"Light-footed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nimble and light-footed, they began the descent, clinging to rocks and bushes and sedulously keeping under cover. Luckily the bushes remained thick, and three-fourths of the way to the bottom they stopped, Henry resting in the hollow of a rock and Seth lying ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... moving about the studio—light-footed and graceful as a wild thing from her own mountain home, and, indeed, with much the air of a gentle creature of the woods that had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely interested in the things she found, she gradually forgot her timidity, and gave herself to ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... bushes in a narrow pass, circumscribed, on the one side, by a steep mountain, and on the other by a small lake, which skirted the path, for road there was not, lay in ambush two hundred well-armed and light-footed Highlanders. The youths, or volunteers, were in the rear of the regiment; as they marched fearlessly through the deep solitude of this wild district, the Highlanders sprang forwards from their ambuscade; and before the young soldiers could recover their surprise ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... were other small fires surrounded by men with their little black utensils. From one of these near came sudden sharp voices in a row. It appeared that two light-footed soldiers had been teasing a huge, bearded man, causing him to spill coffee upon his blue knees. The man had gone into a rage and had sworn comprehensively. Stung by his language, his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... tell you in words of the loveliness of Griselda. She was as pure as the dew which gemmed the forest, as sweet-voiced as the birds, as light-footed and timid as the deer which started at the hunters' coming. Then her heart was so tender and good, she was so meek and gentle, that to love her was of itself a blessing; and to be in her presence was like basking in the ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... Finkenbein. The ideal picture of a Sun-Brother's life which his lively fancy had painted in such glowing colors was far different from what he had found the reality to be. To be sure, to all appearance he was still the same light-footed jester as of old; he enjoyed his good bed, the warm stove, the solid and sufficient food, and seemed to find no fault with anything. He continued to bring back from mysterious trips into the town a few small coins for drink and tobacco, in which he generously ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... land, A young girl, light-footed, eager... For I hear a song that is faint and sweet with first love, Out of the West, fresh with the grass and the timber, But dreamily soothing the sleepers... I ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... and I come yearly, like the swallow that perches light-footed in the fore-part of your house. ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... strange and grotesque creatures in the starlight; and truly they seemed to smell their way as beasts smell; and they were as light-footed and as noiseless, slinking from bush to bush, lurking motionless in shadows, nosing, listening, prowling on velvet pads to the very edges of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... must be crushed, or the whole native population would unite in war against him. But to begin a war with the Typees was far from Porter's wish. The way to their country lay over rugged precipices and through almost impenetrable jungles. The light-footed natives could easily enough scale the peaks, or thread the forests; but to Porter's sailors it would be an exhausting undertaking. No artillery could be taken into the field, and the immense number of natives that might be arrayed against the sailors made the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... off in turn, she made several mistakes about ages, and they roared with laughter. When she came to my light-footed friend of the windmill, she said, "This is Leo, and he's old enough to be ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... along the Avenue to her aunt she became aware of a light-footed pursuer running. Teddy overtook her, a little out of breath, his innocent face flushed, his straw-colored hair disordered. He was out of breath, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... years older than you, and maybe I'm not as light-footed and light-headed as you'd like a husband to be, but I've got weight to me where it counts. I could buy out two-thirds of the young fellers in this county, Ollie, all in ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... a friend of the housekeeper's; I noticed him speaking with her to-day," thought Ivy, her gaze straying back to the light-footed dancers. ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... that rustled out from the bushes. The birds were pecking their breakfast from bush and turf; and hardly any of the wild inhabitants of that rural world were enough alarmed by her presence to do more than flutter away if they chanced to be in her path. She stepped along, light-footed and eager as a girl, dressed in her neat old straw bonnet and black gown, and carrying a few belongings in her best bundle-handkerchief, one that her only brother had brought home from the East Indies fifty years before. There was an old crow perched as sentinel ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... wonderful how quietly the young giant could move, and Ken, naturally light-footed, followed his example easily. The tracks led uphill, and presently the trees began to thin, and the ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... very mixed crowd: seamen, artisans, hotel staff, shop assistants, casual workers; the ladies were apparently seamstresses, servant girls, and shopgirls, with a sprinkling of light-footed damsels who had no daytime occupation. The floor was crowded with dancers. In addition to a constable whose duty it was to intervene if necessity arose, the establishment had its own commissionaire, ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... of rush and crush; but four or five well-kept rooms, fragrant with flowers and sparkling with silver and crystal, were ready at any hour to minister to the guest whatever delicacy or dainty he or she might demand; and light-footed waiters circulated with noiseless obsequiousness through all the rooms, proffering dainties on ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... by certain emotional flutterings against which circumstance had guarded him ever since his boyhood. He found this mild excitation of the nervous system by no means unpleasant. It was like digesting a new and subtle liqueur that made him light-footed and tingled in the tips of his fingers. He recalled a phrase that had greatly pleased him in the early days of his novel. "As the sun colours flowers, so Art colours life." It seemed to him that this was beginning to come true, and that life was already presenting ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... of the lake Caddoque. He was a tall man, spare in flesh, but very active, and able to endure more fatigue than the wolf or the wild cat—able to live six days without food, and feast the next six days without intermission. None had eyes like Sakechak to follow the trail of a light-footed animal over the frozen earth; none like him could strike, unerringly, a salmon at twice the depth of a man. Nor was this hunter without the qualities of a warrior. When the Padoucas came, with ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... branches above the ground, caught his foot and sent him headlong into a rotten stump, which seemed only too ready to receive him. Extracting his head from its embrace, he stood up in a bewildered frame of mind, found that the light-footed Branwen had escaped him, and sat down again on the fallen ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Nay, they were light-footed eno' when they saw what was to do, and left us three to die like rats in a hole." Then ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... was not anything particular about him in any way. Not a tall gentleman, not near so tall as you, sir; getting into years, but still very active and light-footed, though with something of a halt in his way of walking. I could not rightly make out what it was; nor what it was that caused him to look a little crooked when you saw him ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... impregnated with the passionate despair of humanity, and had seen for a moment the world with out-stretched hands, seeking, surely, for the nonexistent, striving to hold fast the mirage. Now he was impregnated with humanity's passionate hope. He saw life light-footed in a sweet chase for things ideal. And all the blackness of the rock and of the silent sea was irradiated with the light that streamed ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... If still thou art to jeopardy decreed Amongst the monsters of Augusta's[302] breed, Lay by thy sex, thy safety to procure; Put off the man, from men to live secure; 510 Go forth a woman to the public view, And with their garb assume their manners too. Had the light-footed Greek[303] of Chiron's school Been wise enough to keep this single rule, The maudlin hero, like a puling boy Robb'd of his plaything, on the plains of Troy Had never blubber'd at Patroclus' tomb, And placed his minion in his mistress' room. Be not in this than catamites more nice, Do that ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... everything else was against the Romans. Sabinus could give no directions. They were in a narrow meadow, with wooded hills on each side of them filled with enemies whom they could not reach. When they charged, the light-footed barbarians ran back; when they retired, they closed in upon them again, and not a dart, an arrow, or a stone missed its mark among the crowded cohorts. Bravely as the Romans fought, they were in a trap where their courage was useless to them. The battle lasted from dawn till the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... them from the Round Stone they suddenly began to pale, and the moon flashed into sight, rising swiftly over the mountain Moira called "The Hill o' Delights," because it was from a wide, white door in it that the rushing, light-footed little people came out every evening when the twilight fell and the harsh endeavor of human life was stilled to peace. There was neither talk nor music on those evenings, but a silence full, like the lovely world about them, of unsaid, quivering joy. Sometimes Timothy ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... splendidly to DIEDRICK VAN BEEKMAN'S pitching; or picture Major DE BOOTS waiting patiently on the short stop for a chance to put Captain ABSOLUTE out on his second base. The experience of these gentlemen before the footlights may have made them light-footed, but from mere force of habit they are all pretty sure to be caught out in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... each commemorating some scene or circumstance of the Saviour's passion and suffering. In accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was making his progress from shrine to shrine upon his knees, and saying a penitential prayer at each. Light-footed girls ran across the path along which he crept, or sported with their friends close by the shrines where he was kneeling. The pilgrim took no heed, and the girls meant no irreverence; for in Italy religion jostles along side by side with business and sport, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as the sands were reached—the footmarks indicated as much. I pointed them out to the police, who examined them carefully, and agreed with me that one set was undoubtedly made by the boots of the dead man while the other was caused by the pressure of some light-footed, lightly-shoed person. And there being nothing else to be seen or done at that place, Salter Quick was lifted on to an improvised stretcher which the servants had brought down from the Court and carried by the way we had come to an outhouse in the gardens, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... days only. But Sertorius quickly coming to their aid, gave orders to fill two thousand skins with water, and he offered for each skin a considerable sum of money. Many Iberians and Moors volunteered for the service, and, selecting the men who were strong and light-footed, he sent them through the mountain parts, with orders, when they had delivered the skins to the people in the city, to bring out of the town all the useless people, that the water might last the longer for those who defended the place. When the news reached Metellus ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... imperiously commanding her return. But Aline—dutiful child—closed her ears lest she must disobey him, and sped light-footed across the lawn to the avenue there to intercept ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... amazing swiftness, and Paul, light-footed, kept beside him. But the alert Shawnee warriors, ever quick to answer an alarm, were already in fleet pursuit, and only the darkness kept their bullets from striking true. Paul looked back once—even in the moment of haste and danger he could not help it—and he ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... paragraphs that, on the face of them, are ordinary historical statements of a simple character, exasperate the modern reader, who demands to have his facts presented clearly and coherently, and above all, requires what he feels to be solid ground under his feet. He declines absolutely to follow the light-footed mystic over what seem to him to be quaking morasses, in a wild chase after dancing will-o'-the-wisps, which appear and disappear with bewildering and irrational caprice. Yet the men who wrote these exasperating ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... encumbered only with the weapons they carried, making the air vibrate with their barbarous songs, the unhappy captives meanwhile, staggering under their heavy loads, being compelled to keep pace with their light-footed guard. It was not so bad for Dick and Earle as it was for their unfortunate servants, for the two white men were by this time in the very perfection of training, and capable of an amount of physical exertion that, six months earlier, they would have regarded ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... world, as if his master's name crowned him with a golden halo. A stout Frenchman, who knew the Emperor, came to indulge his mania for dancing, and Lady de Jones, a British matron, adorned the scene with her little family of eight. Of course, there were many light-footed, shrill-voiced American girls, handsome, lifeless-looking English ditto, and a few plain but piquante French demoiselles, likewise the usual set of traveling young gentlemen who disported themselves gaily, while mammas ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... itself. Perhaps when you become acquainted with the General and the Cornal you will wonder that they are never at any time jocular, and maybe you will think that they are soured at life and that all their kindness is turned to lappered cream. I knew them nearly jocular, I knew them tall, light-footed laddies, running about the pastures there gallivanting with the girls. But that, my dear, was long ago, and I feel myself the old woman indeed when I see them so stiff and solemn sitting in there ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... now, had a look of youth touched by something that was not so much age as difference. She was slender, and still with a girl's symmetry, the light-footed way of moving, the little sinuous graces of a body unspoiled and delighting in its own uses. Her face had a rounded plumpness, and her cheeks were pink. People said now, as they had in her youth, that Sabrina Thorne had the skin of a baby. One old woman, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown |
