"Loon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sir," returned the keeper; "there's Ian Anderson an' Tonal' from Cove, an' Mister Archie an' Eddie, an' Roderick—that's five. Oo, ay, I forgot, there's that queer English loon, Robin Tips— he's no' o' much use, but he can mak' a noise—besides three ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... round crazy as a loon, seeing three big lions with eyes like coals of fire stalking him night and day, and him always trying to dodge 'em. He says at last they came nearer and nearer until he stumbled and fell, and then he felt their hot breath on his cheek, and he knew nothing more until he finally realized ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... madam, there's no use defending the drunken loon any-more at all; and here will my leddies have just walked their bonny legs off, all through that carnal sin of drunkenness, which is the curse of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... "He's a fause loon that Sakelde," she said, "and I'd walk to Carlisle any day to see him hanged. 'Twas he who stole our sheep, two years past at Martinmas, and 'twas your father brought them back again. But keep up your heart, my man; if you can get to the Bold Buccleuch ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... realization flashed all through him, and he threw his head still higher and opened wide his shapeless trap of a mouth, and out across the lake he sent skittering and rolling his cry. And in his cry was the laugh of a loon, and the croaking bellow of a frog, and the bay of a hound, all the compounded night noises of the lake. And in it, too, was a farewell and a defiance and an appeal. The heavy roar of ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... since ye're dancing, William, Dance up and doon, Set to your partners, William, We'll play the tune! What! Wad ye stop the pipers? Nay, 'tis ower-soon! Dance, since ye're dancing, William, Dance, ye puir loon! Dance till ye're dizzy, William, Dance till ye swoon! Dance till ye're dead, my laddie! We ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... think I ever saw them flying. I shall always recognize one again. They are regular double-enders, pointed at both ends. Is it the same sort of loon that we see on the Maine ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... one, I wis, was not at home; Another had paid his gold away; Another called him thriftless loon, And bade ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... little of man and who regard him with more of curiosity than of fear. Woodland ponds, whose placid waters have never reflected the dark lines of a canoe, lie like jewels in their setting of green hills; ponds where soft-eyed deer come down to drink at twilight, and where the weird laughter of the loon floats through the morning mists. Toward the south, however, man is fast penetrating the secrets of the forest, blazing dim trails and leaving fear and destruction in the wake of his ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... gone, Grace and Barbara sat one evening among the stones by a lake. The evening was calm, the sun was setting, and the shadow of the pines stretched across the tranquil water. Now and then the reflections trembled and a languid ripple broke against the driftwood on the beach. In the distance a loon called, but when its wild cry died away all ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... of a heap, not knowing what would be the end of it; and the more so when Menechella added, "This is the man! Ah, you dog of a countryman, a pretty trick you have played me!" When the King heard this, he took the crown from the head of that false loon and placed it on that of Cienzo; and he was on the point of sending the imposter to the galleys, but Cienzo begged the King to have mercy on him and to confound his wickedness with courtesy. Then he married Menechella, and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... keep a sharp lookout, these countries will come to me. I may stick it out yet, and not miss much after all. The great trouble is for Mohammed to know when the mountain really comes to him. Sometimes a rabbit or a jay or a little warbler brings the woods to my door. A loon on the river, and the Canada lakes are here; the sea-gulls and the fish hawk bring the sea; the call of the wild gander at night, what does it suggest? and the eagle flapping by, or floating along on a raft of ice, does not ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... night rose late; and the air was chill as the sisters stood on a rock waiting until its rays should silver the placid waves. Overhead ran a strange, broad, coruscating band of magnetic light, meteors flashed down the sky, a solitary loon sent a wild, despairing cry athwart the lake, and for the first time did our travellers feel they were alone, eighteen hundred feet above the Hudson, far away from other human habitation. A truly feminine shudder ran through their hearts, as they turned toward the house and betook them to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... the ridge top, where some great bare pines stood in the moonlight. A loon called in its strange, unearthly note from the lakeshore. As Hawker turned the boat toward the dock, the flashing rays from the boat fell upon the head of the girl in the rear seat, and he rowed ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... estimated at about three hundred souls, thus forming the nucleus of a very promising settlement, now, of course, at its wits' end for gristing. Vermilion seemed to be a very favourable supply point in starting other settlements, being in touch by water with Loon River, Hay River, and other points east and north, where there is abundance of excellent land. For the present, and pending railway development, it was plain that the great and pressing requirement of the region was a good waggon road by way of Wahpooskow to Athabasca Landing, a distance ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... him with his skinny hand, "There was a ship," quoth he. "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" ...
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... loved to be under water, even in moderate weather. Many a time have I seen her send the water aft, into the quarter-deck scuppers, and, as for diving, no loon was quicker than she. Now, that she was deep and was rolling her deck-load to the water, it was time to think of lightening her. The cotton was thrown overboard as fast as we could, and what the men ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... forgiven the disaster in the mountains, and he believed that Hervey would be able to set him on the track of Zachary Smith, whom he felt certain he had seen at the Winnipeg depot. He hoped so; and, for this purpose, he intended to spend the night at Loon Dyke Farm. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... with Big Bear and his flight from Frenchman's Butte, where he had a strong and well-fortified position, Major Steele, with his mounted detachment, had made a rush to Loon Lake, where, in a rattling encounter during which Sergeant Fury was severely wounded, he completed the defeat of Big Bear. Two days or so afterwards our scouts crossed Gold Lake in birch canoes and secured the release of the remaining prisoners of Big Bear, the others having come in to our lines ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... macularius) "teter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fishhawk sitting on a white-pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wing of a gull, like Fair-Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual loon. These are all the animals of consequence ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the forest man pitted against that of another world. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct—without the other's science; the quickness of the great loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that eyes ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... the Quarry-holes, and the Gusedub, ye fause loon!" answered Master George, speaking Scotch with a strong and natural emphasis; "it is such land-loupers as you, that, with your falset and fair fashions, bring ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... land locked, and has two entrances. One side of it is formed by Hong Kong, the other by Kow-loon, which ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... well go to live on the poor-farm! Aaron Boynton was a disrep'table hound; Lois Boynton is as crazy as a loon; the boy is a no-body's child, an' Ivory's no better than a ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, Till for the sake of — well, a kiss — I tak' 'em down below. That minds me of our Viscount loon — Sir Kenneth's kin — the chap Wi' Russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap. I showed him round last week, o'er all — an' at the last says he: "Mister M'Andrew, don't you think steam spoils ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... (condor), or some other bird of prey." (2) According to Lewis Morgan, the North American Indians of various tribes had for totems the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer, snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey, muskrat; pike, catfish, carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare, rabbit, snake; reed-grass, sand, rock, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... everything opposed: * On him to shut the door Earth ne'er shall fail: Thou seest men abhor him sans a sin, * And foes he finds tho none the cause can tell: The very dogs, when sighting wealthy man, * Fawn at his feet and wag the flattering tail; Yet, an some day a pauper loon they sight, * All at him bark and, gnashing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... and the power greater than bullets and your fanatical ranting about the Holy Ghost in the dupes you are inciting to murder? Come now, maybe you are crazy? Maybe if you'd talk and not stand there like a loon—" ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... hallooing after us, and we held up. Looking around, we saw a man running down from the house standing upon the side-hill, a little away from the road. May be you remember the house up there? Well, he was hallooing like a loon, and we waited till he came up. Soon as he got near enough to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tickled pink when he gets the news an' knows we've grabbed Oswald by the heels with evidence aplenty to send him to Atlanta for a term o' years. This night flight promises to be the happiest ever for the pair o' us. I know I'm actin' like a loon, partner, but I jest can't help it—such bully occasions are too few an' far between in our line. An' now I wonder where we'll be sent for the next ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... sound to break the silence of ages save the song of river rapids, the thunder of mighty falls, or the whisper or moan of wind in the tree tops; or, perchance, the distant cry of a wolf, the weird laugh of a loon or the honk of ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... northward through the Colville Valley to the Columbia, and thence to the international boundary line, having previously passed at Deer Park the Arcadia orchard, largest commercial apple orchard in the world; Loon Lake, a summer resort; Chewelah, a mining town surrounded by a dairying country; and Colville, county seat of Stevens county and largest city in this section. A pleasant contrast is this northern extension, ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... thing, cases of them, fitting enough for museums, often being seen in private homes. I can remember taking lessons in taxidermy from Father, and of skinning and mounting wildfowl, and today there are a loon and a prairie chicken here in the house at Riverby that he mounted in those early years. The collections of birds he made are scattered far and wide or were destroyed long ago. All of them were shot with the little muzzle-loading cane gun or ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... he named her rightly. There must be something altogether wrong with the poor creature to make her wander about these wet woods, screeching like a loon." ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... to the water's edge once more. The cliffs rose to a distorted height in the dimness; sprays of withered grass nodded along the edge, like Ossian's spectres. Light seemed to be vanishing from the universe, leaving them alone with the sea. And when a solitary loon uttered his wild cry, and rising, sped away into the distance, it was as if life were following light into an equal annihilation. That sense of vague terror, with which the ocean sometimes controls the fancy, began to lay its grasp on them. They remembered that Emilia, in speaking once ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... loon!" exclaimed Slone, with impatience and disgust added to anger. "What's the use of being decent ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... sure's death, the whole was but a wicked trick played by that mischievous loon Blister and his cronies, upon one that was a simple and soft-headed callant. De'il a hait was in the one pistol but a pluff of powder; and in the other, a cartridge-paper, full of blood, was rammed down upon the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... pains in his bones, Christabel as is common, Roger well, Mary making o' candles," replied Tabitha rapidly. "As for yon ill-doing loon of a husband of yours, he's eating cakes and supping ale at ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... a piece of birch bark. The heat of the sun was oppressive, and we were broiled; but we dipped our hands in the clear cool stream as we skimmed along, listening to the whistling of the solitary loon as it paddled away from us, or watching the serrated back of the sturgeon, as he rolled lazily over and showed above the water. Now and then we stopped, and the silence of the desert was broken by the report of our fowling-pieces, and a pigeon or two ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... who on 23rd July 1637 immortalised herself by throwing her stool at the head of Laud's bishop as he proceeded from the desk of St. Giles's in the city to read the Collect for the day, exclaiming as she did so, "Deil colic the wame o' thee, fause loon, would you say Mass at my lug," which was followed by great uproar, and a shout, "A Pape, a Pape; stane him"; "a daring feat, and a great," thinks Carlyle, "the first act of an audacity which ended with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... brought here, two months ago, and fancies that he has been in a trance since the time of Noah and the Ark. He has a strange hallucination that he can be awakened from his protracted nap by a kiss from a certain female, whom he describes as Arletta the Beautiful. Although he is as crazy as a loon, yet some of his utterances are really remarkable for the depth of logic they contain. The case has its amusing side also, for every woman by the name of Arletta who visits this hospital cannot resist the temptation of kissing the man, in ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... at my house for ten days, till his bruises lost their purple glow and he looked a little less like a bad case of erysipelas. Then he started out again, crazy as a loon! I didn't hear from him for nearly two years. Then I got a letter telling about his life of adventure down on the Border. It seems he'd got in with a good capable stockman down there and they was engaged in the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... says, "He is crazy as a loon. Crazy and got a creek, and I must start for home the first ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... trinkets in their ears, none in the nose as those above, their Dress is as follows, i,e the men, were a roabe of either the skins of a Small fured animal, & which is most common, or the Skins of the Sea orter, Loon, Swan, Beaver, Deer, Elk, or blankets either red, blu, or white, which roabes cover the sholders arms & body, all other parts ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... the red deer's hide Nokomis Made a cloak for Hiawatha; From the red deer's flesh Nokomis Made a banquet in his honor. All the village came and feasted; All the guests praised Hiawatha, Called him Strong-Heart, Soan-ge-taha! Called him Loon-Heart, Mahn-go-taysee! ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... tools, an' don't stan' laffin' like a loon, ye bloody Irishman," he said to Chips, and the carpenter disappeared quickly. He returned in a moment with a brace and bit, a cold chisel, and ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... look after you," replied Slone. "Yesterday I saw you tearin' down into the sage on Sarch. I wondered what you'd do, Lucy, if Cordts or that loon Creech should get hold ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... two circles of the sun. A kildee timidly chirped good-night; the full, rich throat of a robin proclaimed good-morrow. From an island on the breast of the Yukon a colony of wild fowl voiced its interminable wrongs, while a loon laughed mockingly back across ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... deepened, the long grey clouds hung like a curtain in the sky, where the stars began to gleam softly. The varied foliage turned to a deep, rich blue, shading into green like a peacock's tail. Silence was around us, broken only by the weird cry of the loon diving in the distant bay, and the ceaseless, monotonous puff-puff of the little tug as she pursued her way over the ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Mahzahn, n. a thistle Mahjegooday, n. a petticoat Menekahnekah, adv. seedy Mejenahwayahdahkahmig, n. pity Mahmahdahwechegawenebun, it was a strange custom Menesenoo, n. a hero Mesquahsin, n. brick, which signifies, red stone Mesahowh, that is Moosay, n. a worm Moong, n. a loon Meene, n. a kind of fruit Mahjekewis, adj. the eldest Meskoodesemin, n. a bean Mategwahkezinekaid, n. a shoe-maker Menahwenahgowd, v. look pleasant Meneweyook, v. be fruitful Megeskun, n. a hook Mezesok, n. a horse-fly ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... far from dark. In the northern heavens a rosy glow proclaimed the midnight sun. Somewhere in the willows a robin was chirping, and from the wide bosom of the river, like the thin howl of a wolf, came the mocking cry of a loon still pursuing its finny prey. And in his little canvas tent, sitting just inside, so as to catch the smoke of the fire that afforded protection from the mosquitoes, Hubert Stane still watched and waited for the coming of his promised visitor. ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... often remarked, when in the habit of shooting, the very great length of time that the loon, or northern diver, (colymbus glacialis,) remained under water after being fired at, and fancied he must be a living diving-bell, endued with some peculiar functions which enabled him to obtain a supply of air at great depth; ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... he quavered, when all his breath was spent upon the bigger malisons. "Has it never come intil your thick numbskull that the poor fule lassie is sick wi' love for ye, ye dour-faced loon?" ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... "Was in s'loon," Blagg muttered, striving to focus his bleary eyes upon his auditor. "Damn Russian there, too. Boys's kiddin' him an' Boris tol' 'em he was't 'fraid no ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... soldier should bear himself modestly and decorously towards the people of the country if you would not have the whole dogs of the town at your heels? However, if you must have a bargain [a quarrel, videlicet. S.], I would rather it were with that loon of a Provost than any one else; and I blame you less for this onslaught than for other frays that you have made, Ludovic, for it was but natural and kind-like to help your young kinsman. This simple bairn must come to no skaith [same as scathe] ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... my lady to sorrow?" cried Sir Oscar Redmain, rising wrathfully. "By the rood, but you are a thoughtless loon!" ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... it can be in a place like this, matey. Yer can't breathe, nor you can't see, and—well now, that's queer. You seem to ha' set my head working again, Mr Dale, sir; and I recklect sittin' in the s'loon eating our dinner arter you gents had done, and then coming over all pleasant and comfble like, and then I don't seem to 'member no more till I woke up ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... e-a. To dive and then come up to take breath, as one does in swimming out to sea against the incoming breakers, or as one might do in escaping from a pursuer, or in avoiding detection, after the manner of a loon.] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... flagitious deeds, Citing fore-cited names for that she never could fancy Ever a Door was endow'd either with earlet or tongue. Further she noted a wight whose name in public to mention 45 Nill I, lest he upraise eyebrows of carroty hue; Long is the loon and large the law-suit brought they against him Touching a child-bed false, claim of ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... booby, Tom Noddy, looby^, hoddy-doddy^, noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy^, owl; goose, goosecap^; imbecile; gaby^; radoteur^, nincompoop, badaud^, zany; trifler, babbler; pretty fellow; natural, niais^. child, baby, infant, innocent, milksop, sop. oaf, lout, loon, lown^, dullard, doodle, calf, colt, buzzard, block, put, stick, stock, numps^, tony. bull head, dunderhead, addlehead^, blockhead, dullhead^, loggerhead, jolthead^, jolterhead^, beetlehead^, beetlebrain, grosshead^, muttonhead, noodlehead, giddyhead^; numbskull, thickskull^; lackbrain^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of it. But he never knew what he was dloin'—he wus crazy as a loon. There's nuthin' fer yer ter fuss over now. Tell us about it, Gates—the bath ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... suspicion and fear belonging to the savage in their own bosoms, to envelope the idea of him in a mist of dread, deepening to such horror in the case of the more timid and imaginative of them, that when the twilight began to gather about the cottages and farmhouses, the very mention of "the beast-loon o' Glashgar" was enough, and that for miles up and down the river, to send many of the children scouring like startled hares into the house. Gibbie, in his atmosphere of human grace and tenderness, little thought ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... good," replied the boy, smiling. "You make me feel like the laughing loon bird, when you tell your tales and smile and laugh yourselves. But I must leave you. I am to drive the missionary to-day. He goes to the Delaware ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... such a loon as to get off the road on to Appleby's land just by mistake, or because ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... the Cardinal, I grant He was a man we weill culd want, And we'll forget him sune; But yet I think the sooth to say, Although the loon is weill away, The deed was ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... has operated the other way, and I shouldn't wonder if he is as wild as a loon. When we get him away, dress him up, change his food, and give him a sight of a Boston vessel, he will be sure to come around; but, he has ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... vert' re move' as sert' in ert' su perb' a do' a ver' in fer' ab surd' a loof' a vert' in sert' re cur' bal loon' con cern' in vert' de mur' buf foon' per vert' pre fer' dis turb' hal loo' a vail' re claim' dis play" be fall' a wait' ab stain' en tail' re call' de cay' ac quaint' ob tain' en thrall' de claim' af fray' con tain' re sort' de fray' as suage' per suade' as ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... poor root toot loop loon soon food hoot boor rood noon coop hoop hoof coon loom loose moor boon sloop proof stoop troop stool spool boost noose sooth room boom croon moon mood roost shoot broom doom goose scoop tooth bloom brood gloom groom swoop swoon spoon moose ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... "Ah, ha!" he crowed. "Ah, ha! That's the answer. That's the one he's shakin' day-days to, that Fosdick girl. I've seen you 'round with her at the post office and the ice cream s'loon. I'm onto you, Al. Haw, haw! What's her name? Adeline? Dandelion? Madeline?—that's it! Say, how do you think Helen Kendall's goin' to like your throwin' kisses to the Madeline ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... winter, and never knew anything of it. Mr. Thornton went on to say that he knew beyond a doubt that the sensational account of Lincoln's insanity was untrue, and he quoted from the House journal to show how it was impossible that, as Lamon says, using Herndon's notes, "Lincoln went crazy as a loon, and did not attend the legislature in 1841-1842, for this reason;" or, as Herndon says, that he had to be watched constantly. According to the record taken from the journals of the House sent us by Mr. Thornton, and which we have had verified ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... shrill-voiced as all such ragged little urchins are, would run after this big man with the streaming white hair and the tattered cloak, calling him names or tapping their brown little foreheads with their dirty fingers to show that even they knew that he was "as crazy as a loon." ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... loon is found in all the Northern States. It is a very awkward bird on land, but a graceful and rapid swimmer. It is a remarkable diver, and it is thought that no other feathered creature can dive so far beneath the surface or remain so long a time under water. A ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... doing Play-actorisms of too high a flight. He had the finest Palace in Germany; a wonder to the Great Gustavus long ago: and now he has it not; mere Meutzels and horrent shaggy creatures rule in Munchen and it: and the Imperial quasi-furnished lodgings are respected in this manner!" [Van Loon, Kleine Schriften, ii. 271 (cited in Buchholz, ii. 71). CAMPAGNES is silent; usually suppressing scenes of that kind.]—The wits say of him, "He would be Kaiser or Nothing: see you, he is Kaiser and Nothing!" ["Aut nihil aut Caesar, Bavarus Dux esse ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... loon! [Simple creature!] Dost reckon I mean to work mine own broidery, trow? I'd have a fair score of maidens alway a-broidering for me, so that I might ever have a fresh device when ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Jocelyn said, sitting, as Mr. Dix expressed it afterwards, like a tiger about to spring, "that you've been listening to that crazy loon, Crawshay." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... too dull and thick for sinning.— Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had No notion how, and flung the clay aside.— O they were gaudy colours both! But now Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, Fear of a loon that cried, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... been seen to pass that way. Another moment and they might have become curious about the stranger sitting at the hearth, when the woman hastily turned round, and struck him on the shoulder with the huge spoon she held in her hand. 'Lazy loon!' she cried. 'Have you no work to do? Off with you at once and see to your threshing.' The Danes only saw before them a common Swedish servant bullied by his mistress, and it never entered their heads to ask any questions; so once ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... set matters right before they got any further, Mr. Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country, crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank. They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up to-morrow sane as ever. Nice way your ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... we expect. Why! do you remember the old chap I told you about—that old prospector who lives at Loon Lake?—you will come across him, unless he has gone to the mountains. For thirteen years that man has hunted the gulches for mines. There are your mines," waving his hand again, "and you are our prospector. Dig them ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... primeval forest. The little lake lay enclosed in a border of gigantic trees. Over its waters hung the interlacing branches of mighty oaks and beeches and pines. Its surface was frequented by flocks of wild, aquatic birds,—the duck, the gull, and the loon. In this lofty valley among the hills were also to be found, then as now, in fullest perfection, the clear atmosphere, the cloudless skies, and the brilliant light of midsummer suns, that characterize everywhere the American highlands. More even than the beauty and majesty ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... and air, caused her at length to fall asleep. The last rosy light of the setting sun was dyeing the waters with a glowing tint when she awoke; a soft blue haze hung upon the trees; the kingfisher and dragon-fly, and a solitary loon, were the only busy things abroad on the river,—the first darting up and down from an upturned root, near the water's edge, feeding its younglings; the dragon-fly hawking with rapid whirring sound for insects; and the loon, just visible from ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... ourselves with the shawl, Uncle Eb lay on one side of me and old Fred on the other, so I felt secure indeed. The night had many voices there in the deep wood. Away in the distance I could hear a strange, wild cry, and I asked what it was and Uncle Eb whispered back, ''s a loon.' Down the side of the mountain a shrill bark rang in the timber and that was a fox, according to my patient oracle. Anon we heard the crash and thunder of a falling tree and a murmur that followed in the wake ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... stagnation. Rather it was a scene of scintillating life, vivid past all expression. Far out of range on the opposite shore a huge bull moose stood like a statue in black marble, gazing out over the shimmering expanse. Trout leaped, flashing silver, anywhere they might look; and a flock of loon shrieked demented cries from its center. The burnished wings of a flock of mallard flashed in the air, startled by some ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... the foundations of the hills, and as the earth sank, bearing the offending men and women, waters rushed in and filled the chasm, so that every person was drowned, save one good old woman beneath whose feet the ground held firm. Loon Island, where she stood, remains ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... sits in solitary state. He shall keep me awake by the Walden shore till the moon and the shadow meet. How tranquil sits the philosopher, how grandly rings the man! Here, in his homespun house, the squirrels click under his feet, the woodchucks devour his beans, and the loon laughs on the lake. Here rich men come, and cannot hide their lankness and their poverty. Here poor men come, and their gold shines through their rags. Hither comes the poet, and the house is too narrow for their thoughts, and the rough walls ring with lusty laughter. O happy ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... four couple who had been selected as performers to be the happy, fortunate ones of the season. Mrs. Montacute Jones was a nasty old woman for not having asked her. Of course there was a difficulty, but there might have been two sets. "And Jack is such a false loon," she said to Lord George, "that he won't show me ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... lazy loon," cried Nat Atkinson, "how many pipes have you smoked to-day? If you'd smoke less and forage and dun the commissary more, we'd have a little fresh meat once in ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... attested the Shawanoe's miraculous activity and quickness of eye so clearly as did the ease with which he dodged the weapon. The flirt of his head was like that of the loon which dives below the path of the bullet after it sees the flash of the gun. The tomahawk struck the ground, went end over end, flinging the dirt and leaves about, and after ricocheting a couple of times, whirled against the trunk of a small sapling ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the rule of philosophic sedateness in newly caught birds is the loon, or great northern diver. That bird is so exceedingly nervous and foolish, and so persistent in its evil ways, that never once have we succeeded in inducing a loon to settle down on exhibition and be good. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... to make a body sick, such mullet-headed ignorance! If either of you'd read anything about history, you'd know that Richard Cur de Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots more of the most noble-hearted and pious people in the world, hacked and hammered at the paynims for more than two hundred years trying to take their land away ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to tell you how I came there," Ronald said. "I was walking on the old wall, which, as you know, runs close by the house, when I saw an ill looking loon hiding himself as if watching the house, looking behind I saw another ruffianly looking man there." Two gasps of indignation were heard from the porch at the back of the court. "Thinking that there was mischief on hand I leapt from the wall to the dormer window ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... I retorted. "And a noodle and a jolt-head; you're a jobbernowl and a doodle, a maundering mooncalf and a blockheaded numps, a gaby and a loon; you're a Hatter!" I shrieked the ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... that long woods, between Loon Lake and Stoughton on the Boston Pike," said the chauffeur, "and," he reiterated, "there OUGHT to be a house somewhere about here—where we ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... had spent the winter of 1919-1920 on the Atlantic Ocean. There had hardly been, perhaps, in a million years a handsomer loon afloat on any sea. Even in her winter coat she was beautiful; and when she put on her spring ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... a disgusted face toward Agatha. "He's crazy as a loon! Isn't he?" he questioned glumly. But Jimmy ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... in his reflective tone. "If he was all right in his haid I could stan' it; but, jedge, he's crazier 'n er loon. Then when he looks like er devil, an' done skears all ma frien's away, an' ma chillens cain't eat, an' ma ole 'ooman jes raisin' Cain all the time, an' ma rent two dollehs an' er half er month, an' him not right in his haid, it seems like ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... you crazy loon!" cried Aunt Dahlia, in that ringing voice of hers which had once caused nervous members of the Quorn to lose stirrups and take ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... it ain't easy. I 'lows my nerve's pretty right fer most things, but when you git monkeyin' wi' religion it's kind o' different. 'Sides, ther's allus fellers ter choke you off. Nassy Wilkes, the s'loon-keeper, he'd had religion bad oncet, tho' I 'lows he'd fergot most o't sence he'd been in the s'loon biz; he kind o' skeered me some. Sed they used a deal o' water, an' mostly got ducking greenhorns in it. Wal, I put ha'f ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... when the shoemaker awoke, he went to see what work Ivan had done; but, perceiving him still fast asleep, he flew into a rage, and exclaimed: "Up, you lazy loon! have I engaged you only to sleep?" Ivan, stretching himself slowly, replied: "Have patience, master; first go to the workshop, and see what you shall find." So the shoemaker went to the shop; and what was his astonishment at beholding a quantity of shoes ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... from thee forthright and to return only after doffing this my dress; so wonder not when thou see me changed, but direct one of thy women to stand by the private pastern alway and, whenever she espy me coming, at once to open. And now I will devise a device whereby to slay this damned loon." Herewith he arose and, issuing from the pavilion door, walked till he met on the way a Fellah to whom he said, "O man, take my attire and give me thy garments." But the peasant refused, so Alaeddin stripped him of his dress perforce[FN203] and donned it, leaving to the man ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... her strange gifts from strange lands. She said: 'Go and slay my enemies.' Tarhe went forth in his war paint and killed the braves who named her Smiling Moon. He came again to her and she said: 'Run swifter than the deer, be more cunning than the beaver, dive deeper than the loon.' ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... that fantastic method of choosing our route by the sound of the names of places, which I confessed to the reader on an earlier page: Wayland—Patchin's Mills—Blood's Depot—Cohocton. And to north and south of our route were names such as Ossian, Stony Brook Glen, Loon Lake, Rough & Ready, Doly's Corners, and Neil Creek. I confess that there was a Perkinsville to go through—a beautiful spot, too, for which one felt that sort of aesthetic pity one feels for a beautiful girl married to a ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... pleasant, tranquil anticipation of harmony on his face. He looked affectionately at his daughters and thought what dear good children they were. Judith appealed to her parents: "Sylvia's as crazy as a loon. She says she wants somebody to do her work for her, and yet she wants to feel all right about ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... summer softness. The water is not then deep blue, but pale, with opaline reflections. Vessels in the far horizon have the same delicate tint, as if woven of the same liquid material. A single wave lifts itself languidly above a reef,—a white-breasted loon floats near the shore,—the sea breaks in long, indolent curves,—the distant islands swim in a vague mirage. Along the cliffs hang great organ-pipes of ice, distilling showers of drops that glitter in ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Wi' these to oversee Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, Till for the sake of—well, a kiss—I tak' 'em down below. That minds me of our Viscount loon—Sir Kenneth's kin—the chap Wi' russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap. I showed him round last week, o'er all—an' at the last says he: "Mister McAndrews, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea?" Damned ijjit! I'd ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... held him silent until day dawned, and with the coming of the sun there woke in unison the chorus of joyous animal life. Then Ichabod, his long legs dangling over the dashboard, lifted up a voice untrained as the note of a loon, and sang lustily, until his companion on ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... eyne chock full o' mischief lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he bin underground this many year. Well, as I were sayin', this 'prentice o' mine were allers bein' baited by the boys o' the grammar school. I done my best for him, spoke them boys fair an' soft, but, bless ya, 'twas no good; they baited him worse'n ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... corner of the adjoining store, we beheld the fugitives leaving us at a pace which no sailor could expect to equal. The man who had particularly excited the wrath of the mate took the lead, and cut a conspicuous figure with his single coat-tail sticking out behind him horizontally like the leg of a loon! ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... him shivered against the damp, cold shirt, which would come open in front because there was a button gone. The fog came in thicker and colder, and night with her strange noises moved slower and slower. There was an old loon out on the river, who would suddenly throw back his head and laugh for no reason at all. And once a great strange bird went rushing past, squeaking like a mouse; and once two bright eyes came, flashing out of the night and swung this way and that like signal-lanterns ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... it was! The water, deep and dark, leading far away, every rugged hill capped with snow, and the white peaks sparkling in the sunshine. A loon laughed at them as they passed, and an invisible wolf on a mountainside sent forth its ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... White Father. The ways of the Great Spirit are many as the fluttering leaves; they are strange and secret as the flight of a loon; White Eyes believes the redman's happy hunting grounds need not be forgotten to love the palefaces' God. As a young brave pants and puzzles over his first trail, so the grown warrior feels in his understanding of his God. He gropes blindly through ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... dodge the cap'en's belaying-pin for a time he was bound to be fetched up in the ribs at last by the mate's boots. There was a chap knocked down the fore hatch with a broken leg in the Gulf, and another jumped overboard off Cape Corrientes, crazy as a loon, along a clip of the head from the cap'en's trumpet. Them's facts. The ship was a brigantine, trading along the Mexican coast. The cap'en had his wife aboard, a little timid Mexican woman he'd picked up at Mazatlan. I ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... grog is the best. It is made o' rum, And I stirs in sugar, too. And a hogshead vast will hardly last A merry evenin' through. And I fills the cups till mornin' comes, And the Duke, he talks like a loon. Me Darlin', me life, will yer be me wife, And elope by the ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... "He's a loon," MacDonald paused with a forefinger in the bowl of his pipe. "He doesna know a moccasin from a snowshoe, scarce. I'd like tae be aboot when 'tis forty below—an' gettin' colder. I'm thinkin' he'd relish a taste o' hell-fire ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Will in the conditions on which the Baconians insist; if they will indeed let us assume that for a few years he was at a Latin school. I credit the graceless loon with the curiosity, the prompt acquisitiveness, the love of poetry and romance, which the author of the plays must have possessed in youth. "Tradition says nothing of all that," the Baconian answers, and he may now, if he likes, turn to my ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... indignation a moment after he could vent it with safety. "Would not any one think," he said to Jasper, an old ploughman, who, in coming to his assistance, had heard Christie's imperious injunctions, "that this loon, this Christie of the Clinthill, was laird or lord at least of him? No such thing, man! I remember him a little dirty turnspit boy in the house of Avenel, that every body in a frosty morning like this warmed ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott |
