"Knee-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... squarely, but thrust across the beds and through the wet, tall, scented herbs, through the night-stock and the nicotine and the clusters of phantom white mallow flowers and through the thickets of southernwood and lavender, and knee-deep across a wide space of mignonette. He came to the great hedge, and he thrust his way through it; and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply and tore threads from his wonderful suit, and though burrs and goose-grass and havers caught ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... recommence their ancient melancholy song. And as we glide back, there comes to me the idea of the prodigious cost of that which we went forth to see, the magnificent horror of steel and steam and all the multiple enginery of death—paid for by those humble millions who toil for ever knee-deep in the slime of rice-fields, yet can never afford to eat their own rice! Far cheaper must be the food they live upon; and nevertheless, merely to protect the little that they own, such nightmares must be called into existence—monstrous creations of science mathematically ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... have made a fine tree; the ponds of Boulogne; the varied views of the Seine, with the gay and sunny slopes from the walks running parallel to the river. Then the mill and its surrounding fields, quiet at times with browsing cows knee-deep in the rich grass, or at other times alive with merry mowers and hay-makers. Several views of Mont Valerien, looming in the haze of the after-glow, or in dark contrast with the splendor of the afternoon sunshine, also caught my husband's ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... hands in delight to see the great curling crests of the waves; and now she is singing her merry songs to the sea-birds, and laughing in their funny faces, and fairly shouting with joy, as, at landing, she rides to the shore perched high on the shoulder of sailor Jack, while he wades knee-deep through ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... as near as possible, I set 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... delicate dish that tempts An o'ergorged epicure to the last morsel That stuffs him to the throat-gates, is no more. If matter be not, but as sages say, Spirit is all, and all things visible Are one, the infinitely modified, Think, Jacob, what that pig is, and the mire Wherein he stands knee-deep! And there! the breeze Pleads with me, and has won thee to a smile That speaks conviction. O'er yon blossom'd field Of beans it came, and thoughts ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... foolish little deer, that for idle fear of falling victim to delusion, should absolutely refuse to drink, even at a pool. O deer, what can ever convince thee of the reality of water, if thou wilt not believe, even when thou art actually standing, as at present, knee-deep in the lake? Must the very future become present, before thou wilt trust thyself to credit what it holds? But thou askest impossibility, and like every other maiden, thou canst not experience the future till it comes. Hast thou, then, no faith ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... 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
... 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 ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" they ...
— The Shield • Various
... to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be—as here they are—mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... enough. Beyond this we came on an open plain, covered with water up to one's ankles. The soil here was a stiff clay, and the surface very uneven, so that between the tufts of grass one was frequently knee-deep in water. The bottom, however, was sound, and no fear of bogging. After floundering through this for several miles, we came to a path formed by the blacks, and there were distinct signs of a recent migration in a southerly direction. By making use of this path we got on ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the Cherwell, which unites with the Isis to form the Thames, I believe. The Cherwell is a narrow and remarkably sluggish stream; but is deep in spots, and capriciously so,—so that a person may easily step from knee-deep to fifteen feet in depth. A gentleman present used a queer expression in reference to the drowning of two college men; he said "it was an awkward affair." I think this is equal to Longfellow's story of the Frenchman who avowed himself very much "displeased" at the news of his father's ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... immediate action on the part of the Federal authorities. These pioneers had seen uncounted millions of buffalo melt away because no one took enough interest in the matter to stop the wanton waste. They had seen great billowy prairies, once knee-deep in the most splendid covering of grass and vegetation, grazed down until they were hardly more than dust heaps; and mountains that were clothed with magnificent forests swept bare—first by the woodsman's ax and later by forest fires that burned each year millions and millions of feet of the finest ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... little need for the swart gipsies to explain, as they stood knee-deep in the snow round the bailiff of the Abbey Farm, what it was that had sent them. The unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that, and, even as they spoke, there came up the hill the dark figures of the farm men with shovels, on their way to dig out the sheep. ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... woman rocking in her small splint chair by the rose-draped window, her thoughts dwelling on long dark green grass, the shade of elms, and cows knee-deep in river-shallows; this was California—hot, arid, tedious in endless sunlight—a place ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... then, fearless of the hard bent and rough roots of the heather, bore the almost alarming Fairy dancing away from the eyes of the stranger; till the courteous spirit that reigns over all the Highland wilds arrested her steps knee-deep in bloom, and bade her bow her auburn head, as, blushing, she faltered forth, in her sweet Gaelic accents, a welcome that thrilled like a blessing through the heart of the Sassenach, nearly benighted, and wearied sore with the fifty glorious ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... a sea of shallow mist was rolling; and the trees in the valley, like browsing cattle, stood knee-deep in whiteness, with all the air above them wan from an innumerable rain as of moondust, falling into that white sea. Then the moon passed behind the lime-tree, so that a great lighted Chinese lantern seemed to hang blue-black ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Dhobi steams them, [551] hanging them in a bundle for a time over a cauldron of boiling water. After this he takes them to a stream or pond and washes them roughly with fuller's earth. The washerman steps nearly knee-deep into the water, and taking a quantity of clothes by one end in his two hands he raises them aloft in the air and brings them down heavily upon a huge stone slab, grooved, at his feet. This threshing operation he repeats until his clothes are perfectly clean. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... for turning up in all the unexpected places. You meet his sort everywhere, and they always have a wife along, who worships them and makes a home out of tin cans and packing-cases that would put the stay-at-home housekeepers to shame. They always have a picture on the wall of cows standing knee-deep in the water, and no matter what their circumstances are, there's always something in reserve, for guests, offered frankly without apology. Never hesitate with those folk, but don't let them go too far, for they'll beggar themselves to help you in a tight place, if ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... so bad that it took two hours to cover the eight miles. The two horses sank knee-deep into the mud and stumbled into ditches; sometimes they had to jump over them. In certain places, Liebard's mare stopped abruptly. He waited patiently till she started again, and talked of the people whose estates bordered ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... no speech would pretend, But he ne'er turn'd his back on his foe, or his friend; Said, "Toss down the Whistle, the prize of the field," And, knee-deep in claret, he'd die ere ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... stood, in sun or shade, knee-deep in them fresh green grasses, a-lookin' off onto them sunset clouds always rosy and golden, by the side of that streamlet that always had the sparkle on its ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... elephants— With silver howdahs and their tusks gold-tipped— Should wait beyond the ford, and where the drums Should boom "Siddartha cometh!" where the lords Should light and worship, and the dancing-girls Where they should strew their flowers with dance and song So that the steed he rode might tramp knee-deep In rose and balsam, and the ways be fair; While the town rang with music and high joy. This was ordained and all men's ears were pricked Dawn after dawn to catch the first drum's beat Announcing, "Now he cometh!" But it fell Eager to be before—Yasodhara ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... far?' I ask. '180 yards,' says my guide. 'Pop!' remarks a third person just in front. 'A sniper,' says my guide; 'take a look through the periscope.' I do so. There is some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly upwards with knee-deep grass, then rusty wire again, and a red line of broken earth. There is not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes are always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me are watching them. There are dead Germans in the grass before us. You need not see them to know that they are there. ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... manager continues to wade knee-deep in tragedy, in spite of the state of the weather. The fare is, however, too good for any change in the carte. "Werner" forms a substantial standing dish. The "Boarding School" makes a most palpable entree; while "Bob Short," and "My Friend the Captain," serve as excellent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... 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
... coats to be more active—cut them to pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen got within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All this time the dense French army, being in armour, were sinking knee-deep into the mire; while the light English archers, half-naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the inclemency of the 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 Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... failures of 1825- 26. So the 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 ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year, you must not die: You came to us so ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... being carried by two men, on a wooden framework or stretcher. Along a road or up a well made communication trench this was a comparatively light task, but to carry a tank full of hot tea over slippery shell holes and through knee-deep mud was a difficult matter, and on more than one occasion a platoon lost its hot drink at night through the disappearance of the carriers into some shell hole. The wonderful thing was that both tea-less platoon and drenched carriers would laugh over ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... for uniting so many characteristics, compelled me to abandon my first hope of forming a committee for the experiment; for as soon as I began to sound physiologists on the subject, I landed knee-deep in a mass of invincible prejudices and prepossessions. The scheme was too new, too daring for the capacity of the mediocrities which constitute the bulk of even the scientific world. I must discover some exceptional solitary enthusiast like myself, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... its head. He grabbed the girl again, handing the goblet back to his corps of three carriers, and bowed and grinned at his worshippers behind him, surging forward, and at some others standing under the bridge, ankle-deep, shin-deep, even knee-deep in the rushing water, craning their necks upward to get a really good view of their God as he passed over. There were over a hundred ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sight. It was a hot and oppressive day; the air was filled with mosquitoes,—"so thick," says Champlain, "that we could hardly draw breath, and it was wonderful how cruelly they persecuted us,"—their route lay through swampy soil, where the water at places stood knee-deep; over fallen logs, wet and slimy, and under entangling vines; their heavy armor added to their discomfort; the air was close and heavy; altogether it was a progress fit to make one sicken of warfare in the wilderness. After struggling onward till they were almost in despair, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the ankles of Black Devil. The moon had not yet risen when the timber disappeared at the foot of the first shoulder. Douglas pulled up the panting horses, turned back to the wind and rested for a few moments, then put Tom to the climb. The snow was without crust but it was knee-deep and Tom didn't like it. He floundered and snorted, but Douglas spurred him relentlessly and they crested the shoulder without pause. Here, however, Doug decided to wait for ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... 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.... 'Colonel,' ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... as he made his way knee-deep in water, came towards the two prisoners. It was Hans Koppe. He had obtained the Kapitan's permission to release his charges from ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... 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 ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... down to the clear stream, To cross the sparkling shallows; there The cattle love to gather, on their way To the high mountain pastures and to stay, Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, Knee-deep in the cool ford; for 'tis the last Of all the woody, high, well-water'd dells On Etna, . . . . . . glade, And stream, and sward, and chestnut-trees, End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare Of the hot noon, without a shade, Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... was sent back to Division Head-quarters at Q— with information the Colonel did not care to commit to paper. He set off at ten o'clock, with Sergeant Hicks for escort. There had been two days of rain, and the communication trenches were almost knee-deep in water. About half a mile back of the front line, the two men crawled out of the ditch and went on above ground. There was very little shelling along the front that night. When a flare went up, they dropped and lay on their faces, trying, at the same time, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... shut the cabin door behind him and discreetly left the young people together. Seeing little in the deep gloom and his eyes blinking wherever he turned them, Alban stood almost knee-deep in straw and cried ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... light came into Phil Adams's eyes, as he stood knee-deep in the boiling surf, and for an instant I think he meditated plunging into the ocean ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... waggons 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 ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... uplands this meant the felling of trees, and gradual removal of stumps as time permitted, but on the rice lands it meant far more. The great reeds, ten to twelve feet high, grew so thick that a man could scarcely set foot between them, and in cutting them down it was necessary to go "knee-deep" below the surface of the ground, and then the roots were so intertwined that it was difficult to ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... Ashton-Kirk lounged in a comfortable window-seat, almost knee-deep in newspapers. The published accounts of the assassination were, in some instances, very sensational. Drawings, by special artists of persons concerned, were much in evidence, also half-tones of the exterior of 478 Christie Place. The names of Osborne ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... 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 the water. ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... 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 the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... in house and fried some herrings for supper. Tony and John went back to the boat. All night long they worked under the moon, drawing out the net and picking the fish from it, standing knee-deep in fish, spotted with scales like sequins. Far into Sunday they worked, counting and packing the fish while the Sunday folk in their best clothes strolled along the ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... mounted high,— Mounting still, from the crafty foe Creeping and crawling up below; And, when thou canst no farther go, See thee crouch for the fearful leap Off the top of the old well-sweep, Then, with a swift and dizzy sweep, Plunge in the crusty snow knee-deep. Nor, for a lameness gotten so, Shall I nurse thee ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... shell in part of the roof, and bullet holes 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
... I shuddered to see him wade knee-deep in the stream—but he succeeded. Both gentlemen leaped safe on shore. The younger tried desperately to save his boat, but it was too late. Already the "water-boar" had clutched it—the rope broke like ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... discovered they have gone by, and still think and talk of Universities as though they were the only sources and repositories of wisdom. They conjure up a vision in my mind of an absent-minded water-seller, bearing his precious jars and crying his wares knee-deep, and going deeper into a rising stream. Or if that does not seem just to the University in the past, an image of a gardener, who long ago developed a novel variety of some great flower which has now scattered its wind-borne ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... most vigorous 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 souls of ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... 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 ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... wasn't he a 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
... might attract the natives to their neighbourhood; and a very vigilant watch was therefore kept during the night. Somewhat to their surprise, however, it passed away quietly, and the next morning they resumed their march. They were passing the borders of a thick wood, nearly knee-deep in grass, when Roger felt his foot strike against a hard substance which emitted a hollow sound, as it gave way before him. Stooping down, he rose with a human skull in his hand, white and clean. He and Vaughan examined it: the top ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... the snags and trees Move the sluggish currents, half asleep; Around and between the cypress knees, Like black, slow snakes the dark tides creep— How deep is the bayou beneath the trees? "Knee-deep, Knee-deep, Knee-deep, Knee-deep!" Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot Lake From his hiding-place in ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... dashed knee-deep into the water to relieve Walter of his burden; and as they did so, a dozen of the women stretched out their hands, and received the still unconscious form of her who had been rescued; meanwhile the knight and ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... 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 position ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... series of letters to the Boston Journal. Having inherited from his father eighty acres of land in Central Illinois, near the town of Lincoln, he went out to visit it. At Chicago, a bustling place of 25,000 inhabitants, he found the mud knee-deep. Great crowds of emigrants were arriving and departing. Going south to La Salle he took steamer on the Illinois River to Peoria, reaching there Saturday night. Not willing to travel on Sunday, he went ashore. After attending service at church, he asked the privilege ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... Canticles locates his shepherd in Gilead, the wild jasmine and other flowers of whose pastures (the "lilies" of the Song) still excite the admiration of travellers. Laurence Oliphant is lost in delight over the "anemones, cyclamens, asphodels, iris," which burst on his view as he rode "knee-deep through the long, rich, sweet grass, abundantly studded with noble oak and terebinth trees," and all this in Gilead. When, then, the Hebrew poet placed his shepherd and his flocks among the lilies, he was not trying to conciliate the courtly ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... the timber at last, and spun across a wide plain, scattered with clumps of gum-trees. Then another belt of bush, a narrow one this time; and they came out within view of a great park-like paddock where Shorthorn bullocks, knee-deep in grass, scarcely moved aside as the buggy spun past, with the browns pulling hard. The track ran near the fence, and turned in at a big white gate glistening with new paint. It stood wide open, and beside it was a man on a ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... from reach to 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 green and translucent through a half-shut sluice. Now and ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... faces, as if they found these the pleasantest points of the landscape. Sauntering between plantations of young eucalyptus, they came to the arched stone bridge. They leaned on the parapet, looking down at the marshy stream beneath and at the three irises Kerr had remarked, knee-deep ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... searchers, regardless of their small-clothes, now plunged knee-deep into the pond. For an hour they searched it; searched it from end to end; ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... who wade through mud knee-deep to plant the rice by hand, cultivate it with primitive tools, and harvest it with sickles. And after all this, they must often sell the rice they grow, and themselves buy cheaper millet or poorer rice for their own food. The situation has probably improved somewhat since Col. Charles Denby published ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... 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 ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... rough backs of the Chough and Crow loomed black and sulky in the foam. At their feet, the rocks and shingle of the Cove were alive with human beings—groups of women and children clustering round a corpse or a chest; sailors, knee-deep in the surf hauling at floating spars and ropes; oil-skinned coast-guardsmen pacing up and down in charge of goods, while groups of farmers' men, who had hurried down from the villages inland, lounged ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... the rest; for the yard was getting full of drunkards, a woman or two among them, reeling knee-deep in the loose straw among ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... leads to destruction. But for all that it is a most agreeable one to follow hand-in-hand, winding as it does through the pleasant meadows of companionship. The view is rather limited, it is true, and homelike—full of familiar things. There stand the kine, knee-deep in grass; there runs the water; and there grows the corn. Also you can stop if you like. By-and-by it is different. By-and-by, when the travellers tread the heights of passion, precipices will yawn and torrents rush, lightnings ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... moons died out and a chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred and twittered, and the marble slipped away from the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and they were statues no more, but flesh and blood children as they used to be, standing knee-deep in brambles and long coarse grass. There was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... departure, escorted by many of them that walked before and after us. They kept up shouting: "Allesa rondade!" that is, to fire our pistols; but we did not want to do so, and at last they went back. This day we passed over many a stretch of flat land, and crossed a kill where the water was knee-deep; and I think we kept this day mostly the direction west and northwest. The woods that we traversed consisted in the beginning mostly of oaks, but after three or four hours' marching it was mostly birch trees. It snowed the whole day, so it was very ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... not infrequently awake, and, seeing their opportunity, pipe the flakes a lively dance. I am speaking now of the typical, full-born midwinter storm that comes to us from the North or N. N. E., and that piles the landscape knee-deep with snow. Such a storm once came to us the last day of January,—the master-storm of the winter. Previous to that date, we had had but light snow. The spruces had been able to catch it all upon their arms, and keep a circle of bare ground beneath ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... the seed is sown, Here toileth many a maid, And ere the hay knee-deep hath grown Your grooms ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... water crashed down upon her decks and roared off over the rails, the men at the wheel were never less than knee-deep. The sheets strained, the timbers creaked, and the sails roared, and back of all were the wind and the North Atlantic ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... sort, in a journey from Niagara to Hamilton, is described by this writer as consisting of a "rolling and tumbling along the detestable road, pitching like a scow among the breakers of a lake storm." The road was knee-deep in mud, the "forest on either side dark, grim, and impenetrable." There were but three or four steamboats in existence, and these were not much more expeditious. Fares were high. The rate from York to Montreal was about $24. Nearly the only people who travelled were the merchants and ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... and foaming upon the natural mole, sweeping over it with the noise of thunder, crashing upon the sloping front, and riding their white steeds over the solid flagging to the lower lagoon. In this smother of water we stood knee-deep, receiving its buffets upon our waists and the spray upon our faces, and watched for the fish that were carried upon its crests. With spears couched, we waited the flying chance to arrest them upon the points, a hazardous game, for often ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... 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 to work up a little sea, which ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... morning dawned a calm, mild day. The snow was knee-deep on the ground and covered the housetops with a thick soft mantle. On how many utterly different scenes the stray sunbeams rested that winter morning. Nearly all the heroines of Miss Teazle's ball were sunk in heavy, tired slumber, in rooms strewn with laces and flowers and other fragments ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... at it with indifference. Their complexion is of a blueish white, that suggests the idea of dropsy; this is invariable, and the poor little ones wear exactly the same ghastly hue. A miserable cow and a few pigs standing knee-deep in water, distinguish the more prosperous of these dwellings, and on the whole I should say that I never witnessed human nature reduced so low, as it appeared in the wood-cutters' huts on the ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... A bundle, which, during the excitement, lay on her lap, broke open; and my mother-in-law, like Cleopatra in her roses, stood knee-deep in baby-clothes. In a moment the truth burst upon me. I was unmanned, limp, and disjointed. The shock was too much! A ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... 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, flapped his wings ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... grounds, and paths made by the red hunter and warrior. Although hundreds of deer traveled to this lick yearly, they had not originally made the trail. It was an ancient Indian runaway, for the creek was fordable near this point. The tribesmen had used it for generations until it was worn almost knee-deep in the forest mould, but wide enough only to be traveled in single file. Along this ancient trail, and approaching the lick with infinite caution, came a boy of ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... that ever marched to conquest under Napoleon. When the history of America comes to be written in a hundred years, it will not be the record of a slaughter field with contending nations battling for the mastery, or generals wading to glory knee-deep in blood. It will be an account of the most wonderful race movement, the most wonderful experiment in ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... been much greater, for out of a much smaller crew than ours they had buried the same number, and had only eighty-two remaining alive. It might be expected that on board the Trial the slaughter would have been the most terrible, as her decks were almost constantly knee-deep in water; but it happened otherwise, for she escaped more favourably than the rest, since she only buried forty-two, and had now thirty-nine remaining alive. The havoc of this disease had fallen still severer on the invalids and marines than on the sailors; for on board the Centurion, ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... his handsome, blarneying face. Then there were sketches taken in the neighbourhood. "I remember this one half finished on his easel," said Harry. It was a glade of a forest; in the fore-ground a huge oak, knee-deep in bracken, and tall blue hyacinths. "Look Bluebell, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... thinking that the swamp might be waded, put spurs to his horse and dashed forward. He had advanced but a few rods when the horse, struggling knee-deep through the mire, stumbled and fell. One of the legs of the rider was so caught beneath the animal as to pin him inextricably in the morass, covering him with water and with mud. The weight of his armor sank him deeper in the mire, ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill a great dog watching over a little child that he'd kept warm all night. Dan, he'd got up at turn of tide, and walked down,—the sea running over the road knee-deep,—for there was too much swell for boats; and when day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her up to town. He didn't take her home, for he saw that what clothes she had were the very finest,—made as delicately,—with seams like the hair-strokes on that heart's-ease there; and he concluded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... the swamp before at night. The rain had driven most of the frogs and other croaking creatures to cover. But now and then a sudden rumble "Better-go-roun'!" or "Knee-deep! Knee-deep!" proclaimed the presence of the green-jacketed gentlemen with ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... during the Christmas holidays tiger-shooting in their father's dining-room; and as one, making his cautious way among the legs of the dinner-table, for the nonce a pathless jungle, was hailed by the other with, "Any tigers there, Bill?" he answered gloriously: "Tigers? I'm knee-deep in them!" ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... his song; even the Swallows had returned from the warm, sunny South, and were for ever skimming over the brook, just dipping their wings into its limpid waves, then off again with the joyous 'Twit, twit, twit.' The meadows, too, were yellow with buttercups, in which the cows waded knee-deep. Talk of the Field of the Cloth of Gold! Francis the First would have been a clever man could he have made such an one!—no earthly king could create golden fields ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... walked through the deserted front entrance of the hall in the most natural manner, and so behind among the empty bottles, and along the plank into the tent; then, after a while, out again. She would never be disturbed now, and the wild beast was back at his claim, knee-deep, and busy among the digging and the wetness, in another pair of overalls just like the ones that were now under some stones at the bottom of a mud-puddle. And then one very bad long scream came up to the ditches, and Drylyn knew the women had ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... flawless grassplot in front of Craffroe Lodge 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 ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... 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 upon what ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... 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 with wild rose and honeysuckle.—White flocks in the lengthening shade of elms; ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Colombo we passed through vast fields of paddy, some covered with the stubble of the recently cut rice, while others were being prepared for a new crop by such profuse irrigation that the buffaloes seemed to be ploughing knee-deep through the thick, oozy soil. It was easy to understand how unhealthy must be the task of cultivating a rice-field, and what swampy and pestiferous odours must arise from the brilliant vegetation. 'Green as grass' is ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... his gait. In single file they cut across the last stretch of knee-deep mud and halted opposite Lost Island. There it lay, beyond the narrow stretch of steaming, misty black water, dark and forbidding. There was something shivery about its low-lying-heavy outline, with nothing visible beyond the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Decoud, standing knee-deep alongside, one of the two spades which belonged to the equipment of each lighter for use when ballasting ships. By working with it carefully as soon as there was daylight enough to see, Decoud could loosen ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... cheap publicity of his own voice. Fish and vegetables; pottery and writing-paper; looking-glasses, saucepans, and coloured prints—all appealed together to the scantily filled purses of the crowds who thronged the pavement. One lusty vagabond stood up in a rickety donkey-cart, knee-deep in apples, selling a great wooden measure full for a penny, and yelling louder than all the rest. "Never was such apples sold in the public streets before! Sweet as flowers, and sound as a bell. Who says the poor ain't looked after," cried the fellow, with ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... drift a little way down, stepping from boulder to boulder with those curiously small, neat feet, twirling his old horn-handled hunting-crop as he went, with a decidedly vicious swish of the doubled thong. Now he was knee-deep in the reeds of the north shore; now he was climbing the bank. A black-and-white crow flew up heavily, and was lost among the intertwining branches of the oaks and the blue-gums, and a cloud of finches and linnets rose as the covert of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... clear up. I had arranged to go for a spin on the bike with some fellows out by Malahide. But the roads must be knee-deep. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... childhood roamed the world Knee-deep in blowing grass, And watched the white clouds crisply curled Above the mountain-pass, And lay among the purple thyme And from its fragrance caught Strange hints from some elusive clime Beyond the bounds ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... canvas screens, which in many places were blown away by shell-fire, and bending low to save our heads from the snipers' bullets, we gained the communication trenches. Again wading knee-deep in mud and water, we eventually reached the ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... the Persians who had been appointed for this purpose entered Babylon by the bed of the river, the water of which was little more than knee-deep. If the Babylonians had been before apprized of the intentions of Cyrus, or if they had learned at the moment what he was doing, they would not have suffered the Persians to enter the city, nor would the Babylonians have ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... Drake according as the reader's ideal of manhood is the altruist or the egoist, the Christ-type or "the great blond beast" of modern philosophic thought, the man supremely indifferent to all but self, glorying in triumph though it be knee-deep in blood. Nor must we moderns pass too hypocritical judgment on the hero of the Drake type. Drake had invested capital in his venture. He had the blessing of Church and State on what he was about to do, and what he did was to take what he had ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... hour the visitor appeared at the end of the avenue, advancing with a firm step between two hedges bordered with poplars, behind which several brood-mares, standing knee-deep in the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... South, and the thunderbolts 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 of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... were away all Sunday, and I spent the whole day with a volume of Dana Gibson's drawings, the only book I could find. I did go for a short walk, but the dust was nearly knee-deep, and, except the little bungalow and outhouses, there was absolutely nothing ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... shivers with his revengeful grimaces. The culverts were solid arches of masonry which carried the 'pike unbroken in even a line across the many runs and brooks. The tunnel of the culvert was regarded by most children as the befitting lair of beggars, who perhaps would not object to standing knee-deep in water with their heads against ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... still shook from the overheated rocks. It turned cold and the mosquitoes departed. Hugging the Rail, they staggered on, now over shaking muskeg, now through thickets of tangled brush, now on great ledges of barren rock, and then across caribou barrens knee-deep in dry and crackling moss. Darkness fell and prudence dictated that they should make camp. But in their excitement they trudged on, until presently a pale glow behind the dwarfed trees showed that the moon was rising. They boiled the water, made tea, and cooked some biscuits. Soon they ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... "nilgau-like 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 {80} of one or two humps, in length of horns, and other ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... been busied this past week, save on Sunday, when we rested and performed the Sabbath duties of a Christian, in bringing hither stores from the ship—now bearing them over firm ice, and now wading knee-deep in half-frozen water. I will here describe the house which we have built to shelter us withal. It is among a tuft of thick trees, under a south bank, about a bow-shot from the seaside; it is square, and about twenty feet every way. ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... off in a moment, and before he had got fifty yards away was floundering knee-deep in a peat-bog. So much for reckless haste, thought he, as he got out of the bog and ran forward with much more caution. Soon those waiting below heard his clear voice far up the heights. A few minutes more, and it rang forth again more ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... washing off "the dirt." Up come the buckets from the shafts, down which the diggers are working, and the dirty yellow water is poured down-hill to find its way to the creek as it best may. Unmade roads, or rather tracks, run in and out amongst the claims, knee-deep in mud; the ground being kept in a state of constant sloppiness by the perpetual washing for the gold. Perhaps there is a fight going on over the boundary-pegs of a claim which have been squashed by a heavy dray passing along, laden ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... to keep together and to make our way down the river to Fort Kearney, the nearest refuge. It was a long and wearying journey, but our lives depended on keeping along the river bed. Often we would have to wade the stream which, while knee-deep to the men, was well-nigh waist-deep to me. Gradually I fell behind, and when night came I was dragging one weary step after another—dog-tired but still clinging to my old Mississippi Yaeger rifle, a short muzzle-loader which carried a ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... in many places, were already knee-deep; and in some places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house-roofs, bore down along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... greater portion of the suburb, which was almost knee-deep in mud—for it had been raining nearly all day, and had only cleared up after sunset—the individual whom we have been describing stopped at the corner of a street, and ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... on the reed-grown mud the doctor's deep-voiced "Thank God!" met with no response. The wild-looking figure scrambled off the boat, and plunged nearly knee-deep into the mud. Those on the bank seemed to concern him not at all, for he turned, as was perhaps his long habit, to haul the vessel ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... dragons; and as the serpentine bodies gleamed and shimmered in the increasing radiance, each dragon, I thought, intertwined its glittering coils more closely with those of another. The carpet was of such richness that I stood knee-deep in its pile. And this, too, was fashioned all over with golden dragons; and they seemed to glide about amid the ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... pleasant acquaintance commenced on that day, which was destined to become earnest friendship. The next day was spent in putting the camp in order. As rain continued to fall, the mud in the company streets became knee-deep. Our sick, those unable to walk, had been left in our old hospital with a sufficient number of faithful nurses, under charge of the surgeon of one ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... his parting rays lit the faces of the pioneer family, and when it rose it threw their long shadows before them on the soft, spongy turf of the forest glades. Sweating through the undergrowth; climbing over fallen trees; sinking knee-deep in marshes; at noon they halted to take a rest in the shade of the primeval forest, beside a brook, and there eat their mid-day meal of fried pork and corn cakes, which the women prepared; then on again, till the shadows stretched ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... certainly worth half a day's ride to see. The road left the treeless uplands, where the sunshine reflected from the bright yellow stubble of the newly-cut wheat-fields beat against our faces with a steady glare, and dipped into a cool, green, shady hollow where cows cropped the rich grass or stood knee-deep in the water of a little stream. Well they might stand in quiet contentment: a king might have envied them their surroundings. Overhead rose a dozen or more of the tallest and finest elms we had ever seen, stretching their thick branches ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... not see this, but one of my associates did. He saw it last winter in a dismal place on the Toul sector. A file of our troops were finishing a long hike through rain and snow over roads knee-deep in half-thawed icy slush. Cold and wet and miserable they came tramping into a cheerless, half-empty town within sound and range of the German guns. They found a reception committee awaiting them there—in the person of two Salvation Army lassies and a Salvation Army Captain. The women had ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... how I am to act. An extra thousand roubles will not settle matters, and a hundred thousand is a castle in the air. Besides, when I have money—it may be from lack of habit, I don't know—I become extremely careless and idle; the sea seems only knee-deep to me then.... I ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... discovering my mistake, turned about, and crossing the whole park came out upon the common and our old familiar cricketing ground. I flew along the dear old paths to our little cottage, but "Desolate was the dwelling of Morna"—the house closed, the vine torn down, the grass knee-deep, the shrubs all trailing their branches and blossoms in disorderly luxuriance on the earth, the wire fence broken down between the garden and the wood, the gate gone; the lawn was sown with wheat, and the little pine wood one tangled maze, without path, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... drilling there, galloping every where; and, moreover, Montreal is knee-deep in snow, and the thermometer below zero. Every hour brings fresh intelligence of the movements of the rebels, or patriots—the last term is doubtful, yet it may be correct. When they first opened the theatre at Botany Bay, Barrington spoke the prologue, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... were being stuck, and many of the passengers were already wading knee-deep in ooze, for the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... all odds the biggest thing alive—that is, the biggest that stood on legs, and moved. He was confident of this for a space of perhaps two minutes, when they came to the end of the fen. And here was a sudden snort, a crashing of bracken, the floundering of a huge body through knee-deep mud, and a monstrous bull moose, four times as big as Noozak, set off in lively flight. Neewa's eyes all but popped from his head. And ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... Tim, stopping from time to time to mark our progress, and over the fence into the bog meadow we proceeded; a rascally piece of broken tussockky ground, with black mud knee-deep between the hags, all covered with long grass. The third step I took, over I went upon my nose, but luckily avoided shoving my ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... caused the signal for them to halt to be sounded, and riding up formed them in order again. The French were unable to take advantage of the moment to try and recover their lost ground, for the horses were knee-deep in the ground, upon which they had all night been trampling, and into which the weight of their own and their riders' armour ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... seemed to swim for a second before their eyes, and, as it cleared away, they were standing together with many other children knee-deep in unending banks of bluebells ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... times it seemed more than rain—there were liquid shafts reaching from earth to sky. By noon of the second day, half the cellars in the village were flooded; coops floated in slatted wrecks over fields; the roads were knee-deep in certain places; the horses drew back—it was like fording a stream. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... came up, dripping, with the welcome announcement that the blades were intact and that, so far as he could ascertain by feeling, the shaft was not bent. But things looked pretty dismal below-decks. The forward cabin was awash, as was the engine-well, and the after stateroom was knee-deep. They gathered on the bridge deck ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was dark long before we reached the broad cutting. No one will forget the ordeal of that night march. Could not see the man ahead of you. Ears told you he was tripping over fallen timber or sloshing in knee-deep bog hole. Hard breathing told the story of exertion. Only above and forward was there a faint streak of starlight that uncertainly led us on and on south toward the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... difficulty to put the possibility of an accident clearly before the mind, and to decide beforehand what ought to be done should the accident occur. Thus wound up in the present instance, I entered the water. Even where it was not more than knee-deep, its power was manifest. As it rose around me, I sought to split the torrent by presenting a side to it; but the insecurity of the footing enabled it to grasp my loins, twist me fairly round, and bring its impetus to bear upon my back. Further struggle ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the wet hides, which we were obliged to roll about in wheelbarrows; the continual stooping upon those which were pegged out to be cleaned; and the smell of the nasty vats, into which we were often obliged to wade, knee-deep, to press down the hides,— all made the work disagreeable and fatiguing; but we soon became hardened to it, and the comparative independence of our life reconciled us to it, for there was nobody to haze us and find fault; and when we were ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... flourish best away from home; others die under the most careful transplanting. Some are lovers of the open, and cannot be too much in the sun; others lurk in deep woods, under the triple shadow of tree and bush and fern. Some take to sandy hill-tops; others must stand knee-deep in water. One insists upon the richest of meadow loam; another is content with the face of a rock. We may say of them as truly as of ourselves, De gustibus non est disputandum. Otherwise, how would the earth ever ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... The transplanting of the rice occupies the whole rural population during the month of June, when men and women may all be seen working in the fields, knee-deep in water. The crops are ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... window-shutters were slamming and banging; a forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his quaking body against a windward wall for shelter and protection; a young girl was plowing knee-deep through the drifts, with her face turned from the blast, and the cape of her waterproof blowing straight rearward over her head. Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh, "Better the slop, and the sultry rain, and even the insolent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... belts with fresh pipe clay? To burnish your buttons, to brighten your guns? Or wait for May-day, and warm spring suns? Are you blowing your fingers because they're cold, Or catching your breath ere you take a hold? Is the mud knee-deep in valley and gorge? What are ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 H.Q.—telephonic ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... first streak of dawn pierced the gloom of the deep valley, they were wading, knee-deep, a ford of the river, whose banks they had skirted throughout their journey. On the further side the forest, dank, green, and dripping with dew, received them into its impenetrable shades, but still the goldsmith toiled on; his heavy burden on ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... 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 it out in a stream of pearls. She lifted ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... sits on a rock by the sea, with his right leg bent under him, and a big red fish, called the tai, under his left arm. He carries a straw wallet on his back to hold his fish and keep it fresh. Often he is seen standing knee-deep in the water, pole in hand, watching for a nibble. Some say that Ebisu is the same scamp that goes by ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... caravan, Knee-deep dust that once was man, Battle-trenches ghastly piled, Ocean-floors with white bones tiled, Crowded tomb and mounded sod, Dumbly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... passed lake after lake set in solid basins of granite, and many a thicket and meadow watered by a stream that issues from the amphitheater and links the lakes together; now wading through plushy bogs knee-deep in yellow and purple sphagnum; now passing over bare rock. The main lateral moraines that bounded the view on either hand are from 100 to nearly 200 feet high, and about as regular as artificial ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir |
