"Knee-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feathery meadows like a lilac sea, Knee-deep, with honeyed clover, red and white, Roll billowing: the crisp clouds pass Trailing their soft blue shadows o'er the grass; The skylark, mad with glee, Quivers, up, up, to lose himself in light; And, through the forest, like a fairy dream Through some dark mind, the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... wet boy, and didn't his teeth chatter! In fact, all three of us were wet, for, in our excitement, Addison and I had gone in knee-deep, and the water had splashed over us. In that bitter cold wind we felt it keenly. Tom was nearly torpid; he seemed unable to speak, and we could hardly make him take a step. His face and hands ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... 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, and ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... themselves to sleep. The grassy slope in front of the house, and all the neighboring heights, were soon covered in like manner. Men, women, and children threw themselves down, drawing off their heavy boots, and dipping their legs, knee-deep, into the sun and air. An atmosphere of utter peace and satisfaction settled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... Standing here, knee-deep in the dead ruddy bracken, in the "coloured shade" of the oaks, idly watching the leaves fall fluttering to the ground, thinking in an aimless way of the remains of the two ancient cities before me, the British and the Roman, and of their comparative antiquity, I am struck with the thought that ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... near'd the wild-duck and her brood In the far angle of some dim-seen pool, Silent and sable, underneath the boughs Of low hung willow; and, at times, the bleat Of a stray lamb would bid us raise our eyes To where it stood above us on the rock, Knee-deep amid the broom—a sportive elf. Enshrined in recollection—sleep those hours So brilliant and so beautiful—the scene So full of pastoral loveliness—the heart With pleasure overflowing—and the sky Pavilion'd over all, an arch of peace— God with his fair creation reconciled: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... corrected him. Then he acknowledged that he'd seen those knees before. He'd stumbled on Olga and her brother knee-deep in mud and cow manure, treading a mixture to plaster their shack with, the same as the Doukhobors do. It left me less envious of ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... obliged to put a blanket over my shoulders, as I stood by the fire, for warmth. The comfortable sensation however was, that we were free from the annoyance and misery of the mosquitoes; cold, hunger, and thirst, are not to be compared with the incessant suffering which they inflict. We waded knee-deep through Owl River, in the afternoon of the 15th. The weather was cold, and nothing was to be seen in the Bay but floating ice. It was rather late before we pitched the tent, and we met with some difficulty in collecting a sufficient quantity ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... are, without knowing it. But as for myself, when I was of your age and began to fly the track, the aforesaid track, I was quite another fellow! Today as I rode through the snow knee-deep, that became quite clear to me! I saw myself as I had been once upon a time and then realized what had later become of me! All the strength! All the life! All the color! All lost! All gone!... Colorless and commonplace! That is the outcome! (He ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... to turning the crank, whereupon with a fearful roll of the drum and a clash of cymbals, the papier-mache snake began to unfold and "An Old Girl of Mine" emerged from the cataclysm of sound and frightened the fish hawks over the shallow water. A great blue heron, knee-deep in water, croaked with annoyance, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... of this war will fall only—where they should fall—on the heads of its blood-stained authors. If this is not done, after we have put down the whites we shall have to meet the blacks, and after we have waded knee-deep in the blood of both, we shall end the war where it began, but with the South desolated by fire and sword, the North impoverished and loaded down with an everlasting debt, and our once proud, happy and glorious country the by-word and scorn ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... great strength and were unable to hold what they gained. We learned afterwards that a regiment (three battalions) of the enemy were holding the line between Ronssoy and Templeux le Guerard with orders to fight to the last. The Battalion was now very exhausted, the trenches were knee-deep in water, and a great number of Lewis guns and rifles were out of action with mud and water. Major D.D. Ogilvie and Mr Brodie Brown were the only officers left in the line, with Mr J.W. Ormiston doing liaison between Battalion H.Q. and Captain R.H. Colthart at Battle ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... went there twice to confess the people, although the distance was great, and the roads so difficult that in the going to that one place one must go through nine or ten precipitous ravines, to pass which, as it was then the rainy season, they must walk barefoot, the mud in many places being knee-deep. The fathers heard the confessions of all the sick, some of whom our Lord soon took to Himself. While returning from this village the father passed through a little hamlet of Christians not dependent on this mission, which lay within ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... exchanged 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 region ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... saw me, he cried out, "Are you, sir, the young Frenchman who is expected at Fanchette's, and to whom I have been ordered to give these papers?" So saying, he jumped out of the boat, and, wading knee-deep through the water, handed me a thick letter. I felt by its weight that it was an enclosure containing many others. I hastily tore open the first cover, and read indistinctly in the dim moonlight a note from my friend L—-, dated that same morning ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... The water was only knee-deep, but Warwick's boots sank three inches in the mud of the bottom. And at that instant the gods of the jungle, always waiting with drawn scimitar for the unsuspecting, turned ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... 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 that ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... Maida, or rapidly and coolly serving his gun at Trafalgar, helping to win the dominion of all seas, or taking his trick at the helm through arctic iceblocks with Parry, or toiling on with steadfast Sturt, knee-deep in the sand of the middle desert, patiently yet hopelessly scanning the low quivering line of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... the 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
... While he stood knee-deep in the water, and was thinking only of his fine horns, a Lion saw him and came leaping out from the tall grass to get him. The Deer would have been caught at once if he had not jumped quickly out of the brook. He ran as fast as he could, and his ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... like long graves dug for the living, where the weary, listless men stood knee-deep in mud, hoping for wounds that would relieve them from the ghastly monotony of their existence; the holes of muddy water where the dead things lay, to which they crept out in the night to wash a little of the filth ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... two return to day-labour at fourteenpence a-day. John, in a struggle to do task-work honestly, over-exerts himself, and ruins his digestion for life. Next year he is set in November to clean out a watercourse knee-deep in water; then to take marl from a pit; and then to drain standing water off a swamp during an intense December frost; and finds himself laid down with a three months' cough, and all but sleepless illness, laying the foundation of the consumption which destroyed him. But the two ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... into the dark body of his cab, late that evening, and sank his legs knee-deep into those hateful blue-prints, he blessed that engineer, for Dell had told him all he wished to know, all he had tried so vainly to discover through other sources. The average "overhead" in British mills was one hundred and thirty per cent., ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... chateaux in Touraine and Beauce, or from the safe haven of a Normandy fishing village; while we, accompanied it is true by your most fervent prayers, took our turn at mounting guard, on the fortifications during the bitter cold nights, or knee-deep in the mud of the trenches. However, I do not blame those who sought safety in flight; each person is free to do as he pleases; what I object to is your coming back and saying, "During seven or eight months you have done no work, you have been obliged to pawn your furniture to buy bread ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... aside the guns and the guide's game-sack, and formed a chair with their hands, and, bearing the girl between them, they waded out along the driven alder stakes, knee-deep in ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... turned Toddie's sorrow to laughter, but I can't say I made light of my misfortune on that account. To fall into clear water is not pleasant, even when one is trout-fishing; but to be clad in white trousers and suddenly drop nearly knee-deep into the lap of mother earth is quite ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... it.—Cattle 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 ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said he would think about it; and Rubens took a look at his old saddle-horse rolling in the pasture or wading knee-deep in clover, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... priest in Indiana told a Protestant minister, an able Methodist clergyman, in a controversy, "The time will come when Catholics will make Protestants wade knee-deep in blood in the valley ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... dawn over the infinite sea. The air and water melted into a pearl gray. Far out toward the east, the waters began to blush at the kiss of the coming sun. The pearl gray slowly turned into purple. So startling was the vision, she swam in-shore and stood knee-deep in the shallows to watch the magic changes. In breathless wonder she saw the sea and sky and shore turn into a trembling cloud of dazzling purple. A moment before, she had caught the water up in her hand and poured ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... whom he had been adopted. These Indians lived in different villages several miles apart. The captives now found, much to their sorrow, that they were to be separated. Father Hennepin was adopted by the chief Aquipaguetin, and was conducted nearly three miles, often through marshes knee-deep with mud and water, till they came to a considerable stream, probably one of the upper tributaries of the St. Francis River. Here five wives of the chief, with their canoes, were obsequiously waiting the approach of their lord and master. A young ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... beyond which scarcely an artu tree was to be found. The long strip of mammee apple—a regular sheet of it a hundred yards broad, and reaching from the middle of the island right down to the lagoon. The clearings, some almost circular where the ferns grew knee-deep. Then he came ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and pleasant, through a neat country and many tidy towns. In the meadows the elms seemed to droop like our own rather than to hold themselves oakenly upright like the English; the cattle stood about in the yellow buttercups, knee-deep, white American daisies, and red clover, and among the sheep we had our choice of shorn and unshorn; they were equally abundant. Some of the blossomy May was left yet on the hawthorns, and over all the sky hovered, with pale-white ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... was a mighty rush for Mineola. Nobody who caught the infection stopped to reason. Some of them had to wade through water, which in places was knee-deep. They came from various directions, and united in a yelling mob. They meant to carry the ark with a rush. They would not be denied. As the excited throngs neared the great vessel they saw its huge form rising like a mount of safety, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... 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, or issue. I ran up the mound to where ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... their interests as if they had been his own? In those days each labourer had 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 weather on ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... would have to be spent in the town before the little steamer would leave for Dyea. While Tim and Jeff stayed at the hotel, talking over old times and laying plans for the future, the boys strolled through the streets, which were knee-deep with mud. ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... out!" said the soaked one, returning knee-deep in the water to try and cleanse herself as much as might be—which was no great amount, for lagoon mud defies ordinary efforts. She waded out, still laughing; cast an apprehensive glance at the quarter from which her father might be expected ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... mist masks the winding of a mainland river. Isolated blotches indicate lonely lagoons and swamps where slim palms and lank tea-trees stand in crowded, whispering ranks knee-deep in dull brown water. The mist spreads. Black hilltops are as islands jutting out from ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the next morning, we had three hours of the same kind of walking, during which we crossed the river at least thirty or forty times, the water being generally knee-deep. This brought us to a place where the road left the stream, and here we stopped to breakfast. We then had a long walk over the mountain, by a tolerable path, which reached an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea. Here I noticed one ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... 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 from ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... drifted wickedly down Suffolk Street Christmas morning, pinching noses and ears and cheeks already pinched by hunger and want. It set around the corner into the Pig Market, where the hucksters plodded knee-deep in the drifts, burying the horse-radish man and his machine and coating the bare, plucked breasts of the geese that swung from countless hooks at the corner stand with softer and whiter down than ever grew there. It drove the suspender-man into the hallway ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... horses, I 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 for ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... markings on their feet," and "in the one being born with teeth protruding through the jaws, and the other not so." They have different habits, and their voice is entirely different. The humped cattle in India "seldom seek shade, and never go into the water and there stand knee-deep, like the cattle of Europe." They have run wild in parts of Oude and Rohilcund, and can maintain themselves in a region infested by tigers. They have given rise to many races differing greatly in size, in the presence of one or two humps, in length of horns, and other respects. Mr. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, Nor any cloud would cross the vault, But day increased from heat to heat, On stony drought and steaming salt; Till now at noon she slept again, And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass, And heard her native breezes pass, And runlets babbling down the glen. She breathed in sleep a lower moan, And murmuring, as at night and morn, She thought, "My spirit is here alone, Walks forgotten, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... strange and terrible look in her eyes as she stared out across the barren. She put him in the traces, and fastened about her slender waist the strap that Pierre had used. Thus they struck out for the river, floundering knee-deep in the freshly fallen and drifted snow. Half-way Joan stumbled in a drift and fell, her loose hair flying in a shimmering veil over the snow. With a mighty pull Kazan was at her side, and his cold muzzle touched her face as she drew ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... bumpy field, strike into the back wood-road, and turn off upon an old stumpy track over which cordwood was carted years ago. Here in the hollow at the foot of a high wooded hill the winds have whirled the oak and maple leaves into drifts almost knee-deep. ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... and volunteers were attached to each gun. Three of these were sixty-eight-pounder shell guns and three thirty-two-pounder solid-shot guns. Each of these guns weighed about three tons. Now each of these had to be dragged through the loose sand, almost knee-deep, for something like three miles before it could be put in the position the engineers had assigned to it. This battery, by the way, was protected by bags of sand piled on each other, and this was the first time that this device had been used. When the battery was in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... hall-door, was engaged in washing the dogs. The mother, who had been the first victim, was morosely licking herself, shuddering effectively, and coldly ignoring her oppressor's apologies. The daughter, trembling in every limb, was standing knee-deep in the bath; one paw, placed on its rim, was ready for flight if flight became practicable; her tail, rigid with anguish would have hummed like a violin-string if it were touched. Fanny, with her shirt-sleeves rolled up to ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... 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 ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... within this day's walk. The traveller, as usual, must sleep in the forest; the path is not so good the following day. The hills over which it lies are rocky, steep and rugged; and the spaces betwixt them swampy and mostly knee-deep in water. After eight hours' walk you find two or three Indian huts, surrounded by the forest; and in little more than half an hour from these you come to ten or twelve others, where you pass the night. They are prettily situated at the entrance into a savanna. The ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... to let her communications sink in and take root. There was a deep hush on the landscape, as if in deference to her awful confidences. A deer stood knee-deep in the grass and gazed at them inquiringly. And as Mrs. Fazakerly stared unabashed into the face of Nature, Durant thought of Frida's remark, and wondered if she found ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... forest, Ran the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis; 40 Like an antelope he bounded, Till he came unto a streamlet In the middle of the forest, To a streamlet still and tranquil, That had overflowed its margin, 45 To a dam made by the beavers, To a pond of quiet water, Where knee-deep the trees were standing, Where the water-lilies floated, Where the rushes waved and whispered. 50 On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis, On the dam of trunks and branches, Through whose chinks the water spouted, O'er whose summit flowed the streamlet. From the bottom rose the beaver, 55 Looked with ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Still further on I encountered long trains of wagons bearing supplies and ammunition to the front. As we advanced these were met by bullock-trains bearing wounded men to the rear. The weather had been bad. The road was almost knee-deep in mud and so cut up by traffic that pools occurred here and there, into which wagons and horses and bullocks stumbled and were got out with the greatest difficulty. The furious lashing of exhausted and struggling cattle was mingled with the curses and ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... short cuts across the fields when the trenches were knee-deep with mud, was scandalous in the eyes of our neighbors of the Imperial army, as the troops from the British Isles are known. Quite frequently we were subjected to the most scathing tongue-lashing from officers ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... sand Wulf tried in vain to resist the backward rush of the water; he and Osgod were borne out again. When the next wave again swept them up Wulf saw the earl standing knee-deep in the water, and as he was swept past, Harold seized him and Osgod, and with tremendous strength lifted them right out of the water. "Keep still!" he shouted; "your weight will help me to keep my feet." Wulf felt his supporter quiver ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... reach, from pool to pool. Here we had a glimpse of the wide-watered valley rich in grass, here of silent woods, up-piled in the distance, over which quivered the hot summer air. Here a herd of cattle stood knee-deep in the shallow water, lazily twitching their tails and snuffing at the stream. The birds were silent now in the glowing noon; only the reeds shivered and bowed. There, beside a lock with its big, battered timbers, the water poured ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... even worse than the unfrequented ones, for the ground is rendered more miry, and the bogs are more frequent. On a highroad near La Vega I arrived at a mudhole where an old man was being rescued by a passer-by from drowning in the liquid mud; I snapped a photograph of the scene when he was still knee-deep. Near the city of Moca there is a slope where many a horse has fallen and thrown its rider on the slippery loam. A friend of mine who for safety's sake alighted from his horse to walk to the other side of the gully, had his ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... and silent, opened along a jagged, green and 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 the lesser ridges; but ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... the march became almost incredibly difficult. The ice had just broken up and everything was flooded; heavy rains set in, and when the men were not wading through icy water, they were struggling through mud nearly knee-deep. After twelve days of this, they came to the bank of the Embarass river, only to find the country all under water, save one little hillock, where they spent the night without food or fire. For four days they waited there for the flood to ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... used the episode as a peg on which to hang an anti-slavery sentiment: "I fell in with an emigrant party on their way to Texas. Their mules had sunk in the mud, ... the wagons were already embedded as far as the axles. The women of the party, lightly clad in cotton, had walked for miles, knee-deep in water, through the brake, exposed to the pitiless pelting of the storm, and were now crouching forlorn and woebegone under the shelter of a tree.... The men were making feeble attempts to light a fire.... ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... recommendation the article has, they are obliged to give up the argument in despair—to intrench themselves in the old fortress of such reasoners, and to defend what is, merely because it is. They would stand on the old ways, were they knee-deep in slush; and they would wear the old hat, were it not only of the shape, but of the material and the color ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... were entrained very quickly, and just at dark I found myself in a second-class carriage, one of a merry party of eight, sitting knee-deep in belts, haversacks, blankets, cloaks, and water-bottles. We travelled on till midnight, and then stopped somewhere, posted guards, and slept ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... climb Half up their breasts, just stagger as they seize Some grey crag, drop back with it many a time, And straggle blindly down the precipice. The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick That June-day, knee-deep with dead beechen leaves, As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves Are all the same too: scarce have they changed the wick On good Saint Gualbert's altar which receives ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... as regards sand; the very streets were full of it, and as I stood on the Esplanade at low tide, and leaned up against a strong south-west breeze, and saw the dry sand sweeping like smoke along the flats and piling knee-deep to windward of the groins, and got my mouth and eyes and ears full of it, I decided, from the taste and smell and feel of it, that—from a sand point of view, at all ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... to Tanner, friend," quoth Will, knee-deep in the stream, "for no mind have I to hurt thee. So away with thy dagger like gentle, kindly Fool, and away with ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... look at some fresh curiosity: now a tree-fern, now a climbing fern; now some huge tree-trunk, whose name was only to be guessed at; now a fresh armadillo-burrow; now a parasol-ants' warren, which had to be avoided lest horse and man should sink in it knee-deep, and come out sorely bitten; now some glimpse of sea and forest far below; now we cut a water-vine, and had a long cool drink; now a great moth had to be hunted, if not caught; or a toucan or some other strange bird listened to; or an eagle watched as he soared ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I came ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... morning he found himself in a strange country. The little stream down which he had been traveling had become a river. There were houses here and there on the shores, cultivated fields and pasture-lands, and in some places cattle browsed on the banks, or stood knee-deep in ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... mountain sky, Leaving Dian's choir on high, Down her cataracts laughing loud, Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, Leading many a nymph, who dwells Where wild deer drink in ferny dells; While the Oreads as they past Peep'd from Druid Tors aghast. By alder copses sliding slow, Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo And paused awhile her locks to twine With musky hops and white woodbine, Then joined the silver-footed band, Which circled down my golden sand, By dappled park, and harbor shady, Haunt of love-lorn knight and lady, My thrice-renowned sons to greet, With rustic song ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down, as if working a churn. Once, when the poor creature met with a very heavy fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal's neck, and whispered to the smith "Twenty years old, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... out for Portici, where I arrived at eight in the evening; from thence to the summit of the mountain the road is long and difficult; having procured a guide about the middle of the distance, we had to climb a mountain of cinders, every step nearly knee-deep; this made it near midnight when we reached the crater, which we approached as near as the heat would permit. The fire of the mountain served us for a beacon, and we set light to our sticks in the lava, which slowly ran through the hollows of the crater. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... off landmarks, the early dark obscured the rising drifts. According to the Pocket Hunter's account, he knew where he was, but couldn't exactly say. Three days before he had been in the west arm of Death Valley on a short water allowance, ankle-deep in shifty sand; now he was on the rise of Waban, knee-deep in sodden snow, and in both cases he did the only allowable thing—he walked on. That is the only thing to do in a snowstorm in any case. It might have been the creature instinct, which in his way of ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... sheep, pigs, and donkeys. The ponds are unfrozen, except where some melancholy piece of melting ice floats sullenly on the water; and cackling geese and gabbling ducks have replaced the lieutenant and Jack Rapley. The avenue is chill and dark, the hedges are dripping, the lanes knee-deep, and all nature is in a state of 'dissolution ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... painting I shall have it simply stiff with drapes and 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. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... barred his way, and he was compelled to make considerable detours to the right or left in order to pass them. Sometimes widths of sluggish water were met with. For a long time Harry continued his way, leaping lightly from tuft to tuft, where the grass grew thickest, sometimes wading knee-deep in the slush and feeling carefully every foot lest he should get to a depth whence he should be unable to extricate himself. Every now and then he shouted at the top of his voice, in hopes that he might be heard by some human being. For ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... wished to console the desert by giving to it her loveliest and most enticing blossoms. I came upon colonies of the poet's narcissus, breathing over the rocks so sweet a fragrance that it was as if a miracle had been wrought to draw it out of the earth. I walked knee-deep through blooming asphodels, beautiful and strange, but only noticed here by the wild bee. I gathered sprays of the graceful alpine-tea, densely crowded with delicate white bloom, and marvelled at the wanton splendour of the iris colouring the gray and yellow stones ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... and one of them, darker than the rest, has descended in a mist of rain, blotting out the ships. The surface of the water is paved curiously in green and violet, and where the light lies on it scintillates like millions of stars. The grass is not yet cut, and the showers have brought it up knee-deep. Its gentle whisper is plainly heard, the most delicate of all the voices in the world, and the meadow bends into billows, grey, silvery, and green, when a breeze of sufficient strength sweeps across it. The larks are so multitudinous that no distinct song can be caught, and amidst the confused melody ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... that the shore of the north side of Inishark 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 on ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... was knee-deep on the lee side of the deck, whenever the ship heeled over to port under the pressure of her canvas, passing out of the scuppers like a mill-race on her rising again and righting on ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... hearts they raced up the beach. Having reached the heavy rowboat they pushed it off. Wading knee-deep in the sea to give the boat a good start, they at last leaped to their seats and grasped the oars, and with strong, deft, strokes set her cutting the water. Length by length they lessened the distance between them and ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... weather and the difficulty of finding fuel; the only vegetation which he could discover being fern and moss, which was so wet that it would not burn, while he was almost without fire, or any means of obtaining warmth, his men sinking knee-deep as they proceeded on shore in the soft slush and snow, which benumbed their limbs and dispirited them in the extreme. Through this country the unhappy remnant of the Franklin expedition, many years later, perished in their attempt to reach the Hudson Bay Company's territory. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... the other side. Evidently the blossoming had taken place since the last cart had passed over, and no doubt many miles intervened between this and the next dwelling-house. Nothing but the thought of necessities that might arise for help on Bart's account made her make the toilsome passage, knee-deep among the flowers, to see whether, beyond that, the road was passable; but she only found that it was not fit for walkers except at a time of greater drought than the present. The swamp crept round in a ring, so that she discovered herself to be ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... the prisoner sat there that we heard about the raid. They clearly considered it something of a failure. They had to get through a ditch full of water to their necks, then some trip-wire, then a knee-deep entanglement, then a ditch full of rusty wire, then some "French" coils of barbed wire, then more wire knee-deep, with trip-wire after that. Moreover, the enemy's artillery fire was heavy. They simply went on over the parapet into the enemy's trench for a few minutes and killed ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... 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 ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... came into the State (then a territory) in 1800 say the average depth of snow was never, previous to 1830, more than knee-deep to an ordinary man, while it was breast-high all that winter. It became crusted over, so as, in some cases, to bear teams. Cattle and horses perished, the winter wheat was killed, the meager stock of provisions ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... exclaimed, at the same time motioning to Mr. 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 ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... she was lifted off her feet. She felt herself borne high above the little gurgling cascade. Then she became aware of the splashing feet under her. Then of a sinking sensation, as the man waded almost knee-deep in mud. There were moments of alarmed suspense. Then she found herself standing on the opposite bank, with the man dripping ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... side of the house there was a vast pile of building, comprising stables and coach-houses, barns and granaries, arranged in a quadrangle. The gate leading into this quadrangle was open, and Gilbert saw the cattle standing knee-deep in a straw-yard. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... through it and both the windows, as I have endeavoured to show. In times of peace it is a very small public house, 3 rooms and a garret in which I live. The Colonel is very well, and seems to enjoy plodding knee-deep through the mud in the trenches. The Germans roused us this morning by dropping pieces of shell on our little house. We have just lunched off a most excellent turkey which you sent; it ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... partisan of the cross-God men, and an innovator of ritual, found amusement in watching the Baptist missionaries standing knee-deep in the river washing ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... his nocturnes, notes, symphonies in rose and silver, his colour-sonatas, boldly annexed well-worn musical phrases, that in their new estate took on fresher meanings even if remaining knee-deep in the kingdom of the nebulous. It must be confessed modern composers have retaliated. Musical impressionism is having its vogue, while poets are desperately pictorial. Soul landscapes and etched sonnets are not unpleasing to the ear. What if they do not mean much? ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... she found her, and she was still breathing. With her great strength she slid her to the point of grass. It held them both. Then she lifted her bodily in her arms, swung her on her back and ran splashing knee-deep in water to ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... constantly before her and the pangs of jealousy gnawing at her heart? How stupid to have imagined her to be one of those bovine women with large liquid eyes who, figuratively speaking, pass the major portion of their lives standing knee-deep in a pond, gazing stolidly out upon the world; a fat brown wench upon whose hip a man might confidently expect to hang his hat by the time she has attained the age ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... for solution. The front door was closed; but, as I knew every turn and corner about the house, I made no doubt of soon finding out its inmates, if any of them were in the neighbourhood. I worked my way through the garden, knee-deep and rank with weed, for the purpose of reconnoitring the back-offices. I steered pretty cautiously past what memory, that great dealer in hyperbole, had hitherto generally contrived to picture as a huge lake—now, to my astonishment, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the English ships, his eyes flashed with keen hostility. Then he vanished over the dike, and was soon splashing through the muddy shallows of the ford. The water was fast deepening, and he thought to himself, "If Monsieur the abbe doesn't hurry, he will have to swim where I am walking but knee-deep!" ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the pines. No matter how bad the weather was, nor how deep the roads, she would go prowling around to see some old "aunty" or "uncle", in their out-of-the-way cabins, or somebody's sick child. I have met her on old Fashion in the rain, toiling along in roads that were knee-deep, to get the doctor to come to see some sick person, or to get a dose of physic from the depot. How could she ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... at the water's edge, some of the prisoners were unloading dhows, others were paddling knee-deep in the muddy water. The shore was crowded with men screaming and shouting and excited for no reason whatever. The gaolers were within view, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Captain Penny having last been reported to have reached the water with a sound boat, a good crew, and a month's provisions. Landing at Cape Martyr, wet up to our necks with splashing through the pools of water, nowhere less than knee-deep, and often a mile in extent, we did not willingly leave the dry land again. On ascending a slope which gave us a view of the south shore of Cornwall's Island as far as Cape Hotham, and near a point known as that whence the dog-sledges in the winter ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... I had heard of these Cornish horses, and how closely they were clipped; but these beat all I had ever imagined. I could see no hair on them; and I saw them quite close; for in the hurry each horse, as his turn came, was run out alongside the boat; the man who led him standing knee-deep until the kegs were slung across by the single girth. As soon as this was done, a slap on the rump sent the beast shoreward, and the man scrambled out after him. There was scarcely any talk, and no noise except that caused by the ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 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 down ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... were left alone for an hour or two, and Colonel Kirby, whose wound was not serious, began passing along the trench, knee-deep in the muddy water, to inspect us and count us and give each man encouragement. It was just as he passed close to me that a hand-grenade struck him in the thigh and exploded. He fell forward on me, and I took him across my knee lest he fall into ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the 27th of September a heavy snow-storm set in, and the next morning the snow was knee-deep on the level ice. The storm continued until during the night of the 29th. The snow was very deep, but the winter winds soon blew it around and packed it down so as to be almost solid. By the 14th of October the sledging was sufficiently good for Toolooah to go to Cape Herschel and Terror Bay ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... the mountaineer carry out his instructions, that after standing on the river bank for some minutes, he deliberately walked knee-deep into the water and touched Marcos on the elbow. For the river is a loud one, and Marcos, intent on his sport, never turned his ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... when first the arbutus comes up pink and delicate through the snow and later the fields begin to glimmer with the white of white violets, to flash with the purple of purple ones, and the children hang May baskets at your door; the summer when the fields are buried knee-deep under a white drift of daisies or sealed by the gold planes of buttercups, and the old lichened stone walls are smothered in blackberry vines; the autumn with the goldenrod and blue asters; the woods like conflagrations ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... that Bud, Nort and Dick were enabled to maintain a footing, though they were knee-deep in water in an instant, and the one remaining lantern had to be held up to prevent it from being engulfed and extinguished ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... took a westward shoot from the river, and following the course of a small stream again climbed heavily up the slope. Our horses were now so weak we could only climb a few rods at a time without rest. But at last, just as night began to fall, we came upon a splendid patch of bluejoint, knee-deep and rich. It was high on the mountain side, on a slope so steep that the horses could not lie down, so steep that it was almost impossible to set our tent. We could not persuade ourselves to pass it, however, and so made the best of it. Everywhere we could see white ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... from a few inches to three of four feet. Cold winds blew, sometimes with spits of snow and dashes of sleet, while thin ice formed on the ponds and sluggish streams. By day progress meant wading ankle-deep, knee-deep, breast-deep, with an occasional spurt of swimming. By night the brave fellows had to sleep, if sleep they could, on the cold ground in soaked clothing under water-heavy blankets. They flung the leagues ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... toilsome ascent, following slowly but steadily the dangerous track that led to the summit of the mountain. His feet often slipped on the bare and polished rock; sometimes he slid ten or twenty paces backward over loose pebbles, and anon sank knee-deep in the snow which here and there filled the hollows; but nothing daunted him or caused him to waver from his purpose. At last he reached a broad sheet of ice with innumerable crevices and chasms, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... gathering courage, stood tremulously while the tide splashed their feet and retreated. The boldest walked in ankle-deep and danced in daredevilry, and soon young and old were gambolling uncouthly, tasting the sea's quality, shouting and splashing. None ventured more than knee-deep; some crawled and wallowed in the wet sand, too fearful to trust their lives to so big a thing which showed itself to be alive by breathing and moving. The morning was spent in moist frolics, and when the north-easter began ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever stronger and stronger within me. I will not tell her! I will never tell any one. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart—out of the book of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... later on the banks of the Grand Canal and entered, one of the many gondolas waiting there. The moon glanced back from the surface of the water broken into ripples under the oars of the gondoliers; it shone with a magic charm on the old palaces that stood knee-deep in the lagoons, and threw heavy shadows over the narrow water-roads on which the little dark boats glided silently forward. In most of the gondolas coming from the station excited voices and exclamations of delight broke the calm of the moonlit evening as the tourists rejoiced in the ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... the absconded Predikant. It was the only house in the place which had any pretension to decorative finish. But when the staff took possession it was a sorry pigsty. In its halcyon days a part of the house had evidently been in the possession of a young mother, for two of the apartments were knee-deep in a disordered heap of female apparel, intermingled with the tiny garments which mothers store away—small socks and bonnets tied with pink and blue. The ruthless hand of man had ransacked each drawer and crevice, and all that calls forth the sacred care of women lay tossed and tumbled in the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer |
