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More "All fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Florimel, whose old confidence in Malcolm was now more than revived, was laughing merrily at the discomfiture of his attempt at love making. Her behaviour and his own frustration put him in such a rage that, wheeling quickly round, he struck Kelpie, just as she dropped on all fours, a great cut with his whip across the haunches. She plunged and kicked violently, came within an inch of breaking his horse's leg, and flew across the rail into the park. Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He did not punish her as he would have done had she been to blame, for he was always ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... him. By this time the other two had been aroused, and, as near as I could tell in the darkness, one of them was crawling in the opposite direction on his hands and knees, while the other one was coming at me on all fours. I shot him with the pistol that I held in my left hand, and I then thought I was almost safe. Just at that moment the other young buck was on his feet, with bow in hand but no arrows. He dealt me a blow on the side of the head, which staggered me but ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... Stahl had said—"Greece will betray them," and he had asked: "Their true form and type?" And for answer the old man did an expressive thing, far more convincing than words: he bent forwards and downwards. He made as though to move a moment on all fours. ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... did not wait. He groped his way in, relocked the passage door and crawled on all fours through the smoke ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... the ghost of a sound rose up from the great bed. Either she lay archly listening or slept a sleep serener than an infant's. And when, it seemed, we had been hours in hiding and were cramped, chilled, and half suffocated, we crept out on all fours, with terror knocking at our ribs, and so down the five narrow stairs and back to the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the smoke, which rises from a fire built in the center of the apartment. These places are so low that it is quite impossible to stand upright in them, and are entered from a small hole in one side, on all fours. A large stone, sunk to its surface in the ground, which contains three or four pan-like hollows for the purpose of grinding acorns and nuts, is the only furniture which these huts contain. The women, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... grimacing and talking excitedly in his sibilant, whispering voice, crouched on all fours (he could not stand in that small space) and waited, three men of the guard on either side of him. I placed his menore on his head and gave him simple, forceful orders, picturing them for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... Bison with arrows, and his pursuit is very risky to the hunter, for he must not be discovered by the game, as he would then be trodden underfoot or disembowelled. In the immense prairies where these ruminants feed, a few Indians covered by bisons' skins advance on all fours, so that nothing betrays their presence. The victims fall one by one beneath silent blows, and their companions, who can see nothing suspicious in the neighbourhood, are not disturbed, supposing them, no doubt, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... things beneath thy feet, and set thy foot on the necks of princes; when earthly dominion, and wealth, and the mind of man bore thy yoke? Exulting in the abasement of humanity, joying to witness the uttermost lengths to which man's folly would go, thou hast bidden thy lovers walk on all fours, and required of them their lands and wealth, nay, even their wives if they were worth aught to thee. Thou hast devoured millions of men without a cause; thou hast flung away lives like sand blown by the wind from ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... uncased rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our compartment to watch ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly, but he values too highly his own historical judgment to allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the infamous Catiline and his associates must indeed always remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny, and ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... he going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He lifted himself out of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... perceiving how he had committed himself, he had slipped down in the pew, crawled on all fours to the door, and got ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... I thought that the hall also was deserted. I was wrong, and I crept upon a Kaffir on all fours. Poor devil, I could not bring myself to deal him a base blow, but I threatened him most hideously with my revolver, and left the white teeth chattering in his black head as I took the stairs three at a time. Why I went upstairs in that decisive fashion, as though it were my only course, ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... go to the Boulevard Cafe—they dance on Sunday just the same as weekdays—and then we'll do a movie afterward. I suppose Steve and his Beatrice are now revelling in the Constantine conservatory, with Steve walking on all fours to prove his devotion. Why is it some girls have everything? Look at me—no one cares if I live or die. First I had a stepmother, and then I tried living with a great-aunt, and then I went to work. Here I am still working, and a lot of thanks I get for it. I'd like ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... lie!" he said, and stepped between. "What right has he to walk the earth like a man! He is but fit to go on all fours—Ha! ha!" he went on, laughing wildly, "I begin to believe in the transmigration of souls! I shall one day see that son of yours running about the place ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the great hall every day before dinner was laid, with a little hand-broom, called a prah-prah. She was engaged in her usual occupation, without knowing that Sai was there, and stooping almost on all fours; when with a sudden impulse of fun, the panther jumped upon her back, and stood there, wagging his tail. Naturally supposing she was going to be devoured, the poor prah-prah woman screamed so violently as ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... covering that nature had given me. He blew my hairs aside to take a better view of my face. He called his hinds about him, and asked them, as I afterwards learned, whether they had ever seen in the fields any little creature that resembled me. He then placed me softly on the ground upon all fours, but I got immediately up, and walked slowly backward and forward, to let those people see I had no intent to run away. They all sat down in a circle about me, the better to observe my motions. I pulled off my hat, and made a low bow towards the farmer. I fell on my ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... appeared to be in darkness. I groped my way at last to the foot of a flight of steps leading up to the front, and finding nobody on guard climbed up softly on all fours, only staying now and then to breathe deeply, and to try and still the excessive beating of my heart. The drums continued to sound, the notes becoming harsher and more distinct as I approached. At the top of the steps I found myself before a little stone doorway, through which a very faint dusky ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... arrived on the bridge, crawling on all fours against the wind, and had found the chief mate's legs with the top of his head. Immediately he crouched and began to explore Jukes' person upwards with prudent, apologetic touches, as became ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... on all fours. The stairs were thickly carpeted. Gaining the top his strained ears detected the whisper of a sound that suggested the ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... when he dropped into the saddle. With both hands he clung to the horn. Up went the bronco on its hind legs. It pitched, bucked, sun-fished. In sheer terror Bob clung like a leech. The animal left the ground and jolted down stiff-legged on all fours. The impact was terrific. He felt as though a piledriver had fallen on his head and propelled his vital organs together like a concertina. Before he could set himself the sorrel went up again with a weaving, humpbacked twist. The rider ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... DINOSAURS (terrible reptiles) are an extremely varied order which were masters of the land from the late Trias until the close of the Mesozoic era. Some were far larger than elephants, some were as small as cats; some walked on all fours, some were bipedal; some fed on the luxuriant tropical foliage, and others on the flesh of weaker reptiles. They may be classed in three divisions,—the FLESH-EATING DINOSAURS, the REPTILE-FOOTED DINOSAURS, and the BEAKED DINOSAURS,—the latter ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... the word deliberately," replied Weymouth, "because Burke seems to have the idea that it goes on all fours." ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... out of the dormitory they passed into the children's day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at play—some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of the use of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... without talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... rope which had been lately tethering him, went a few short, prancing steps, and then, feeling something akin to freedom, reared straight up, snorting. The crowd yelled with delight, and the sound sent the roan back to all fours and racing down the road. He stopped with braced feet, and Morgan lurched forwards on the neck, yet he struck to his seat gamely. Whistling Dan was not ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... see It—that Thing! The darkness, of which so much had just turned into water, had thinned down a little. There It was! But I did not hit upon the notion of Mr. Burns issuing out of the companion on all fours till he attempted to stand up, and even then the idea of a bear crossed ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... little farther in search of water and was alarmed by a horseman appearing. He made for home on all fours—he ran much on all fours now—and backed into the den. In the prairie grass he was concealed, but the den was on a bare mound, and the horseman caught a glimpse of a whitish thing disappearing down the hole. Badgers ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... believing every thing secure; but when day appeared next morning neither the cacique nor any of his attendants were to be found. Taking advantage of the centinels falling asleep, Capasi had crept out from among them on all fours, after which his Indians carried him off to some more secure place than the former, as he was never more seen. The Spanish escort returned much ashamed of themselves to Soto, pretending that Capasi and his attendants must have been carried off through the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... never forget the tortures which we had to undergo in climbing almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor dog, Pamir, panting and with his tongue hanging out, make two or three steps and fall to the ground exhausted. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... the chestnut he dived and his teeth closed on the throat of Alcatraz just where the neck narrows beneath the jaw. His superior height enabled Alcatraz to rear and fling himself clear, but his throat was bleeding when he landed on all fours dancing with rage and the sting of his wounds. Yet he refrained from rushing; he had been in too many a ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... of God was lamenting the deplorable state of the church of Vervignole in the cloister of the cathedral, his meditations were disturbed by strange shrieks, and he saw a woman, stark naked, walking on all fours, with a peacock's feather for a tail. As she came nearer, she barked, sniffed, and licked the ground. Her fair head was covered with mud, and her whole body was a mass of filth. In this unhappy creature the holy Bishop Nicolas recognized ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... Montevideo growing in this country, and in its branches lived a colony of monkeys. One day one of the monkeys came down from the tree and ran full of excitement across the plain, now scrambling along like a man on all fours, then erect like a dog running on its hind legs, while its tail, with nothing to catch hold of, wriggled about like a snake when its head is under foot. He came to a place where a number of oxen were grazing, and some horses, ostriches, deer, goats, and pigs. 'Friends all,' cried the monkey, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... to have given up hope of standing erect, and began to move painfully on all fours across the snow to where a log of rotten wood was lying. Having reached it, he tried to raise it, but there was not the strength in his hands. He tried to fasten his teeth upon it, to drag it back with him; but his jaws seemed paralysed. Then he crept back ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the act of urination becomes an act of gratification at the climax of sexual pleasure, the imitative symbol of detumescence. Thus Schultze-Malkowsky describes a little girl of 7 who would bribe her girl companions with little presents to play the part of horses on all fours while she would ride on their necks with naked thighs in order to obtain the pleasurable sensation of close contact. With one special friend she would ride facing backward, and leaning forward to embrace her body impulsively, and at the same time pressing ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... all fours to his brother and put oft his helm, but he might not know him, his visage was so disguised by blood and wounds. But when Balin awoke, he said, "O Balan, my brother, thou hast slain me and I thee, wherefore all the wide world ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... chance," he said to himself, returning his six-shooter to its holster. And just as the outlaw threw up his own weapon to fire, the Trooper, in a running jump, plunged into him with all fours, exactly as, when a boy, he had plunged off a springboard into the old mill-dam of ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... which I thought if she did, my steed, whose spirit had been roused by emulation, would probably do too. She did not hear me, but fortunately stopped her horse before we reached the hedge, when my quadruped halted of his own sweet will, with a bound on all fours, or off all fours, that sent me half up to the sky; but I came back into my saddle without leap, without tumble, and with only my ignoble ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... with a refined and delicate face—a dramatic critic on a great San Francisco daily, she was told—introduced a feat which all the men tried and failed at most ludicrously. On the beach, at regular intervals, planks were placed as obstacles. Then the dramatic critic, on all fours, galloped along the sand for all the world like a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking hurdles he jumped the planks to the end of ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... mirth may be used, let the Cards also be brought in sight; which formerly, out of a Puritanical humour, ought not to have been seen in a house; nay, not so much as to have been spoken of; but now every one knows how to play artificially at Put, all Fours, Omber, Pas la Bete, Bankerout, and all other games that the expertest Gamesters can play at. And who knows whether they do not carry in their Pockets, as False-Gamesters do, Cards that are cut and marked. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... (upon whom be The Peace),[FN417] and so saying he brushed by the Droll and passed through the door. Now when the second lover had gone forth and escaped, the Flesher arose and donning the ram's skin set its horns upon his head and began crawling out of the closet upon all fours, hands and knees, until he stood before the husband of his beloved, and said to him, "The Peace be upon you!" "And upon you be The Peace," returned the other, "What mayst thou be?" "I am Iskandar, Lord of the Two Horns," cried the other; "say me, have there passed by thee Job the Ulcered and Al-Khizr ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... we were entangled in shoals, owing to a change in the bed of the river, and forced to stay all night; and at three in the morning, the Reis sent in the boy to say he had seen a man creeping on all fours—would I fire my pistol? As my revolver had been stolen in Janet's house, I was obliged to beg him to receive any possible troop of armed robbers very civilly, and to let them take what they pleased. However, Omar blazed away with your father's ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... The divine element was explained away, and the proper study of mankind was, not man, as that age thought, but man reduced to his beggarly elements—a being animated solely by the sensuous springs of pleasure and pain, which should properly, as Carlyle thought, go on all fours, and not lay claim to the dignity of being moral. All things were reduced to what they seemed, robbed of their suggestiveness, changed into definite, sharp-edged, mutually exclusive particulars. The world was an aggregate of isolated facts, or, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... gone but a few miles, before we fell in with a squad of as choice game as heart could have wished, three proper tall young vagabonds! profoundly engaged at all fours, in a log tippling shop, with cards as black as their own dirty hands, and a tickler of brandy before them! and so intent were the thieves on fleecing each other, that they took no manner of notice of us, but continued their ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the banqueters and Baahaabaa rose with amazing steadiness and made another speech, short this time, but aimed point-blank at us, after which, through the center of a sort of kick-off formation I saw approaching four of the most exquisite women in the world. When ten feet away they fell on all fours and, using the Australian crawl-stroke, crept slowly toward us, exhaling sounds of passionate endearment mingled with the heart-stopping fragrance of alova. Beyond the glimmering lights, an unseen choir burst into the "a-a-a" of ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... still thinking it, was blotted from his mind. He was thrown suddenly to the sandy earth; the sand was slipping swiftly from beneath his feet; he was scrambling on all fours, clawing wildly for some anchorage that would keep him ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... a "baboon," an ape or monkey trained to gather cocoa-nuts, a hideous beast on very long legs when on all fours, but capable of walking erect. They called him a "dog-faced baboon," but I think they were wrong. He has a short, curved tail, sable-colored fur darkening down his back, and a most repulsive, treacherous, and ferocious countenance. He is fierce, but likes or at all ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... did it a purpose, Alfred will!" the aggrieved boy wailed, as he collected and restored to the battered tin as much of its late contents as might be recovered. While on all fours searching for bits which might have escaped him, and diluting the gravy which yet remained in the tin with salt drops of foreboding, a scorching sensation in the region of the back brought his head round. Then he yelled in earnest, for the roaring flame from the other ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... seemed at first, when Harkness saw the figure leap outward from the cliff. A second one followed. They landed on all fours upon a rock that jutted outward toward ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... clinging like a monkey, she swung herself from limb to limb until the lowest branch was reached. The drop to the ground was—even for Pollyanna, who was used to climbing trees—a little fearsome. She took it, however, with bated breath, swinging from her strong little arms, and landing on all fours in the soft grass. Then she picked herself up and looked eagerly ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... what way the flesh grows upon them in their flexions or extensions; and of this most important study write a separate treatise: in the description of the movements of animals with four feet; among which is man, who likewise in his infancy crawls on all fours. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Otherwise they could never have reached the valley right side up. It was a stretch of broken shale with much loose rubble. The soft sandstone farther along had eroded and there was a great deal of slack debris down which the horses slipped and slid, now on their haunches and again on all fours. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have gone very far. What stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne's child, that (Davidson remembered her very words) ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... features were fiendish and his eyes shone like beads beneath his shaggy brows. He had a tail 18 inches long, horns from the skull, a full set of teeth, and claw-like hands; he snapped like a dog and crawled on all fours, and refused the natural sustenance of a normal child. The mother almost became an imbecile after the birth of the monster. The country people about Bomballa considered this devil-child a punishment for a rebuff that the mother gave to a Jewish peddler selling ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... know, Teresa, that I am determined that thou shalt ride in thy coach, which is somewhat to the purpose, for all other ways of going are no better than creeping upon all fours, like a cat. Thou shalt be a governor's wife; see then whether anybody will dare to tread on thy heels. I here send thee a green hunting-suit which my lady duchess gave me; fit it up so that it may serve our daughter ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... have made great friends with Flossie. She was patting him on the head now, for the animal, after marching about on his hind legs, was down on all fours again. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... promise you this," he went on, "when you pass from the greyness of these sordid lands into the everlasting sunshine of the East, you will not care any longer about these people who go about the world on all fours. Day by day you will know what life and love mean. You will find the cloying weight of material things pass from your brain and body, and the joy of holy and wonderful living ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... eolina was of itself bad enough, but these congregated noises were intolerable. Uncle John aimed a desperate blow with a large apple, which he was just about to bite, at the head of Carlo, who, in order to give his lungs fair play, was standing on all fours on the hampers. The apple missed the dog, and went some distance beyond him into the water. Mr. Carlo, attributing to Uncle John a kinder feeling than that which actually prompted the proceeding, looked upon it as a good-natured expedient to afford him an opportunity ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... too late. The crack of Basil's rifle was heard; and the bear dropping upon all fours, danced over the ground shaking her head and snorting furiously. The light had deceived Basil; and instead of hitting her in the head as he had intended, his bullet glanced from her snout, doing her but little harm. Now, the snout of a bear is its most precious and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... however, had observed the hostile movement, and had thrown himself out of the saddle. He struck the hard sand of the hill on all fours and stretched out flat, his face to the ground. He heard the bullet sing futilely past him; heard the sharp crack of the rifle, and peered down to see the man again running his ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... haunches, then reared straight up and in a moment of temper tried to throw her off; indeed, she must have fallen but Ida, always cool at such moments, swept sideways, caught Adonis's bridle and brought him on all fours. Maude was instantly jerked forward on to the horse's neck in a humiliating fashion, but recovering her seat, sat ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... to him more tightly than ever; for a great cry went up. From the opening by the fork of the trunk a dark body rolled lazily out upon the snow—an enormous she-bear. She uncurled and gathered herself up on all fours, blinking and shaking her head as though the fall had left her ears buzzing, and so began to waddle off. Either she had not seen the crowd of men and women, or perhaps she ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... eyes and parted lips James the chauffeur was waiting for the signal. Fred nodded sharply, and the chauffeur stooped to throw in the clutch. But the car did not start. From the hedge beside the driveway, directly in front of the wheels, something on all fours threw itself upon the gravel; something in a suit of purple-gray; something torn and bleeding, smeared with sweat and dirt; something that cringed and crawled, that tried to rise and sank back upon its knees, lifting ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... making great gyrating circles, cutting the air with a crack and a burr that might be heard rods away. Though these sounds did not reach the men, busy with the snow-shack, they did reach listening ears—a great white bear, wandering the floes in search of some sleeping seal, stood first on all fours, then on his haunches, to listen. Then, with many a misgiving and many a pause, he made his cautious way to the edge of that particular ice-flat where the plane rested. Thence, after more misgivings, he trundled his awkward body across the flat and took a position ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... two reasons,—first, to see fair play, in case that Ironhook should come to wash his ugly visage, and find you on all fours over the brook—you understand? And next, to tell you what I heard last night among ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... humiliation to mottle his already ruby visage to a semblance of purple, and now, as he attempted to rise with dignity, he was still further covered with confusion by the fact that his huge stomach made it necessary for him to go upon all fours before he could rise, so that he got up much after the manner of a cow, raising his stern high in air in a most ludicrous fashion. As he gained his feet he saw the girl turn her head from him to hide the laughter ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... about an arm's length ahead of me, I holding my gun between my knees, with the butt on the ground. Stewart was getting off one of his stories, and, had about reached the climax, when I saw something running low to the ground, in among the stock. Thinking it was an Indian, on all fours, to stampede the animals, I instantly leveled my gun, and, as I was following it to an opening in the herd, my gun came in contact with Stewart's face at the moment of discharge, Stewart falling backward, hanging to the wagon-tongue by his legs and feet. My first thought ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... presently return, sar—'; the two constables, armed with staves, bringing up the rear; and Faiz Ullah, a Mohammedan's contempt for all Hindoos and foreigners in every line of his face, explaining to the drivers that though Scott Sahib was a man to be feared on all fours, he, Faiz Ullah, was ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... of the backward direction of the knee, a bat, when placed on the ground, rests on all fours, having the knees directed upwards, while the foot is rotated forwards and inwards on the ankle. Walking is thus a kind of shuffle; but, notwithstanding a general belief, bats can take wing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... assuredly, through the dim dusk of the morning, a gray figure was seen exerting itself most strenuously. They looked closer, when, behold, there was—what think you?—the cat, pawing away, first with her fore feet, and then with her hind; now touching one note gently, and then dancing with all fours across the keys. There was a solution of the enigma—a bringing to light ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... with a perplexed air. "I do not know whether he be a Huguenot, nor what a Huguenot is. The Cure one day said he was a Jansenist on all fours, which I suppose is the same thing, Babet—and it does not concern either you or me. But a merchant who is a gentleman and kind to poor folk, and gives just measure and honest weight, speaks truth and harms nobody, is ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... one intelligible idea which Mr. Feis can suggest as connecting Hamlet's conduct with Montaigne's philosophy is that Montaigne was a quietest, preaching and practising withdrawal from public broils. But Shakspere's own practice was on all fours with this. He sedulously held aloof from all meddling in public affairs; and as soon as he had gained a competence he retired, at the age of forty-seven, to Stratford-on-Avon. Mr. Feis's argument brings us to the very crudest form of the good old Christian verdict that if Hamlet had been ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... the same, homoousian[obs3]. coincide, coalescent, coalescing; indistinguishable; one; equivalent &c. (equal) 27; tweedle dee and tweedle dum[Lat]; much the same, of a muchness[obs3]; unaltered. . Adv. identically &c. adj.; on all fours. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... went down upon all fours, crawled to the edge, and peered into a velvety blackness. For a sickly moment he had courage neither to go on nor retreat, then he sat and hung his leg down, felt his guide's hands pulling at him, had a horrible sensation of sliding over the edge into the unfathomable, splashed, and felt ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... rejoined Brother Archangias. 'She must be sixteen now. She's growing up like a brute beast. I have seen her running on all fours in a thicket near ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... becoming normal and easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy—and for him, him, to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke, bringing him up to the perpendicular again ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... stun Uncle Mikhail even with a hammer. At once he says to me, 'Ignaty, run away to the city, quick! You remember the elderly woman.' And he himself writes a note. 'There, go! Good-by, brother.' He pushed me in the back. I flung out of the hut. I scrambled along on all fours through the bushes, and I hear them coming. There must have been a lot of them. You could hear the rustling on all sides, the devils—like a moose around the tar works. I lay in the bushes. They passed by me. Then I rose and off I went; ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... when he became aware that there was a feaster on the other side of the thicket. Receiving no reply to his challenge he went to investigate and saw a brown bear standing on his hind legs and raking the berries off the twigs with both forepaws, into his mouth. At sight of John he dropped on all fours and cantered off. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... the strap strained tight across his loins, with Bland dangling before him, felt even sillier than the Thunder Bird looked. He freed himself after the first paralyzing shock of surprise, dropped on all fours upon the upper wing covering, and crawled out between the front braces. A minute later ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... away. I will not say he swore between his teeth, but he twirled his chair round, brought it down on all fours, both his elbows on his knees and his chin in ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by biting ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... disappointed grunt, replaced his tomahawk in his belt, and seated himself cross-legged on the grass, drawing his blanket closely about him. The Policeman stopped murmuring "Move on!" The Cow dropped clumsily on all fours and began to crop the bushes. Even the Little Dentist put his pincers back into his pocket, though he still looked wistfully at Ann, who avoided his eye as much as she could. This was a very terrifying company in which the children found themselves, and in spite of the comforting presence of ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... all my wind to reach the Eden, a couple of miles from our starting-point, and we were on all fours part of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... seemed to come from inside the fallen tree, Sandy Chipmunk was so startled that he leaped high into the air; and when he came down again upon all fours he found himself staring straight ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... noted that the other seemed to have wearied of the game. After plunging through the air and landing on all fours with his grasping hands closing on nothingness, the man had remained thus, as if dazed, for a second or so. Then he had felt the ground all about him. Then, bewildered, he had scrambled to his feet. Now he was standing, moveless, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... accomplish it: but with so much hardship that I have ever since marvelled at my success. My hands were wounded, my knees were bruised, and my feet were cut for I could only scramble up by clinging to the rock on all fours. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... whole self-being of the world, uninjured and undiminished, and would laugh at the destruction of the world as an illusion. This conclusion per impossible may be balanced by the counter-conclusion, which is on all fours with it, that if that last individual were to be annihilated in and with him the whole world would be destroyed. It was in this sense that the mystic Angelas Silesius[1] declared that God could not live for a moment without him, and that if ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Dropping down on all fours, they crawled to the last line of brush and looked out over an extensive bottoms. At their feet lay a small river, and in a clearing on the farther side was a rough camp, consisting of about a dozen leanto shacks and log cabins in the main collection, and a few scattered ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... fortunately, for finding the brute still remaining quite motionless, we cautiously approached, and found it was stone dead. The perfect naturalness of the position, however, might well have deceived a more experienced sportsman. The beast was lying crouched on all fours, as if in the very act of preparing to spring. The one bullet had killed it; the wound was in the lungs, and the internal bleeding had suffocated it, but here was a wonderful instance of the tiger's tenacity of life, even when sorely wounded, for it ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... before. When I expected the golden apple,—to be then pelted with a golden egg, was too much for human endurance; I, therefore, took my leave with the following address: "May your worship's stage be glutted with monsters, running upon all fours, with your own taste! May wit and humour wing their flight to another region, and the mighty void be supplied by maukish sentiment, horse-collar grins, wood-demons, and other show-cattle of the Smithfield ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... LOVE. Godfrey Gobilyve told sir Graunde Amoure that Aristotle the philosopher was once in love, and the lady promised to listen to his prayer if he would grant her request. The terms being readily accepted, she commanded him to go on all fours, and then, putting a bridle into his mouth, mounted on his back, and drove him about the room till he was so angry, weary, and disgusted, that he was quite cured of his foolish attachment.—Stephen Hawes, The Pastime of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... system was applied, and with still greater precision, to Cock-fighting, to Lotteries, Raffles, Backgammon, Cribbage, Put, All Fours, and Whist, showing all the chances of holding any particular card or cards. Thus, it is 2 to 1 that your partner has not one certain card; 17 to 2 that he has not two certain cards; 31 to 26 that he has not one ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the sky before the first one falls. In hunting, the Sioux kill muskrats with spears, as they did in early days spear the buffaloes, managing to get close to them by being dressed in wolf skin, and going on all fours. There are Indians who would, on horseback, attack and kill a bear with a lance, but are afraid to molest the animal unless they have the Indian pony as ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... distinction which Endemann thinks was productive of very important results in the later teaching on the subject.[2] The last question treated in the treatise is the measure of the campsor's profit, and here the contract of exchange is shown to be on all fours with every other contract, because the essential principle laid down for determining its justice is the observance of the equivalence between ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... Henry was dressed all in black, and his son too; the boy's callow head shone in the sunshine, and they came dallying down the little path, many faces and shoulders peering over the terrace wall at them. Once the child stumbled, loosed his hold of his father's finger and came down upon all fours. He crawled to the pathside, filled his little hands with leaves, and held them up towards his sire; and they ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... flat on the ground, and Carnes, on all fours, crawled forward to join him. He smothered an exclamation as he looked over the crest of the hill. Before him, sitting in a hollow in the ground, was the huge globe which had spirited ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... it warn't over safe to come too near her heels—an everlastin' kicker. 'You may come out, John,' said she to her husband, 'it's only Mr. Slick;' and out came John from under the bed backwards, on all fours, like an ox out of the shoein' frame, or a lobster skullin' wrong eend foremost; he looked as wild as a hawk. Well, I swan, I thought I should have split, I could hardly keep from bustin' right out with larfter; he was all covered with ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Dropping on all fours, Sime feels for hoof-prints of the horses that have just crossed, groping in darkness. He can distinguish them from all others by their being wet. And so does, gaining ground, bit ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... fyr fryth ere frekes neu{er} comen. 1680 [Sidenote: He believes himself to be a bull or an ox.] His hert heldet vnhole, he hoped non o{er} Bot a best at he be, a bol o{er} an oxe. [Sidenote: Goes "on all fours," like a cow, for seven summers.] He fares forth on alle faure, fogge wat[gh] his mete, & ete ay as a horce when erbes were fallen, 1684 us he cou{n}tes hy{m} a kow, at wat[gh] a ky{n}g ryche, Quyle ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... another instant he had, after the occasional custom of nations, recognized the belligerency of Sarah Maria. When the din of battle had subsided he beheld Steve arising from the earth somewhere in the rear of the car, while the station master, on all fours, was in the act of picking himself up from a spot just in front of where Sarah had lately ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... passing away and leaving no representatives of their greatness to future ages? On land at least that is very probable. Man, diminutive man, who, if he walked on all fours, would be no bigger than a silly sheep, and who only partially disguises his native smallness by his acquired habit of walking erect on what ought to be his hind legs—man has upset the whole balanced economy of nature, and is everywhere expelling and exterminating before ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the cowboys, but Grace did not hear them, for the pony had dropped to all fours, and no sooner had his feet touched the ground than he leaped clear of it, coming down stiff-legged with a jolt that jarred Grace Harlowe throughout her body in spite of her effort to soften the shock by throwing most of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... out on all fours. Nip and Tup came with them. Nip and Tup were on all fours, too, but they had run that way all their lives, so they could go much faster than the twins. They got ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... time, sir? What say you? A game or two? I can stake my pistoles—that is, sir, so far as a fourpenny bit goes. If ignorant of this French game, sir, cribbage or all fours?" ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of this proposition, and he held the reins of the Kid's horse, while that cow puncher slipped from the saddle, and, on all fours, crept toward the wall of rock which rose abruptly at a turn of the trail ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... the same lively movement. To the right of Daniel is the Grand Turk, seated in his divan, and brandishing a dagger over a prostrate slave, who only ventures to rise when the dagger is withdrawn. Next to him is Nebuchadnezzar on all fours, eating painted grass, with a huge gold crown on his head, which he bobs for a bite every other bar. In the right-hand corner is a sort of cavern, the abode of some supernatural and mysterious being of the fiend or vampire school, who gives an occasional fitful start, and turns an ominous-looking ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... platters. Then followed, on golden dishes, peacocks and plovers which had been so skillfully cooked that their bright colors were preserved. After the guests had eaten all they cared for of this food, tiny roasted pigs were brought in, and set on all fours upon the tables. By this time, all the gold and silver goblets which had been filled with wine needed refilling. Then the squires carried in beautiful white swans on silver platters, and roasted cranes and curlews on plates ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... through the bush as silently as possible, still hearing the baby-like cry. At last, coming out into a little cleared space, we saw something running along the ground toward where we stood concealed. When it came nearer, we saw it was a female nshiego running on all fours, with a young one clinging to her breasts. She was eagerly eating some berries, and with one ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... old soldier yawned, went on all fours, arranged the straw of his claim, and added, "We'll not worry, but just let him be. 'Specially ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... thought of any one at all. He reveled in the sunshine, and everywhere made friends of children. "We saw Brahms on the hotel veranda at Domodossola," wrote a young woman to me in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five, "and what do you think?—he was on all fours, with three children on his back, riding him ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... containing the knives, forks, etc., in the other, while my load was the lantern, whisky-keg, and a small tin pail of pork. Just as I reached the rock, Mr. M——, who was feeling his way along the top, and warning me to be careful, slipped, turned, and, vainly trying to grasp the rock, went down on all fours with a run and splash into the lake. Away went Frank after him, shouting with a laugh, ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... that they will continue to be governed, by masterful-looking resultants, masters of nothing but compromise, and that little fancy of an inner conspiracy of control within the machine and behind ostensible politics is really on all fours with the wonderful Rodin (of the Juif Errant) and as probable as anything else in the romances of ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... garden path in front of the big old farm, swung wide the farm gates, and propped them open. Then he went down on all fours and put his ear to the frost-bound country road and listened. "Yes," he added, "two miles away, and coming on sharp. Why not let them come? What does it matter how soon?" He strode back, however, with quick steps. Five minutes afterward he was at the door of ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... an affluent of the Buffalo. Dingaan fled and the column marched on to Umgungundhlovu, where Retief's mouldering body was found on the hill of mimosas, and on it the deed of grant of land at Durban. Pretorius was ambushed by Zulus disguised as cattle, crawling on all fours and wearing ox hides; but he escaped with slight loss, and returned to the Tugela. "Dingaan's Day," December 16, is kept by the Boers as a festival of thanksgiving ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... said, 'I am, ye men, a full thousand years of age today, but I have never seen a dead creature, male or female or of ambiguous sex, revive after death. Some die in the womb; some die soon after birth; some die (in infancy) while crawling (on all fours); some die in youth; and some in old age. The fortunes of all creatures, including even beasts and birds, are unstable. The periods of life of all mobile and immobile creatures are fixed beforehand. Bereaved of spouses and dear ones and filled with sorrow for (the death of) children, men leave ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Private Hyatt—quite a youngster, but of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... idolaters see in it only an emanation from God, not the God himself. All this argument may strike the reader as extremely nebulous, but I submit that the fault is not mine. It was not I who sought to demonstrate the reality of a figure of speech by placing it on all fours with a cathedral and a regiment. The whole contention is so baffling that reason staggers and flounders as in a quicksand. It rests upon a mixture of categories, as palpable and yet as elusive as anything in The ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... being suddenly awaked, thought they were attacked by the Indians. We were all panic struck, and could not get thoroughly awaked, being so exhausted, and overpowered with sleep. Most of us were scrambling upon all fours down to the river, and crying for Christ's sake to have mercy upon them, till those who were foremost in the scramble, in crawling into the creek, got recovered from their plight by their hands being ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... a fat old farmer, who used to visit at my aunt's, as he crawled out of the human heap on all fours, and ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... with some pencils, slid to the lower edge of the table, but did not fall off. Mr. Aide looked under the table: Home's legs were inactive. Home said that he thought the table would 'ascend,' and Alphonse Karr dived under it, and walked about on all fours, examining everybody's feet—the others were standing up. The table rose 'three or four feet,' at highest, and remained in air 'from two to three minutes.' It rose so high that 'all could see Karr, and see also that no one's legs moved.' M. Karr was not a little annoyed; ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... he sat down unexpectedly and with much emphasis. That put him between two impulses, and while they battled he stared round-eyed at Bud. But he decided not to cry, and straightway turned himself into a growly bear and went down the line on all fours toward Cash, growling "Ooooooo!" as fearsomely as his baby throat was ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... it, cunning in this mass. It also chose its opportunity. It was as though a gigantic insect of iron was endowed with the will of a demon. Now and then this colossal grass-hopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then falling back on its four wheels, like a tiger on all fours, rush upon the man. He—supple, agile, adroit—writhed like a serpent before these lightning movements. He avoided encounters; but the blows from which he escaped fell with destructive force upon the vessel. A piece ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... few score times removed, must have known Moses, talked with him. Babylon! It is a modern city, fallen into disuse for the moment, owing to alteration of traffic routes. History! it is a tale of to-day. Man was crawling about the world on all fours, learning to be an animal for millions of years before the secret of his birth was whispered to him. It is only during the last few centuries that he has been trying to be a man. Our modern morality! Why, compared with the teachings of nature, it is but a few days old. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... for me. Now he's pretendin to be lame, all 'long of his little love-affair with that gray hoss. Sometimes he lies down in the middle of the road. If I had my fowlin' piece I'd shoot off blank cartridge under his belly, and wouldn't old Clutch go up all fours into the air; but he knows well enough the gun is at home. Let ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Parker, that any people who will get down on all fours to worship the picture of their emperor and, at this period of the world's progress, ascribe to a mere human being the attributes of divinity, are certainly deficient in common sense, if not in civilization. However, for the purpose of insuring the realization of the Japanese ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Owen lit the candles on the Christmas tree and distributed the toys to the children, and a little while afterwards Philpot—who had got a funny-looking mask out of one of the bon-bons—started a fine game pretending to be a dreadful wild animal which he called a Pandroculus, and crawling about on all fours, rolled his goggle eyes and growled out he must have a little boy or girl to ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... vain endeavor to make out the curious object there in the grass. At last he rises on his hind legs, and stares long and intently. It seems as if he must recognize you, with his nose pointing straight at you, his eyes looking straight into yours. But he drops on all fours again, and glides silently into the thick bushes ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... to her knees and went darting off on all fours like a squirrel into some mysterious, clattery corner of the darkness from which she emerged at last with one little gray flannel arm crooked inclusively around a ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... everybody thought he'd die. He was crazy as a loon. I watched with him one night and he talked every thing you could think of, about a grave hid away somewhere—under his bed, he seemed to think—and made me go down on all fours to look for it. I suppose he was thinking of his grandfather so lately buried. And then, he kept talking about Bessie and asking why ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... company. Even Master Jock now sprang from his seat, and, resting the palms of both hands on his knees, regarded the new-comer with amazement, while the gipsy went down on all fours and began sniffing around him like ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... very much our junior—a bad habit other people acquire as Time goes on—may consider Harley Street and Wimpole Street just as much town as Hanover Square, and St. John's Wood—even Primrose Hill!—as on all fours with both. We forgive him. One, or possibly we ought to say several, should learn to be tolerant of the new-fangled opinions of hot-headed youth. We were like that ourself, when a boy. But let him have his own way. These ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... that Ralegh should stop in France till the anger of Spain was lulled. After their departure a servant of Ralegh's rushed to Stukely with the news that his master was out of his wits, in his shirt, and upon all fours, gnawing at the rushes on the boards. Stukely sent Manourie to him. Manourie administered the emetic, and also an ointment compounded of aquafortis. This brought out purple pustules over the breast and arms. Strangers, and after a single visit Stukely ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... load was the lantern, whisky-keg, and a small tin pail of pork. Just as I reached the rock, Mr. M——, who was feeling his way along the top, and warning me to be careful, slipped, turned, and, vainly trying to grasp the rock, went down on all fours with a run and splash into the lake. Away went Frank after him, shouting with a laugh, "I'll ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... slide down again in a manner not cozy, (Descensus baud facilis est Montis Rosae) Now spread on all fours, on their backs now descending, Till broad-cloth and bellows ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... dishes, peacocks and plovers which had been so skillfully cooked that their bright colors were preserved. After the guests had eaten all they cared for of this food, tiny roasted pigs were brought in, and set on all fours upon the tables. By this time, all the gold and silver goblets which had been filled with wine needed refilling. Then the squires carried in beautiful white swans on silver platters, and roasted cranes and curlews on ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... not wait. He groped his way in, relocked the passage door and crawled on all fours through the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... vast series of undigested facts. The facility with which the world swallows up the ordinary college graduate who thought he was going to dazzle mankind should bid you pause and reflect. But just as certainly as man was created not to crawl on all fours in the depths of primeval forests, but to develop his mental and moral faculties, just so certainly he needs education, and only by means of it will he become what he ought to become,—man, in the highest sense of the word. Ignorance ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... by the shoulders flung him down on the table, smashing plates, breaking glasses, and upsetting and scattering everything on it. Don Quixote, finding himself free, strove to get on top of the goatherd, who, with his face covered with blood, and soundly kicked by Sancho, was on all fours feeling about for one of the table-knives to take a bloody revenge with. The canon and the curate, however, prevented him, but the barber so contrived it that he got Don Quixote under him, and rained ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... rolled off the table, landed on all fours, leaped to Carna's side, and released the buckles of the straps. As she sat up, her face level with mine, she pursed her lips, and I gave her a hearty smack. As her arms went about my neck, I picked her up, raced through the doorway, ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... to go to the Boulevard Cafe—they dance on Sunday just the same as weekdays—and then we'll do a movie afterward. I suppose Steve and his Beatrice are now revelling in the Constantine conservatory, with Steve walking on all fours to prove his devotion. Why is it some girls have everything? Look at me—no one cares if I live or die. First I had a stepmother, and then I tried living with a great-aunt, and then I went to work. Here I am still working, and a lot of thanks I get for it. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... is asleep. It is silent around and about. Cautiously I get up; I am on all fours, like a cat; and I steal out into the yard. The night is silent. The air is fresh and pure. Slowly I creep over to the spot where the little knife lies buried. I take it out carefully, and look at it by the light of the moon. It shines and glitters, ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... the Church tent—it was full of rents and holes. And just beyond it was a huge pit with fresh soil heaped up in a ring around it. Loose earth and stones and sods were scattered everywhere. Then we saw something move in the darkness—it was a man on all fours, dragging himself painfully along and uttering a groan with every breath. Two bearers arrived with a stretcher. They put it down by his side and helped him on to it. Then they picked it up and disappeared in the gloom. We had hardly walked a few yards further when we saw a light approaching ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... out: very skilfully put, with probably the only illustration which would go on all fours. But to me all this is extremely unsatisfactory: and unsatisfactory in a much farther sense than merely that it is using terms in a non-natural sense. I know, of course, that to look at Nature through blue spectacles ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... shall respect and follow the laws and customs of the country in all points'—conceding not only interterritoriality to the fullest extent; but making it the duty of American traders to creep on all fours when in the presence of a high functionary of that kingdom, and to become orthodox Buddhists! Inadvertently, no doubt, going farther than Joel Barlow, who thought it expedient in his treaty with Tripoli (1797) to insert a sort of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... all was silence, and it was now evident from the confident manner in which Goliba went forward that he was assured of the way. Soon we negotiated a steep ascent, now and then so difficult that we were compelled to clamber up on all fours, and for a long time this continued until our hands and feet were sore with scrambling upward. A spring shed its icy drippings upon us for some little distance, soaking us to the skin and rendering us chilly and uncomfortable, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... of robbers. Under the mountain called Gebel Foodah, we were entangled in shoals, owing to a change in the bed of the river, and forced to stay all night; and at three in the morning, the Reis sent in the boy to say he had seen a man creeping on all fours—would I fire my pistol? As my revolver had been stolen in Janet's house, I was obliged to beg him to receive any possible troop of armed robbers very civilly, and to let them take what they pleased. However, Omar blazed away with your father's old cavalry pistols ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... without a smile for his comical "sir." I spied a number of young girls peeping at us from behind curtains, while the male attendants, among whom were his younger brothers, nephews, and cousins, crouched in the antechamber on all fours. His Excellency, with an expression of pleased curiosity, and that same grand unconsciousness of his alarming poverty of costume, approached us nearly, and, with a kindly smile patting Boy on the head, asked him his name. But the child cried aloud, "Mamma, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... fierce an air, and are so hideous a sight, that I fear to look on you!' said she. And William laughed and begged Alexandrine to guide them through the garden, as they were not yet used to going on all fours, and might stumble. ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... come from so suddenly? From there, from behind the mound of earth that had been thrown up near the peat pit. She had been creeping on all fours plucking berries; a pail that was almost ft 11 hung on her arm, and in her right hand she carried the wooden measure and the large bone curry-comb with which ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... devoted to the bestialities of passion, he once more discovered the parody of the processions, the insults and eternal threats levelled at God and the devotion bestowed upon His rival, while amid cursing of the wine and the bread, the black mass was being celebrated on the back of a woman on all fours, whose stained bare thighs served as the altar from which the congregation received the communion from a black goblet stamped with an ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... was still thinking it, was blotted from his mind. He was thrown suddenly to the sandy earth; the sand was slipping swiftly from beneath his feet; he was scrambling on all fours, clawing wildly for some anchorage that would keep him from being ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... no explanation. He did not refer to orders or disorders. He simply adjourned the House till six that evening. And the House adjourned—some of it nearly on all fours. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the birches; now stooping behind low humps upon the mountain-side; now crawling on all fours among the heather. The pace was deadly: my heart seemed bursting against my ribs; and I had neither time to think nor breath to speak with. Only I remember seeing with wonder, that Alan every now and then ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and without talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... who had only an ax with him. Jack raised his rifle and fired, and as the bear dropped on all fours fired ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... to the front door on all fours. It was locked of course. He went around to the back; there were two doors here, both locked. He went from window to window. All of them had panes missing, but within each window the heavy shutters were closed and barred. He thought of cellar windows, sometimes they were forgotten. In certain ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... came upon a trail. It was of another man, who did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no curiosity. In fact, sensation and emotion had left him. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... down upon all fours, crawled to the edge, and peered into a velvety blackness. For a sickly moment he had courage neither to go on nor retreat, then he sat and hung his leg down, felt his guide's hands pulling at him, had a ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Then Balan crept on all fours to his brother and put oft his helm, but he might not know him, his visage was so disguised by blood and wounds. But when Balin awoke, he said, "O Balan, my brother, thou hast slain me and I thee, wherefore all the wide world shall ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... craziest performance. He went hell-for-leather over a piece of ground which was being watered with H.E., but by the mercy of heaven nothing hit him. He took some fearsome tosses in shell-holes, but partly erect and partly on all fours he did the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish trench right on top ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... horse that has had more work than oats, and had a wicked expression, as though it warn't over safe to come too near her heels—an everlastin' kicker. 'You may come out, John,' said she to her husband, 'it's only Mr. Slick;' and out came John from under the bed backwards, on all fours, like an ox out of the shoein' frame, or a lobster skullin' wrong eend foremost; he looked as wild as a hawk. Well, I swan, I thought I should have split, I could hardly keep from bustin' right out with larfter; he was all covered with feathers, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Secretary's Office at Dublin, asked me for the earliest possible draft of heads of my Local Government Bill for England: "in case it is settled that we are to bring one in—a move which I have come to think is necessary. They need not run on all fours, but there are points on which it would not do to adopt ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... however, Sam fired a second time, this time hitting the bear in the left hind leg. The beast dropped on all fours and came to a halt while yet twenty ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... brake jammed tight, and curses that echoed from wall to wall and around corners, the cocher held the reins to his chest. The horses, gently pushed forward, much against their will, by the weight of the carriage, planted all fours firm and slid over the stones that centuries of sabots and hand-carts had worn smooth. The noise brought everyone to windows and doors, and the sight kept them there. Tourist victorias did not coast through Grasse every day. Advice was freely proffered. The angrier our cocher became the ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... ran on all fours with her own desire; and yet in forwarding it yesterday she had been on the brink of giving offence. While craving to be a country girl again just as her father requested; to put off the old Eve, the fastidious miss—or rather madam—completely, her first attempt had ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... woman will have to play the double part of income-earner and mother, an impoverished and struggling home. It would mean also an unsocial because ostracized home. In most cases, and even assuming it to be right in idea, it would still be on all fours with that immediate abandonment of private property we have already discussed, a sort of suicide that ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... apart in a corner, which was his own, behind the piano. No one could disturb him there, for to reach it he had to go on all fours. It was half dark there, and the boy had just room to lie on the floor if he huddled up. The smoke of the tobacco filled his eyes and throat: dust, too; there were large flakes of it like sheepskin, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... speculated as she went on Joe's probable attitude. She had pictured him as annoyed, even rude. What she was not prepared for was to find him on all fours, grunting and rooting about in a pile ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... "stand-up" fighter. For perhaps six or seven seconds he remained erect, but as the black advanced a step he dropped quickly to all fours. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... on two or more separate men, not unfrequently dealing lightly with the first and inflicting a fatal injury on the second, or vice versa. The small calibre of the bullet, moreover, allows of the neatest and most exact multiple injuries. Thus in a patient who was crawling up a kopje on all fours, the flexed middle digit of the hand was struck. The bullet entered at the base of the nail, first emerged at the distal interphalangeal flexor fold, re-entered the metacarpo-phalangeal fold, and finally emerged from the back of the hand between the third ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... we found that these were no other than penguins which had gone down on all fours, and were crawling among the bushes on their feet and wings, just like quadrupeds. Suddenly one big old bird, that had been sitting on a point very near to us, gazing in mute astonishment, became alarmed, and, scuttling down the rocks, plumped or fell, rather ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... standing his gun outside he proceeded to crawl in on all fours. When he reached the point of broadening he found the cavern within so dark that he could see nothing of its interior, and he advanced cautiously, extending one arm in front of him that he might not strike his head against protruding rocks. All at once his hand came ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... tortures which we had to undergo in climbing almost on all fours to a mountain top, three thousand feet high. The carriers were out of breath; every moment I feared to see one tumble down the declivity with his burden, and I felt pained at seeing my poor dog, Pamir, panting and with his tongue hanging out, make two or three steps and ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... riding with the pack through a dry, sandy pasture country, dotted with clumps of palms, round the trunks of which grew a dense jungle of thorns and Spanish bayonets. The armadillos were feeding in an open space between two of these jungle clumps, which were about a hundred yards apart. One was on all fours; the other was in a squatting position, with its fore legs off the ground. Their long ears were very prominent. The dogs raced at them. I had always supposed that armadillos merely shuffled along, and curled up for protection when menaced; and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... tree named Montevideo growing in this country, and in its branches lived a colony of monkeys. One day one of the monkeys came down from the tree and ran full of excitement across the plain, now scrambling along like a man on all fours, then erect like a dog running on its hind legs, while its tail, with nothing to catch hold of, wriggled about like a snake when its head is under foot. He came to a place where a number of oxen were grazing, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... the most earnest partisans in the controversy would wish us to believe. For the United Kingdom I am a convinced Freetrader. I admit that the old country, where half the population subsists on imported food, which must be paid for in exported goods, is not on all fours with a colony capable of producing in abundance all the necessaries of life for a population infinitely more numerous than at present exists within its borders. But while the conditions are different the fact remains that under a protective system customers are precluded from buying in the cheapest ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... paused suddenly and scrambling to all fours turned about on his hands and knees, intently gazing at the flap against which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... surrounded by a cloud of these famine spectres, half naked, and standing or sitting in the mud, beneath a cold, drizzling rain. The narrow defile to the dispensary bar was choked with young and old of both sexes, struggling forward with their rusty tin and iron vessels for soup, some of them upon all fours, like famished beasts. There was a cheap bread dispensary opened in one end of the building, and the principal pressure was at the door of this. Among the attenuated apparitions of humanity that thronged this gate of stinted charity, one poor man presented himself under ...
— A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood • Elihu Burritt
... shadow was different, for it was not still like the others, but went stopping and starting and scuttling like a crab over the grass—sometimes upright like a man and sometimes on all fours like a beast. At last it stood up and ran from tree to tree in a swaying, moving zigzag. I could see then that it was a man, but for the life of me I could not remember where I'd seen his like. Then another cloud slid ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... feet together)—Ver. 866. "Quadrupedem." Literally "as a quadruped" or "all fours." Echard remarks that it was the custom of the Athenians to tie criminals hands and feet ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the starboard side. I waited for the splash of the oars in the water, and then got my back under the hatch. The mate had kept his promise. I lifted it easily—crept across the deck, under cover of the bulwarks, on all fours—and slipped into the sea on the port side. Lots of things were floating about. I took the first thing I came to—a hen-coop—and swam away with it about a couple of hundred yards, keeping the yacht between me and the boat. Having got ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... afthernoon showed its hatred iv ye. Ye ought to match blisters to see which hates th' worst. Capital is at home now with his gams in a tub iv hot wather; an' whin he comes down to-morrah to oppriss labor an' square his protisted notes, he'll have to go on all fours. As f'r you, Hinnissy, if 'twill aise ye anny, ye can hang f'r a few minyits fr'm th' gas fixtures. Did th' goold Dimmycrats ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an element blended with all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting to be on all fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... may change its texture to unnatural coarseness and scatter ashes for beauty, women do exist, victims rather than culprits, coarse against their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can see. Such a woman can accept coarse men. They may come courting on all fours, and she will not be shocked. But women in the natural state wish men to stand godlike erect, to tread majestically, and live delicately. Women do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... hair two inches long all over the body; his features were fiendish and his eyes shone like beads beneath his shaggy brows. He had a tail 18 inches long, horns from the skull, a full set of teeth, and claw-like hands; he snapped like a dog and crawled on all fours, and refused the natural sustenance of a normal child. The mother almost became an imbecile after the birth of the monster. The country people about Bomballa considered this devil-child a punishment for a rebuff that the mother gave to a Jewish peddler selling Crucifixion-pictures. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... while Raymond spreads, by way of tablecloth, a buffalo hide, carefully whitened with pipeclay, on the grass before the tent. Here, with ostentatious display, he arranges the teacups and plates; and then, creeping on all fours like a dog, he thrusts his head in at the opening of the tent. For a moment we see his round owlish eyes rolling wildly, as if the idea he came to communicate had suddenly escaped him; then collecting his scattered ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... castle, occurred to a woman who swept the floor of the great hall every day before dinner was laid, with a little hand-broom, called a prah-prah. She was engaged in her usual occupation, without knowing that Sai was there, and stooping almost on all fours; when with a sudden impulse of fun, the panther jumped upon her back, and stood there, wagging his tail. Naturally supposing she was going to be devoured, the poor prah-prah woman screamed so violently as to bring the other servants, whereupon ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... possible he went down on all fours and ran his fingers across the floor boards in a semi-circle. They had not travelled very far before encountering the hard edge of a boot sole. That was good enough for Richard. Judging the distance nicely he seized its ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... troubadour, who was a crusader, an exceedingly ingenious verse-smith, a great lover, and a proficient in the fantastic pranks which rather brought the school into discredit, inasmuch as he is said to have run about on all fours in a wolfskin in honour of his mistress Loba (Lupa); Gaucelm Faidit and Arnaut de Maroilh, Folquet of Marseilles, and Rambaut of Vaqueras; the Monk of Montaudon and Bertrand de Born himself, who with Peire Cardinal is the chief satirist (though the satire of the two takes different forms); Guillem ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... other step, with his uncased rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... of them is brought that owes him ten thousand talents. Now, it is to be noticed at the very outset that the analogy between debt and sin, though real, is extremely imperfect. No metaphor of that sort goes on all fours, and there has been a great deal of harm done to theology and to evangelical religion by carrying out too completely the analogy between money debts and our sins against God. But although the analogy is imperfect, it is very real. The first point that is to be brought out in this first part ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... like a rutabaga, should ever trust herself in a hammock, even though it is held by half a dozen friends, as the hammock will shy at a piece of paper as quick as a skittish horse, and in such a moment as ye think not you are on all fours, your head dizzy, and if there is a hole in your stocking as small as a Democrat's hope of election, it will look to outsiders as big as the gate to a fair ground. O, a hammock is ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... lurched violently forward as the horse shied at something in the bushes. Sandy leaned forward in time to see a figure on all fours plunging back ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... in the wood his friend the bear was lumbering on all fours, wild-eyed, with lolling tongue and panting breath. Close behind him came on foot a young man, several years older than John, dressed in a suit of green velvet, with a plumed cap. In his hand he bore a long spear, and he was charging upon the bear with a cruel light in his eyes. Suddenly ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... she seemed more amiable and interested. She even asked me to come to see her the next day. "That is," she said, "if you can climb my hill." I told her that I was sure I could climb her hill, and would, even if I had to climb on all fours. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... thing secure; but when day appeared next morning neither the cacique nor any of his attendants were to be found. Taking advantage of the centinels falling asleep, Capasi had crept out from among them on all fours, after which his Indians carried him off to some more secure place than the former, as he was never more seen. The Spanish escort returned much ashamed of themselves to Soto, pretending that Capasi and his attendants must have been carried off through the air, as it was impossible for him to have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... to the shadow of the wall. He sidled down it, mincing along on tiptoe, just as the old men did when they entered the salle a manger. He was horrified to find himself doing this instinctively. A strange impulse came to him, catching him somehow in the centre of his body—an impulse to drop upon all fours and run swiftly and silently. He glanced upwards and the idea came to him to leap up upon his window-sill overhead instead of going round by the stairs. This occurred to him as the easiest, and most natural ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... see it disappear before gaining salvation by just touching it! So terrible became the scramble, so extraordinary the confusion, that the Swiss Guards were swept away. And ladies were seen to dart after the Pope, to drag themselves on all fours over the marble slabs and kiss his footprints and lap up the dust of his steps! The tall dark lady suddenly fell at the edge of the platform, raised a loud shriek, and fainted; and two gentlemen of the committee had to hold her so that she might not do herself an injury in the convulsions of the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the water plainer now, and though I swooned once or twice from agony, I gradually worked my limbs clear of the incubus pressing on them, and tried to stand up. But this I could not do, some injury to my spine preventing me, and it was as a beast, on all fours, that I at length made shift to crawl in search of the water I was dying for. Each yard I crawled was agony to me, but at last I came to a rock-encircled pool in which lay water clear and deep, and into which a tiny stream ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... had startled them. Their remarks were neither complimentary nor refined. The old men, in especial, got quite profane, and screamed excited billingsgate. Finally they all stopped at once, dropped on all fours, and loped away, their ridiculous long tails curved in a half arc. Then for the first time I noticed that, under cover of the insults, the women and children had silently retired. Once more I was left to the familiar gentle bird calls, and ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... to his feet in vain, and after one failure, remained on all fours, holding on. He surveyed the moonlit world to leeward, with the tails of his jacket streaming over his head. "There's something seriously wrong," said Mr. Fotheringay. "And what it ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the finer particles drifted freely, rising high in the air, while the larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand. I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees. When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope—thirty-five degrees in some places—made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... was. For perceiving how he had committed himself, he had slipped down in the pew, crawled on all fours to the door, and got out of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and my foot swoll up so s I couldn't walk and I wouldnt a minded its hurtin Miss Hildy but it s like there wornt no bones in it Pink says I sprante it bad and I started to go over to the Farm on all fours to tell ye but I didn't know anythin g agin and Pink made me come back. We couldnt nether on us get hold of Will but now we got him I hope he l go straite, Miss Hildy Pink wanted to write this for me but I druther ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... reassuring, for she slowly settled upon all fours, her eyes still fastened upon him, her tail ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... not prevent regurgitation of blood nor liquids from passing upward. An apparent anomaly exists in the absence of valves from parts where they are most needed, as in the venae cavae, spinal, iliac, haemorrhoidal, and portal. The azygos veins have imperfect valves. Place men upon 'all fours' and the law governing the presence and absence of valves is at once apparent, applicable, so far as I have been able to ascertain, to all quadrupedal and quadrumanous animals: Dorsal veins are valved; cephalad, ventrad, and caudad veins have ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... passed away, when, after submitting to certain rites of purification, she is again free to mingle with her fellows."[79] The gradual change of this ceremony, from a getting rid of a dangerous supernatural infection to returning thanks for a natural danger passed, is on all fours with what takes place in other directions in relation to religious ideas ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... the lamp thrust out before him, began to crawl into the tunnel. As his heels disappeared, and only a faint light outlined the opening, I dropped upon all fours in turn, and began laboriously to drag myself along behind him. The atmosphere was damp, chilly, and evil-smelling; therefore, at the end of some ten or twelve yards of this serpentine crawling, when I ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... The German eolina was of itself bad enough, but these congregated noises were intolerable. Uncle John aimed a desperate blow with a large apple, which he was just about to bite, at the head of Carlo, who, in order to give his lungs fair play, was standing on all fours on the hampers. The apple missed the dog, and went some distance beyond him into the water. Mr. Carlo, attributing to Uncle John a kinder feeling than that which actually prompted the proceeding, looked upon it as a good-natured expedient to afford him an opportunity ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... out her second wish; but she felt herself pushed in a strange way. Ben was on all fours in front of her, and now he pushed her back, back. His neck was so long that while his head was still among the chocolates, at the far corner of the room, his feet were now ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... that Master Chiron was not really very different from other people, but that, being a kind-hearted and merry old fellow, he was in the habit of making believe that he was a horse, and scrambling about the schoolroom on all fours and letting the little boys ride upon his back. And so, when his scholars had grown up and grown old and were trotting their grandchildren on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school-days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers had been taught their ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... the passage on all fours, momentarily expecting to feel the claws of their enemy. Six arms and six legs revolved wildly. Jerry held grimly to the lantern, and it's friendly ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... cowboys, but Grace did not hear them, for the pony had dropped to all fours, and no sooner had his feet touched the ground than he leaped clear of it, coming down stiff-legged with a jolt that jarred Grace Harlowe throughout her body in spite of her effort to soften the shock by throwing most of her weight on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... riveted Matthews' attention and brought him to a temporary halt. "Got th' gun down!" he exclaimed. On finding that Lancaster was gone, he had decided not to produce a weapon. Now, however, he quickly felt for one and dropped on all fours. "That biggest gal 'd no more mind pumpin' lead into me than nothin'," he declared, wagging his head wisely. "I could tell that by the shine in her eyes." He crawled ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... upside down with the strap strained tight across his loins, with Bland dangling before him, felt even sillier than the Thunder Bird looked. He freed himself after the first paralyzing shock of surprise, dropped on all fours upon the upper wing covering, and crawled out between the front braces. A minute later Bland followed, looking ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... a crack and a burr that might be heard rods away. Though these sounds did not reach the men, busy with the snow-shack, they did reach listening ears—a great white bear, wandering the floes in search of some sleeping seal, stood first on all fours, then on his haunches, to listen. Then, with many a misgiving and many a pause, he made his cautious way to the edge of that particular ice-flat where the plane rested. Thence, after more misgivings, he trundled his awkward body across the flat and took a position close to the plane, where, ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... of face and very much frightened, came sliding down the trunk of the tree and landed on all fours at its foot. The officer ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... must not be regarded as being on their all fours," I replied, anxious that there should be no misunderstanding on this point. "They, of course, reside within one inner chamber, but there would be no duplicity in this one adding indefinitely to ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... they passed a large building, with lights still twinkling in the windows. Presently the tall Highlander stood up and sniffed. Then motioning Waverley to do as he did, he began to crawl on all fours toward a low and ruinous sheep-fold. With some difficulty Edward obeyed, and with so much care was the stalk conducted, that presently, looking over a stone wall, he could see an outpost of five or six soldiers lying round their camp-fire, while in front a sentinel ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... ball, and not being able to bend, had snapped at that point. I threw the sheath away, and with the poniard cut a piece of the linen which I had left. Then I bound my leg up as well as I could, and crawled on all fours with the poniard in my hand toward the city gate. When I reached it, I found it shut; but I noticed a stone just beneath the door which did not appear to be very firmly fixed. This I attempted to dislodge; after setting my hands to it, and feeling it move, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on fellers, 'Bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in bellers; I 've noticed, tu, it 's the quack med'cines gits (An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffykits; Now, sence I lef' off creepin' on all fours, I ha' n't ast no man to endorse my course; It 's full ez cheap to be your own endorser, An' ef I 've made a cup, I 'll fin' the saucer; But I 've some letters here from t' other side, An' them 's the sort thet helps me to decide; Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies hanker, An' I 'll tell you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... friend Thompson would be able to administer clysters, that were ordered for some, in that situation; when I saw him thrust his wig in his pocket, and strip himself to his waistcoat in a moment, then creep on all fours under the hammocks of the sick, and, forcing up his bare pate between two, keep them asunder with one shoulder, until he had done his duty. Eager to learn the service, I desired he would give me leave to perform the next operation of that kind; and he consenting, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... more about everything than anybody else. She knows that one must wash every day, that one must eat soup at dinner, that one must talk French, learn not to crawl about on all fours, not to put one's elbows on the table; and if she says that one is not to go out walking because it is just going to rain, she is sure to be right, and one must do ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... undignified to walk with a drunken stagger; but it is fairly undignified to walk at all, for all walking is a sort of balancing, and there is always in the human being something of a quadruped on its hind legs. I do not say he would be more dignified if he went on all fours; I do not know that he ever is dignified except when he is dead. We shall not be refined till we are refined into dust. Of course it is only because he is not wholly an animal that man sees he is a rum animal; and if man on his hind legs is in an artificial attitude, ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... sudden, as the vehicle came close to me, Sam, perhaps frightened by the noise and wishing to join me, jumped in front of it. A horse's foot knocked him down. I saw him rolling over, turning round, falling back again on all fours, and then the entire coach gave two big shakes, and behind it I saw something quivering in the dust on the road. He was nearly cut in two; all his intestines were hanging through his stomach, which had been ripped open, and fell in spurts of blood to the ground. He tried ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... the man of God was lamenting the deplorable state of the church of Vervignole in the cloister of the cathedral, his meditations were disturbed by strange shrieks, and he saw a woman, stark naked, walking on all fours, with a peacock's feather for a tail. As she came nearer, she barked, sniffed, and licked the ground. Her fair head was covered with mud, and her whole body was a mass of filth. In this unhappy creature the holy Bishop Nicolas ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and, scuffling across the room to a table, returned with a visiting-card: General Barry had called and, judging by an empty champagne bottle and several cigar-stumps, had been hospitably entertained while waiting. The general apologized to his faithful ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... HOW TO PLAY CARDS.—A complete and handy little book, giving the rules and full directions for playing Euchre, Cribbage, Casino, Forty-Five, Rounce, Pedro Sancho, Draw Poker, Auction Pitch, All Fours, and many other popular ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... sling your muskets over your back. So! Now down on all fours, bending yourselves double, with your hands pressing hard upon the earth. That is excellent. Two men can leave the trail of four! Now come ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... minutes we had gained the clump of bushes close behind which the duck lay; and Peterkin, going down on all fours, crept forward to get a shot. I followed him in the same manner, and when he stopped to take a deliberate aim, I crept up alongside. The duck had heard our approach, and was swimming about in a somewhat agitated manner among the tall reeds, so that my companion made one or two unsuccessful ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... devils are there," he said, his voice barely audible. "Beyond the curve in the bank. 'Twas God's mercy I had glimpse in time, or I would have walked straight into their midst. A stone dropping into the ravine warned me, and I crept on all fours ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... delight. Parrots in gay plumage filled the air with shrill cries, while here and there herds of antelopes were visible, who, however, always dashed away in rapid flight, in which their strange manner of springing from all fours in the air afforded a most strange and ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... It consists in the belief that one is not a man but a beast, in the disuse of language, the rejection of all ordinary human food, and sometimes in the loss of the erect posture and a preference for walking on all fours. Within a year of the time that he received the warning, Nebuchadnezzar was smitten. The great king became a wretched maniac. Allowed to indulge in his distempered fancy, he eschewed human habitations, lived in the open air night and day, fed on herbs, disused clothing, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... out, go home and stretch himself at full length on the cool tiles of the hall. How wise he was to scorn this pebble-gazing! I would come in half-roasted, as brown as a berry, to find my friend Bull wedged into a corner, his back to the wall, sprawling on all fours, while, with heaving sides, he panted forth the last sprays of steam from his overheated interior. Yes, he was much better-advised to return as fast as he could to the shade of the house. Why does man want to know things? Why is he not indifferent to them, with the lofty philosophy ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... bullocks I would go to the nearest accommodation house, and stand occasional drinks to travellers. Some one would ere long, as a general rule, turn up who had seen the bullocks. This case does not go quite on all fours with what I have been saying above, inasmuch as I was not very industrious in my limited area; but the standing drinks and inquiring was being as industrious ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... also mention that I saw Diderot's "Father of a Family," and "The Philosophers" of Palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... disguise, which, though it might pass in the chastened light of their historic dome, seemed amid the real life of the street not less laughable than a show of monkeys. 'I declare one would like to throw some nuts to see if they would go after them on all fours,' said Freydet's undesirable companion. But Freydet did not catch the impertinent remark. He slipped away, mixed with the procession, and entered the church between two files of soldiers with arms reversed. He was in his ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... cleared out, as it seemed, after midnight; some on all fours, many of them fairly perpendicular. But when the serving lad entered the premises in the sober light of morning, to clear up the debris, he was surprised to perceive a human form reclining under a ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... congratulated himself. Intercourse was in act of becoming normal and easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy—and for him, him, to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke, bringing him up to the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... carried down in my fall it is impossible to say: perhaps a long time; but at last I came to myself and struggled up from the debris, like a mole coming to the surface of the earth to feel the genial sunshine on his dim eyeballs. I found myself standing (oddly enough, on all fours) in an immense pit created by the overthrow of a gigantic dead tree with a girth of about thirty or forty feet. The tree itself had rolled down to the bottom of the ravine; but the pit in which it ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... received, sir, your new book against the human race," wrote Voltaire; "I thank you for it. You will please men to whom you tell truths about them, and you will not make them any better. Never was so much good wit expended in the desire to make beasts of us; one feels disposed to walk on all fours when one reads your work. However, as it is more than sixty years since I lost the knack, I unfortunately find it impossible to recover it, and I leave that natural gait to those who are better fitted ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... there are pools into which it goes with a great splash. In one place we must stoop very low to pass under a heavy and glutinous bridge that crosses the trench, and we only get through with difficulty. It obliges us to kneel in the mud, to flatten ourselves on the ground, and to crawl on all fours for a few paces. A little farther there are evolutions to perform as we grasp a post that the sinking of the ground has set aslope across the middle ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... fools!" she cried. "Why do you forgive them all this? Before I used to be foolish myself, too, but now I compel them to walk before me on all fours, compel them to kiss my soles, and they do this with delight ... You all know, girlies, that I don't love money, but I pluck the men in whatever way I can. They, the nasty beasts, present me with the portraits of their wives, brides, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... own very well. When, for example, the American said, "What about the Jews?" the other answered, "Well, what about the negroes?" and he parried the further question, "What about pogroms?" with another of his own, "What about lynching?" The problems are not, of course, quite on all fours, nor do two wrongs make a right, but a reminder that similar problems exist in other parts of the world will perhaps be enough to show that the Jewish question in Russia is neither unique nor at all easy ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... calls and dragging him out for a tramp across the ice-white fields. The river, after a time or two, he avoided. He did not like the metaphors which the sight of it called into Brenton's conversation. Indeed, it was far better for any man to go scrabbling up an icy slope, breathless and upon all fours, than to stand in a bleak up-valley wind and meditate upon the sliding ice cakes in an iron-gray stream. Health and a feeling for the picturesque by no means always walk hand in hand; and it was health the doctor sought for Brenton, during those winter walks, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... felt the violent beating of his heart, felt his mind becoming clouded. What was that tangle of serpents winding themselves about his feet, in the disguise of innocent grasses? And what sinister demon was that, waiting for him down there, crouching on all fours on a rock, disguised as a bush and ready to jump upon him? Were not the demons waiting for him at the monastery also? Did they not nest in the openings of the great tower? Was there not a black flame flashing in ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... making his final entry upon the stage. The posture is irresistibly inviting. The next instant the astonished audience beholds the extraordinary spectacle of the obese Teuton under the impulse of the irate Switzer's boot in rapid flight across the stage upon all fours, bearing down with terrific speed upon the rear of the unsuspecting chairman who, facing the audience and with a genial smile upon his countenance, is engaged in applauding Sam's previous performance. Making frantic but futile efforts to recover himself, Sam plunges head on with resistless impact ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... I holding my gun between my knees, with the butt on the ground. Stewart was getting off one of his stories, and, had about reached the climax, when I saw something running low to the ground, in among the stock. Thinking it was an Indian, on all fours, to stampede the animals, I instantly leveled my gun, and, as I was following it to an opening in the herd, my gun came in contact with Stewart's face at the moment of discharge, Stewart falling backward, hanging ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... "holy priests" themselves bless evolution as their predecessors blessed Cleopatra—when they ought not. It is not he who first conceives an idea, nor he who sets it on its legs and makes it go on all fours, but he who makes other people accept the main conclusion, whether on right grounds or on wrong ones, who has done the greatest work as regards the promulgation of an opinion. And this is what Mr. Darwin has done for evolution. ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... candlesticks along the walls of the shrine. There were also some curiously-shaped stones standing upright among the candlesticks. The ceiling of this place of worship was not high enough to allow the women to stand, and they were compelled to crawl about inside on all fours. When they saw me they stretched out their angular arms towards me, begging for money. I gave them a silver coin, which they shoved under one of the peculiar stones, and then, turning round, immediately made violent gestures suggesting to me ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... threw over Lord Randolph. In the meantime, meeting me, he did not hide the fact that the incident had determined him to have nothing more to say to Churchill. And this was the man I once drew a cartoon of in Punch on all fours, with a coat covering his head (suspiciously like a donkey's head), with "Little Randy" riding on ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... old Sheridan, or the Widow Joyce, has failed since last year. These babies and grandparents often associate a good deal with one another at the stage when the old body is still capable of "keepin' an eye on the child," and the child still resorts to all fours if it wants to get up its highest speed. But this companionship does not last long in any given case. Very soon the expanding and the contracting sphere cease to touch closely. On the one hand, the world widens into more spacious tracts for nimbler and ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... reply. "They'll soon try, when they find there are very few of us, to crawl up the hill upon us. Then's the time you've got to note every movement! See! there comes one fellow behind that rock now. He's crawling on all fours. Thinks we can't see him. Now just hold on until he comes around that little ledge!—I'll take him! ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... were asleep; and the second torch gave out but a dim glimmer, as Ali rose, softly as a cat, and going on all fours, began to make what he felt was his final trial to ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Shawnik, where the invasion would be stopped with certainty. Half way to Bukowitza there burst on us a terrific thunderstorm, with torrents of rain. One bolt struck so near us that the concussion knocked my perianik down, and my horse jumped up on all fours as I never saw a horse do before, but neither was touched by the lightning, and we arrived at the first house of Bukowitza drenched and tired, having knocked the two ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
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