbow to ascertain if it were an assailant; but, perceiving Krantz, they again dropped down. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And this was not all; for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, the whole of the mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling water flows. And when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men could have done what he did without even thinking ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Terre Haute, Indiana, along the Wabash. The Butterick has been regarded as one of the most promising northern varieties. Reports which seem to be fairly well authenticated are to the effect that this fine tree has since partially died because of having its roots cut in the digging ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... took something from her belt and pointed it. A brittle report resounded—whick! And an electro-automatic pellet exploded almost between Parr's feet, digging a hole in the rock. He jumped back. So did his three comrades, from whose memories had not ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... they, like people hearing of a house on fire, with one accord would cry for water, and run from all parts with buckets full to the place. But when Caius Caesar, they say, was repairing the steps about it, some of the laborers digging too close, the roots were ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a long breathing spell, which the trio improved by strengthening their defense, digging up the dirt with their knives and piling it upon the mules. It was tedious work, but preferable to inactivity and ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... eighteen feet of the bank, he had found that the slope of the ground would average about two feet for that distance. The depth of the water along the bank on the south side had been about two feet. By digging three feet below the level of the bottom of the pond it would mean an average cut of six feet. Taking out a block of earth approximately eighteen feet by six feet, of one hundred and eight square feet, would raise the banks high enough to ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... signified assent, and Frank went out. Jim and Sorry, the two unpicturesque cowboys of whom Lorraine had complained to the cat, had already departed with pick and shovel to their unromantic task of digging post holes. Each carried a most unattractive lunch tied in a flour sack behind the cantle of his saddle. Lorraine had done her conscientious best, but with lumpy, sourdough bread, cold bacon and currant jelly of that kind which is packed in wooden kegs, one can't do much with a ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... his head a little doubtfully, but he was just then so busy digging down into the gravel with his hunting-knife that he had no breath to waste in the words of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the idols That your avarice gave birth, As you count the hoarded treasures That you think of priceless worth, Time is digging tombs to hide them In the bosom of ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... gaining acceptance for the scheme, and his appeal for funds was responded to well. The work was begun in the Autumn of 1910, and it was hoped that it would be finished before the Summer of 1911, but this was found impossible. The underlying foundation of peat was so deep that all hope of digging it up was abandoned. It was instead decided to heighten the general level of the ground by six feet, and to do so by filling in with earth and stone. The work was very laborious owing to the blasting operations that had to be carried out, but the ground has been enlarged in every direction, ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... travellers entered that wild and broken tract of the Crow country called the Black Hills, and here their journey became toilsome in the extreme. Rugged steeps and deep ravines incessantly obstructed their progress, so that a great part of the day was spent in the painful toil of digging through banks, filling up ravines, forcing the wagons up the most forbidding ascents, or swinging them with ropes down the face of dangerous precipices. The shoes of their horses were worn out, and their feet injured ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... officer, and then, as the people were used to mines and mining, a regular gold fever spread as if by swift contagion. Mr. Bennett was aroused and sold his farm, and I felt a change in my Oregon desires and had dreams at might of digging up the yellow dust. Nothing would cure us then but a trip, and that was quickly ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... clause. That, the plan of action was that they should lie by with patience; that, they should allow the Mounds to be gradually levelled and cleared away, while retaining to themselves their present opportunity of watching the process—which would be, he conceived, to put the trouble and cost of daily digging and delving upon somebody else, while they might nightly turn such complete disturbance of the dust to the account of their own private investigations—and that, when the Mounds were gone, and they had worked those ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... filled it and emptied it often upon the sofa, till she had done: when she was very well satisfied to find the number of measures amounted to so many as they did, and went to tell her husband, who had almost finished digging the hole. While Ali Baba was burying the gold, his wife, to shew her exactness and diligence to her sister-in-law, carried the measure back again, but without taking notice that a piece of gold had stuck to the bottom. "Sister," said she, giving it to her again, "you see that I have ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... over the trampled gardens and vineyards of France. A great volcanic lava field of flame and ashes—burning, smoking—many miles in extent—showed where Paris had been. Around it ragged creatures were prowling, looking for something to eat, digging up roots in the fields. At one place, in the open country, I observed, ahead of us, a tall and solitary tree in a field; near it were the smouldering ruins of a great house. I saw something white moving in the midst of the foliage, near the top of the tree. I turned my glass upon it. It was ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... to have the gardener prowling about in my garden. He is all over the place. The garden seems to have shrunk since he came. And yet, in spite of myself, I often stand watching the man when he is digging. He has such muscular strength and uses it so skilfully. He puts on very humble airs in my presence, but his insolent eyes take ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... two began to work until the perspiration stood out in drops on their foreheads. First the sod and rooty stuff, and then down around the gravelly mass below, they plied their digging tools. Taffy was not used to such toil, and his muscles were soon weary. But, urged on by visions of gold, he kept bravely ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... love her and that is sufficient. Why should my sister have to wear out her life digging in the ground when a senor like yourself pays attention to her? Besides," here the young rascal smiled mischievously, "this marriage suits me. You are not going to till the fields, you will take Margalida away with you, and the old man, having no one to leave Can Mallorqui ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said, 'Nurse, I am all right now,' says he, and died momently in her arms at the stair-foot. And she nursed an old farmer that lay as weak as master, and just when they looked for him to go, lo! and behold him dressed and out digging potatoes, and fell down dead before they could get hands on him mostly: and nurse have a friend, that have seen more than she have, which she is older than nurse, and says a body's life is all one as a rushlight, flares up strong momently just before ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... calendar with a picture of a girl in a wide-brimmed hat. The neighbours were helpful to them in building their cabin, making ditches, and in other ways. All that summer Torfi stood up to his hips in mud digging ditches, and when the bottom was worn out of his shoes and the soles of his feet began to get sore from the shovel, he hit on a plan: he cut the bottom out of a tin can and stuck his toe into the cylinder. And ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... has the cutting edge of its blade ground so it is slightly curved (Fig. 6), because, as the bit must be driven out so it will take a deep bite into the rough surface of the wood, the curved cutting edge prevents the corner edges of the bit from digging into the ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... however, a most unusual thing took place. Chirpy Cricket noticed a sound as of some one digging. It grew louder and louder as he listened. And it was not in the least like the scratching of a hen, looking for grubs and worms. This noise was deep down in the ground and like ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and the Loire, and so between the Atlantic and the Mediterraenean; wherefore the Canal of the Two Oceans was, and I suppose continues to be, its high-sounding name. But the Revolution came, and the digging never extended beyond that first dozen miles; and thus it is that the Canal of the Two Oceans, as such, is a delusion, and that the golden future which once lay ahead of Givors now lies a long way astern. Yet the town has an easy and ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... Colonel Ghest being sent with two hundred dragoons to reconnoitre the road leading to Perth, that the greatest panic prevailed in that town: immediate preparations were made for defence, and nothing was to be seen except planting of guns, marking out breastworks and trenches, and digging up stones, and laying them with sand to prevent the effects of a bombardment.[137] The Earl of Mar, nevertheless, does not appear, if we may accredit his own words, to have even then despaired of a favourable issue. The following letter betrays no fear, but speaks of some minor inconvenience, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... other horsemen followed him closely, and without waiting to assist the deh-baschi, exciting each other by their shouts, digging their spurs into their horses' sides, they gradually diminished the distance between ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... busy. The whole family was in the garden, Lasse Frederik digging, Pelle pruning the espalier round the garden door, and Ellen tying it up. The children were trying to help everybody and were mostly a hindrance. One or other of them was always doing something wrong, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in the center of the town there stood, Thick set with trees, a venerable wood. The Tyrians, landing near this holy ground, And digging here, a prosp'rous omen found: From under earth a courser's head they drew, Their growth and future fortune to foreshew. This fated sign their foundress Juno gave, Of a soil fruitful, and a people brave. Sidonian Dido here with solemn state Did Juno's ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... attentively, her head a little on one side, her eyes following the movements of Anna herself, who was digging about under the rose bushes in the backyard. Julia and Jim sat on the steps that ran down from the kitchen porch. It was a soft, hazy afternoon, with filmy streaks of white crossing the pale blue sky, and sunshine, thin and golden, lying like ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... give you mine," continued Michael, "for the inspector of police to play on while his men are digging up your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smoke. Some three hundred yards ahead of us the shells of German siege-guns were trying to destroy the road, which the poplars clearly betrayed. But their practice was at fault, and the shells fell only on either side. When they struck they burst with a roar, casting up black fumes and digging a grave twenty ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... men are cutting off the feet, others are employed in digging a circular hole in the ground some ten feet deep and three wide, the earth being heaped round the edge. An enormous heap of dry wood and leaves is then piled over the hole, set on fire, and allowed ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... awakened by the sound of voices near at hand, and peered out between the ties. The night was not dark. The voices had come from a man and a woman, and as Chi Foxy watched them the man began digging in the sandy soil with a spade. He made quite a hole in the soil and turned to ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... time advancing, the birds keeping pretty well abreast. Now, from time to time you will notice that a bird finds something to delay him and is left behind by the others. On they go—prod, prod, then a little run, then prod, prod again and run again—while he, excited over his find, and vigorously digging at the roots of the grass, lets them go on without him until he is yards behind. Whenever this happens you will see one of the advancing birds pause in its prodding to look back from time to time as if anxious about the one left behind; and by and by this same bird, its anxiety ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Strabo mentions pieces of a galley found three thousand stadii from any sea; and Dr. Allioni tells me, that Monte Bolca has been long acknowledged to contain the fossils, now diligently digging out under the patronage of some learned naturalists at Verona.—The trout, however, is of value much beyond these productions certainly, as it is closed round as if in a transparent case we find, hermetically sealed by the soft hand of Nature, who spoiled none of her own ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... horizon—except for the heaps of refuse mullock that showed where shafts had been sunk. A good many years ago, Bridget was told, there had been a rush to the place, but the gold field turned out not so good as had been expected, and it was only lately that the discovery of a payable reef had brought the digging population back again. From one direction came the whirr of machinery, and there was in the same quarter a collection of white tents and roughly put up humpeys. Otherwise, the township consisted of a long dusty street cutting the sandy ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... not wait to be told twice; he started his horses, digging his spurs into the belly of the one he rode and lashing the others vigorously. The mail-coach ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... just then engaged in digging about the roots of a palm in the window with one of her hairpins; "he likes to ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... poison." A missionary once asked a native convert why he had not attended mass. "Because you don't give me any tobacco," replied this hopeful Christian. To him, as to many others, says M. Garnier, going to church means working for the missionary, just as much as digging in his garden, and he therefore expects remuneration. The young girls in regions where there are missions established all wear chaplets, for they are good Catholics after a fashion, and generally refuse to marry pagans. This operates to bring the young men under the religious ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... mortals on earth, this Australian coaching was the worst. They went through Wagga-Wagga and Murrumburra, and other places with similar names, till at last they were told that they had reached Nobble. Nobble they thought was the foulest place which they had ever seen. It was a gold-digging town, as such places are called, and had been built with great rapidity to supply the necessities of adjacent miners. It was constructed altogether of wood, but no two houses had been constructed alike. They generally had gable ends opening on to ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... Kansas went at the warbags like terriers digging out a badger. Racey leaned on his elbow and watched them. What luck that the door had been ajar and that he had noticed it! If it had not been a life-and-death matter he would have ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... of finding the feet, Vixnu transformed himself into a hog, and went from place to place digging into the earth, but without success. For cogent reasons, Vixnu next assumed the form of a man and lion at the same time. Rutrem, it appears, conceived a strong friendship for one Iranien, a mighty giant, and granted him the privilege that no one should kill him either by day or by night. Instead ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... of his reign in the digging of canals, and in the erection of a splendid palace at Nineveh. He was finally murdered by his ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... reported by Hume. This creek they followed down, when it disappointed them by disappearing in the marsh. Without water, they continued skirting the low country until fatigue compelled them to stop, when, by digging shallow wells in the reeds, they obtained a small supply. From here they made their way by a different route to the hill that had terminated Sturt's late trip, and which he had christened Oxley's Tableland. Here they rested a few days, and ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... men were quite young ... their seniors barely middle-aged, not a man but was what they themselves would have termed both "fit" and "keen." They had wrought for many days in the erection of sand-bag defences, in the digging of trenches, in the drilling of Baraland Irregulars and Rifle Volunteers and the newly-enrolled Town Guard. This was the pleasant social time of lull before the storm, and they were not to get many more good dinners or peaceful nights in bed for a long siege ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... friendly informer what was in store for them. For two months they knew that they were standing over a mine which awaited only the proper moment to be touched off. Nevertheless, during this time they went about their usual tasks, digging iron out of the bowels of the earth, sowing their grain, planting and weeding their gardens, spinning their flax, tanning their hides, sending their children to school, and all betaking themselves to ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... drank it eagerly. Cadet then filled and gulped down a large cupful himself, then gave another to the Intendant, and poured another and another for himself until, he said, he "began to feel warm and comfortable, and got the damnable taste of grave-digging out of his mouth!" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... hand upon his head there was no joyous bound or lifting of the ears and tail—just a look of recognition, then a raising up full length of the slender body on his back legs, and putting a forefoot on each of my shoulders as far over as he could reach, he gripped me tight, fairly digging his toe nails into me, and with his head pressed close to my neck he held on and on, giving little low whines that were more like human sobs than the cry of a dog. Of course I had my arms around him, and of course I ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... he went on, presently, "Jack Eddring is fit to do other things. He's been digging around, like he maybe told you part way, for all I know, and he's found out a heap of things about you that you didn't know, and I didn't know. Miss Lady, as far as I know, you may be richer than I am before long. If you ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... passed away, during which Ready repaired the boat, and William and Mr Seagrave were employed in digging up the garden. It was also a very busy week at the house, as they had not washed linen for some time. Mrs Seagrave and Juno, and even little Caroline were hard at work, and Tommy was more useful than ever he had been, going for the water as they ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the island of Sor, near Senegal, have white flesh, and are well tasted, but do not burrow in the earth, so that we may suspect their digging themselves houses in this cold climate is an acquired art, as well as their note of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the bottom-board of the hives, the proper slant towards the entrance. At one end of this Protector, a wooden chimney should be built, and if the number of hives is great, there should be one at each end, admitting air in Winter, and yet excluding rain and snow. The earth which is thrown out in digging, should be banked up against the walls as high as the good brick, and in a slope which, when grassed over, may be easily mowed with a common scythe. The slope on the back should be more perpendicular than in front so as not to be in the way ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the premises. A peddler really had disappeared, somewhat mysteriously, from that part of the country some time before; and ready credence was given the statements thus spelled out through the "raps." Digging to the depth of eight feet in the cellar did not disclose any "dead corpus," or even the remains of one. Soon after that, the missing peddler reappeared in Hydesville, still "clothed with mortality," and having a new ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... short summer was passed in the usual work of prospecting: digging, panning, washing, or testing for gold. Permanent camp had been built by the men, and a number of Indian servants took precaution that every emergency should be provided for in case of a hard, long winter. Every kind of edible bird or beast was trapped and prepared for food, while ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... enterprise. Although the bill under consideration proposes no appropriation ior a road or canal, it is not easy to perceive the difference in principle or mischievous tendency between appropriations for making roads and digging canals and appropriations to deepen rivers and improve harbors. All are alike within the limits and jurisdiction of the States, and rivers and harbors alone open an abyss of expenditure sufficient to swallow up the wealth of the nation and load it with a debt which may fetter its energies and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... compass of a few rods we find a hundred men of the Third and Fifteenth lying stiff and cold. Beside these there are many wounded, whom we pick up tenderly, carry off and provide for. Men are already digging trenches, and in a little while the dead are gathered together for interment. We have looked upon such scenes before; but then the faces were strange to us. Now they are the familiar faces of intimate personal ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... servant would never answer her ring. On he came, until the sound of his steps was in her ears. He was scarcely ten paces distant when the door opened and she passed in. When she gained her room, she sat down faint and trembling. Here was a new element in the danger and disgrace that were digging her steps so closely. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... did not begin, however, at this period. By digging further into her memory Janet tells us about a girl in another town where they used to live, a girl who, when Janet was about 7 years old, wanted to show her about sex practices. Janet knew this girl to be bad by general reputation, and ran away when this offer was made, but it was ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... particular, that established routes of regular communication are maintained. To leave the trail after a day's journey, to wander miles into the hills, to herd the deer while they browse from slope to slope, digging the snow away in search of their provender, is wholly incompatible with any sustained or regular travel. The reindeer is a timid and almost defenceless creature. Wolves and lynxes prey upon him. One lynx is thought to have ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... straight in sundrie points, so that whereas before those that offended in killing of the kings deere were punished by the purse, now they should loose their eies and genitals, as the lawe was in the daies of king Henrie his grandfather: and those that offended in cutting downe woods or bushes, or in digging and deluing vp of turues and clods, or by any other maner of waie made waste and distruction in woods or grasse, or spoile of venison, within the precinct of the forrests, contrarie to order, they should be ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... of tools, as it happened, presented no serious impediment to the execution of their design. The grave was a shallow one, the freshly turned mould loose and friable. Digging with their hands, they soon uncovered the coffin, which they then contrived to raise and hoist over the cemetery gates into the roadway, where they sat upon it to conceal it from chance passers-by till four o'clock in the morning. It was then ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... said Kernel Cob, "showed us on a crystal ball a picture of them in the snow, digging for gold. So we thought if we got to the North Pole ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... broken and unsightly. Nobody exercises any care. If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... half-an-hour afterwards, he descended to the hall, and then Mr. Leek was summoned, who came out of the bar with such a grand rush, that he fell over a mat that was before him, and saluted the baron by digging his head into his stomach, and then falling sprawling at his feet, and laying hold ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... did, indeed, do their best to keep the pot boiling: early and late Michael was at work, either digging in the garden, fishing in the harbour, or, when the weather would allow him, going with the boat outside. Young as he was, he was well able, under ordinary circumstances, to manage her by himself, though, of course, single-handed, he could not use ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... to any methodical treatment of our subject, but will get at the truths of it here and there, as they seem extricable; only, though we cannot know to what depth we may have to dig, let us know clearly what we are digging for. We desire to find by what rule some Art is called good, and other Art bad: we desire to find the conditions of character in the artist which are essentially connected with the goodness of his work: we desire to find what are the methods of practice ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... before us. The man with the reins thereupon directed us to make a detour of the building and its fringe of beer garden, to a point where we would behold the spot we sought. I took Jim's arm and helped him to struggle toward the place. An old man in his shirt-sleeves was digging in a prospective vegetable patch with much lubrication of the horny hands of toil, in which he ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Brede House. So far there had been no one to oppose us, and now, setting spurs to our horses, we galloped over the private way, which ran along the side of a gentle hill until one end of the mansion came into view. It seemed likely there was no suspicion who we were, for a man digging in the garden, stood up and took off his cap to us. The front door looked like the Gothic entrance of a church, and I sprang from my horse and knocked loudly against the studded oak. An old man opened the door without any measure of caution, and I stepped inside. I asked him who ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... exclaimed Tom. "What's that about a peg? And then there's something about digging, too!" It was as though a sudden light began shining into his brain. He felt himself growing quickly very excited. "Read that over again, sir," he cried. "Why, sir, you remember I told you they drove a peg into the sand. And don't they say to dig close ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... man. But it seems to me to be a still more important object to awaken this honourable ambition in the breast of the peasant, and I do not see how this can be effected by any other means. So long as labour means nothing more than digging cane holes, or carrying loads on the head, physical strength is the only thing required, no moral or intellectual quality comes into play. But, in dealing with mechanical appliances, the case is different; ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... wallow and give his whole body a drink. He would soak there for hours, sucking it up with his parched lips that were cracked now and bleeding from the drought; and then—he woke up suddenly, to find himself digging in the sand. He was going mad then, so soon after he was lost, and with water just up the stream. The creek was dry, where he had found himself digging, but up above it would be full of water. He hurried on again and, ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... night the Texan put in digging a cave with a piece of slaty shale. The clay of the bank was soft and he made fair progress. The dirt he scooped out was thrown by him into ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... year old trees trimmed to a whip, digging a much larger and deeper hole than is really necessary to accommodate the roots, but I am sure this plan gives the roots a much better start than if they are crowded into a small hole, and particularly if the ground is hardpan or similar ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... assumed at the opening of his great treatise: that is, the division of labour. But the division of labour implies the organisation of society. It implies that one man is growing corn while another is digging gold, because each is confident that he will be able to exchange the products of his own labour for the products of the other man's labour. This, of course, implies settled order, respect for contracts, the ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... for so early in the morning," said John shortly. "After you've broken your back digging for a couple of hours maybe you ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... the dear child as sweetly resting on the bosom of the Saviour. May the Sabbath bring us a foretaste of heavenly rest." But it found them still "where storms arise and ocean rolls." The governor sent men to demand the digging of a grave, which the mob would not allow. Meanwhile, the profligate Mar Gabriel craftily suggested that a promise from the priest not to preach any more, might end the trouble. "Never," was the prompt reply. "Let ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... oak-tree for this strait. Jerome, after a minute of that blind groping and feeling, as of the whole body and soul, with which one strives to find some other way to an end than a hard and repugnant one, gave it up. He went up the avenue, holding his head up, digging his toes into the pine-needles, with an air of stubborn boyish bravado, yet all the time the nervous trembling never ceased. However, half-way up the avenue he came into one of those warmer currents which sometimes linger so mysteriously among trees, seeming like a pool of air submerging ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to have encountered a witch. We had one in this village a few years ago, and she may be here still, though I haven't come across her. She laid a malison on my chauffeur's potatoes—I had one once—and (as he told me) blighted the year's crop. He was digging in his garden when she, a dark-browed old woman with a beard, leaned over the gate and asked him for some kindling wood. He, a Swiss, who may not have understood her, waved her away, saying that he was busy. "You will get no good out of those taters," ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... whether their house happened to be in one place or in another, the important thing was to have one. Already they saw themselves in their shirt-sleeves, at the edge of a plat-band, pruning rose trees, and digging, dressing, settling the ground, growing tulips in pots. They would awaken at the singing of the lark to follow the plough; they would go with baskets to gather apples, would look on at butter-making, the thrashing of corn, sheep-shearing, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... her arm about him, and at the very moment she did so the man who had been digging found the necklace and picked it up, and at that the young Prince sank back senseless in his ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... principal localities for it in the United States, and where formerly extremely unique specimens were to be obtained. It has been pretty well exhausted, however, and the fine specimens are only to be obtained by digging into the veins of it in the rock, which are quite abundant on the south end of the walk, and, as I before noted, as deep as possible from the top of the veins, as it is a closely packed mineral not occurring in geodes, druses, etc. Two forms of it occur; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... neglected Muse has lain absolutely unnoticed by me for the last four months, during which period I have been digging in the mines of Scapula for Greek roots, and instead of drinking with eager delight the beauties of Virgil have been culling and drying his phrases for future use."—"I fear my good genius, who was wont to visit me with nightly visions in woods and brakes ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... town. But if they do look up for a moment they notice a pile of grey stones at the very top of the hill. 'Oh, that is the old ruined castle,' they say to themselves; and then they forget all about it and devote themselves to the important task of digging a new castle of their own that shall not crumble into ruins in its turn, as even sand castles have an uncomfortable way of doing, if they ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... desired to do, he would not have long remained, for in him was even then a 'slumbering genius,' But he himself once said that had it not been for his great love of work he never could have half succeeded. Ah, that's it; if ability to accomplish hard 'digging' is not genius, it is the best possible substitute for it. A man may have in him a 'slumbering genius,' but unless he put forth the energy, his efforts will be ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... eagerly denied being anything so inhuman. The skull had rolled into a grave he had been digging by the side of the almost forgotten grave of the poor player; and, as the manager had bespoken one for the play, he had thought it no harm to furnish him this. But he would put it back carefully into its place ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... District of Columbia and Alexandria cause gross pollution when storms force open their overflow gates, and we have seen too why the approach to this problem that formerly prevailed—the arduous, hugely expensive digging up of sewers and their replacement with dual pipes to carry storm runoff and sewage separately—is no longer considered satisfactory. For the more modern dual systems also contribute much trouble through the filthy rainwater that pours out into streams from the storm system and through the accidental ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... formed by the gentry for their own protection, and were accepted by the crown. The defenders coalesced with the United Irishmen, and the society adopted a military organisation. On different pretexts, such as a potato-digging, funerals, or football matches, large bodies of men assembled in military array; guns were collected, and pike-heads forged. Leading members of the United Irishmen pressed the directory to send an ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... profusion." Lucius Quintius, the sole hope of the Roman people, cultivated a farm of four acres, at the other side of the Tiber, which are called the Quintian meadows, opposite to the very place where the dock-yard now is. There, whether leaning on a stake in a ditch which he was digging, or in the employment of ploughing, engaged at least on some rural work, as is certain, after mutual salutations had passed, being requested by the ambassadors to put on his gown, and listen to the commands of the senate, (with ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... they came in sight of the cause of the sounds. A hatless, dirty, illy-dressed youngster of perhaps ten years stood by the roadside, howling and digging his soiled fists into his eyes as he blubbered. At sight of the horse and buggy this small sample of human misery looked up ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... home and in Parliament, when our general was sitting in the gallery hearing them discuss how much money they would give him, some of the members protested against our digging the old fraud up. It was a handsome thing for the general to go there ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... declared it most unreservedly as his opinion, that the negroes would not work after 1810—they were naturally so indolent, that they would prefer gaining a livelihood in some easier way than by digging cane holes. He had all the results of the emancipation of 1840 as clearly before his mind, as though he saw them in prophetic vision; he knew the whole process. One portion of the negroes, too lazy to provide ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to the cypress tree; he would discover if his wife's agitation, when he proposed digging about it, was in any way connected with the mystery which surrounded her. He believed that it was so, though in what manner it was impossible to divine. Perhaps there were letters hidden there—some ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... replied. "That is a difficult question to answer, Rollo, but I will try to explain. You know that here at home you see a few people very often whom you know very well. You play every day with your cousin Lucy and your cousin James, and Jonas instructs you in piling wood and digging potatoes. But that is not Society. In a great city like New York you will occasionally see a great many people whom you hardly know at all. That ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... from Sangamon County, Illinois, and her father had fought the Indians, and she told the school as many strange and wonderful things about Illinois as John had learned from his mother about Haverhill. But his allegiance to the teacher was only lip service. For at night when he sat digging the gravel and dirt from the holes in the heels of his copper-toed boots, that he might wad them with paper to be ready for his skates on the morrow, or when he sat by the wide fireplace oiling the runners with the steel curly-cues curving over ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... shining hair streaming far over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in the throes of ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... the fragments of the calabash strewed over the ground. We found the leaden mark upon them. The bullet itself was buried in the bark of the tree, and one of the hunters commenced digging it out with the point of ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... mountain every day. My daughter said she had not; but, woe is me, she was soon to hear enough of him. For one morning, before sunrise, as she came down into the wood on her way back from her forbidden digging after amber, she heard a woodpecker (which, no doubt, was old Lizzie herself), crying so dolefully, close beside her, that she went in among the bushes to see what was the matter. There was the woodpecker, sitting on the ground before a bunch of hair, which was ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... chest swelled with pride; for commendation from Uncle Andy was a scarce article. He too sat down on the fallen trunk and began digging at the bark with his knife to ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... outlandish names of which the charwoman spoke. His name was Ivan. Many a time did I wish it had been William or Matthew, and once, I remember, I dreamt a tantalizing dream of discovering that it was Oliver, and of digging up the middle of the O, and effecting a round bed of unrivalled brilliancy, with a white rose for the centre-piece and crown. Once in the year, however, I had my revenge. In spring my lilies of the valley were the finest ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... out all my store of tools, and gave every man a digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often as any were broken or worn out, they should be supplied without grudging out of the general stores that ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... he sang the way Americans usually sing, and had to do as well as he could in talking to bankers and investors not to look as if he were singing, but there it all was singing inside him, the seven years of digging, the seven years of dull thundering on rocks under the city, and at last the happy steel cars all green and gold, the streams of people all yellow light hissing and pouring through—those vast pipes for people beneath ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... being freed from slavery to a superstition to relapse into slavery to our lower selves. We are in danger of living for a living instead of for our lives. We are "on the make" instead of being engaged in making manhood. We are digging the lead of commercial advantage with the gold ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... bank on Little Neck, Long Island, where metallic nodules are now and then exposed by rain. Rustics declare them to be silver, and account for their crumbling on the theory that the metal is under a curse. A century ago the Montauks mined it, digging over enough soil to unearth these pellets now and again, and exchanging them at the nearest settlements for tobacco and rum. The seeming abundance of these lumps of silver aroused the cupidity of one Gardiner, a ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Smiling Pool, so he had no doubt but that he could soon make a hole through this dam. But almost right away he found trouble. Yes, Sir, Jerry had hardly begun before he found real trouble. You see, that dam was made mostly of sticks instead of mud, and so, instead of digging his way in as he would have done into the bank of the Smiling Pool, he had to stop every few minutes to gnaw off sticks that ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess |
