"Skulking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a motion expressive of caution. After a little space, during which no answer was returned, she signed to Roland to repeat his summons for admission; and the door at length partially opening, discovered a glimpse of the thin and timid porter, by whom the duty was performed, skulking from the observation of those who stood without; but endeavouring at the same time to gain a sight of them without being himself seen. How different from the proud consciousness of dignity with which the porter of ancient days offered his important brow, and his goodly person, to the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the house with her sprained ankle. As she sat at her corner bay-window she saw him hovering in the neighborhood, now in the alley at the side of the house, now hurrying past, whistling loudly as if bent upon some gay and remote errand, now skulking along as if he had stolen something, again seated on the curbstone at the farthest crossing from which he could see her window out of the corner of his eye. She understood—and forthwith forgave the past. She was immensely flattered that this big, audacious creature, ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... to have been gathered there, full of years, 'like a shock of corn fully ripe in its season,' rather than to be cut down in the morning of life by the roving Sioux, and my frame left a dainty morsel for the skulking wolf of the prairie. I communicated my sentiments to B——, and found that his views corresponded with mine. 'But,' said he, with the spirit of a genuine Kentuckian, 'we are in for it, Harry, and we must fight; it ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... acknowledged "cock of the school." Amongst the qualities that endeared him to them was a fearlessness which led him into dangers and difficulties, from which his pluck only could extricate him. He was a determined poacher: not one of the skulking class, but of a daring that led him to exert his abilities in Windsor Park itself; where he contrived to bag game, in spite of the watchfulness of the keepers and the surveillance of the well-paid watchers of the night. On one occasion; ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... his time in mean expedients and tormenting suspense, living for the greatest part in fear of prosecutions from his creditors, and consequently skulking in obscure parts of the town, of which he was no stranger to the remotest corners. But wherever he came, his address secured him friends, whom his necessities soon alienated; so that he had perhaps ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... coming to. If I had my way, I'd soon have yer again in the chain gang, and scratch yer back every day with the warder's cat—that's what I'd do with you. There,"—to the sheep—"off you go. Now, then, how much longer am I to wait for that next sheep? Of all the lazy, idle, skulking hands that ever came about a place you're the worst. Now, then, don't kill the poor beast, and don't keep me waiting ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... Gale slowed up. For the space of perhaps sixty seconds he had been moving with startling velocity. He peered cautiously out into the plaza. The paths, the benches, the shady places under the trees contained no skulking men. He ran out, keeping to the shade, and did not go into the path till he was halfway through the plaza. Under a street lamp at the far end of the path he thought he saw two dark figures. He ran faster, and soon reached ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; but a few more minutes—then liberty and life. The better to guard his movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his left, as his ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... loophole! And hold on at whatever cost! You—you are fit to fight," he suddenly snapped, turning upon one of the wounded wretches who had suffered from that explosion caused by the bomb tossed by Henri. "You are skulking, my friend. Up! Seize a rifle! Get ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... her young. She would go a short distance, utter a cry, return, and seemed to lead the way for her brood to follow. Having driven her away, that I might have a better opportunity of watching her young ones, she never ceased calling to them, and they made towards her, skulking amongst the rushes, till they got to the other side of the pond. They had only just left the shell, and had probably never heard the cry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... first rush, finding that the white men were on the alert, the blacks withdrew some distance, where their spears and arrows were not so effective. Our friends, including Andy Foger, and the German, kept up a hot fire whenever a skulking black form could ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... the others in the house went about their business, despite the firing so plainly heard. Black Sam had, after Elizabeth's arrival, returned from the orchard, whither he had gone late in the day, lest he might attract the attention of some dodging whale-boat or skulking Whig to the few remaining apples. He had been let in at a rear door by Williams, who had repressed him during the visit of the American dragoons,—for Sam was a sturdy, bold fellow, of different kidney from the dapper, citified Cuff. ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... more to say, Mr. Holmes, except that I was angry with my wife that night for having held me back when I might have caught the skulking rascal. She said that she feared that I might come to harm. For an instant it had crossed my mind that perhaps what she really feared was that HE might come to harm, for I could not doubt that she knew who this man was and what he meant by these strange ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to be dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's wife, within the cabin, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... he should not live happily and at ease for the rest of his life. But suddenly one day, for some unknown reason, he fled from his comfortable home into hiding. Why he did this no one can tell. For two years he lived a homeless, skulking fugitive. Then in 1731 he died, if not in poverty at least in loneliness ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... table R.). You that is skulking, come out! I call on the spirit of Edward Wales. I call on the spirit of Edward Wales. Now, you ...
— The Thirteenth Chair • Bayard Veiller
... the pain which would not show itself in any other way, and he felt the rare tears fill his own eyes at the thought. "Poor little Nan," he said to himself, "she has been hurt in the great battle, but she is no skulking soldier." He would let her tell her story, and then give her the best help he could; and so when the afternoon shadows were very long across the country, and the hot summer day was almost done, the doctor drove down the wide street and along East Road to the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... moment footsteps started and grew faint; Crump had darted across the path, and was running through the undergrowth up the spur. Isom rose and hurried after him; and when, panting hard, he reached the top, the spy's skulking figure was sliding from Steve's house and towards the Breathitt road; and with a hot, puzzled face, the boy ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... was wrong. He believed what he said, all right, but Smith and I know better. Don't worry about devils. These're just some dirty, skulking dogs who got away with murder this time but who won't do it again. We know where they're hiding. I'm checking up on them right now. After that you'll all get a chance to square accounts for poor ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... despair, shouted out on the battle-field of Kolin, "D'ye expect to live forever, pray?" Many Saxon or Silesian soldiers secretly left the army. One day Frederick himself kept his eye on a grenadier whom he had seen skulking to the rear of the camp. "Whither goest thou?" he cried. "Faith, sir," was the answer, "I am deserting; I'm getting tired of being always beaten." " Stay once more," replied the king, without showing the slightest anger; "I promise that, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and his cheeks were flushed. The flavour of living was sweet upon his palate. Here he was, who, only twelve hours ago, had gone skulking in the shadows looking out upon life with terrified eyes, tempted even to self-destruction, suddenly in touch once more with the things that were dear to him, realising for the first time some of the dreams which had filled his brain in those long, sleepless ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... my knife, and took up my line of march in a skulking trot up the river. The frequent gullies, on the lower bank, made it tedious travelling there, so I scrabbled up to the upper bank, which was pretty well covered with buckeye and sycamore and very little under-brush. One peep below discovered to me three as big and strapping red rascals, gentlemen, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... guilty as the guilty. During the forenoon she walked through the woods, going briskly, with vigorous, mountainbred feet. No crackle of underbrush disturbed her. Swift turnings revealed no lurking figures skulking behind the trunks of trees. But where an ancient stone bridge crossed a mountain stream, she came on the huge driver of the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... upon another. The Indians evidently were waiting for just such a try. How many lurked in the thicket? Who might tell? A report from those days says fifty-seven; chronicles say one hundred, two hundred. It is difficult to count Indians skulking amidst bushes and trees. At any rate there were plenty. One hundred had attacked Harrodsburg; a like number had attacked Boonesborough; probably one hundred guns commanded the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... released from duty, repeating his plea of illness. The second mate had, however, in the meantime mentioned the matter to the captain, putting his own construction upon it; the request was therefore harshly and hastily refused, the refusal being accompanied by the assertion that the pleader was a mean, skulking, mutinous ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... thrusting up at him from the newspaper page like derisive fingers; by the reports in parallel columns he was represented as saying one thing and doing another! And a bumptious, blundering, bull-headed Scotchman had put the Governor of a state in that tongue-tied, skulking position on ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Railroad, the camp of the enemy, that enemy that had ruined him and wrecked him. For the last time in his life, he had been the engineer. Now, once more, he became the highwayman, the outlaw against whom all hands were raised, the fugitive skulking in the mountains, listening ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... all that said to you, it means that if you find a doctor skulking about within ten feet of you, it is then your perfect right to press him into your service. If you command him to give you a ride on his back, he will have to do it. It's undignified and he doesn't ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... was almost as Jasper Jay had thought. Jimmy Rabbit was at the gypsies' camp. But he hadn't been stolen. He was skulking about, as near the gypsies as he dared to go. And he was so interested in what he saw that he had entirely forgotten to go home to dinner. But late in the afternoon he began to have such a queer feeling in his stomach that he remembered then that he had had nothing ...
— The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit - Sleepy-TimeTales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... have every skulking hound in the county on me," Christopher replied, loosening Sam Murray's restraining grasp. "If I can settle you I reckon I can settle them; but the day you open your lying mouth to me again I'll shoot you down as I would a mad dog—and wash ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... was prompted not only by a desire to vary his monotonous days, but to insure safety from possible foes. Should a skulking savage, or, what would be worse, a stray member of the robber band catch sight of him among the hills, the spy would spread the news among his fellows. A relentless search would be instituted, and even if Willock succeeded in escaping, the band would not rest till it had discovered his hiding-place. ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... officer did not make his appearance, he went below again, and found him slumbering as peacefully as before. He threatened to do no more pumping if the mate did not get up and lend a hand at once. Moreover, it was intimated to him that the skipper would have to be called if he lay there skulking while other people were being worked to death. This brought the mate out of his berth, but he got no further than the after-lockers, where he sat down with the object of lighting his pipe. Being comfortably seated, his head gradually sank on to the table, and, with the pipe in one hand and ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... ventured on foot, attired in his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observation, into the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base passions raged within him like a tempest. He walked fast, hunted by his fears, chattering to himself, skulking through the less-frequented thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still divided him from midnight. ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... have some doubt as to the propriety of including the Spotted Crake in my list, but, on the whole, such evidence as I have been able to collect seems in favour of its being at all events occasionally seen and shot, though its small size and shy skulking habits keep it very much from general notice. Mr. MacCulloch, however, writes to me to say the Spotted Rail has been found here; and one of Mr. De Putron's labourers described a Rail to me which he had shot in the Vale Pond in May, 1877, which, from his description, ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... baseless panic Seaton Grantland, customarily cool and sardonic, ridiculed Cuthbert in the Southern Recorder of which he was editor. Cuthbert retorted in his own columns that Grantland's conduct in the emergency had proved him a skulking coward.[81] No blood was shed, even ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... about and watch the Lord of the Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the yard porter to get whisky, although his proper place was not in the dynamo shed but behind the engines, and, moreover, if Holroyd caught him skulking he got hit for it with a rod of stout copper wire. He would go and stand close to the colossus and look up at the great leather band running overhead. There was a black patch on the band that came round, and it pleased him somehow among all ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Harry then rambled into the fields, where Mr. Barlow pointed out the several kinds of plants to be seen, and told his little companion the name and nature of each. When they returned to dinner Tommy, who had been skulking about all day, came in, and being very hungry, was going to sit down to the table, when Mr. Barlow said, "No, sir; though you are too much of a gentleman to work, we, who are not so proud, do not choose to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... is safe as yet, and victorious; though it is not in the gift of man to say what will be the ind of it. Is not that the wife of Arrowhead skulking in the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... behind the hotel and presently saw the girl come out of the stable with her horse. He followed, skulking softly behind her until he reached the appointed place among the cottonwoods. The trees grew tall and thick of trunk, and about their bases was a growth of dense shrubbery. It was a simple thing ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Mrs. Mugford a bit of his mind before night, but, like a wise man, not until he had thought the matter well over during a solitary walk. So he made his way through the woods and in due time came to the place where Dick had pointed out to him the ragged man, whom he had found skulking in the fern a short time before. Then it flashed across him suddenly that this man might be the deserter, and he blamed himself for his stupidity in not thinking of it at first. Once again he racked his brains to remember where he had seen the man before, for certainly he had ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... Bombay brought up the last of my skulking men, I bade him good-bye again, and made an afternoon-march on to Takina, in the district of Msalala, which we no sooner approached than all the inhabitants turned out and fired their arrows at us. They did no harm, however, excepting to create a slight ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... day one of the mates came in with a bucket of water. 'There! you skulking young hound,' he said as he threw it over me; 'you'd best get out, or the skipper will come and rouse ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... 9th of June a train left St. Albans for the east with nearly 1,000 Fenians bound for their homes, while many others were left skulking around the country in the hope that another raid would soon be organized, whereby they could have an opportunity ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... trail went up a long, shallow ravine, then veered round to the south. It told of fugitives and, for a time, of pursuers. Ten minutes after the first discovery, down in the sandy bottom and close to the stream, the officers caught sight of a brace of prairie wolves, skulking away from the timber, among the branches of which some grewsome birds were flapping and fluttering, while two or three sailed slowly overhead. Presently the riders came in view of a little scooped-out shelter where the sand was all torn ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... matter of fact," he said, "he's gone off to bed, and I am quite certain that he will not change his mind. I waited here to tell you about him, Lutie, because I felt you ought to be prepared in case he does come back and you happen to see him skulking around in—" ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... up beside the scouts with rifle up ready to aim at whatever he found skulking about them, there sounded a frightful screeching, and hoarse calls came from the lower ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side. He has his place neither in the background nor in the foreground of the story; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and unclean, tainting the fragrance of its youth ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... upon the bridge were all closed; the low wooden arches thrown across the way were like so many black pits, in every one of which ill-favoured fellows lurked in knots of three or four; some standing upright against the wall, lying in wait; others skulking in gateways, and thrusting out their uncombed heads and scowling eyes: others crossing and recrossing, and constantly jostling both horse and man to provoke a quarrel; others stealing away and summoning their companions in a low whistle. Once, even in that short passage, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... be discovered," I whispered to Pablo. "Our wisest mode of proceeding will be to stand up and face them boldly. It will be better to die on our feet, than to be speared like skulking foxes." ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... on board of the tapper; but I was astonished at the stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering, were all established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty when a man who is paid for an hour's work gives half an hour's consistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police during a burglary, and call himself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any skulking of that sort on board this vessel. You want to shirk your duty. Turn out lively, and ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... twisted painfully up at her from the lower window. "Grovel for it, Miss Dobson. Ask him to step down and help you. Oh, he can! That was all lies about his spine and ankle. Afraid, that's what he was—I see it all now—afraid of the water. I wish you'd found him as I did—skulking behind the curtain. Oh, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Charron was a brave young Frenchman, as fair a specimen as could be found, of a truly engaging but not overpowering type, kindly, warm-hearted, full of enterprise, lax of morals (unless honour—their veneer—was touched), loving excitement, and capable of anything, except skulking, or sulking, or ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... and upper stories, I should by good rights have taken it for granted that he was an expected guest and gone on my way to the Zabels'. But I did not. The softness with which this person stepped and the skulking way in which he hesitated at the front gate aroused my worst fears, and after he had opened that gate and slid in, I was so pursued by the idea that he was there for no good that I stepped inside the gate myself and took my stand in the deep shadow cast by ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... now——" He jerked his head towards the north with that unfailing sense of the cardinal points of the compass which a seaman acquires in earliest youth, or not at all. Somewhere in that direction the German fleet was presumed to be skulking. "It's different," he ended ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... not appreciate the turpitude of perjury. He esteemed it only a natural lie invested with pomp and circumstance; and the New Testament on which he should be sworn meant no more to his unlettered conscience than the horn-book, since he knew as little of its contents. But a lie is a skulking thing, and he had scant affinity ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... exclusively for you and dropped on the gridiron with a splutter. It is a sweet reward after you have knocked a three-bagger and stolen home, and is worth a search in all your eleven pockets for any last penny that may be skulking ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... a celebration of the charter. The Barons, however, found him out and put it off. Then, when the Barons desired to see him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointments with them, and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and was constantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared at Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his pay; and with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was occupied by knights and soldiers ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... by Elijah. The preacher described the ugly carnage with much gusto. He then invited his hearers to stamp out evil with similar vigour, and ended with drawing a highly optimistic picture of the world, representing evil and sin as a kind of skulking and lingering contagion, which God was doing His best to get rid of, and which was indeed only kept alive by the foolish perversity of a few abandoned persons, and would soon be extirpated altogether if only enough committees would meet and take the thing up in a businesslike way. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... streets, thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were all rifled of their contents, and men were forced to carry the booty to the camp, who were then struck dead as their reward. The town was then fired in every direction, that the skulking citizens might be forced from their hiding-places. As fast as they came forth they were put to death by their impatient foes. Some were pierced with rapiers, some were chopped to pieces with axes, some were surrounded in the blazing streets by troops of laughing soldiers, intoxicated, ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... to be, like a Rafael or a Pitt, a great poet at an age when other men are children; it was your fate, the fate of Chateaubriand and of every man of genius, to struggle against jealousy skulking behind the columns of a newspaper, or crouching in the subterranean places of journalism. For this reason I desired that your victorious name should help to win a victory for this work that I inscribe to you, a work which, if some persons are ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... happen, I returned to the fountain that faced Calista's window, and leaning upon its brink, viewed the whole apartment, which appeared very magnificent: just against me I perceived a door that went into it, which while I was considering how to get open I heard it unlock, and skulking behind the large basin of the fountain (yet so as to mark who came out) I saw to my unspeakable transport, the fair, the charming Calista dressed just as she was at the window, a loose gown of silver stuff lapped about her delicate body, her head in fine night-clothes, and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... true. Grim's colossal proportions were increased so much by his hairy dress that he seemed to have spread out into the dimensions of two large men rolled into one. But O'Riley was not to be overturned with impunity. Skulking round behind the crew, who were laughing at Grim's joke, he came upon the giant in the rear, and seizing the short tail of his jumper, pulled him violently down ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Tucker said. "But that is an out-of-the-way part, Jack, and there may be some of those skulking thieves hanging about there." ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... of our soldiers must be guarded against the skulking murderers who hide behind a window and shoot when there is no chance for our men to reply. Our men take their lives in their hands when they go to war, and if they die on the field of battle, they die willingly because they know that it is for the Fatherland. ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... thorough search was made, Truax was not found. It was thought that the fellow had been drowned. But months later it was learned that he was skulking in Europe with Tip Gaynor, who had received word in time to make his ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... and too quickly for any one to come to her rescue had been torn and killed. If this occurred after 1836 or 1837 it has no disagreement with Harriet Martineau's account, that at the latter date Madame Lalaurie was supposed to be still "skulking about some French ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... for the king's service. Now all eyes were engaged, for days together, in watching the man-of-war which hovered round the coasts to prevent the rebels being reinforced by water, and arms being landed from foreign vessels: and then there were rumours, and sometimes visions, of suspicious boats skulking among the islands, or a strange sail being visible on the horizon. Such excitements made the island appear a new place, and changed entirely the life of the inhabitants. The brave enjoyed all this: the timid sickened at it; and Lady Carse wept ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as the man had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to the spot at which he last had seen the great, skulking brute. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... decides him; and, still carrying the coon-dog under his arm, he parts from the spot, in timid skulking gait, never stopping, not feeling safe, till he finds himself inside the ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Helen looked; skulking along in the shadow of a ruined wall was a shabby, rough-looking man who stole swiftly out of sight ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... thrived. There were those who still endeavored to escape the vigilance of the naval officers, and save the three pounds on each slave. But the diligence and liberality of the authorities were not to be outdone by the skulking stinginess of Negro-smugglers. On the 18th of June, 1723, the General Assembly passed the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... before, were paid in "kind," and the tenth of all the meat raised at home was sent to the army, and with the few cattle they could gather, was sufficient to feed the troops. There were no skulking spirits among the people. They gave as willingly and cheerfully now as they did at the opening of the war. The people were honest in their dealings with the government, and as cheerful in their gifts to the cause as the Israelites ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... welcome. In the neighborhood of the ford there was no sound to interrupt the music of the river, no sight to disturb the peace of the dense forest. But on the morning of the following day, scouts came skulking through the trees, and in a few minutes the apparently unpeopled place was alive with ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... a street corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world of pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he made Bebelle's toilet with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work of the way in which he had often seen the poor Corporal make it, and having given her to ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... no particular cut, his aspect had no relief; yet those restless side-whiskers flanking his red mouth and the suspicious expression of his black eyes made him noticeable. This I regretted the more because I caught sight of two skulking fellows, looking very much like policemen in plain clothes, watching us from a corner of the great hall. I hurried my man into a fiacre. He had been travelling from early morning on cross-country lines and after we got on terms a ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... and an open fire had been made in the hall or court of the palace. Peter sat with others at the fire, thinking, perhaps, that brazen openness was better than skulking caution as a possible safeguard against detection. About an hour after his former denials, some of the men around the fire charged him with being a disciple of Jesus, and referred to his Galilean dialect ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... child; but the fault was mine. I should have been allowed to suffer for it in the natural way. No good ever comes of skulking. But they hurried me off to Europe, and began a cowardly system of concealment. They made me almost forget my own misconduct in shame for the things they did by way of covering it up. My mother never took me in her ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... a few simple words. The black man had been skulking about Penshurst for some time. He had scared Mistress Lucy, and the boy had seen him near the house. Mistress Gifford had gone out early to look after the shepherd, who was seeking a lost lamb, and the black man had come out of a hollow. Then Mistress Gifford had run with all her might, and, worse ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... them to believe and to preach the belief that we are a decadent and degenerate people. They proclaim to the world through their professors that we are a non-heroic nation skulking behind our mahogany counters, while we egg on more gallant races to their destruction. This is a description given of us in Germany—"a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its fleet." I think they are beginning to find their mistake ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... her. She and Constantine have been acting very strangely of late. She used to be the happiest sort of creature, always laughing and singing, but she has changed entirely during the last few weeks. Both she and Constantine are forever whispering to each other and skulking about, until I am getting nervous myself." Then as the Indian girl came flying back with her tiny baby brother in her arms, Cherry added: "She's pretty, isn't she? I can't bear ugly ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... underworld gloom he had grown to hate. He must still stay an unwilling prisoner in this garden of studied indolence, this playground of invalids and gamblers; he must still dawdle idly about these glittering, stagnating squares, fringing a crowd of meaningless foreigners, skulking half-fed and poorly housed about this opulent showplace of the world that set its appeasing theatricalities into motion only at the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... May, 1854, a negro was seen skulking in the shadows near a dock in Boston. This coloured man, Anthony Burns by name, was a slave, who had escaped from his Southern master, and after weeks had reached Philadelphia, where a Quaker had stowed ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... tan-bark with a stick. Here the Federal troops could effect a landing: he knew the defences at that point. If they did? He thought of these Snake-hunters who had found in the war a peculiar road for themselves downward with no gallows to stumble over, fancied he saw them skulking through the fields at Cedar Creek, closing around the house, and behind them a mass of black faces and bloody bayonets. Floy alone, and he here,—like a rat in a trap! "God keep my little girl!" he wrote, unsteadily. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... storm we seek no lee, With skulking head, and bending knee, Behind the hollow shield. With eye and hand we fend the head; Courage and skill stand in the stead Of panzer, helm, and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... 'em off till dark and then British Tommies piled in and relieved us. We needed it because we hadn't had a bite in seventy hours and I had been lying in the mud and water for twice that time. Just before relief comes on, two skulking figures comes over the top. I was thinking that maybe these was Hindus or Eskimos coming to join our little international party and we shouts out to 'em and asks 'em where they hails from. Both of 'em yelled ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... The beast of prey skulking back to his lair, the stag quenching his thirst ere retiring to the depths of the forest, the wedge of wild fowl flying with trumpet notes to some distant lake, the vulture hastening in heavy flight to the carrion ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... monster?" "Not I, not I!" answered a crowd of voices. One deputy declared that he would vacate his seat if the hall were polluted by the presence of such a wretch. The election was declared null on the ground that the person elected was a criminal skulking from justice; and many severe reflections were thrown on the lenity which suffered him to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... truant schoolboy. This was the lark of a lifetime. The two lads, however, were uneasy and depressed. To them this sombre region was haunted, if not by ghosts then by memories as unhappy. They would not have been surprised to see Blackbeard skulking in the tall grass, his head bound in red calico, his pistols cocked to ambush them. And, alas, old Trimble Rogers was not along to protect them with his musket. He had lived and dreamed ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... though I believe one of our frigates, after the war, made it in twelve. This was the only occasion, during my fairly numerous crossings, that. I have ever seen icebergs under a brilliant sky. Usually the scoundrels come skulking along masked by a fog, as though ashamed of themselves, as they ought to be. They are among the most obnoxious of people who do not know their place. This time we passed several, quite large, having a light breeze and perfectly clear horizon. After that it again set in thick, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... that front door and asking for Miss Joscelyn Burnett," grinned Jordan sheepishly. "Mebbe they'll tell me to go around to the back and inquire for the cook. But you're going just the same, Jordan Sloane, and no skulking. March right up now. Think of Aunty Nan and don't ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of this unhappy affair, differed very little from what we had before learnt from the rest of his countrymen. He mentioned the narrow escape he had during the fray; a musquet being levelled at him, which he avoided by skulking behind the boat; and another man, who stood close to him, was shot dead. As soon as the musquet was discharged, he instantly seized the opportunity to attack Mr Rowe, who commanded the party, and who defended himself with his hanger, (with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the upper end of the room, gazing blankly through the doorway at the gray light and clouds of white mist trailing. Once an object came into the field of his vision. At the first glimpse he thought it a dog—long, lean, skulking, prowling, tawny—on the scent of his tracks. Then the mist passed over it. When he beheld it again it had approached nearer and was creeping rapidly toward the door. His listless eyes grew fascinated by its motions—its litheness, suppleness, grace, stealth, exquisite ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... of the door below and the rattle of the chain were comforting to Harmony's ears. From the safety of the darkened salon she peered out into the garden again, but no skulking figure detached itself from the shadows, and the gate ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... shouted the corporal, "stand from before that hole, or we shall be marks in this light for the skulking villains," ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... through—skulking Indian hordes, as he must, could have no better message reach him than that. The bent of his mind was toward mysticism, and while he did not think the train of reasoning out, could not have said that he believed it ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... poor old creatures tottering on the brink of the grave, with nothing left in life but the enjoyment of beer and tobacco. There were strong men in their prime who really desired work when they asked for it, and skulking cowards who hoped they would not get it. There were the diseased, the educated, the ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, and the sane. Some in real professional beggars' style called down blessings on me; others were morose and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Wibberly, two of the sceptics, happened to be caught that very afternoon by Bloomfield in the act of "skulking" dinner—that is, of answering to their names at the call-over, and then slipping off unobserved to enjoy a rather more elaborate clandestine meal in their own study. It was not a very uncommon offence, or perhaps ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... hideous-looking animal in America than the wolverene. His thick body and short stout legs, his shaggy coat and bushy tail, but, above all, his long curving claws and dog-like jaws, gave him a formidable appearance. His gait is low and skulking, and his look bold and vicious. He walks somewhat like a bear, and his tracks are often mistaken for those of that animal. Indians and hunters, however, know the difference well. His hind feet are plantigrade, that is, they rest upon the ground from heel to toe; and his back curves like the segment ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... a watchful eye; and the two listeners were obliged to observe the strictest silence, without motion of any kind, until he had completed an ineffectual search, and returned into the pavilion. "By my faith, brave man," said the Count, "ere we return to our skulking-place, I must tell thee in thine ear, that never, in my life, was temptation so strong upon me, as that which prompted me to beat out that old hypocrite's brains, provided I could have reconciled it with my honour; and heartily do I wish ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the while on the ugliness of men's garments, a sudden storm of violent rasping screams burst from some holly bushes a few yards away. It proceeded from three excited jays, but whether they were girding at me, the shouting boys, or a skulking cat among the bushes, I could ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... of Lucre rules supreme; this street was crowded and enormously wealthy; yet not half so magnificent and clean as the Street of Pride, nor its people so foolishly haughty, for here they were for the most part skulking and sly. Thousands of Spaniards, Dutchmen, Venetians, and Jews were here, and also a great many aged people. "Prithee, sir," said I, "what manner of men might these be?" "They are pinchfists one and all. In the lower end thou shalt see the Pope once more together with ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... paddles vigorously, ascending the Illinois River, and passing through the broad expanse of Lake Peoria. Their canoe was leaky and heavily laden. The current was strong, and their passage slow. They did not venture to land until after dark, that the landing might not be seen by any foe, skulking through the forest along the banks of the river. They also took the precaution to seek their night's encampment on the side of the stream opposite that which was ...
— 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
... reverses came he alone of the Free Staters was able to imbue the men with new zeal. After Bloemfontein was captured by the British he transferred the capital to Kroonstad, and there, with the assistance of President Kruger, re-established the fighting spirit of the burgher army. He induced the skulking burghers to return to their compatriots at the front, and formed the plans for future resistance against the invading army. When Lord Roberts's hosts advanced from Bloemfontein, President Steyn again moved the capital ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... himself up by this time, had wiped his bleeding face with a napkin, and was skulking ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his prey proceeded to eat his fill. As he was gnawing the last morsel from a bone his quick ears caught the padding of stealthy feet behind him, and turning he confronted Dango, the hyena, sneaking upon him. With a growl the ape-man picked up a fallen branch and hurled it at the skulking brute. "Go away, eater of carrion!" he cried; but Dango was hungry and being large and powerful he only snarled and circled slowly about as though watching for an opportunity to charge. Tarzan of the Apes knew Dango even better than Dango knew himself. He knew that the brute, made savage by ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... narrow thoroughfares. But farther yet to the northeast, in the Florida I best knew and loved, a whooping crane would startle the solitude with its uncanny cry, the alligators would croak their guttural grunts at waking time, while, here and there in the shadowy forest, the whine of a skulking panther would strike terror to the hearts of gentler things. Ah, the trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature moves on ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... ordnance trailing along like lame sheep behind the flock. Caracco, I would that I were a young King's officer with a troop of light horse on the ridge yonder! My faith, how I should sweep down yon cross road like a kestrel on a brood of young plover! Then heh for cut and thrust, down with the skulking cannoniers, a carbine fire to cover us, round with the horses, and away go the rebel guns in a cloud of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... them: "Coward and dastard souls! no darts of yours Had given me pause, nor thrust back from your ships, Had not your rampart stayed mine onset-rush. Ye are like to dogs, that in a forest flinch Before a lion! Skulking therewithin Ye are fighting—nay, are shrinking back from death! But if ye dare come forth on Trojan ground, As once when ye were eager for the fray, None shall from ghastly death deliver you: Slain by mine hand ye all ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and I did it—a blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pursuing his former thought, "has something in his possession which this man Boyle covets and thinks he must have? And the cheapest and easiest way to get it is to make you pay for it in the violation of your honest principles, if he can drive you to it in his skulking way?" ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... along the beach to see if anything could be picked up, they found Mary sitting on the sand beside the dead body of a man. The dead sailor's head was bruised, and his waistcoat had been torn open. A rat-catcher who had crossed the moor said that he saw the man who drowned the dog skulking up the hollow from the place where the corpse lay, but no one brought any definite accusation, for, after all, the bruise on the head might have been caused by a blow on a stone. Still the suspected man had a bad life after this occurrence. Mary lost ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... and you take the word of S. Fountain for that. I'll engineer the thing from this bed if you'll let me put my oar in your trouble; I'll victual her, and find a crew three quarter price of any of those d——d skulking agents. Oh, I'll take a commission right enough, but I'm half paid with ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... on it by telling lies, you skulking hound," cried Bob, who was as fierce now as could be. "Mr Lomax, will you see as he ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... little hope that he would escape; for his nose was such as none who had seen it could forget; and it was to little purpose that he put on a flowing wig and that he suffered his beard to grow. The pursuit was probably not very hot; for, after skulking a few weeks in England, he succeeded in crossing the Channel, and remained ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... skulking sculpin? Thought I was bear meat by this, didn't you, blast yore rotten soul to hell! But I'm back, Bill Simms. Back, an' this time ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... no ghosts, at all events. Scared as I was, I rejoiced at that. I could cope with men, but who can cope with the devil? These might be villains—doubtless were, skulking in this deserted house,—yet with readiness and pluck ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle |
