"Knee-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boggy, but the main portion was sound enough. Beyond this we came on an open plain, covered with water up to one's ankles. The soil here was a stiff clay, and the surface very uneven, so that between the tufts of grass one was frequently knee-deep in water. The bottom, however, was sound, and no fear of bogging. After floundering through this for several miles, we came to a path formed by the blacks, and there were distinct signs of a recent migration in a southerly direction. By making use of this path we got on ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... he would kill himself; but he kept on day after day, and had not even a cold until February. Then there came a south rain and a thaw, and Barney went to the swamp and worked two days knee-deep in melting snow. Then there was a morning when he awoke as if on a bed of sharp knives, and lay alone all day and all that night, and all the next day and that night, not being able to stir without making the ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... very foolish little deer, that for idle fear of falling victim to delusion, should absolutely refuse to drink, even at a pool. O deer, what can ever convince thee of the reality of water, if thou wilt not believe, even when thou art actually standing, as at present, knee-deep in the lake? Must the very future become present, before thou wilt trust thyself to credit what it holds? But thou askest impossibility, and like every other maiden, thou canst not experience the future till it comes. Hast thou, then, no faith in me at all? Out, out, upon the love that cannot ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... Mounting still, from the crafty foe Creeping and crawling up below; And, when thou canst no farther go, See thee crouch for the fearful leap Off the top of the old well-sweep, Then, with a swift and dizzy sweep, Plunge in the crusty snow knee-deep. Nor, for a lameness gotten so, Shall ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... then proceeded to Bridgeport, where we stopped for the night. From here we took horses and made our way by Jasper and over Waldron's Ridge to Chattanooga. There had been much rain, and the roads were almost impassable from mud, knee-deep in places, and from wash-outs on the mountain sides. I had been on crutches since the time of my fall in New Orleans, and had to be carried over places where it was not safe to cross on horseback. The roads were strewn with ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... keep them in sight. It was a hot and oppressive day; the air was filled with mosquitoes,—"so thick," says Champlain, "that we could hardly draw breath, and it was wonderful how cruelly they persecuted us,"—their route lay through swampy soil, where the water at places stood knee-deep; over fallen logs, wet and slimy, and under entangling vines; their heavy armor added to their discomfort; the air was close and heavy; altogether it was a progress fit to make one sicken of warfare in the wilderness. After struggling onward till they were ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... undertake the mournful task of burying our slain, the wicked but beautiful craft that had inflicted such grievous injury and loss upon us had slid away over the ocean's rim, and was hull-down. By this time also the water had risen in the schooner to such a height that it was knee-deep in the cabin. We lost no time, therefore, in committing our dead comrades to their last resting-place in the deep, and then proceeded to get the boats into the water, and stock them ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... himself up in his blankets, the sound of singing made him turn and look back. It was a wonderful sight which met his gaze, and those who have once seen a similar one are never really satisfied in any other place. The water looked flat like a mirror, and one or two cattle stood knee-deep in the edges of it. All around, just a vague black mass from which a warm mist of breath and hot bodies was rising, were the cattle, mostly lying down and contentedly chewing the cud, while a few wandered slowly about looking for one another ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... furnished with a long halter or tethering-rope: thus I ordered the syce and another man to jump into the river and secure the crocodile by a rope fastened round the body behind the fore-legs. This was quickly accomplished, and the men remained knee-deep hauling upon the rope to prevent the stream from carrying away the body. In the mean time Monsoor had mounted my horse and galloped off for assistance to the camp of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... with tumbled fragments of the glory that was Rajasthan. There, where courtiers had intrigued and flattered, crows held conference. On the crumbling arch of a doorway, that opened into emptiness, a vulture brooded, heavy with feeding on those who had died for lack of food. Knee-deep in the Man Sagar Lake, grey cranes sought their meat from God; every tint and curve of them repeated in the quiet water. And there, beside a ruined shrine, two dead cactus bushes, with their stiff distorted limbs, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... on the staircase among the firemen, fighting his way up through fire and smoke, for the purpose of saving Miss Tippet, until he was hauled forcibly back by Dale or Baxmore—who were in the thick of it as usual. Anon, down in the basement, knee-deep in water, searching for the bodies of his two shopmen, both of whom were standing comfortably outside, looking on. Presently he was on the leads of the adjoining house, directing, commanding, exhorting, entreating, the firemen there to point their branch at the "blue bedroom." Soon ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sweet Prue, knee-deep in the cool green grass, Spreads wide her pinafore, The ripe fruit falls in a golden rain, By two, by three, by four; With watchful eye and ready hand She lets no apple fall— As fast as Rex can throw them down She catches ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... one knew. I now became very anxious about the men in the trenches at Atlanta who were lying day after day, always under fire. Suffering from insufficient food, exposed to the scorching sun or equally pitiless rain, sometimes actually knee-deep in water for days. The bombardment was heavy and incessant, ceasing only for a while at sunset, when carts were hastily loaded with musty meat and poor corn-bread, driven out to the trenches, and the rations dumped there. Many of my friends were lying in ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... on the tariff, and a Louisianian was sure to be wrong. Therefore a Pennsylvanian was a much better representative than a Louisianian. Besides, SYPHER's hands were not red with loyal blood, neither had he waded knee-deep in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... observation from any of the servants next door, we moved noiselessly in the shadow of the bushes along the side of the premises, past a small conservatory, many panes of glass of which were broken, and so into the darkness of the small back garden, which seemed knee-deep in grass and weeds, and which, from its position, hemmed in by blank walls, could not be overlooked save from ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... morning dawned a calm, mild day. The snow was knee-deep on the ground and covered the housetops with a thick soft mantle. On how many utterly different scenes the stray sunbeams rested that winter morning. Nearly all the heroines of Miss Teazle's ball were sunk in heavy, tired slumber, in rooms strewn with laces and flowers and other fragments ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... ladder dipped from the gunwale of the barge a few feet down into the sea. The diver stepped upon this, turning with his face inwards, descended knee-deep into the water, and then stopped. Baldwin handed him the blasting-charge. At the same moment one of the supernumeraries advanced with the front-glass or bull's-eye in his hand, and the men at the pumps gave a turn or two to see that ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and roundness and softness. Here all things rested. Even the narrow stream ceased its turbulent down-rush long enough to form a quiet pool. Knee-deep in the water, with drooping head and half-shut eyes, drowsed a ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... It is late in the Afternoon, of a Perfect Summer Day. This Man From Down On The Farm, is standing on the Banks Of Wolf Run. He is thinking of You! Joyfully, not Regretfully! A Pastoral Scene stretches before him— a Scene of much Beauty! The Cattle stand, not "knee-deep in June" but well into the pure rippling Waters of an August Wolf Run, under the dense shade overhead, where arching branches inter-lock, casting a net-work of shifting Shadows on the bosom of the Peaceful Waters, which ...
— A Spray of Kentucky Pine • George Douglass Sherley
... knee-deep in green pasture, belly-deep in green water-flags by standing pools; cattle resting their long flanks while they chewed the cud; cattle whisking their tails amid the meadow-sweet, under hedges sprawled over with wild rose and honeysuckle.—White flocks in the lengthening ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... into the snow, knee-deep now, he sought Mukee, the half-breed. Mukee had suffered a lynx bite that went deep into the bone, and Cummins' wife had saved his hand. After that the savage in him was enslaved to her like an invisible spirit, and when Jan slipped on his snowshoes to set out into the deadly ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... woodland—fifteen-year-old maple sixty feet high—grounded on a private meadow-dock, none too big, where we moored to our own grapnels, and hurried out through the warm dark night towards a light in a verandah. As we neared the garden gate I could have sworn we had stepped knee-deep in quicksand, for we could scarcely drag our feet against the prickling currents that clogged them. After five paces we stopped, wiping our foreheads, as hopelessly stuck on dry smooth turf as so many cows in ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the rocks were left nearly uncovered, we forded from the island to the mainland. It was dark when we reached it, and for three hours after dark, bending under our packs, walking in Indian file, we pushed on in silence through the knee-deep snow upon which the moon, half hidden by flying clouds, cast a weird ghostlike light. Finally the Eskimos stopped in a gully by a little patch of spruce brush four or five feet high, and while Iksialook foraged for handfuls ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... but, discovering my mistake, turned about, and crossing the whole park came out upon the common and our old familiar cricketing ground. I flew along the dear old paths to our little cottage, but "Desolate was the dwelling of Morna"—the house closed, the vine torn down, the grass knee-deep, the shrubs all trailing their branches and blossoms in disorderly luxuriance on the earth, the wire fence broken down between the garden and the wood, the gate gone; the lawn was sown with wheat, and the little pine wood one tangled maze, without path, entrance, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of fear ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... solitary; not a soul was in sight. Close at hand, to landward, great hills, bare and green, shut off the sky; and here and there the land came tumbling down into the sea in great, jagged, craggy rocks, knee-deep in swirling foam, and all black with wet. The air was full of the prolonged thunder of the surf, and at intervals sea-birds passed overhead with an occasional piping cry. Wreckage was tumbled about here and there; and innumerable ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... which unites with the Isis to form the Thames, I believe. The Cherwell is a narrow and remarkably sluggish stream; but is deep in spots, and capriciously so,—so that a person may easily step from knee-deep to fifteen feet in depth. A gentleman present used a queer expression in reference to the drowning of two college men; he said "it was an awkward affair." I think this is equal to Longfellow's story of the Frenchman who avowed himself very much "displeased" at the news of his father's death. At ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... suggested rather than defined itself. A landscape developed such as Turner in a quiet mood might have evolved, and with it a feeling of fantasy, of remoteness, of pure, true classicism. A note of pipes was in the air, sheep bleated, and Daphne, knee-deep in the grass, surging an answer to the pipes, went ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... pastures (the "lilies" of the Song) still excite the admiration of travellers. Laurence Oliphant is lost in delight over the "anemones, cyclamens, asphodels, iris," which burst on his view as he rode "knee-deep through the long, rich, sweet grass, abundantly studded with noble oak and terebinth trees," and all this in Gilead. When, then, the Hebrew poet placed his shepherd and his flocks among the lilies, he was not trying to conciliate the courtly aristocrats of Jerusalem, or reconcile them ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... Stevens to that effect. By dint of great effort they made him understand what was required, and they then continued to make him jump in and out of the hogshead for several minutes; then, joining hands, they danced around him, whilst he stood knee-deep in the water, shivering, and making the most imploring motions to be set ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... people prayed to be buried here hardly less than in Westminster Abbey, and the lover of epitaph and monument will find occupation for many an hour. This strange, squat old building, under the shadow of the church, is the market, its hundred columns and chapel-looking fronts always knee-deep and more in baskets and fruits and vegetables, while its air still seems to breathe of old books, old painters, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... modern rifle and machine gun require that a fire-swept zone be crossed in the shortest possible space of time by attacking troops. But if men are detained under the enemy's fire by the difficulty of emerging from a water-logged trench, and by the necessity of passing over ground knee-deep in holding mud and slush, such attacks become practically prohibitive owing ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... amber, and their petals throw Rich crimsons on the lucent marble of the shrine Where snowy Dian lifts her pallid brow, As crimson lips of Love may seek to warm A sister glow in hearts as pulseless hewn. Caesar from Afric wars returns to-day; Patricians, buy my royal roses; strew His way knee-deep, as though old Tiber roll'd A tide of musky roses from his bed to do A wonder, wond'rous homage. Marcus Lucius, thou To-day dost wed; buy roses, roses, roses, To mingle with the nuptial myrtle; look, I strip the polish'd thorns ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... living the life of a dog, stripped to the waist, for he was working in a temperature of a hundred degrees. Now the way was blocked by a spring, and he had to work standing in the water; now by a deposit of loam, and he stood almost knee-deep in the mire; the atmosphere was nearly always foul, and many of his fellow-labourers succumbed to it; but new ones were ever ready to take their place. Finally Andrea, too, succumbed, and was taken into the hospital. He was tortured by ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... were windfalls that had to be avoided, and not a rod was there without a fallen tree. The horses, laboring slowly, sometimes sank knee-deep into the brown duff. Gray moss festooned the tree-trunks and an amber-green moss grew ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Intentions, are as limited in extent and duration as the forces of physical energy. The little cup that is made to hold so much can hold so much and no more, though all the purple vats of Burgundy be filled with wine to the brim, and the treaders stand knee-deep in the gathered grapes of the stony vineyards of Spain. There is no error more common than that of thinking that those who are the causes or occasions of great tragedies share in the feelings suitable to the tragic mood: no error more fatal than expecting it ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... fish-hooks. The fibres of the aloe are unusually strong; they make better cordage than hemp, but will not bear the wet so well"—a sight caught my eyes which caused me to stare. A tall young fellow, with his trousers tucked up, was wading knee-deep in the bottoms beside the road. He wore a suit ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... in low but excited voices between a young man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond, a small lake in the forest ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... neighbourhood; and a very vigilant watch was therefore kept during the night. Somewhat to their surprise, however, it passed away quietly, and the next morning they resumed their march. They were passing the borders of a thick wood, nearly knee-deep in grass, when Roger felt his foot strike against a hard substance which emitted a hollow sound, as it gave way before him. Stooping down, he rose with a human skull in his hand, white and clean. He and Vaughan examined it: the top showed a deep cleft. Others at the same time ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... of shallow mist was rolling; and the trees in the valley, like browsing cattle, stood knee-deep in whiteness, with all the air above them wan from an innumerable rain as of moondust, falling into that white sea. Then the moon passed behind the lime-tree, so that a great lighted Chinese lantern seemed to hang blue-black from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... grand old oaks, a single branch of which would have made a fine tree; the ponds of Boulogne; the varied views of the Seine, with the gay and sunny slopes from the walks running parallel to the river. Then the mill and its surrounding fields, quiet at times with browsing cows knee-deep in the rich grass, or at other times alive with merry mowers and hay-makers. Several views of Mont Valerien, looming in the haze of the after-glow, or in dark contrast with the splendor of the afternoon sunshine, also caught my husband's attention; as well as numberless other ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... are given by Mr. Campbell ("Tales of the West Highlands," No. 41, ii. 265-275). Two of the three daughters of a poor widow look into a forbidden chamber, find it "full of dead gentlewomen," get stained knee-deep in blood, and refuse to give a drop of milk to a cat which offers its services. So their heads are chopped off. The third daughter makes friends with the cat, which licks off the tell-tale blood, so she escapes detection. In a Greek story (Hahn, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Black Devil. The moon had not yet risen when the timber disappeared at the foot of the first shoulder. Douglas pulled up the panting horses, turned back to the wind and rested for a few moments, then put Tom to the climb. The snow was without crust but it was knee-deep and Tom didn't like it. He floundered and snorted, but Douglas spurred him relentlessly and they crested the shoulder without pause. Here, however, Doug decided to ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... were rising above the thick grass and carrying their fairy lamps into the lower branches of the feathery elms. "Haying" would begin next morning, and he would be wakened by the sharpening of scythes and the click of mowing machines. He would like to work in the Hamilton fields, he thought, knee-deep in daisies,—fields on whose grass he had not stepped since he was a boy just big enough to go behind the cart and "rake after." What an evening it had been! None of them had known it, but as a matter ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... king caused the signal for them to halt to be sounded, and riding up formed them in order again. The French were unable to take advantage of the moment to try and recover their lost ground, for the horses were knee-deep in the ground, upon which they had all night been trampling, and into which the weight of their own and their riders' ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... the low, ivy-wreathed stone wall that marked the boundary of the garden ran a little stream, overhung with alders and willows, under whose tremendous shadows rested contented cattle— some knee-deep in water, some browsing leisurely on purple-tufted clover. From the wide, hot field, stretching away on the opposite side, came the clear metallic ring of the scythes, as the mowers sharpened them; the mellow whistle of the driver lying on top of the huge hay ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... Fendue I said to myself, 'Ah, you accursed plague! If there was much game of your sort there would not be much sport; it would be preferable to work like a nigger!' So we all three arrive—the two tracks and I—at the top of the Schneeberg. There the wind had been blowing hard; the snow was knee-deep—but no matter! I must get on! I got to the edge of the torrent of the Steinbach, and there I lost the track. I halted, and I saw that, after trying up and down in several directions, the gentleman's boots had gone down the Tiefenbach. That was a bad sign. I looked along ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... Desires the steeds, And Misery the quarry. Use and Wont No help to human anguish bring, that bleeds For all two thousand years of Christian deeds. Let Use and Wont in styes still feed and grunt, Or, bovine, graze knee-deep in flowering meads. Mount! follow! Onward urge Life's dragon-hunt!" —So cries the sportsman brisk at break of day. "The sound of hound and horn is well for thee," Thus I reply, "but I have other prey; And friendly is my quest as you may see. Though slow my pace, full surely ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman
... the raft sink down considerably into the water. When Benedicto also entered, the framework of our vessel absolutely disappeared under water and only the short necks of the bottles showed above the surface. As we sat astride on the narrow longitudinal platform we were knee-deep in water. We took another small trip in mid-stream, and then decided that we would put the baggage on board and start at once on our journey ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... men dashed knee-deep into the water to relieve Walter of his burden; and as they did so, a dozen of the women stretched out their hands, and received the still unconscious form of her who had been rescued; meanwhile the knight and Guy Muschamp caught hold of Walter, who, fatigued and overcome with his ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... open mind there is no high and glad human life. You may as well point to the savage drowsing in his tent, or to cattle knee-deep in clover, and bid me think them high, as to ask me to admire where I can behold neither intelligence nor love. All that we possess is qualified by what we are. Gold makes not the miser rich, nor its lack a true man poor; and he who has gained insight into the fair truth that he is ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... Huge leathery lichens hung to the rocks in patches; and so tough were they, that one might pull on them with his whole strength without tearing them. In the crevices and tiny ravines between the ledges, there were vast beds of damp moss. In crossing these we went knee-deep, and once waist-deep, into it. The only plant I saw was a trailing shrublet, sometimes seen on high mountains in New England, and known to botanists as Andromeda of the heathworts. It had pretty blue-purple flowers, and was growing quite ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... a stone wall and dropped knee-deep into a field of hay and daisies. Toward the right, a quarter of a mile away, he could see the house of gray stone standing in the midst of wide, green gardens and approached by an elm-bordered drive. At that very moment he should have ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... opposite side of the burn, which was generally crossed by the aid of stepping-stones, but on the day in question the tops of the stones were barely visible. On crossing the burn the foot of the bride slipped, and the bridegroom, in his eagerness to assist her, slipped also—knee-deep in the water. The raven voice was again heard—it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the depth of the water so as to facilitate our exertions, but it was to no purpose. We were ultimately obliged to drag the boat over the flats; there were some of them a quarter of a mile in breadth, knee-deep in mud; but at length got her into deep water again. The turn of the channel was now before us, and we had a good run for about four or five miles. We had completed the bend, and the channel now stretched to the E.S.E. ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... the chivalrous Don Walter Raleigh," she responded. "Ah, but I am not a Queen Elizabeth. Nor is this London." She regarded with a shrug of distaste the stretch of mud-flats reaching to the tide-line, rubbish—littered and unfragrant. Knee-deep in its mire, bare-legged Indians and booted men drove piles for the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... grizzled old French soldiers serving a brass gun, long rows of tanned, saturnine Tennesseans, more regulars with a culverin, and rank upon rank of homespun hunting shirts and long rifles, John Adair and his savage Kentuckians, and, knee-deep in the swamp, the frontiersmen who followed General ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... tidies and placques and sofa pillows, and make mother let me have a fire, and receive my friends there evenings. May I dry my feet at your register? I can't bear to wear rubbers unless the mud or the slush is simply knee-deep, they make your feet look so awfully big. I had such a fuss getting this pair of French-heeled boots that I don't intend to spoil the looks of them with rubbers any oftener than I can help. I believe boys notice feet quicker than anything. Elmer Webster ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wonderingly, he saw that the salt plain seemed to be in motion, little waves passing away from where he sat; and then, as the truth gradually dawned upon his misty brain, he slipped off his pony, to stand knee-deep in water and begin to scoop up the soft cool fluid ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... towards winter, the rains came, torrential rains such as we thought we had never known the like of before. We heard that the trenches were flooded, and that our soldiers were eating, sleeping, and fighting ankle-deep (sometimes knee-deep) in water. At night, on going to our white beds at home, we had remorseful visions of those slimy red ruts in Flanders where our boys were lying out in the drenching rain under the heavy darkness of the sky. It was hard to believe that human strength could sustain itself against such ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... alabaster shore. As the vessel approached the land the explorers saw that the white wall of the inner harbour was a rampart of solid ice; but where the shore line extended out between ice and sea was a meadow of ferns and flowers abloom knee-deep, and grasses waist-high. The spectators shouted and laughed and cried and embraced one another. Russia, too, had found a new empire. St Elias they named the {21} great peak that hung like a temple dome of marble above ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... reflected that probably something had broken back there in the cutter, but worst of all, I realized that this incident, for the time being at least, had completely broken my nerve. As soon as I had brought the horses to a stop, I turned in the knee-deep snow of the field and made ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... South, and were for ever skimming over the brook, just dipping their wings into its limpid waves, then off again with the joyous 'Twit, twit, twit.' The meadows, too, were yellow with buttercups, in which the cows waded knee-deep. Talk of the Field of the Cloth of Gold! Francis the First would have been a clever man could he have made such an one!—no earthly king could create ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... Presently a crimson face rose over the boat's stern, blowing like a grampus. A pair of dripping epaulets followed; and then the Admiral stood up, knee-deep in water, and ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and went away knee-deep through the windy hill-grasses; white butterflies whirled around him as he strode, head on his breast; the swift hill swallows soared and skimmed along the edges of the smoke as though inviting him. From her rocky height she saw the priest enter ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... time to time to mark our progress, and over the fence into the bog meadow we proceeded; a rascally piece of broken tussockky ground, with black mud knee-deep between the hags, all covered with long grass. The third step I took, over I went upon my nose, but luckily avoided shoving my ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... you, you tiresome child?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, shaking Beth by the arm. Beth only sobbed the more. "Look," said her mother, pointing to a small lake left by the sea on the shore when the tide went out, where the children used to wade knee-deep, or bathe when it was too rough for them to go into the sea; "look, there's the pond, that bright round thing over there. And look below, near the Castle—that great green mound is the giant's grave. When the giant died they buried him there, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... escort for Gershom and the kiddies as far as the schoolhouse, and then rode on to Dead Horse Lake, in the hope of getting a few duck. But the weather was too fine, though I managed to bring down a couple of mallard, after one of which Susie, having removed her shoes and stockings, waded knee-deep in the slough. She enjoys that sort of thing: it's something so entirely new to the child of the city. And Susie, I might add, is already looking much better. She is sleeping soundly, at last, and has promised ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... sheep. George closed the gate, and we both waited until they came up. There were a hundred and seventy-five sheep in the flock, and they brought them up for the purpose of turning them into the vatches. Here they would be knee-deep in rank vegetation, and the poor things, glad to get to such juicy meat, would eat ravenously. The result of this would be that they would get filled with wind and would swell horribly, and if not immediately relieved would die a painful death. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Yerbury laid waste now. The town looks as if it were a sort of general house-cleaning, and every thing was thrust out of doors and windows. And it was so pretty!" with a curious heat and passion. "It was like a dream, with its winding river and green fields, and men at their hay, and cows grazing in knee-deep pastures. Now all the milkmaids are herded in mills and factories; and the children,—well, there are no children ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... of the suburb, which was almost knee-deep in mud—for it had been raining nearly all day, and had only cleared up after sunset—the individual whom we have been describing stopped at the corner of a street, and gave ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... flood-tide had obliged the pickmen to strike work, a sea would come rolling over the rocks, dash out the fire, and endanger his indispensable implement, the bellows. If the sea was smooth, while the smith often stood at work knee-deep in water, the tide rose by imperceptible degrees, first cooling the exterior of the fireplace, or hearth, and then quietly blackening and extinguishing the fire from below. The writer has frequently been amused at the perplexing anxiety of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for the high stands of wild hay around the ponds and lakes are all being cut this year, and even the timothy along the roads, and there was a mellow undertone of mowing machines everywhere, like the distant hum of a city. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in a stream as we passed, and others lay contentedly on the clover-covered banks. One restless spirit, with a poke on her neck, sniffed at us as we went by, and tossed her head in grim defiance of public opinion and man-made laws. She had been ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... bend over very low. Then, taking her hand, he guided her along an ascending gulley, knee-deep in fern and brake and brier, to a sort ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... they run!" sounded the loud cries, from the English within the fort. Their comrades on the outside hastened—scrambling, wading, straddling the log or knee-deep in ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... follows the Glommen and the Gula from Christiania to Throndhjem. Here is a mill with its dripping, lazy wheel, the type of somnolent industry; and there is a white cascade, foaming in silent pantomime as the train clatters by; and here is a long, still pool with the cows standing knee-deep in the water and swinging their tails in calm indifference to the passing world; and there is a lone fisherman sitting upon a rock, rapt in contemplation of the point of his rod. For a moment you become a partner of his tranquil enterprise. You turn around, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... of those calm noonday scenes which impress upon us their own bright and voluptuous tranquillity. There stood the old herdsman leaning on his staff, and the quiet cattle knee-deep in the gliding waters. Never did stream more smooth and sheen than was at that hour the surface of the Moselle mirror the images of the pastoral life. Beyond, the darker shadows of the bridge and of the walls of Coblentz fell deep over the waves, checkered by the tall sails of the craft that ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... crows circled above the voyagers, cawing in not unfriendly excitement. Smaller birds alighted on the raised poles, and several—a robin, a catbird and a little brown wren—ventured with hesitating boldness to peck at the crumbs the girls threw to them. Deer waded knee-deep in the shallow water, and, lifting their heads, instantly became motionless and absorbed. Occasionally a buffalo appeared on a level stretch of bank, and, tossing his huge head, seemed inclined to resent the coming of ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... billets and Transport were at Vieille Chapelle. The field where the latter had their lines was nothing but a mass of mud, in most places knee-deep. The Transport at this time shewed remarkable activity, limbers going backwards and forwards all day to Lacouture on some mysterious duty, which was by no means unconnected with the excitement which arose in "A" Branch of Divisional Headquarters towards the end ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... bolder from his companion's confidence, and the little notice the apparition seemed to take of them. "She hirples like a hen on a het girdle. I redd ye, Earnscliff" (this he added in a gentle whisper), "let us take a cast about, as if to draw the wind on a buck—the bog is no abune knee-deep, and better a saft road as bad company." [The Scots use the epithet soft, IN MALAM PARTEM, in two cases, at least. A SOFT road is a road through quagmire and bogs; and SOFT weather signifies ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... into Phil Adams's eyes, as he stood knee-deep in the boiling surf, and for an instant I think he meditated plunging into the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... reflected moons died out and a chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, and it was ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... Ashton-Kirk lounged in a comfortable window-seat, almost knee-deep in newspapers. The published accounts of the assassination were, in some instances, very sensational. Drawings, by special artists of persons concerned, were much in evidence, also half-tones of the exterior of 478 Christie ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... he kept his word. For two mortal hours he sat grasping his gun, with never a chirrup. But two unfortunates in the bow of the boat developed symptoms which I could not suppress; so, putting in at a picket station, with some risk I dumped them in mud knee-deep, and embarked a substitute, who after the first five minutes absolutely coughed louder than both the others united. Handkerchiefs, blankets, over-coats, suffocation in its direst forms, were tried in vain, but apparently the Rebel pickets slept through it all, and we exploded the wreck in ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... hardships of hunger, thirst, disease, lived like beasts and died like vermin for the sake of precious stones in the earth. Thalassa brought up before the young man's eyes a vivid picture of an African diamond rush of that period—a corrugated iron settlement of one straggling street, knee-deep in sand, swarming with vermin and scorpions, almost waterless, crowded with a mongrel, ever-increasing lot of needy adventurers brought from all parts of the world by reports of diamonds which could be picked out ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... "Cavalier,"[449] Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" of "hopes" Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear, Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the groups[450] Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thawed into a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... was given royal quarters in the old log-stable, which had been re-covered and almost rebuilt for his especial delectation, the great square stall, with its bed of dry oak leaves, in which he stood knee-deep, being sufficient to satisfy even Miss Mollie's fastidious demands for the comfort of her petted steed After a time Eliab Hill, to whose suggestion the whole plan was due, became also an ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Some showed groups of stalwart, immaculately clad young gods lolling indolently on tropical shores, with a splendor of palms overhead, and a sparkling blue sea in the distance. Others depicted a group of white-clad men wading knee-deep in the surf as they laughingly landed a cutter on the sandy beach. There was a particularly fascinating one showing two barefooted young chaps on a wave-swept raft engaged in that delightfully perilous task ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... And self-reproaches, should that hated line Admittance gain through any fault of mine! Cursed be the cause whence Gotham's evils spring, Though that cursed cause be found in Gotham's king. Let War, with all his needy ruffian band, In pomp of horror stalk through Gotham's land Knee-deep in blood; let all her stately towers Sink in the dust; that court which now is ours 280 Become a den, where beasts may, if they can, A lodging find, nor fear rebuke from man; Where yellow harvests rise, be brambles found; Where vines now creep, let thistles curse the ground; Dry in her thousand ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... tilth and cote, Of little woods and streams, Of gentle skies and clouds afloat, And swift sun-gleams! A land where knee-deep cattle keep, Chewing as they stand; Of hillsides murmurous with sheep— ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... fallen from the tree. Uncle Bart's son, Cephas (Patty's secret adorer), was a painter by trade, and kept his pots and cans and brushes in a little outhouse at the back, while Uncle Bart himself stood every day behind his long joiner's bench almost knee-deep in shavings. How the children loved to play with the white, satiny rings, making them into necklaces, hanging them to their ears and weaving them ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... us to keep together and to make our way down the river to Fort Kearney, the nearest refuge. It was a long and wearying journey, but our lives depended on keeping along the river bed. Often we would have to wade the stream which, while knee-deep to the men, was well-nigh waist-deep to me. Gradually I fell behind, and when night came I was dragging one weary step after another—dog-tired but still clinging to my old Mississippi Yaeger rifle, a short muzzle-loader which carried a ball and ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... other side of their own fence, knee-deep in dry uncut grass, they stood together a few paces from the gap he had made, and proffered their ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the roars of the Firedrake. Presently they sounded more like groans; and at last the Remora slipped up his legs above the knees, and fastened on his very heart of fire. Then the Firedrake stood groaning like a black bull, knee-deep in snow; and still the Remora ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... which might serve to shake stronger nerves than hers. At least, Mrs. Bute thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics, that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, and that they were to act accordingly. She had the street laid knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr. Bowls's plate. She insisted that the Doctor should call twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every two hours. When anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the poor ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... streak of dawn pierced the gloom of the deep valley, they were wading, knee-deep, a ford of the river, whose banks they had skirted throughout their journey. On the further side the forest, dank, green, and dripping with dew, received them into its impenetrable shades, but still the goldsmith toiled on; his heavy burden on his back, and the panting, weary, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Looking away, where the trees did not intercept the view, it was all green country—gently- sloping hills, and the long Eyethorne wood, and rich meadow-land, where sleepy-looking cows stood in groups or waded knee-deep in the pasture. It was like an earthly paradise to her senses, but just now her mind was clouded with a great distress. Mary's strange words to her, and the warning that she would be cast out of Mary's heart, that it would be again with her as it had been before entering into this new ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... choked up with icebergs and floes, which the frost soon locked together into a solid mass. Towards the close of the storm snow fell in great abundance, and when the mariners ventured again to put their heads up the opened hatchways, the decks were knee-deep, the drift to windward was almost level with the bulwarks, every yard was edged with white, every rope and cord had a light side and a dark, every point and truck had a white button on it, and every hole, corner, crack, and ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... little stream, too indolent to pass, Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs, That build amid the glare a shadowy house, And with a Paradisal freshness brims Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade; The antic water-fly above it skims, And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade, Or knee-deep ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... the Persians who had been appointed for this purpose entered Babylon by the bed of the river, the water of which was little more than knee-deep. If the Babylonians had been before apprized of the intentions of Cyrus, or if they had learned at the moment what he was doing, they would not have suffered the Persians to enter the city, nor would ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... unremitting fury. At times it seemed more than rain—there were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By noon of the second day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; coops floated in slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep in certain places; the horses drew back—it was like fording a stream. People ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... indomitable lady, having preferred the less expensive mode of walking, entering a strange world. Sauntering along the Bowery she turns down Bayard street. Bayard street she finds lined with filthy looking houses, swarming with sickly, ragged, and besotted poor; the street is knee-deep with corrupting mire; carts are tilted here and there at intervals; the very air seems hurling its pestilence into your blood. Ghastly-eyed and squallid children, like ants in quest of food, creep and swarm over the pavement, begging for bread or uttering profane oaths at one another. Mothers ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" ...
— The Shield • Various
... enjoyed it. A morning scamper through a conservatory when the syringas and Jonquils and Jack roses lie cuddled up together in their little beds, is a thing to remember and look back to and pay for. To stand knee-deep in glass and gladiolas, to smell the mashed and mussed up mignonette and the last fragrant sigh of the scrunched heliotrope beneath the hoof of your horse, while far away the deep-mouthed baying of the hoarse hounds, hotly hugging ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... and dismal shrieks and whistlings sounded in the ears. The Sea Queen sank, and a whole tide of sea rushed over the bulwarks and flooded the state-rooms. The water ran knee-deep and set the bodies of the dead awash. One struck against me in the whirlpool. It was a ghastly scene, ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... ho! Fair maids and matrons come and buy!" Along the road, in morning's glow, The pedlar raised his wonted cry. The road ran straight, a red, red line, To Khirogram, for cream renowned, Through pasture-meadows where the kine, In knee-deep grass, stood magic bound And half awake, involved in mist, That floated in dun coils profound, Till by the sudden sunbeams kist Rich rainbow ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... a shallow bay, standing knee-deep in the water, and rooting up the lily stems with his long, pendulous nose, was the biggest and blackest bull moose in the world. As he pulled the roots from the mud and tossed up his dripping head I could see his horns—four ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... and that, so far as he could ascertain by feeling, the shaft was not bent. But things looked pretty dismal below-decks. The forward cabin was awash, as was the engine-well, and the after stateroom was knee-deep. They gathered on the bridge deck and ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... three or four acres of land as of right. This fostered an independent spirit and made their affection a tribute worth the winning.[8] Later on that same year, when winter came, earlier than its wont, the fells were knee-deep in snow and all the beasts were brought for shelter round the farm to protect them from the snow-drifts and bitter ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... is won, the seed is sown, Here toileth many a maid, And ere the hay knee-deep hath grown Your grooms ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... constantly, you have the broken line of the Claudian Aqueduct, carrying its broad arches far away into the plain. The meadows along which it lies are not the smoothest in the world for a gallop, but there is no pleasure greater than to wander near it. It stands knee-deep in the flower-strewn grass, and its rugged piers are hung with ivy as the columns of a church are draped for a festa. Every archway is a picture, massively framed, of the distance beyond—of the snow-tipped Sabines and lonely ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... floundered to my feet covered with slime, the blood running down my arms from a scrape against a barnacled stake, I knew that I was drunk. But what of it? Across the channel two strong sailormen lay unconscious in their bunks where I had drunk them. I WAS a man. I was still on my legs, if they were knee-deep in mud. I disdained to get back into the skiff. I waded through the mud, shoving the skiff before me and yammering the chant of ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... continues to wade knee-deep in tragedy, in spite of the state of the weather. The fare is, however, too good for any change in the carte. "Werner" forms a substantial standing dish. The "Boarding School" makes a most palpable entree; while "Bob Short," and "My Friend the Captain," serve as excellent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... knee-deep in the brook, looked up, startled. Rosemary stared and Shirley looked interested. As for Richard and Warren, they ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... his egoism; and each reader will probably pass judgment on Drake according as the reader's ideal of manhood is the altruist or the egoist, the Christ-type or "the great blond beast" of modern philosophic thought, the man supremely indifferent to all but self, glorying in triumph though it be knee-deep in blood. Nor must we moderns pass too hypocritical judgment on the hero of the Drake type. Drake had invested capital in his venture. He had the blessing of Church and State on what he was about to do, and what he did was to take what he had strength ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... and collapsed them into corpses. Captain Twiggs, of the staff, in executing some orders was found apparently dead. He was untouched, but lifeless, and only strong restoratives brought him back to animation, and the commanding officer was buried knee-deep in sand and had to be rescued by spades from his imprisonment. The day wore on, hours followed hours of anxiety and grim endurance, but no respite ensued. At last night came; not however, to herald a cessation of the strife, but to usher in a conflict still ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... been thrown over the night before as pickets having been fired on by a detachment of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and returning the fire promptly. But this served only to stimulate the already keen energies of the Federal forces, who waded knee-deep through the clear Potomac, and trudged along over the 'sacred soil' with a willingness unchecked by the cold nor'wester that raged on that July morning. That portion of Berkeley County, Virginia, which lies opposite to Willlamsport, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... accomplished, David, laden with a tin pail in each hand and carrying in his pocket a drawing of black tea for his mother to sample, made his way through sheep-dotted pastures to Beechum's woods, and thence along the bank of the River Rood. Presently he spied a young man standing knee-deep in the stream in the ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... guns, and whose excited shouts and commands were plainly heard on board as the boat passed close under the batteries. On deck, exposed alike to the storm and to the enemy's fire, were two men; one, Charles Wilson, a seaman, heaving the lead, standing sometimes knee-deep in the water that boiled over the forecastle; the other, an officer, Theodore Gilmore, on the upper deck forward, repeating to the pilot the leadsman's muttered "No bottom." The storm spread its sheltering wing over the gallant vessel, baffling the excited efforts of the enemy, before ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... emerged from tents and sprang through the white leaping edge into the rocking blue, as other bathers were doing all round the bay. When Mrs. Hilary came out of her tent, Neville was waiting for her, poised like a slim girl, knee-deep in tumbling waves, shaking the water ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... shop we find just outside the city, beside a large creek. A laundry not built by hands! Here women stand knee-deep in the stream, with the hot sun beating down upon their heads. They are doing their laundry work. The clothes are cleaned by soaking them in water and pounding them with stones. We wonder if there are any buttons left on the clothes after this treatment, and ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... surely be claimed that these words, consecrated to his mighty predecessors by the Great Humorist of Punch, may be applied without undue exaggeration to his colleagues on the paper. Though posing at first only as the puppet who waded knee-deep in comic vice, Punch has worked as a teacher as well as a jester—a leader, and a preacher of kindness. Nor was it simple humour that was Punch's profession at the beginning; he always had a more serious and, so to say, a worthier object in view. This may be gathered from the very first article ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... annihilated? I conjure Thee, by Thy love to me forthwith to pour out upon us Thy rain-clouds of grace!' He spake and hardly had he made an end of speaking, when the heavens clouded over and there came a rain, as if the mouths of waterskins had been opened; and when we left the oratory, we were knee-deep in water,"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... stranger to marshlands. He had waded knee-deep from dawn to dusk through Irish bogs after wild geese; he had followed the migratory seafowl of Finland, Russia and Serbia into their Scottish breeding haunts, and he had once tried to keep pace with the sweep of the Bore over the Solway Marshes, but he had never ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Hardock," said the Colonel, as the man and his companions stepped out of the second skep and had to wade knee-deep for a few yards from the bottom of the shaft, the road lying low beneath the high, cavernous entrance to the mine, at one side of which a tiny stream of clear water was trickling. There the bottom began to rise at the same rate as the roof grew lower; and soon ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... shelves very rapidly into the deep channel. The boat floated suddenly, and urged by the violence of the last shove, slid rapidly from the shore. The man grasped at her. His fingers slid along the gunwale. He plunged forward knee-deep, snatched at the retreating bow, missed it, stumbled and fell headlong into the water. The boat floated free and swung into the channel ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... north-westerly gale, did havoc to the lowlands, but not to the folded hills. I had pushed up the valley in the teeth of the storm to see it under the white stress. It was hard work for me and my dog; I had to wade knee-deep, and he to jump, like a cat in long grass, through the drifts. But we reached our haven and found shelter from the weather. High above us where we stood the snow-flakes tossed and rioted, but before they fell upon us being out of ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... historically noble. They saw carts drawn by large limbed cream-coloured oxen; and passed flocks of sheep and milch goats, tended by shepherds in picturesque dresses, and guarded by numbers of large Pyrenean dogs, whose chief duty was to protect their charge from the wolves. They saw men standing knee-deep in the water, surrounded by droves of pigs—the latter voluntarily submitting themselves to a process of washing, which resulted in producing over their skins a roseate, pinky appearance. It could be seen, too, that these pachyderms not only submitted voluntarily to the operation, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... "the proud-legged Norman cows standing knee-deep in the quiet pools. Have you got the cows ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... of the most reckless and noisy debating-club spouters of the day. In speaking of the Reform Bill at a meeting at a tavern in London, he said, that, if the bill did not pass, he for one should like to "wade the streets of the capital knee-deep in blood." It was consoling to reflect, even at the time, that the atrocious aspiration was mitigated by the reflection that it would not require a deluge of gore to reach the knees of such a Zacchaeus as Roebuck. "Pretty wicious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Indians were loading the sheep into an immense rude flatboat. As the sheep were frightened, the loading was no easy task. Their bleating could be heard above the roar of the river. Bostil's boatmen, Shugrue and Somers, stood knee-deep in the quicksand of the bar, and their efforts to keep free-footed were as strenuous as their handling of the sheep. Presently the flock was all crowded on board, the Indians followed, and then the boatmen slid the unwieldy craft off the sand-bar. Then, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... dispossessed, in multitudes greater than any army that ever marched to conquest under Napoleon. When the history of America comes to be written in a hundred years, it will not be the record of a slaughter field with contending nations battling for the mastery, or generals wading to glory knee-deep in blood. It will be an account of the most wonderful race movement, the most wonderful experiment in democracy the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... expensive hothouse plants and vegetables. The scene was tropical beyond the wildest imagination of the geography man. The trees was all sky-scrapers; the underbrush was full of needles and pins; there was monkeys jumpin' around and crocodiles and pink-tailed mockin'-birds, and ye stood knee-deep in the rotten water and grabbled roots for the liberation of Guatemala. Of nights we would build smudges in camp to discourage the mosquitoes, and sit in the smoke, with the guards pacin' all around us. There was two hundred men workin' on the road—mostly ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... house, knee-deep, now, in the drifts that swept across the narrow road. Soon the building was visible in its somber setting, and as he stared at its dim outlines his heart leaped. In the right-hand corner, on the second floor, a light showed faintly through ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... he hissed in her ear, "you must promise or die. I have sworn never to go to prison again if I wade knee-deep ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... points of the landscape. Sauntering between plantations of young eucalyptus, they came to the arched stone bridge. They leaned on the parapet, looking down at the marshy stream beneath and at the three irises Kerr had remarked, knee-deep in ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the region, and scrambling and sliding down a most precipitous pali, hearing a roar like cataract upon cataract, and coming suddenly down upon a sublime and picturesque scene, with only standing room, and that knee-deep in water, between a savage torrent and the cliff. This gulch, called the Scotchman's gulch, I am told, because a Scotchman was drowned there, must be at its crossing three-quarters of a mile inland, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Warloch lay before us, veiled in a glory of golden-flecked heliotrope and purple water-lilies, and floating deep green leaves, with here and there gleaming little seas of water, opening out among the lilies, and standing knee-deep in the margins a rustling fringe of light reeds and giant bulrushes. All round the ponds stood dark groves of pandanus palms, and among and beyond the palms tall grasses and forest trees, with here and there a spreading colabar festooned from summit to trunk with brilliant ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn |
