"Roost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eagles for a roost In Rimini! The air is black with them. When go they hence? Wherever yon bird builds, The nest remains for ages. Have an eye, Or Malatesta's elephant ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... gittin' on in Ho'sford. He sed dat ebbery white man in de county 'cept about ten or twelve was inter it, an' dey wuz a gwine ter clean out nigger rule h'yer, shore. He sed de fust big thing they got on hand wuz ter break up dis buzzard-roost h'yer at Red Wing, an' he 'llowed dat wouldn't be no hard wuk kase dey'd got some pretty tough tings on Nimbus an" ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... get called in, he'll come home to roost like the rest of them," said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. "The people can't govern themselves,—only Bedloe doesn't know it. Some day he'll find ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wondered if there were a notice posted up over the door forbidding plain ladies to enter. Two or three had yellow hair, yellower than mine, and Mrs. Ess Kay said they were actresses who always came back to New York in summer to wait for Things to turn up, just as chickens come home to roost; and that they were supposed ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the animals, and that they must thus inflict the most abominable tortures every day. What could be a sadder sight than a tiger in a cage, save it be a forest monkey climbing dispairingly up a barked stump, or an eagle chained to its roost? How can man be benefitted and made better by robbing the seal of its arctic ice, the hippopotamus of its soft wallow, the buffalo of its open range, the lion of its kingship, ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... and pretty, the philosopher watches with indescribable emotion and interest. What a number of pretty coquetries do the ladies perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they take care to fall! All the little children have been gathered up by the nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been walking the deck for some time with a great mattress ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should not be carelessly hung on the hat rack in the royal hall for the flies to roost upon, but it should be thoroughly cleaned and put away as soon as the weather becomes too hot ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... make up; they had to! There! Ma Sills certinly did rule the roost, and no mistake. She'd been a widder ever since the boys were a year old, so she had to do for herself and them, and she done it. She was a master hand; ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... ranged in our wagon yard. The next evening our cracker took a handful of his corn and passed innocent-like near a large, gentle hen, and dropping a few grains on into our shop quarters, the hen, following, was soon inside and the door was closed; and that hen failed to return home to roost. Uncle Tom was out at the time and never knew where that chicken came from. The next morning, when Uncle Tom was shown how thick the grease was on the pot, he said, "That sho' is a fat chicken." Then we told him if he had ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... mother came home with a fat hen slung across her shoulders. She had been down to Farmer Green's hen- house, right in the middle of the night, when Farmer Green and his family were asleep; and she had snatched one of the sleeping hens off the roost and stolen away with ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... ysope. and saueray. quinces. and peeres [1], garlek and Grapes. and fylle the gees erwith. and sowe the hole at no grece come out. and roost hem wel. and kepe the grece at fallith erof. take galytyne and grece and do in a possynet, whan the gees buth rosted ynowh; take an smyte hem on pecys. and at tat [2] is withinne and do it in a possynet and put erinne wyne if it be to thyk. do erto powdour of galyngale. powdour douce ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... human musical notation that will touch its depth. Yet it is a musical tone and a most goblin-like and eerie one. The partridge may be commonplace enough and his drumming but a strut of complacency and self-satisfaction. With patience and good luck I may see him doing it and follow him from his roost in the morning till he returns to it at night. But I cannot fathom the mystery which haunts the pasture in the genial melancholy of these sunny October days, to which his drum seems to ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... through eons on the surface of the world, where men loved and hated, bred and slew, triumphed and failed, lorded and cringed as had been the way since the beginning, when the cave man that handled the heavier knuckle-bone ruled the roost. But to the unphilosophic eye of the majority of mankind things seemed to change greatly in a very little while; and it seemed, therefore, to the superficial, that many things had happened in France and in Paris during the seventeen years that had elapsed since the fight in the ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... as though confirming a pleasant surprise. "Is it not strange," he said, "how genius will roost on any perch? It is true, then, that he is a person who offends your taste? That is bad. Tell me ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... echoed Buckheath darkly. "She won't have to. If Gray Stoddard marries Johnnie Consadine, you and me will just about roost in the penitentiary for the rest of ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... I was as sorry as anybody. I climbed down from my cormorant roost, and picked my way between the alleys of aromatic piled lumber in order to avoid the press, and cursed the little gods heartily for undue partiality in the wrong direction. In this manner I happened on Jimmy Powers himself seated dripping ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... said to Confucius, How dost thou still find roosts to roost on, Ch'iu, unless by ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... right to expect it to be. A dish on which the hostess had evidently striven to use her best art was of orange mushrooms in a sauce of verjuice; but the substantial one was a roast fowl—an unfortunate bird that was just going to roost with an easy mind, when my coming upset the arrangements of the inn and the poultry house. One fowl, at all events, had had good reason to think it was an ill wind that blew me ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... in Pamlico Sound I once got some fishermen to cover me with sand and sea-shells, and in that way managed to get a close view of {17} the large flocks of Cormorants that came there to roost every night. The island was small and perfectly barren, and any other method of attempted ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... we went down to the beach to bathe. The trees along the shore were occupied by immense crowds of exemplary sea-fowl, whose regular and primitive habits of life had sent them to roost at this early hour. Notwithstanding their webbed feet, they managed to perch securely among the branches, many of which were so heavily freighted, that they bent almost to ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... thrushes sang, jays called, wood-pigeons uttered the old familiar notes in the little copse hard by. Even a heron went over now and then, and in the evening from the window I could hear partridges calling each other to roost. ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of raindrops collected in the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... his story, begins by showing the doomed fox more than a little "failed"—the shadow of fate dwelling coldly beforehand on him. He is badly mauled at the opening (though, it is true, he takes vengeance for it) by monks whose hen-roost he is robbing, and when he meets Coart the hare, sur son destrier, with a vilain whom he has captured (this is a mark of lateness, some of the verisimilitude of the early time having been dropped), he plays him no tricks. Nay, when Isengrim and he begin to play chess he is ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... him to yield himself up, and bow his will? And was not God striving with him now, in the anxieties which gnawed at his heart, and in his dread of the morrow? Was He not trying to teach him how crime always comes home to roost, with a brood of pains running behind it? Was not the weird duel in the brooding stillness a disclosure, which would more and more possess his soul as the night passed on, of a Presence which in silence strove with him, and only desired to overcome ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... as if trimmed by the gardener's art. In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, they make fine dark shadows when the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I have seen three robins' nests in one which was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... "We'll have to roost here, sir, all night. There's no getting out of this cutting, nohow. Thank you, sir; I'll see ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... get big enough to roost in the fall, I expect we'll have to gather that crop with a gun," Hiram ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... son Willie, this night, This ae night wi' me; The best hen in a' my roost Sall be well ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... companion of Aeneas, whose form was assumed by Neptune in luring Palinuras the helmsman from his roost ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... at country people for beating the chickens to roost. But what are you going to do when going to bed is the most fascinating diversion available after supper? I've noticed that as fast as a small town man discovers something else to do in the evening, ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... beginning it was not so simple. Alas! for that first story of mine—the raven I sent you of my ark and never saw again. Unlike the proverbial curse, it did not come home to roost; it stayed where I had sent it. The only thing I ever heard of it again was a polite letter from the editor in whose office it lay, telling me I could have it back if I enclosed stamps to the amount of twopence halfpenny, otherwise he should ...
— How I write my novels • Mrs. Hungerford
... table fingering things in such a dainty way, that I'd have her at the head of my table in a fine, new house, or bust a trace. I'm to come out again next Sunday. In the mean time I'm going to try to think up some way to choke that old pair of hens off my roost." ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... last two years, from adding to the heavy tax which casual visitors began to levy upon the quiet hours of the host. Ten years ago, when Mr. Irving was in his best estate of health and spirits, when his mood was of the sunniest, and Wolfert's Roost was in the spring-time of its charms, it was my fortune to pass a few days there with my wife. Mr. Irving himself drove a snug pair of ponies down to the steamboat to meet us—(for, even then, Thackeray's "one old horse" was not the only ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... roosting 'midst his feather'd dames, Now lifts his beak and snuffs the morning air, Stretches his neck and claps his heavy wings, Gives three hoarse crows, and glad his talk is done; Low, chuckling, turns himself upon the roost, Then nestles down again amongst his mates. The lab'ring hind, who on his bed of straw, Beneath his home-made coverings, coarse, but warm, Lock'd in the kindly arms of her who spun them, Dreams of the gain that next year's crop should bring; Or at some fair ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... and as many sets of hens, the boy cultivates the fighting qualities of the cocks by keeping them around together, and not letting them forget each other. The turkeys—strange birds! so tender in youth a spring rain kills them, so tough in age they roost in the tree-tops in winter, and come down o' mornings covered with frozen sleet and looking as if they enjoyed it—are objects of no interest to the boy; but for the geese he has a kindness, not because they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... coming to see why Manuello doesn't show up with the cows," remarked the Captain, "we don't want to stir up this hen roost as we've got other chicken to ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... our housekeeper, and, to tell the plain truth, madame, we have lived nicely, although money was scarce, since she ruled the roost. Ah, these ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... kitchen chair to Cis; and when she was seated, got the wood box and set it on its side. "Come and roost along with me," he bade Johnnie, the single eye under the wet-combed, tawny bang smiling almost ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... to roost. My attitude of indifference and coldness toward my fellow citizens had been misinterpreted, as it deserved to be. George Taylor was right when he said ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... neighbour hard by—a good man, and, to say truth, a good neighbour—though he was carried off from his allegiance in the late times by a d—d Presbyterian scoundrel, who calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long enough.—There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of Bridgenorth—neighbour Bridgenorth, of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... you could be as proud as Cuffy an' exhibit 'em at the County Fair! They'd give yer prizes for size an' numbers an' speed, I guess! Why, say, they're real crowded for room—the plants ain't give 'em enough leaves to roost on! Have you ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... through the old house for the last time, sniffing the agreeable odor of aged hypo still permeating the dark room, re-covering the empty stains of skins and traces of maps on the walls, and re-filling in my mind the vacant shelves. The vampires had returned to their chosen roost, the martins still swept through the corridors, and as I went down the hill, a moriche oriole sent a silver shaft of song after me from the sentinel palm, just as he had greeted ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... York every two weeks to see a show,' says the farmer, hanging up the receiver. 'I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight hours later. Oh, the pristine Hubbard squasherino of the cave-dwelling period is getting geared up some for the annual meeting of the Don't-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, don't you ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... Among other things, the farmer raised turkeys for the market and, although the season was late, there were a few birds left for seed. I went out to the barn with a lantern and picked the plumpest gobbler I could find off the roost, and an hour later had him in the oven. This was at eight o'clock in the evening. While he was baking I canvassed the old farmer's wardrobe. I'd grown like a mushroom those last years and, though I was only sixteen, ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... desolation; but the current was not so strong, so we turned round, seeing the flood was going down, and by nightfall we had got back to where the house had stood. Every vestige of the once pretty homestead had disappeared, with sheep and cattle, though the fowls had managed to find a roost on the topmost branches of some orange trees, which alone ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous
... be as devoted to his country as they were. For years now his life had been without blemish. It was impossible to believe that even in his youth he could have sown any wild oats; terrible to think that these wild oats might now be coming home to roost. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... himself a home, where he could pursue his calling undisturbed, and indulge the sweets of domestic and rural life, which of all things lay nearest his heart. And these two undertakings compelled him to be diligent with his pen to the end of his life. The spot he chose for his "Roost" was a little farm on the bank of the river at Tarrytown, close to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt, one of the loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situations on the Hudson. At first he intended nothing more than a summer retreat, inexpensive ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... last dinner here. To-morrow the four of us turn our faces toward the most beautiful spot this side of Heaven, home. The happy runaways to Nebraska, Jack and I to the little roost ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... on murd'ring errands toil'd, Lone from your savage homes exiled, The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoiled My heart forgets, While pitiless the tempest ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... comparative secrecy of the inquisitorial chamber he could easily pretend that he had originally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant's identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens would come home to roost on him. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were—very few people will tell the tale of the valley of hobgoblins, or probably cannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits of fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told. They scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls in a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves obscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they cannot show ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... etiquette at these small drawing-rooms. People came and went at pleasure. The window embrasures became the roost of happy couples; at the great chimney the talkers mostly congregated, each full-charged with scandal; and down at the farther end the gamblers gambled. It was towards this point that Otto moved, not ostentatiously, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... expressive and beautiful. There is an eloquent charm which, while it touches the chords of truth, makes the heart respond to the tale. The raven would find sufficient for its carnivorous appetite in the floatage of the animal remains, on the briny flood, and would return to roost on the ark; but it was far different with Noah's bird, so long as the waters prevailed, there could be no pause for her weary wing, and the messenger would return to the ark. So soon, however, as the subsidence of the waters had permitted the olive to emerge, a sprig ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... the road so little used; spring was early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches, and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only added to the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... of the indefatigable interpreter. I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... She kissed Horney, and hugged her calf in the adjoining stall; and as they crossed the haggard, Philip carrying the pail, she scattered great handfuls of oats to a cock and his two hens as they cackled their way to roost. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... placed in the balance to her credit. She was condemned as a selfish criminal, with no account taken of motives. Was it for herself she forged? Was it for herself she lied, when her sin came home to roost? Was it through any lack of love for Dick that she allowed the foul slander to besmirch his memory, when everybody had believed him dead? No, a ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... dey started on uncle Alex again. Yes sir, dat's de way turkey buzzards does. Dey pukes on folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards looks like down till dey gits over three days old. You can go to a buzzard roost and see for yourself, but you sho better stay out'n de way of de old buzzard's puke. Dey sets around de little ones and keeps everything ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... well av it worn't Stiff, for ye've no reason to be proud o't," observed Larry O'Dowd, with a grin; "don't spake so loud, man, but shut up yer potatie trap and go to roost. Ye'll need it all if ye wouldn't like to fall behind to-morrow. There now, don't reply; ye've no call to make me yer father confessor, and apologise for boastin'; good night, an' ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... the roost. It's one of the few places in the world where a government of labor has been instituted. And yet, I'm wondering the noo if those labor leaders in Australia have reckoned on one or twa things I think of? They're a' ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... six weeks these woods will be mine, and hang me, if I don't shoot every bird that has roost in them! Then, Miss Helen Armstrong, you'll not feel in such conceit with yourself. It will be different when you haven't a roof over your head". So good-bye, sweetheart! Good-bye ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... on Still Water Creek, De Niggers grows up some ten or twelve feet. Dey goes to bed but dere hain't no use, Caze deir feet sticks out fer de chickens t' roost. ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... in our garden in Bailleul one evening at the end of April reading "The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne," three aeroplanes like great birds volplaned slowly down from the clouds—coming home to roost—until they were within 100 feet of the ground, just clearing the house tops as they dropped into their nesting ground on the other side of the town. I could ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... and wistful, with reflections of islands and reeds, mysteriously still. Rose-coloured clouds descended, revealing many new and beautiful mountain forms, every pass and every crest distinguishable. It was the hour when the cormorants come home to roost, and he saw three black specks flying low about the glittering surface; rising from the water, they alighted with a flutter of wings on the corner wall of what remained of Castle Hag, 'and they will sleep there ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Office, on the suicidal behaviour of the Military Censor. In South Africa, my Chief of the Staff's latchkey let many a clandestine tit-bit slip through to keep interest alive in England. K. regularly, when the mails came back to roost, went for me, but the messages had got home and done their duty as good little tit-bits should. The B.P. cannot work up the full steam of their war energy when the furnaces of their enthusiasms are systematically damped down; shut off from any breath from outside. Your ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... For while in summer the shadows on some vine-covered porch swallowed the lovers, in winter the stairs were generally the trysting-place—and the top step the one most sought—because there was nobody behind to see. This was the roost for which Kate and Harry scampered, and there they intended to sit until the ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... send across the road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger.' In the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for the best part of an hour, with some solicitude; occasionally looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his mind that she might ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... aware of this, and made preparations to combat the difficulty in front; two crawled under the seats, and two more went up on the racks, where they lay quiet as mice, stretched out at full length and covered over with several khaki overcoats. One man, a brisk Cockney, who would not deign to roost or crawl, took up his position as far away as possible from the ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... For Marten's read Martins' [the name is wrongly spelt in the "Origin of Species."]) experiments on seeds "in a box in the actual sea.") that my observations on the effects of sea-water have been confirmed. I still suspect that the legs of birds which roost on the ground may be an efficient means; but I was interrupted when going to make trials on this subject, and have never ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... subsided into the shade; the awkward squads are in bed; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white-jacketed dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the quiet waters somewhere; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer at the Mole, which is about to set out on some night expedition. You forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself up entirely to romance; the sentries look noble pacing there, silent in the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... informing his companions that the lady approaching them was not to be sneezed at in any particular whatever, as she ruled the roost of Piney Cove, and had, everybody said, laid up lots of rocks; besides, as for cooking—well, he said nothing, it was not necessary; they would see what Clorinda was in that line when the supper came on. She had learned down South where people knew ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... nuisance to live anywhere. I was born to be a bird—to roost on trees." I had considerable difficulty in disentangling the words from his thick speech. He shut his eyes—then opened ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... that flowering prairie. In the morning we could hear the clear call of the prairie chickens. I used to love to hear it. There were great flocks of them and millions of passenger pigeons. Their call of "pigie! pigie!" was very companionable on that lonely prairie. Sometimes when they were flying to roost they would darken the sun, there were such numbers of them. Geese and ducks were very numerous, too. Black birds were so thick they were a menace to the growing crops. I used to shoot them when I was ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... barge, as I have said, above Assmannshausen, probably at night, and then cross directly over the river. The first castle with which I intend to deal is that celebrated robber's roost, Rheinstein, standing two hundred and sixty feet above the water. Disembarking about a league up the river from Rheinstein, before daybreak we will all lie concealed in the forest within sight of the Castle gates. When the sun is well risen, Captain Blumenfels will navigate his boat down the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... her; she felt that there was a void somewhere or other, an empty place provocative of yawns. Her life dragged on, devoid of occupation, and successive days only brought back the same monotonous hours. Tomorrow had ceased to be; she lived like a bird: sure of her food and ready to perch and roost on any branch which she came to. This certainty of food and drink left her lolling effortless for whole days, lulled her to sleep in conventual idleness and submission as though she were the prisoner of her trade. Never going out except to drive, she was losing ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... sky became greenish and murky, merging into a vast tent of deepest blue studded with a myriad of shining golden stars. Then the eider-ducks and swans grew silent and went to roost for the night, and the soft warm air was thrilled by the whines of bear-cubs and the cries of land-rails. It was then that the maidens assembled on the slope to sing of Lada and to dance their ancient dances, ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... on the brows of Ben-Connal, He kens of his bed in a sweet mossy hame; The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs of Clan-Ronald, Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim; The solan can sleep on the shelve of the shore, The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, But, ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, Nor house, ha', nor hame in his country has he: The conflict is past, and our name is no more— There 's nought left but ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lot with the Burgdalers, and they were exceeding merry; and especially the women of them, they were chattering like the stares in the autumn evening, when they gather from the fields in the tall elm-trees before they go to roost. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... but the beds were made, and Christo the cook (who was a capital fellow for speed in preparing a dinner) was enveloped in savoury steam, when the usual inmates of the hut quietly invaded us. Cocks and hens marched in, and went to roost upon some sticks within a corner; two or three dogs arrived, evidently with the intention of staying through the night; a donkey at length walked composedly through the entrance door and steered for ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... your charity and your allegories," says the wife angrily; "I tell you they are my relations, not yours, and they shall not roost here; they shall ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... are, no doubt you know, To which a fox is used; A rooster that is bound to crow, A crow that's bound to roost, And whichsoever he espies He tells ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... their regular traders used to meet monthly; but it was necessary, for purposes of effect, that the dreary sublimities of Shetland should be wrought up into the same piece of rich tissue with the imposing antiquities of Orkney,—Sumburgh Head and Roost with the ancient Cathedral of St. Magnus and the earl's palace, and Fitful Head and the sand-enveloped kirk of St. Ringan with the Standing Stones of Stennis and the Dwarfie Stone of Hoy; and so the little jury-court probabilities have been sacrificed ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... constant daylight, and the effect which it always has upon the system, until accustomed to it, of depriving one of the inclination to go to roost at regular hours, told upon us, and often have I found myself returning from five hours' work, chasing, shooting, and pulling a boat, just as the boatswain's mates were piping "stow hammocks!" That I was not singular, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... laughed the other officer, "this is a feather out of your cap. I thought your fellows had cleared out every hen-roost within ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the babies, and undoubtedly would destroy every one within a few moments. All the weasel family, to which the polecat belongs, kill for the pure joy of killing, and in China one such animal will entirely depopulate a hen-roost in ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... China shop"? You remember, sir, that "intelligent contraband" who, when asked his opinion of an offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "Sar, if I was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she "roosted high"—withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to escape the rough contact with the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... low-growing branches. Underneath this embodied spirit of night galloped the dog, filling the woods with barks, leaping high into the air, his teeth snapping and clicking like castanets. In the edge of a straw field looked down upon by stars he rushed a covey on the roost. One struck against a tree and came chirping down. Dan leaped upon him. His hunger satisfied, he tramped a pile of leaves into a ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... similar to that of the thought-form he generated, is thrown into respondent vibrations, and suffers the destructive effects he had intended to cause to another. Thus "curses [and blessings] come home to roost." From this arise also the very serious effects of hating or suspecting a good and highly-advanced man; the thought-forms sent against him cannot injure him, and they rebound against their projectors, shattering them mentally, morally, or physically. Several ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... you get home, do you yourself ask her whom she loves. But remember this—if it should chance that she should say that it is you, you must be prepared to bear the burden, whatever may be urged to the contrary at the vicarage. And now we will retire to roost ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... praised Nora. "I like it ever so much better than Jessica's, Anne's or mine. I can't blame you for wanting to dress up in it beforehand. I take back all my croaking. Here's hoping good luck will roost ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... cradle," growl'd another; "and times enough I've told 'n: 'Cap'n,' says I, 'there's no sense o' proportions about ye.' A master mind, sirs, but 'a 'll be hang'd for a hen-roost, so sure ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... the west snapped asunder suddenly, and a single forked flame shot above the jagged pines and went out in the dove-coloured clouds. In a huge oak beyond the rail fence there was a harsh rustling of wings where a flock of buzzards settled to roost. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... don't make mo' honey dan he want. Kwishins on mule's foots done gone out er fashun. Pigs dunno w'at a pen's fer. Possum's tail good as a paw. Dogs don't bite at de front gate. Colt in de barley-patch kick high. Jay-bird don't rob his own nes'. Pullet can't roost too high for de owl. Meat fried 'fo' day won't las' twel night. Stump water won't kyo' de gripes. De howlin' dog know w'at he sees. Blin' hoss don't fall w'en he follers de bit. Hongry nigger won't w'ar his maul out. Don't fling away de empty wallet. Black-snake ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... their nestling for a certain length of time, till at last the youngsters started off to forage on their own account, and the family, as a family, broke up. From habit, however, or from good will, the youngsters kept coming back to roost on the branches beside the nest, and remained on the most friendly, though easy-going, relations with ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour there flashed into my mind the reason of the name that they were called. For the noise of them seemed almost mirthful, as it out-topped ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wren, a magpie, a cuckoo, and a wag-tail. But the old continental hen has now set so long, that we conclude that her eggs are addled, and incubation frustrated. During all this time, the Gallick cock is on his roost at Elba, with his head under ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... held sway; the manner and metre of Pope or Thomson ruled the roost of singing fowl. In the main it had done its work, and the bulk of fresh things conceived in it were dull and imitative, even though occasionally, as in the poems of Johnson himself and of Goldsmith, an author arose who was able to infuse sincerity and emotion into ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... started it, Abe, was me when I went down to Madison Street and give Uncle Mosha that cigar, Abe. I tell you, Abe, it's an old saying and a true one: Throw away a loaf of bread in the water, y'understand, and sooner or later, Abe, it would come home like chickens to roost." ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... in an inconsistency!" he answered. "I've been afraid, though, that this desire to roost in one place was a sign ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... sounds of music. It might have been a phonograph playing in one of the summer cabins with names like Polly Ann Roost and Patches and Seventh Heaven, but to Kimmy it was the hated cry of the Father of Therns calling the dreadful Plant Men to their feast of victims borne into this Valley ...
— The Hills of Home • Alfred Coppel
... Barbesieur, trying to look amiable, "pray don't be so concise. Tell me the condition of the marquis, at once: I did not come to this old owl's roost for pastime. I came to see what could be done to restore its unhappy lord to reason. That you are observing, I remember; you proved it by the good care you took ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... run at the person she supposed the dog barked at, and try to bite him by the heels. Sometimes she would attempt to feed with the dog; but this the dog, who treated his faithful companion with indifference, would not suffer. This bird would not go to roost with the others at night, unless driven by main force; and when in the morning they were turned into the field, she would never stir from the yard gate, but sit there the whole day in sight of the dog. At length orders were given that she should no longer be molested; ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... grove upon the top of a hill overlooking the city of Bombay and the sea, surrounded by a high, ugly wall, are the so-called Towers of Silence, upon which these hideous birds can always be seen, waiting for their feast. They roost upon palm trees in the neighborhood, and, often in their flight, drop pieces of human flesh from their beaks or their talons, which lie rotting in the fields below. An English lady driving past the Towers of Silence was naturally horrified when the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... reward was pilfering, and a crown put into her hand, gave her less pleasure than a halfpenny which she had stolen. Neither was it any use to dream of ruling her as the sole male, or as the proud master of the hen roost, for which of them, no matter how broad shouldered he was, would have been capable of it? Some had tried to vanquish her, but ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... among the rocks, the cocks and hens perched on the frame of the tent, and the geese and ducks chose to roost in a marsh, covered with bushes, near the sea. We prepared for our rest; we loaded all our arms, then offered up our prayers together, thanking God for his signal mercy to us, and commending ourselves ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... sleepy one; so, if you please, I'll go to roost." And thus there was nothing more said about ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... out of the question, and each one of them realized it. Their only safe course, indeed, was to remain hidden as they were in that cover till the night came again, when, tramp-like, they would take to the road once more, and, tramp-like, might rob some hen-roost to provide a meal for the morrow. Yet it was hard, and became harder still as the hours went by, to put up without even those scanty meals which had ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... see this clearly. I have a great mind to send Blacas over to Stowe. I can trust to him to look to the crates and coops, and to see that the pheasants have enough of air and water, and that the Governor of Calais finds a commodious place for them to roost in, forbidding the drums to beat and disturb them, evening or morning. The next night, according to my calculation, they repose at Montreuil. I must look at them before they are let loose. I cannot ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... when I had forgotten them, the Admiral sent for me. It was to show me, now without emotion, the two little visitors who had gone to roost in his room, perched upon a slender silken cord above his bed. They nestled closely together, two little balls of feathers, touching and almost merged one in the other, and slept without the slightest fear, sure of our pity. And those little Belgians sleeping side by side ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... up on the barn, sot down on the ridgepole and waited for Kingdom Come. He sot there and tooted all mornin' and 'spected the angel Gabriel would answer back. He sot there and tooted all the arternoon till the cows come home and the chickens went to roost. I had three good square meals that day, but Silas didn't get a bite. 'Bout six o'clock I did think of takin' him out some doughnuts, but then I decided if he was goin' up so soon it was no use a wastin' em, so I put 'em back in the pantry. He sot there and tooted all the evenin' ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... muttered running-fire of the most horrible execrations that I ever listened to even in this hard-swearing country. Whether this ebullition of blasphemy comforted him at the moment I cannot say; but, if "curses come home to roost," a black brood was hatched that night, unless one whole page be blotted out from the register ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... a rule Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep Under it all, his door sealed up and lost, Than the man fighting it to keep above it, Yet think of the small birds at roost and not In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? Their bulk in water would be frozen rock In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow They will come budding boughs from tree to tree Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee, As if not knowing ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... the gloom of semi-darkness over the scene. Spasmodic bursts of lightning laid thin dull, unearthly flares upon the desolate land, and the rumble of apple-carts filled the ear with promise of disaster. The chickens had gone to roost; several cows, confined in a pen surrounded by the customary stockade of poles driven deep into the earth and lashed together with the bark of the sturdy elm, were huddled in front of a rude shed; a number of squealing, grunting pigs nosed the cracks in ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... sat a Japanese fireman, wrapped up in his cloak, keeping watch against fires. He looked unpleasantly like a Bulgarian atrocity or a Burmese 'deviation from the laws of humanity,' being very still and all huddled up in his roost. That was a superb picture and it arranged itself to admiration. Now, disregarding these things and others—wonders and miracles all—men are content to sit in studios and, by light that is not light, to fake subjects from pots and pans and rags and bricks that are called 'pieces of colour.' ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... understand how people can habitually take Turks in bad part; Mohammed had his good points; respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is ornamented with a hen-roost! Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other's profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... work. Ye shall have gay holyday times, and holyday fare, and anything the old man can do, and anything the old man can give to make you merry, he will do, and he will give, because you have come back gallantly, and have not brought dishonour to the roost where ye were hatched—but more than this I will not agree to. Ye would not abide at home, as I desired, and this therefore is no longer a home for you; ye would not be content to be forgers of weapons, but ye must e'en use them too, and ye have ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... alleged date of his shipwreck, and as they have two hundred additional feast days they have just one hundred and sixty-four days left for their regular business—loafing. They have novel names for their hotels and saloons,—the "Sea and Land Hotel," "The Pirates' Roost" saloon, the "Quick Fire" lunch-room, "The Englishers' Chop-House," and "The Camel's Drink," are some examples. Not from greed, but purely out of curiosity, mind you, we tested the latter, and it would have taken three of what they gave us to make a regular ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... of a minute species of fly, which, without stinging, is nevertheless productive of no little annoyance. The tameness of the birds and lizards is as nothing when compared to the fearless confidence of this insect. He will perch upon one of your eye-lashes, and go to roost there if you do not disturb him, or force his way through your hair, or along the cavity of the nostril, till you almost fancy he is resolved to explore the very brain itself. On one occasion I was so inconsiderate as to yawn while a number of them were hovering around me. I never repeated ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... feeds well, bekase he's the cock o' the roost; but the poor Naygurs are not overly well fed, and the critters are up to their knees in wather all day, washing di'monds; so they suffer much from rheumatiz and colds. Och, but it's murther entirely; an' I've more than wance felt inclined to fill their pockets with di'monds and set them all free! ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... nevertheless! There are thousands of them that roost among the hills in that quarter. I know the place thoroughly. The heights are the greatest that we have in the surrounding country. The distance from this spot is about five miles. He, no doubt, has some fish, or bird now within ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... ears, which, by bunging up these apertures, were supposed to keep his ghost in the body till his friends had got a good start away from him. As a further precaution they lit fires and put bushes in the forks of trees, with the idea that the ghost would roost in the bushes and warm himself at the fires, while they were hastening away.[224] Here, therefore, we see that the real motive for kindling fires for the use of the dead is fear, not affection. In this respect the burial customs of the tribes at the Herbert River are still ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summer population was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north to the south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for a certain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come—at the last moment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... nuthin' to do but work. Dere were eight slaves on de place in slavery time. Clabber branch run into Swift Creek. Lord have mercy, I have caught many a fish on dat branch. I also piled brush in de winter time. Birds went in de brush ter roost. Den we went bird blindin'. We had torches made o' lightwood splinters, and brushes in our han's, we hit de piles o' brush after we got 'round 'em. When de birds come out we would kill 'em. Dere were lots o' birds den. We ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... windows of Cedar House. He glanced at her chamber window before seeing that she stood on the grass by the front door, giving the swan bits of bread from her fingers while the jealous birds, forgetting to go to roost, watched and scolded from the low branches overhead. But she had seen him a long way off and looked ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... all right," nodded Flanders, "but then it's happened the same way with others I could tell about. As long as he was winnin' Sandy was the king of any roost. The minute he lost a fight he wasn't worth so many pounds of salt pork. Take a hoss; a fine hoss is often jest the same. Long as it wins nothin' can touch some of them blooded boys. But let 'em go under ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... started by rotting the other fellow's eggs and he finished by souring my milk. I wanted justice and I got it, but I didn't recognize it when it landed on me with all four feet. Chickens come home to roost, and my pigeons had found a nesting-place on my anatomy; and the spot they had chosen ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... him Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third valley, and stood on the hill's summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their aged eyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to roost. ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... everything he owned except what he had on. Lanier was not much better off. As to the origin of the fire, Bob merely said that he had turned the lights low in the sitting-room, and, obedient to "Shoe's" orders, had gone up to his roost, too wrathful and amazed over what had occurred even to think of sleep—to think, in fact, of anything but the colonel's words. So absorbed was he, as he slowly undressed, he never noted the sounds from below until his room of a sudden seemed filled with smoke, and, throwing open ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... does he come across; they are suspicious, and roost out of reach. At last, half dead, he desires to drink, and sees a well with two pails on the chain; he descends in one of the pails, and finds it impossible to scramble out: he weeps for rage. The ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... have sent out colonies to the other churches and campi of Venice. They have crossed the Grand Canal, and roost and croon among the volutes of the Salute, or, in wild weather, wheel high and airly above its domes. They have even found their way to Malamocco and Mazzorbo; so that all Venice in the sea owns ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... the intruder was, by producing a wild flutter and a frantic cackling! Before my companion could strike a light the mysterious attack was fully explained. The supposed midnight robber and possible assassin was simply a peaceable hen that had gone to roost on my arm, and, on finding her position unsteady, had dug her claws into what she mistook for ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... don't know," replied Bill. "I tell you what, Frank, if it wasn't for being cock of the roost myself, I should wish that Stewart headed this watch now. What fine times we used to have, eh?—but he has altered as well as the times—how odd he has acted by spells ever since we got that packet at Malta. I'm d—d if I don't ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... particular morning Dan was plainly inclined to rebel. He had had time to grow sore over the things that Felicity had said to him when Jimmy Patterson was thought lost, and he began the day with a flatly expressed determination that he was not going to let Felicity rule the roost. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... feet from tip to tip of the wings, or about the size of a large Rhode Island turkey. Employing these birds for the removal of refuse is a remedy almost as bad as the disease, since the habits of the huge, ungainly, ill-omened creatures are extremely disgusting. Clouds of them roost upon the eaves of the houses, the church belfries, and all exposed balconies, and would invade the patios of the dwellings were they not vigorously driven away and thus taught better manners. The cathedral facade on ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the shape of an aasvogel which was nearly twice as big as any of the others. This was what the Boers and the natives call the "king vulture," one of which goes with every flock. He it is who rules the roost and also the carcase, which without his presence and permission none dare to attack. Whether this vile fowl is of a different species from the others, or whether he is a bird of more vigorous growth and constitution that has outgrown the rest and thus become their overlord, is more than I can ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... the continuous plunge of a cascade somewhere near at hand among the mountains. The air struck chill, but tasted good and vigorous in the nostrils - a fine, dry, old mountain atmosphere. I was dead sleepy, but I returned to roost with a grateful mountain ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... birdmen (war correspondentese for flying officers) tire of trying to be offensive on a patrol, and by now we are varying our rubber-neck searchings with furtive glances at the time, in the hopes that the watch-hands may be in the home-to-roost position. At length the leader heads for the lines, and the lords of the air (more war correspondentese) forget their high estate and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Ray was a man-size man. When he was working downtown his mind did not take temporary refuge in the thought of the feverish little apartment to which he was to return at night. It wasn't a place to come back to, except for sleep. A roost. Bedding for the night. As permanent-seeming ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... very shy and cunning; as is well known, they nearly always post a sentinel in some tree top to keep watch while the rest of the flock is feeding in the field below. In the fall and winter, large numbers of them flock, and at night all roost in one piece of woods; some of the "crow roosts" are of vast extent and contain thousands of individuals. Crows nest near the tops of large trees, preferably pines, either in woods or single trees in ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Dowthwaite made himself unpleasant about his broken wall, the Askews turned the grouse back, and then I found the Allerby cottage children, ransacking Redmire Wood when the pheasants were going to roost." ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the Emperor with sword and counsel in field or Diet, and thereby win fame and honour such as can scarce be gained by carrying prey to yon eagle roost." ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thoroughly acquainted; and, truth to tell, he proved himself as great a thief as he was a genealogist among them. Many a time the unfortunate foxes from some neighboring cover were cursed and banned, when, if the truth had been known, the only fox that despoiled the roost was Raymond-na-hattha. One thing, however, was certain, that unless the cock was thoroughly game he might enjoy his liberty and ease long enough without molestation from Raymond. We had well nigh forgotten to say that he wore on the right side of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... similar remark to Charles II. when he noticed a construction near Shoreditch: and the story of the man who complained that the chicken brought up for his dinner had only one leg, and was told to go and look into the roost-house, is to be found in an old Turkish jest-book of the fifteenth century. When Byron said of Southey's poems that "they would be read when Homer and Virgil were forgotten—but not till then," he was no doubt repeating what Porson said of Sir Richard Blackmore's. "Most literary ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... alarm of the plover rings over the plain—"Did he do it?"—the bird's harsh cry speaks these words as plainly as a human being. This alarm is a certain warning that some beast is stalking abroad which has disturbed it from its roost, but presciently it is ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... all the rooks of the neighbourhood gathered into vast flocks and returned to roost in the woods of the Chace. But one winter afternoon there came on the most dense fog that had been known for a length of time, and a flock of rooks on their way as usual to the Chace stopped all night in a clump of trees on the farm a mile from the roosting-place. This the oldest labourer ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... by the clock They roost upon or quit their rock, Or swim ashore and hold their levee, Lords of the mixed lacustrine bevy; Or with their slow unwieldy gait Their green domain perambulate, Or with prodigious flaps and prances Indulge in their peculiar dances, Returning to their feeding-ground What time the keeper ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... had been wounded by the events of the evening, "I didn't cut no el'phant ner no cow, ner rob no hen roost neither, but I guess he won't starve 'fore mornin'," and with that he proceeded to fill up the stove and shut ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... or the railroad. From Tunnel Hill I could look into the gorge by which the railroad passed through a straight and well-defined range of mountains, presenting sharp palisade faces, and known as "Rocky Face." The gorge itself was called the "Buzzard Roost." We could plainly see the enemy in this gorge and behind it, and Mill Creek which formed the gorge, flowing toward Dalton, had been dammed up, making a sort of irregular lake, filling the road, thereby ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... without falling off, and Betty enjoyed slow, luxurious swings while her sister was recovering from her tumbles. On this occasion, having indulged their respective tastes, they paused for a brief interval of conversation, sitting side by side on the gate like a pair of plump gray chickens gone to roost. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... shook the curtain covering his lost Idea. He felt sure he should grasp it soon and enter into its daylight: a muffled voice within him said, that he was kept waiting to do so by the inexplicable tardiness of a certain one to rise ascending to her spiritual roost. She was now harmless to strike: Themison, Carling, Jarniman, even the Rev. Groseman Buttermore, had been won to the cause of humanity. Her ascent, considering her inability to do further harm below, was most mysteriously delayed. Owing to it, in a manner ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hope," said Musgrave, "that he may fall in love; that will bring him to his moorings! And now," he added, "we will go to the music-room and I will see if I cannot tempt the shy bird from his roost." And so we did—Musgrave is an excellent musician. We flung the windows open; he embarked upon a great Bach "Toccata"; and before many bars were over, our idealist crept softly into the room, with an ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... being secretary of the Academy, corresponded with, and directed the movements of all, in the absence of his chief. Every new book was criticised—refutations were published to the leading theological works of the age; but by far the roost effective progress was made by the means of poems, essays, romances, epigrams, and scientific papers. The songs of France at this era were written by the philosophers; and this spirit was diffused among the people. In a country so volatile and excitable as the French, it is difficult to estimate ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... charged to my bad luck. Then, as to the noise, never did I sleep at that enormous Hen and Chickens [2] to which usually my destiny brought me, but I had reason to complain that the discreet hen did not gather her vagrant flock to roost at less variable hours. Till two or three, I was kept waking by those who were retiring; and about three commenced the morning functions of the porter, or of "boots," or of "underboots," who began their rounds for collecting ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... into Duane Street, and, after groping our way up one of its wet and narrow alleys, halted at the cellar-door of a dilapidated little house that seemed to have been ignominiously crammed in between two dead walls and left for an owl roost. I was never wanting in courage, as my companions in Mexico can assert, but I confess that a sort of shaky sensation came over me just then. This was observed by my companion, who hoped I would not be alarmed, since the place we had arrived at was nothing more than the celebrated ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... roost on this side-hill for a month, if a lady told me to," he sneered, speaking aloud as he frequently did in the solitude of the range land. He glanced from ribbon to note, ended his indecision by stuffing the note carelessly into his coat pocket and letting the ribbon ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... 1833, he bought the little estate of Sunnyside, near the Sleepy Hollow which he had made famous. His first name for it was "The Roost" (Dutch for "Rest"), which he changed for reasons which are not recorded; possibly the little nieces who became regular inmates may have thought the old name not dignified enough. This he regarded as his home for ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... so sure of that. Trust a woman to find a place where she can't ruin her hat. My word for it, Cecil, she's found a safe roost. I say, by Jove!" The duke was staring more intently than ever at the windows far above. "I have it! Isn't it rather odd that a house should be lighted so brilliantly at this hour ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... is," said Noel Rainguesson, convincingly. "He is a terror; and not just in this vicinity. His mere name carries a shudder with it to distant lands—just his mere name; and when he frowns, the shadow of it falls as far as Rome, and the chickens go to roost an hour before schedule time. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... me to go to roost. I will have my gruel a-bed," said my Lord Mohun: and limped off comically on Harry Esmond's arm. "By George, that woman is a pearl!" he said; "and 'tis only a pig that wouldn't value her. Have you seen the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... requested Russ. "There's a big one over there I want to film. I guess he must be the grandfather of this alligator roost." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... were now so tame that, having cut their wings, I let them out, when the weather favoured, at my door, where they would pick about in the wood, and get the best part of their subsistence; and having used them to roost in a corner of my ante-chamber, they all came in very regularly at night and took their places. My hens, at the usual season, laid me abundance of eggs, and hatched me a brood or two each of chickens; so that now I was at a loss to know what to do with them, they were become ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... not mind. Anyway, her cabbages have succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and a very good one too) likened them the other day to the head of a German; and even this hyperbolical image was grudging. I remember all the trouble you had with servants at the Roost. The most of them were nothing to the trances that we have to go through here at times, when I have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence which is never twice the same, and decide, practically blindfold, and after I have decided have the accuser take ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... led out to the further attentions of the soldiery. But during that afternoon zu Pfeiffer became conscious of a subtle air of defiance, a restlessness and exchanging of glances, so that the demon which Bakunjala had once seen so vividly came back to roost somewhere beneath ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... servant who had overheard Mrs. Eustis expostulating with her daughter, the news of Mary Virginia's unannounced engagement had sifted pretty thoroughly throughout the length and breadth of Appleboro; a town where an unfledged and callow rumor will start out of a morning and come home to roost at night ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... telling stories. So he shook his feathers out, half spread his wings to let the air blow under them, looked down at all the little meadow and forest people gathered about the foot of the tall, dead tree where he delights to roost, grinned at them in the funniest way, and ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess |
