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More "Ducking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blood-gleam, and the crowd screeched with excitement. In a wild whirlwind of fury Locasto hurled himself on the Jam-wagon, his arms going like windmills. Any one of these blows, delivered in a vital spot, would have meant death, but his opponent was equal to this blind assault. Dodging, ducking, side-stepping, blocking, he foiled the other at every turn, and, just before the round ended, drove his left into the pit of the big man's stomach, with a thwack that resounded ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... seeing this, waved his hands, and beckoned with all his might. The brother seemed doubtful; but Melchior waved harder, and (was it fancy?) Time seemed to go slower. The brother made up his mind; he turned and jumped from the dog-cart as he had jumped from the old coach long ago, and, ducking in and out among the horses and carriages, ran for his life. The men came after him; but he ran like the wind—pant, pant, nearer, nearer; at last the coach was reached, and Melchior seized the prodigal by his rags and ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... with fifty of the men of Zyobor close behind me. We dodged out the side of the palace grounds least guarded by the Quabos, ducking between their ranks like infantry men threading through an opposition of powerful but slow-moving tanks. Four of our number were caught, but the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... I forgot the ducking and forgave her with all my heart. I held her nose well out into the channel where the current ran with swells, though ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... sixty miles off: they reached it in less than six hours. There was Uncle Fountain on the hall steps to receive her, and the comely housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, ducking and smiling in the background. While the servants were unpacking the carriage, Mr. Fountain took Lucy to her bedroom. Mrs. Brown had gone on before to see for the third time whether all was comfortable. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of rude justice was the cucking or ducking stool, which exists in a few places. It was used principally for the purpose of correcting scolding women. Mr. Andrews, who knows all that can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between the cucking and ducking stool, and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... holds to be her inferiors cries to Heaven. Her heartless detention of railway porters staggering under their burdens, her browbeating of "tradespeople," cause this observer of fine susceptibilities and an acute sense of the becoming to lament the desuetude of the ducking-stool. The more general outrage, however, apparently common to the sex from Helen of Troy to Florence Nightingale, is, according to our censor, the spite of women towards each other, which mounts into an ecstasy of ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... tedious time between the going down of the flood and the first days when the water was warm enough for swimming; but it left no trace. The boys are standing on the shore while the freshet rushes by, and then they are in the water, splashing, diving, ducking; it is like that; so that I do not know just how to get in that period of fishing which must always have come between. There were not many fish in that part of the Miami; my boy's experience was full of the ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... put in the darkest place of the house; he that comes into his neighbour's house doth first salute his saints, although he see them not. If any form or stool stand in his way, he oftentimes beateth his brow upon the same, and often, ducking down with his head and body, worshippeth the chief image. The habit and attire of the priests and of the laymen doth nothing at all differ; as for marriage, it is forbidden to no man: only this is received, and held amongst them for a rule and custom, that if a priest's wife do die, he may not ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... directed, but, alas, they were not there as he said. Their feet grew unaccountably light so that their heads disappeared under the water. However, they enjoyed even the ducking. ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... the other vigorously. "It's better to drop flat down in the open and take a good ducking, rather than risk chances under a tree or in any sort of barn. Lightning picks out those objects for a blow. But I think myself a shelf of rock like this is about ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking under the rollers; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did; or playing "I'm the King of the Castle" on slippery, weedy ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... be on the stage! Barnum called an assistant, and they took La Rue and marched him up Broadway as far as Chambers Street, and back to the lower end of the Park, hoping to sober him. At this point they put his head under a pump and gave him a good ducking, with visible beneficial effect, then a walk around the Park and another ducking, when he assured them that he should be able to give his imitations ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... his revolver being in its holster on his saddle, so all he could do was to duck. His experience as a fighting aviator in France had made Hippy somewhat callous to bullets, as well as an expert in ducking. In the present instance, Lieutenant Wingate made so many ducks and dives, side-slips and Immelman turns that the mountaineer, crack shot that he was, found himself unable to score a hit. The darkness, too, prevented his getting a good sight ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... in a very uncomfortable condition, yet they laughed heartily over their mishaps; for, indeed, they thought anything preferable to being in the power of cannibals. Piling together the half decayed wood and wringing their clothes as dry as they could, they were in a fair way of recovering from the ducking, and as they apprehended no further danger from their enemies, they concluded to make a short halt and examine the locality around them. The cave in this place was no more than twenty five feet high, but was very wide, as well as they could determine over a hundred feet, thirty of ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... to him to come to me, and lay hold of the boat; he could neither see nor hear, and would have soon joined his illustrious namesake in the Elysian fields, had I not managed to throw the bight of a rope round his neck, and towed him within reach, when I held him up by the collar of his jacket (ducking him under water occasionally to make him cease from howling) until we were ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... beach retired as we were about to land, but a number of boys and a few men received us, and after a preliminary halt to see that our guns were put to rights after the ducking, we all started together by a narrow path winding up a rugged wall of basaltic rock, fifty feet in height. From the summit a steep declivity of a couple of hundred yards brought us to the village of Tassai, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... overboard: we were going ten knots at the time, right before the wind; it was a quarter of an hour before we picked him up, as it took five minutes to stop the vessel and ten to get to him. Wate seemed all the better for his ducking.' This little Wate became Mr. Atkin's especial child, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Solomons, encouraged to a fourth suggestion by the success of its predecessor,—"maw be some o' the misseses ha' been making a rumpus, and scolding their good men. I heard say in my granfeyther's time, arter old Mother Bang nigh died o' the ducking-stool, them 'ere stocks were first made for the women, out o' compassion like! And every one knows the squire is a koind-hearted ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Yesterday morning Neptune made his appearance, and those of us who had not passed the Line had to pay the penalty. I compounded for his claims on me, and the crew had a good lark in shaving with tar and ducking some other novices. We are now in mid-summer, having passed at a bound from mid-winter. There is little difference, however, in these latitudes, between one part of the year and another. The principal difference consists ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... be anything but pleasant to Barney, who roared out, ducking his head on all sides to avoid it. But this did not serve him. One of the squaws seized the head between her hands, and held it steady, while the other set to it afresh ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... from the camp to the lake-foot, and there, while the others compacted the portables for portage, Iglesias and I, at cost of a ducking with mist-drops from the thickets, scrambled up a crag for a supreme view of the fair lake and the clear mountain. And we did well. Katahdin, from the hill guarding the exit of the Penobscot from Ripogenus, is eminent and emphatic, a signal and solitary pyramid, grander than any below the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... Johnny; not in a game like that, with all the dodging an' ducking," remarked Red. "You can't put one where you want it when a feller's slipping around in the brush. It's the most that counts, an' the best shot gets in the most. I wouldn't want to have to stand up against Hoppy an' a short gun, not in ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... has not felt a bit the worse for that ducking; indeed, she seems much the better for it, and I am quite sure that hill ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... his priest. We learn from it that the festivities were marked by "drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water," and that slaves had licence to revile ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... people, or to abuse their understanding by exercise of the pretended arts of witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, or sorcery, or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished by ducking and whipping, at the discretion of a ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... babbling over the good old days of the ducking-stool, poured himself carefully a highball that was brown. Silence reigned. The light fell upon the head and shoulders of Crane and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... go fishing is this. I have got an Indian canoe, and I just jump into it with my gear, paddle on shore, shoulder it, and carry it to the lakes. I am become quite an Indian in the management of this canoe, and with the expense of only one ducking. I was upset in the harbour, but swam on shore and towed the canoe and all with me quite safe. I can paddle this canoe much faster than ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... those described, there are many other species of antelopes in Africa. The Duyker-boc, or Diving-buck—so called from its habit of ducking or diving under the bushes when pursued—is a Cape species; and there is another diving-buck, called the Black-faced; and still another of these bush antelopes, termed Burchell's bush-boc. Then there is the Four-tufted antelope of Senegal; the Red-crowned bush-boc, also of Western ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... Ducking under the tossing arms of men who flung aloft their hats and cheered with the frenzy of delight that the amazing victory inspired, Richard Dodd escaped to the rear of the hall and jammed himself into the press of the spectators. He hid ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... right to the garage is settled; she couldn't oust you if she wanted to. You've got to stay here anyhow till she comes; there's no ducking that. The widow of an uncle who did a lot for you, a stranger to the country; it's up to you to see her established. There are many little courtesies she would naturally ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... without a feeling of guilt, and who never give an order about the house without the same doubt of their authority that they would have if they were only housekeepers, employed at a very economical salary. I can think of no proper punishment for such husbands except daily ducking in a horse-pond, until reformation. Yet these asses are so unconscious of their detestable habits of feeling and life, that, probably, not one of them who reads this will think that I mean him, but will wonder where I have lived to fall ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... which is now declared, is a proof how much influence jargon has on human actions. A war on our own trade is popular." (February 15, 1775.) "The war with America goes on briskly, that is as far as voting goes. A great majority in both houses is as brave as a mob ducking a pick-pocket. They flatter themselves they shall terrify the colonies into submission in three months, and are amazed to hear that there is no such probability. They might as well have excommunicated them, and left it to the devil to put the sentence into execution." (February 18, 1775.) Not only ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... had disported themselves among the sugar-plums, the tables were suddenly removed, and the guests sat in a row against the wall. Then came in, ducking and scraping, two ecclesiastics with lutes, and kneeled at the cardinal's feet and there sang the service of the day; then retired with a deep obeisance: In answer to which the cardinal fingered his skull cap as our late Iron Duke ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... The stronghold of the bailiff was carried by storm, the scholar set at liberty, and the delinquent catchpole borne off captive to the college, where, having no pump to put him under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by ducking him in an ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... and Commercial Journal,' of January 20, 1838, published at Elizabeth City, devotes a column and a half to a description of the lynching, tarring, feathering, ducking, riding on a rail, pumping, &c., of a Mr. Charles Fife, a merchant of that city, for the crime of 'trading with negroes.' The editor informs us that this exploit of vandalism was performed very deliberately, at mid-day, and by ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... ducking that boy in a public fountain?" asked the officer, doubtful what course to pursue with the old original. "Don't you know such a thing is a breach ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... came in it soaked you to the skin: I was the sternest (used, by way of variety, for sternmost) of the lot, and had to coil it - a work which involved, from ITS being so stiff and YOUR being busy pulling with all your might, no little trouble and an extra ducking. We got it up; and, just as we were going to sing 'Victory!' one of the guys slipped in, the pole tottered - went over on its side again like a shot, and behold the end of ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Risk, Davies (younger and older), Kennedy, Creamer, and La Salle. Mr. Henry Risk was an English gentleman, of about fifty-five years of age, handsome, portly, and genial, a keen sportsman, and sure shot with the long, single, English ducking-gun, to which he stuck, despite of the jeers and remonstrances of the owners of muzzle ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the light!" exclaimed he, ducking down suddenly. "Were you mad to keep it burning till I came, with that"—pointing to a huge bay window opening upon a balcony—"uncurtained and the grounds, no ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... be best for her health," said Joceline, "lest I give her a ducking for digestion.—But give me the pitcher, Mistress Alice—meeter I bear it than you.—How now? what jingles at the bottom? have you lifted the pebbles as ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... to the school-house with Bill. They were friends again. For when Hank Banta's ducking and his dogged obstinacy in sitting in his wet clothes had brought on a serious fever, Ralph had called together the big boys, and had said: "We must take care of one another, boys. Who will volunteer to take turns sitting up with ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... brave a band of freighters as ever crossed the plains. Nearer they came, their ponies on a dead run, the left leg over the back, the right under and interlocking the left, firing from the opposite side of them, ducking their heads, encircling the camp and yelling like demons. Their racket, together with the yelping of their mongrel dogs and the snorting and bellowing of the cattle, made it an unspeakable hell. Every man stood to his gun, and from between the wagons, at the command of the wagon boss, ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... had perished from exhaustion. From Kangerak we travelled some distance along the river Yana, which scatters itself into a series of lakes on either side of the main stream. There are dangerous overflows here, and twice we narrowly escaped a ducking, or perhaps a worse fate, although I fancy the river at this point is very shallow. Nevertheless I heard afterwards at Verkhoyansk that whole caravans, travellers, drivers and deer have occasionally been fatally submerged here, or frozen ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... all the Miss Murgatroyds might hang on to it together. Steady down there!... All right; I won't mention them.... By the way, the water must be fairly deep below us now. If you fell, you would merely get a ducking. I should slide down and pull you out, and we would start afresh.... Good Lord!... Oh, never mind! Nothing. Only, my knife slipped, but I caught it again.... We must be half way, by now. How lucky we have my glissading marks to guide us. I can't see the ledge ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... our getting into the Kill, and drove us upon Long Island. In our way a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell overboard; when he was sinking, I reached through the water to his shock pate and drew him up, so that we got him in again. His ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a book, which he desired I ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Robin, "art thou the man that I have been at such pains to seek all day, and have got such a ducking for?" ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... save the Tory; and when I saw that he was safe, not till then, I would go and help the Whig; but the dog should duck first; the dog should duck;" laughing with pleasure at the thoughts of the Whig's ducking. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... bounced on the incline, rolled, slid, tumbled, till at length he brought up against the boat's guard, and all that saved him a ducking was the prompt extension of several stout arms, which clutched and hauled him to the flush after deck. He sat on his haunches, blinking. Then he laughed. So did the man at the top of the slip and the lumberjacks clustered on the boat. Homeric laughter, as at some surpassing jest. But ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... looking at him keenly, "but, see here, you must ease up on the carrying. You haven't quite got over that ducking of yours." ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... them out beneath. On one occasion as the people were embarking from one of these ledges it suddenly gave way and three men were precipitated into the water but were rescued without further damage than a sound ducking, and the canoe fortunately (and narrowly) escaped being crushed. Perceiving one of the Indians sitting on the east bank of the river we landed and, having learned from him that Akaitcho and the hunters had gone in pursuit of ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... quietly, "you are a man of mighty thews and sinews. Had it not been for your powerful arms, I fear we would have had a ducking—or worse." ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to retreat as we advanced. At 2 P.M., when the marvellous clearness of the sky was troubled by a tornado forming in the north-east, we turned towards a little inlet, and, despite the heavy surf, we disembarked without a ducking. A creek supplied us with pure cold water, a spreading tree with a roof, and the soft clean shore with the most luxurious of couches—at 3 P.M. I could hardly persuade myself that an hour ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... in, we were always on the qui vive for a skating revel on some pond near by, and our eagerness to enjoy the sport frequently led to a ducking. But very soon the large ponds, and then the bay, were frozen over, when we could indulge in the fun to our heart's content. My first attempts were made under considerable difficulties, but perseverance bridges the way over many ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... put in the darkest place of the house: hee that comes into his neighbours house doth first salute his saints, although he see them not. If any foorme or stoole stand in his way, hee oftentimes beateth his browe vpon the same, and often ducking downe with his head, and body, worshippeth the chiefe Image. The habite, and attire of the Priests, and of the Lay men, doth nothing at all differ: as for marriage, it is forbidden to no man: onely this is receiued and held amongst them for a rule, and custome, that if a Priests ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... recent time, punished women differently from men for the same offenses. And as recently as the period of the Early Puritan in New England women were punished for some offenses which men might commit without fear if not without reproach. The ducking-stool, for example, was an appliance for softening the female temper only. In England women used to be burned at the stake for crimes for which men were hanged, roasting being regarded as the milder punishment. In point of fact, it was not punishment at all, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Peter climbed a back fence and stole thru a neighbor's chicken-yard and got away. He had a fine time ducking and dodging in the crowds, making sure that no one was trailing him to his secret rendezvous—no "Red" who might chance to be suspicious of his "comradeship." It was in the "American House," an obscure hotel, and Peter was to take the elevator to the fourth floor, without speaking ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... together; nor did Festus tell Bob that he also had resolved to seek them out, and by anticipating every one else in that enterprise, make of it a glorious opportunity for bringing Miss Garland to her senses about him. He still resented the ducking that he had received at her hands, and was not disposed to let that insult pass without obtaining some sort ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... haunts them by day and by night, and in the midst of their voluptuous enjoyments, the very thought of John Brown chills their souls and poisons their pleasures. Their tarring and feathering of good citizens; their riding them upon rails, and ducking them, in dirty ponds; their destruction of liberty presses, and the hanging of John Brown and his friends, to intimidate men from the advocacy of freedom, will all come tumbling upon their own heads as a just retribution ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... father wanted all my money, he could have got it for the asking. Do not talk about going to America; that would be 'conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman'; it would be a cowardly desertion in the face of the enemy. Then, you have never been very well since your ducking down on the Sussex coast; and, besides, you have entered into obligations here so sacred that you must not permit a little whim, or even a great disappointment, to lead you to think about trying ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... the ankle. I do not understand why I did not go down bodily into the water. Had I gone in to my waist there would have been a serious result, for the sledges were some distance away and the temperature was 47 deg. below zero. In the absence of an igloo and a change of clothes near at hand, a ducking in this temperature would certainly have a ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... — N. plunge, dip, dive, header; ducking &c v.; diver. V. plunge, dip, souse, duck; dive, plump; take a plunge, take a header; make a plunge; bathe &c (water) 337. submerge, submerse; immerse; douse, sink, engulf, send to the bottom. get out of one's depth; go to the bottom, go down like a stone, drop ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... matter much anyway. Hi! there, turn out a little more, Bristles; you're heading for a hole! Not too far, because there's another just as bad stretching out from the other side. Careful now, boy; a little too much either way, and we're in for a ducking!" ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... "sookin-in-goats" and were well known to most of us. Nevertheless we never ventured into any pool on strange parts of the coast before we had thrust a stick into it. If the stick were not pulled out of our hands, we boldly entered and enjoyed plashing and ducking long ere ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... especially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at a disadvantage—perhaps standing on one leg to encase the other in his knickerbockers. Like lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment from him, and, ducking and pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the circle of sneaking devils. (That was how he broke the clock in his bedroom.) And while these battles were occupying his attention, it was a waste of voice to call him to breakfast, though ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... forever!" Miss White, when she went to make her report of the dreadful event to Mr. Ferguson, added that she felt assured the young people had got over their foolishness. Elizabeth's uncle, telling the story of the ducking to David's horrified mother, said that he was greatly relieved to know that Elizabeth ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... his rage. He looked around for some weapon, went to the fireplace and seized a bar of steel which served to support the fire-irons, then returned, and striking several times upon the bed with all his force, endeavoured to destroy his hideous visitor. But the head, ducking and bobbing like the white gentleman with black spots, whom Punch has never been able to touch, dexterously slipped aside at every blow, which descended harmlessly upon the bed-clothes. For several minutes the furious bridegroom ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... eyes toward the place where we had last seen the French soldier. We hardly dared to look. But instead of seeing a splatter of blood and flesh upon the earth by the tree stump, we saw the soldier rise from the buck-brush where he had been ducking, and light a cigarette. The shell had hit not a dozen feet above him, but had sprayed its fountain from him, instead of toward him. He had some trouble lighting his cigarette and was irritated for a second at his inconvenience. But so far ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... seemed irresolute, whether to advise me to make the ascent or proceed to Banya. The plethoric one-eyed clerk, with more regard to his own comfort than my pleasure, was secretly persuading the captain that the expedition would end in a ducking to the skin, and, turning to me, said, "You, surely, do not intend to go up to day, Sir? Take the advice of those who know ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... contentedly on the Adjutant, clinging to her rail as she alternately sank below, or was tossed high above us. For three hours they smiled with satisfaction as though they felt that to have escaped from Chinde, for even that brief time, was sufficient recompense for a thorough ducking and the pains of sea-sickness. On the bridge of the Adjutant, in white duck and pith helmets, were the only respectable members of Chinde society. We knew that they were the only respectable members of Chinde society, ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... belongs to the fair sex, and uses only the privilege of her tongue.—But, hark ye, good woman, every bull of Bashan and Red Dragon will not be so civil as I am, or be contented to leave you to the charge of the constable and ducking-stool. In the meantime I must necessarily carry off this young man to head-quarters. I cannot answer to my commanding-officer to leave him in a house where I have heard so much ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... this moment of the present, was anything but dignified. Dodging and ducking under a rain of blows from a bamboo cane, he was crouched over in a half-doubled posture. When he was rapped on the knuckles and elbows, with which he shielded his face and head, his winces were genuine and involuntary. From the many surrounding windows the neighbourhood ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... timber region—my parents were of Scotch descent I believe. And the first thing I want to say is that I'm mighty glad to be here with you just now. I was just about as hungry as a bear, and only for you I don't see what I could have done, after that ducking, for my matches must have been wet, and I would have gone to sleep hungry ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... DUCKING STOOL, a stool or chair in which a scolding woman was confined, and set before her own door to be pelted at, or borne in a tumbrel through the town to be jeered at, or placed at the end of a see-saw and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... George laughed. "Come on, Sis!" He caught the struggling Ann by the arm and began to drag her toward the stream. "I'll give you a good ducking. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... she suffered mainly from a fit of indigestion consequent on the shower of sweetmeats which fell on her from all hands as the best consolation for her willful little ducking known to sane men and women presumably acquainted with the elements of physiology. She was made restless, too, from excitement by reason of the multiplicity of toys which every one thought it incumbent on him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... Dashwood's directions, and making Mrs. Northbury her model, Jo rashly took a plunge into the frothy sea of sensational literature, but thanks to the life preserver thrown her by a friend, she came up again not much the worse for her ducking. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... on terra firma; in the water the man will be thinking of the ducking in sight and his mind will not be in receptive mood. It is also essential to make him understand a hold ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... the captain was on shore. Looking down upon them, he threatened to sink them in the ocean if they did not bring everything on deck in a minute. When I saw the portmanteaus brought up, and my friend and I safely on board, I thought that all was well enough, although we had got a ducking in the surf; but in a little, my friend found that he had been robbed of his purse, containing two sovereigns and some small money; but nobody could tell whether this had been done in the crowd on the pier, or when he was in the boat, or when helped ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... his talking shells on the neck of the Duck, and the singing shells in her beak, and though painfully and lamely, yet he followed the sound she made with the shells. From place to place with swift flight she sped, then awaiting him, ducking her head that the shells might call loudly. By and by they came to the country of thick rains and mists on the borders of the Snow World, and passed from water to water, until wider water lay in their path. In vain the ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... the squat figure of the chief advanced like a machine. Jack noticed the swing of the muscular arms, the play of the legs and the occasional slight turning or ducking of the head. The straggling black hair, with the painted eagle feathers drooping like the plume of a lady's hat, the blanket slung loosely over the shoulders, the fringed hunting shirt and leggings, the faded moccasins, so soft that they spread out ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... herself in an instant, sending a dozen of the crew across the deck and all the passengers spinning about in every direction. Except a little of the standing rigging cut, a few shins broken, and a complete ducking received by all the passengers, no damage had occurred. We soon got the lady passengers put to rights, and seated on the hencoops, where they had been taking their breakfast, the coffee-cups picked up, the men restored to their legs, and their cigars ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,— An honest mind and plain,—he must speak truth! An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain. These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends Than twenty silly-ducking observants That stretch their ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a woman who was convicted of being a common mischief-maker and scold, was sentenced to the punishment of the ducking-stool; which consisted of a sort of chair fastened to a pole, in which she was seated and repeatedly let down into the water, amid the shouts of the rabble. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a woman convicted of the same offence was led about the streets by the hangman, with an instrument of ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... be two canoes—and two good paddlers in each—on either side of Wonota's craft, but out of the camera focus of course. Then, we will line up a lot of the boys along the shore on either side. If she gets a ducking she won't mind. She understands. That Indian girl has some pluck, all right," concluded the director with ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... into another clinch as Duval raised his revolver. Ducking, Chester drove his fist to his opponent's chin, even as the latter pressed the trigger. The bullet ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... crew during the weeks of idleness while McBride was on the way to join the Retriever. Both he and Mr. Skinner had decided that nothing could be gained by informing McBride, who was a little, mild-mannered gentleman with gold eyeglasses, of the potential ducking that awaited him at the hands of Matt Peasley; for just before McBride said good-bye and started for the train Cappy and Mr. Skinner discovered that their apple cart again had been upset. The following cablegram received ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... and shoes that "fur the shine av 'em 'ud shame a lookin'-glass." His hat is a long cone without a brim, and is usually set jauntily on one side of his curly head. When greatly provoked, he will sometimes take vengeance by suddenly ducking and poking the sharp point of his hat into the eye of the offender. Such conduct is, however, exceptional, as he commonly contents himself with soundly abusing those at whom he has taken offence, the ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... way it might be interpreted, all agreed that it had too ludicrous a sound to be permitted to get abroad, and therefore the Sacristan was charged, on his vow of obedience, to say no more of his ducking; an injunction which, having once eased his mind by telling his story, it may be well conjectured that he ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... command poor Margari had a veritable ague fit of terror. All this time he had remained ducking down in the carriage firmly persuaded that the robbers in this lonely place would cut down every mother's son of them at nightfall. In such a case he was prepared to swear that he had never belonged to the party at all, but would ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... one Jared Hoyt, split the skull of a pursuing British dragoon straight across the mouth with a back-handed stroke, as he escaped from the melee; and another, one John Buckhout, duck his head as a dragoon fired at him, and, still ducking and loudly cursing the fellow, rejoin us as we sheered off from the masses of red-jacketed riders, wheeled, and went at the mounted Yagers, who did not ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... not more than two dozen shells came our way daily, and it was there that I saw a shell in air, the only shell in flight I have ever seen. It was dropping to earth behind the parados and I had a distinct view of the missile before ducking to avoid the splinters flung out by the explosion. Hundreds of shells have passed through the sky near me every day, I could almost see them by their sound and felt I could trace the line made by them in their flight, but this was the only time ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... short, though exciting scene. Five of them were speared and drowned, while the sixth crawled out upon the ice and was rapidly making off, frightened enough at his cold ducking. ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... of which the Happy Family was made, and the night was cool for a ducking. He rolled back so that they could see his face, and struggled for calm. In a minute he sat ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... riding to the hounds was one for gunning. A few entries in his diary tell the nature of his sport. "Went a ducking between breakfast and dinner and kill'd 2 Mallards & 5 bald faces." "I went to the Creek but not across it. Kill'd 2 ducks, viz. a sprig tail and a Teal." "Rid out with my gun but kill'd nothing." In 1787 a man asked for permission to shoot ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... 8th of September, we crossed the Line in the longitude of 8 deg. W.; after which, the ceremony of ducking, &c., generally practised on this ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... by their false opinion; for, in truth, the Age of Superstition lives as lustily to-day, as when, in past years, witches blazed at Smithfield, or died with rending gulps and bursting lungs, lashed fast to an English ducking stool. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... with a jolt that bent the axle of the landing gear, sent them bounding into the air, and all but wrecked them. They went ducking and wobbling up to the willow fringe and swung off just in time to escape plunging into a deep little creek. As they stopped they heard a great crackling of brush and glimpsed many forms fleeing wildly, but they were too engrossed in their own trouble to be greatly impressed. One wing had barely ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... his three chums were enjoying themselves in the water, splashing about and ducking one another. There were a number of High School boys with them, including several of the first-year class, from the ranks of which the ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... home again, my boy!" she said tenderly to the horse, not to the man. The great beast shifted round to her, ducking his head. She smuggled into his mouth the wrinkled yellow apple she had been hiding behind her back, then she kissed him near the eyes. He gave a big sigh of pleasure. She held his head in her arms ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... a look, my lord," replied Richie, bending his solemn brows, "that suld give her a heartscald of walking on such errands. I laid her enormities clearly before her, and I threatened her, in sae mony words, that I would have her to the ducking-stool; and she, on the contrair part, miscawed me for a forward northern tyke—and so we parted never to meet again, as I hope and trust. And so I stood between your lordship and that temptation, which might have been worse ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... battle until the weather declares unmistakably for one side or the other. Does it refuse to declare itself? Then I can promise you that half an hour will see the men routed and straggling down the beach to their boats, arching their backs and ducking their heads, may ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but a coward would be afraid to venture on that bridge," said Herbert, ignoring Eddie's last remark. "Suppose it should break and let you fall! the worst would be a ducking." ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... unsuccessfully, and had at last given up the matter, as a bad job. He added that a little time before, as Mr P. was walking close to the canal with his wife and daughter and a spaniel dog, Mr P. suddenly took up the dog and flung it in, giving it a good ducking, whereupon he, Morgan, cried out: "Dyna y gwir vedydd! That is the right baptism, sir! I thought I should bring you to it at last!" at which words Mr P. laughed heartily, but made no ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... clambering over bowlders, darting around rocks, ducking his head to avoid the limbs, stumbling, but instantly regaining his feet, only intent on getting forward with ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... scolding. A husband had but to go before the Mayor (Mr. Trapp sometimes threatened it) and swear that his wife was a common scold, and the Mayor gave him an order to hoist her on a horse and take her to the ducking-chair to be dipped thrice in Sutton Pool. At last a poor creature died of it, and that put an end to the bad business. Then there were the press-gangs. Time and again I have run naked from bathing to watch the press as, after hunting from tavern to tavern, it dragged ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... numerous attendants, who pull down his legs, so as to render his seat in other respects abundantly uneasy. The grown-up men, in the meanwhile, remain at a distance, and avoid interfering in the ceremony. And it is well if the culprit, at the conclusion of the business, has not a ducking added to the rest of the punishment. Of the origin of this custom we know nothing. It is well known, however, over the country; and within these six years, it was with great ceremony performed upon a weaver in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... but her quick-changing spirit soon shook it off, and she patted his cheek and kissed him, and then began to comfort him, if you please. "Good, dear, kind Mr. Hope," said she. "La! don't go on like that. You were so brave in the water, and now the danger is over. I've had a ducking, that is all. Ha! ha! ha!" and the ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... vast shapes about me, what wonder that I stood awed and silent at the stupendous sight. But, to my companion, a shortish, thick-set man, with a masterful air and a bowler hat very much over one eye, these marvels were an everyday affair; and now, ducking under a steel hawser, he led me on, dodging moving trucks, stepping unconcernedly across the buffers of puffing engines, past titanic cranes that swung giant arms high in the air; on we went, stepping over chain cables, wire ropes, pulley-blocks and a thousand and one other ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... no talk of ducking her, Dickon. Why, she must be the very woman poor Starkey bade me have a care of; but when I came here last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her tomorrow. But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of her being a witch—I've a pack of hounds at ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it is not altogether so unnecessary," said the Captain; "for the tamned woman with the besom might have some advantage in that long dark passage, knowing the ground better than I do—tamn her, I will have amends on her, if there be whipping-post, or ducking-stool, or a pair of stocks in the parish!" And so saying, the Captain trudged off, his spirits ever and anon agitated by recollection of the causeless aggression of Meg Dods, and again composed to a state of happy serenity by the recollection of the agreeable arrangement which he ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... curiosity being, perhaps the most important. The result was that one day when the boys came to camp they saw Guy sneaking off. It was fun to capture him and drag him back. He was very sullen, and not so noisy as the other time, evidently less scared. The Chiefs talked of fire and torture and of ducking him in the pond without getting much response. Then they began to cross-examine the prisoner. He gave no answer. Why did he come to the camp? What was he doing—stealing? ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... her political partiality, to the great offence of the rabble of that city. Being zealous in their loyalty, when there was no danger, in proportion to the tameness with which they had surrendered to the Highlanders in 1745, the mob inflicted upon poor Jean Gordon no slighter penalty than that of ducking her to death in the Eden. It was an operation of some time, for Jean was a stout woman, and, struggling with her murderers, often got her head above water; and, while she had voice left, continued to exclaim at such intervals, 'Charlie yet! Charlie yet!' When a child, and among the scenes which ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... defeated in case they change feet or touch the floor as in 8. As soon as either of the latter is defeated his place is immediately filled, so that there are always two of them. The besieged should resort to volting, ducking, etc., rather than ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the false accusation, the ducking, and the injuries done to my antagonist, ran, varied and mangled, from mouth to mouth: a general sensation of rage was excited against me; and Hector and Andrews very charitably gave it every assistance in their power. Not satisfied with this, they proposed the Lex Talionis; and called—'Duck ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... He hadn't an ounce of fear in his spare, small body. But he had an overwhelming desire to get back to Earth and deliver his message. He was trembling as he raced after Joyce, thirty feet to a bound, ducking his head to avoid hitting the thick lavender ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... so wet?" enquired Mr. —— "O," replied he, "I was crossing a brook upon a log, and I slipped off into the water; and it rained on me at the same time, and between the two, I got a pretty smart ducking." They brought him some dry clothing, and dried his wet garments by the kitchen fire, and kindly allowed him to remain for the night. For several years, this man passed through S. as often as two or three times during each year. He became so well known in the ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... reverse case the result is merely a murderous impulse. This he further says is not understood by women, who hope by scolding to produce the similar effect upon men that they themselves would experience. The passage is illustrated by figures of ducking stools and followed by some carefully analyzed statistics of connubial crime in Berlin in the years 1901-2. But in this matter let the student compare the achievement of Paulina in The Winter's Tale and reflect upon his own life. And moreover it is difficult to estimate how far the twinges of conscience ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... pure ginger pulverized or ground, to make hot ginger tea in case of chill, pains in the bowels, or when you have met with an accidental ducking or are wet through to the skin by rain. Never mind if the tea does burn, ginger always stings when helping one. Be a good sport, take ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... for stories now, Tom," said sister Dora. "We must attend to our bathing. Here comes a wave that will give us a good ducking." ...
— The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... chance to get mad at some man and turn him into a plaything. A victim had been a necessary part of their sprees. Many a poor fellow had been fastened in a barrel and rolled down hill or nearly drowned in a ducking for their amusement. A chance had come to get mad and they were going to make the most of it. They began to growl with resentment. Some were wigging their leader Jack Armstrong to fight Abe. One of them ran to his horse and brought ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... did not hesitate to subject gossiping women to the harsh punishment of the ducking stool. In 1662 the Assembly passed an Act requiring wives that brought judgments on their husbands for slander to be punished by ducking.[87] In 1705 and again in 1748 the county courts were authorized ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... and remained behind, out of range of hearing. She was cut to the heart with shame for her companions, and her cheek burned with the indignation that she suffered with the harried woman in their midst. A little Indian girl came flying past, ducking and dashing under the neck of Frances' horse, in pursuit of a piece of paper which the wind whirled ahead of her. At Frances' stirrup she caught it, and held it ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... cluster in the middle of the road, the Paymaster with his black coat so tight upon his stomach it looked as if every brass button would burst with a crack like a gun; Rixa puffing and stretching himself; Major Dugald ducking his head and darting his glance about from side to side looking for the enemy; Mr. Spencer, tall, thin, with the new strapped breeches and a London hat, blowing his nose with much noise in a Barcelona silk handkerchief. All ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... captors marched him off between them till they came to a narrow lane where the horsemen could walk only in single file—three in front of him and one behind. He determined to make a bid for liberty. Ducking under the rear horse he seized his rifle, shot the Uhlan, and disappeared in the darkness. For days he lay concealed, and on one occasion German searchers entered the room in which he was hidden, yet ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... forth towards my father's, but it being church time, walked to St. James's, to try if I could see the belle Butler, but could not; only saw her sister, who indeed is pretty, with a fine Roman nose. Thence walked through the ducking-pond fields; but they are so altered since my father used to carry us to Islington, to the old man's, at the King's Head, to eat cakes and ale (his name was Pitts) that I did not know which was the ducking-pond nor where I was. So through F[l]ee[t] lane to my father's, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... barring her entrance, with arms outstretched. "Don't know as I'll let you in this way. Let's see you jump the fence. Say, what's the matter with you? Ho! ho! Why, you look like that cat I dropped in the brook yesterday. You've got a ducking, somehow. Your clothes aren't all dry ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... It indicated that though he might allow himself liberties with men of his own class, he was too well bred to do so with me. But in my anger I saw nothing but the words, "not a gownsman." Why should he see that I was not a gownsman? Because I was shabbier?—(and my clothes, over and above the ducking they had had, were shabby); or more plebeian in appearance (whatsoever that may mean)? or wanted something else, which the rest had about them, and I had not? Why should he know that I was not a gownsman? I did not wish, of course, to be a gentleman, and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... though we would have to run all the way back to the Hall or get a ducking," warned Jerry as they neared Lillian's home. "We can't stop to talk, girls. We had better wait for Katherine at the gate. If the whole gang of us goes up to the house ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... "Good-evenin', suh," she answered, ducking suddenly with a quaint curtsy. Her voice was shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by age. "Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?" she asked, looking around her doubtfully, and glancing into the open windows, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... axe, which the ancient Highlanders used to assist them to climb over walls, fixing the hook upon it, and raising themselves by the handle. The axe, which was also much used by the natives of Ireland, is supposed to have been introduced into both countries from Scandinavia.] and the other a long ducking-gun. Evan, upon Edward's inquiry, gave him to understand that this martial escort was by no means necessary as a guard, but merely, as he said, drawing up and adjusting his plaid with an air of dignity, that he might appear decently at Tully-Veolan, and as Vich Ian Vohr's foster-brother ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... good a freezing there as anywhere on the Northwest Coast. I never voyaged so far in all my life. You shall see men you never heard of before, whose names you don't know, going away down through the meadows with long ducking-guns, with water-tight boots wading through the fowl-meadow grass, on bleak, wintry, distant shores, with guns at half-cock, and they shall see teal, blue-winged, green-winged, shelldrakes, whistlers, black ducks, ospreys, and many other wild and noble sights before night, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... quite out of humor with them. I mean, his opposed terms, his words of one cadence, and his derivatives. For the one makes use of these with due observance and but seldom, and bestows care upon them; but the other frequently, unseasonably, and frigidly. "For he is much commended," said he, "for ducking the chamberlains, they being indeed not chamberlains [Greek omitted] but witches."[Greek omitted]. And again,—"This rascal breathes out nothing but roguery and sycophanty"; and "Smite him well in his belly with the entrails and the guts"; and, "By laughing I shall ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... rude justice was the cucking or ducking stool, which exists in a few places. It was used principally for the purpose of correcting scolding women. Mr. Andrews, who knows all that can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between the cucking and ducking stool, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... ask him if he have not sold his own Dog Diver with the white Ear; if I can purchase him, and my own Dog prove right, I'll be Duke of Ducking-Pond, ads zoz. [Sir Cred. dresses himself. Well, I think I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... for a moment or two to think what would be the consequences if he did not reach this stone, and judged that it meant a good ducking and a bit of a swim to one ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... time the squat figure of the chief advanced like a machine. Jack noticed the swing of the muscular arms, the play of the legs and the occasional slight turning or ducking of the head. The straggling black hair, with the painted eagle feathers drooping like the plume of a lady's hat, the blanket slung loosely over the shoulders, the fringed hunting shirt and leggings, the faded moccasins, so soft that they spread out of all manner of shape when ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... indeed, they thought anything preferable to being in the power of cannibals. Piling together the half decayed wood and wringing their clothes as dry as they could, they were in a fair way of recovering from the ducking, and as they apprehended no further danger from their enemies, they concluded to make a short halt and examine the locality around them. The cave in this place was no more than twenty five feet high, but was very wide, as well as they could determine over a hundred ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... tools: For thy dull fancy a muckinder is fit To wipe the slobberings of thy snotty wit: And though 'tis late, if justice could be found, Thy plays like blind-born puppies should be drown'd. For were it not that we respect afford Unto the son of an heroic lord, Thine in the ducking-stool should take her seat, Drest like herself in a great chair of state; Where like a Muse of quality she'd die, And thou thyself shalt make her elegy, In the same ...
— English Satires • Various
... and drifted on, Dorothy and Ojo laughed at the ducking they had received; but Scraps was much dismayed and the Scarecrow took out his handkerchief and wiped the water off the Patchwork Girl's patches as well as he was able to. The sun soon dried her and the colors of her patches proved good, for they did not ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... to the ankle. I do not understand why I did not go down bodily into the water. Had I gone in to my waist there would have been a serious result, for the sledges were some distance away and the temperature was 47 deg. below zero. In the absence of an igloo and a change of clothes near at hand, a ducking in this temperature would ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... A ducking did not trouble the ouzels, for as they came out of the water the liquid rolled in crystal drops from their feathers and their plumage was as dry as if it had never been submerged. The wilder and swifter the cold glacier water ran the ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... bath for me! Right full to the brim with cold water. Like ducking in Jordan! I feel good now. I'm going to be clothed and in my right mind, now," he said earnestly. When she came back, her shoulders squared again, he had vanished. She did not miss her purse until she went to the door to buy milk. Luckily there was not very much in it. Not till she ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... as they came along, and were very soon, all of them, playing about her, ducking and splashing each other, and Beth also, including her sociably in their game. And Beth, as was her wont, responded so cordially that she was very soon heading ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... a couple of steps toward White Fang, but the latter slid away from him. The dog-musher made a rush of it, and White Fang dodged between the legs of a group of men. Ducking, turning, doubling, he slid about the deck, eluding the other's efforts ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... had encountered but at the stage of water then prevailing we could not get near it. Stanton wisely made a portage, of the supplies and let the boats down by lines. His boat, the Bonnie Jean, played all sorts of pranks, rushing out into the current, ducking and diving under water, and finally floating down sideways. Then they thought they would try what Stanton calls Powell's plan of shooting a boat through and catching it below. Such a harum-scarum method was never used on our expedition, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... spoke, the little fellows stood trembling and ducking their woolly heads, as though they half expected to be seized by their irate master and flung, like black balls, out into the wilderness of flowers, but glancing timidly up and perceiving that even in the midst of his petulance he smiled, they took courage, and as soon as he had ceased ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... followed: they all got a ducking; some few lost their arms, one or two were slightly wounded by their comrades, but none of them were drowned. Henri soon made his way over the ruins into the town, and carried everything before him. The greater part of the garrison of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... bumped about against the wooden nails; so much so, that this hole of the length of a finger, which you can see up to this day on my temple, comes from the bruises I sustained. All my people were in a funk that I'd be the worse for this ducking and continued in fear and trembling lest I should catch a chill. 'It was dreadful, dreadful!' they opined, but I managed, little though every one thought it, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the camp to the lake-foot, and there, while the others compacted the portables for portage, Iglesias and I, at cost of a ducking with mist-drops from the thickets, scrambled up a crag for a supreme view of the fair lake and the clear mountain. And we did well. Katahdin, from the hill guarding the exit of the Penobscot from Ripogenus, is eminent and emphatic, a signal and solitary pyramid, grander ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... of years ago the A.S.S. steamers lay within half a mile of shore; and, 'barrin'' the ducking, it was easy to land. But the bay is bossed with rocks and skirted with shoals; they lurk treacherously under water, and have brought many a tall ship to grief. As for the obsolete hydrographic charts, they only add to the danger. Two wrecks give us ample warning. One is a ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... becoming furtive as he watched them. He glanced sidewise, edging away from the door; then, pricking his mule with his spurs, he galloped madly away, ducking his head at every jump as if he ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... it is," said Hovey, "we're the best gang at bustin' up these hard guys that ever walked the deck of a ship. If you try any side steps and fancy ducking of your work, there'll be a disciplinin' comin' your way at a gallop. Are ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... at last, William Hazlitt. Miss Stoddart was not his first love; some time before he had wished to marry a Miss Railton of Liverpool; then, in the Lakes, he had had passages with a farmer's daughter involving a ducking at the hands of jealous rivals; while De Quincey would have us believe that Hazlitt proposed to Dorothy Wordsworth. But it was Sarah Stoddart whom he was destined to marry. A specimen of Hazlitt's love letters (which Mary Lamb wished to see) will be found in Mr. W. C. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... gave no heed to his protests. Willing hands grabbed the red-headed tentman, whose kicks and struggles availed him nothing. Raising him over the barrel of water they soused him in head first, ducking ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... some fire here, Aunt Esther. I've been out on the bay, fishing. Our smack got run down, and I've had a ducking; I ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... There were brambles to dodge, low boughs to dive under, and countless tree trunks closing up to make a direct path impossible. Yet Dr. Silence never seemed to falter or hesitate. He went, diving, jumping, dodging, ducking, but ever in the same main direction, following a clean trail. Twice I tripped and fell, and both times, when I picked myself up again, I saw him ahead of me, still forcing a way like a dog after its quarry. And sometimes, like a dog, he stopped and pointed—human pointing ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... this folly," he persisted, ducking his head about to avoid their sweet-filled palms. "We must have dignity, understand, dignity. This will ruin us. They are making tame animals of us, playthings. When they grow tired of us they will throw us out. You're doing the right thing. Stick to it. Stand them off. Command respect, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... charming; not so to the shelterless is water diffused in dash of deluge. Water, when we choose our method of contact, is a friend; when it masters us, it is a foe; when it drowns us or ducks us, a very exasperating foe. Proud pedestrians become very humble personages, when thoroughly vanquished by a ducking deluge. A wetting takes out the starch not only from garments, but the wearers of them. Iglesias and I did not wish to stand all the evening steaming before a kitchen-fire, inspecting meanwhile culinary details: Phillis in the kitchen is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... inmate, and offering their services to late or leet the witches, as the phrase ran. This custom was practised at Longridge Fell in the early part of the nineteenth century.[628] In Northumberland on Hallowe'en omens of marriage were drawn from nuts thrown into the fire; and the sports of ducking for apples and biting at a revolving apple and lighted candle were also practised on that evening.[629] The equivalent of the Hallowe'en bonfires is reported also from France. We are told that in the department of Deux-Sevres, which forms part of the old province of Poitou, young people ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... the vessel, that, in their confusion, they dropped cage and all into the sea. For a few minutes I gave up my poor panther as lost, but some sailors jumped into a boat belonging to the vessel, and dragged him out in safety. The beast himself seemed completely subdued by his ducking, and as no one dared to open his cage to dry it, he rolled himself up in one corner, nor roused himself till after an interval of some days, when he recognised my voice. When I first spoke, he raised his head, held it on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... confess I felt queer, as that slate-colored monster loomed up before our bow. With one flop of its tail it could smash the craft and give us all a ducking—perhaps kill half the crew. Many of the old whalers' yarns I remembered as I poised that ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... too many dear friends about, she decided, to use the Union Jack, and having seen what she wanted to she determined to slip quietly away again. Already the Major's hat was in his hand, and he was bowing low, so too were Captain Puffin and the Padre, while Irene, Diva and Evie were making little ducking movements.... Miss Mapp was determined, when it came to her turn, to show them, as she happened to be on the spot, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... Bob that he also had resolved to seek them out, and by anticipating every one else in that enterprise, make of it a glorious opportunity for bringing Miss Garland to her senses about him. He still resented the ducking that he had received at her hands, and was not disposed to let that insult pass without obtaining some ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... arid the mob shouted: eager for the fame of Old England, the crowd followed Clarence with loud acclamations. The French officer was followed with groans and hisses. So great was the confusion, and so great the zeal of the patriots, that even the pleasure of ducking the female duellists was forgotten in the general enthusiasm. All eyes and all hearts were intent upon the race; and now the turkeys got foremost, and now the pigs. But when we came within sight of the horsepond, I heard one ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Apple-ducking is still a universal custom in Scotland. A sixpence is sometimes dropped into the tub or stuck into an apple to make the reward greater. The contestants must keep ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... assistant, and they took La Rue and marched him up Broadway as far as Chambers Street, and back to the lower end of the Park, hoping to sober him. At this point they put his head under a pump and gave him a good ducking, with visible beneficial effect, then a walk around the Park and another ducking, when he assured them that he should be able to give his imitations "to ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... old punishments, from the Ducking Stool to the Stocks, proceeded upon the appeal to the moral sense of the community, and up to the middle, or probably nearer to the end of last century, the summary punishment of offenders took place, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Steve!" Max called out, as the one who was making his way around the little bayou slipped, and splashed the water in his eagerness to accomplish the errand that had taken him there; "you'll get a ducking yet if you don't slow up some! Rome wasn't ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... he had power, with the assent of the Court, to inflict fines, whippings, and imprisonment—this last with the limitation that he could not commit to any prison on the mainland, but only to the Island lock-up; and also, if he chose, to prescribe the ducking-stool for refractory or scolding women. The office carried no salary; but as Governor under the Lord Proprietor he enjoyed a valuable perquisite in the harbour dues collected from the shipping. Every vessel visiting the port or hoisting the Queen's colours was liable, on coming to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... if you were fact [Transcriber's note: face?] to face every day with some problem or other that had you stumped? Wouldn't you, if you were playing a game that shifted so rapidly from point to point that it kept you dodging and ducking and swearing to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... extend so as to make a wall or fence, as they do on the right-hand side of the Frontispiece, thus preventing the danger of falling over the cliff upon which this cabin is perched and receiving injury or an unlooked-for ducking in the lake. They may also be extended as they are on the left, to make a shield behind which a wood-yard is concealed, or to protect an enclosure for the storage of the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... to Burra Isle, and at the same time Fred despatched messengers (Gibbie being one of them) to Boden to report Yaspard at Broch, "Not much the worse of a ducking, and returning home ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... morn!" he remarked sarcastically, ducking his head as a sheet of spray came driving over the forecastle and across the bridge. "Well, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... and very obscure"; that a Cheptico Indian had stolen a shirt from Edward Turner's house, for which he is duly fined "if he can be knowne"; "that the lord of the mannor hath not provided a paire of stocks, pillory and ducking stoole—Ordered that these instruments of justice be provided by the next court by a general contribution throughout the manor"; that certain freeholders had failed to appear, "to do their suit at the lord's court, wherefore they are amerced each man 50l. of tobacco to the lord"; that ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... picked their way among the trees and bushes and across the rough rocks. Once Giant rolled over and over down some of the slanting rocks and would have got a ducking in the lake had not Snap stopped him ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... started, ducking low, but he ran back when the boom came across the deck with such a vicious swing that the iron bar fairly ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... himself, and returning his daughter's nod, he was passing into the workshop, with the smile she had awakened still beaming on his face, when he just caught sight of his 'prentice's brown paper cap ducking down to avoid observation, and shrinking from the window back to its former place, which the wearer no sooner reached than ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Cochin-China hen, which she had christened Yollande, some white duck's eggs to sit on. The batch of fifteen eggs had all come out. It was really wonderful to see these fifteen baby ducks, yellow as canaries, beaks and webbed feet pink, swarming around the big patient sitting mother, ducking under her wings, to come out presently and clamber helter-skelter onto her broad back. As often happens with nurses, Yollande loved the ducklings as her own children, and without worrying about their shape or plumage, so different from ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... thirty waiting-women, all of them high-bosomed maidens. They put off their clothes and went down into the river, where the damsel fell to riding the high horse over her women, throwing them down and ducking them. On this wise she continued for a full hour, after which all came up out of the water and sat down; and they brought her napkins[FN131] of gold-purfled silk, with which she dried herself. Then they brought her clothes and jewels ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Do you know that you are a very lucky woman to live in a land where not only may a barefooted boy rise to the highest honors by talent and perseverance, but where a malignant old witch may torture and terrify her neighbors without fear of the ducking stool or the ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and yet— shall I confess it?— my heart quaked a little as I followed my leader across this trembling suspension bridge. I was, however, always unwilling to show fear in the presence of Whiskerandos, so I concealed even the relief which I felt when I reached the vessel without a ducking. ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... flies; he crouches, and the spear flies over him. Robert takes this as an "old Mycenaean" dodge—to duck down to the bottom of the shield. [Footnote: Studien zur Ilias, p. 21.] The avoidance by ducking can be managed with no shield, or with a common Highland targe, which would cover a man in a crouching posture, as when Glenbucket's targe was peppered by bullets at Clifton (746), and Cluny shouted "What the devil is this?" the assailants firing unexpectedly from a ditch. A few moments ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... bottom of the boat, for there was little time in that heavy sea to attend to me, and she pulled back towards the ship. I felt that I was saved. I did not expect to be much the worse for my ducking, and I knew when I got back to the ship that the doctor would look after me. I had now no doubt that Iffley had endeavoured to prevent the boat from coming to my assistance. How bitter must be his hatred to allow me—his shipmate—to die thus horribly, struggling ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... a tub and a plate of apples which mysteriously appeared in the dining-room, and soon they were all in a kneeling circle around the tub, bobbing for the apples, that took a malicious delight in ducking under the water and rolling away, just as the white teeth were ready to seize the stem. The captured apples were only just pared and the seeds counted, when Mrs. Adams called them away to try their fate on one single apple which hung by a string from the ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... they come by their false opinion; for, in truth, the Age of Superstition lives as lustily to-day, as when, in past years, witches blazed at Smithfield, or died with rending gulps and bursting lungs, lashed fast to an English ducking stool. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... got it for the asking. Do not talk about going to America; that would be 'conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman'; it would be a cowardly desertion in the face of the enemy. Then, you have never been very well since your ducking down on the Sussex coast; and, besides, you have entered into obligations here so sacred that you must not permit a little whim, or even a great disappointment, to lead you to think about trying to break them. Let us go to sleep now. To-morrow we will talk over this matter ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... ones he could find there—and the logs were so smooth and round that they were hard to walk on any time. This day it rained and made them very slippery. Half of the soldiers fell into the stream and got a good ducking. Captain Lincoln was one of those that tumbled in. He just laughed and scrambled out as quick as he could. He always made the best of ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... once," said Craig. "No use giving you advice; but he's not a healthy individual to bait. I'm no kitten when it comes to scrapping; but I haven't any desire to mix things with him." The fury of the man who had given him the ducking was still vivid. He had been handled as a terrier handles ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... this sentence for a time, then said: "Well, there's no telling what he may think after that ducking, you know, so it will be more ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... beckoned with all his might. The brother seemed doubtful; but Melchior waved harder, and (was it fancy?) Time seemed to go slower. The brother made up his mind; he turned and jumped from the dog-cart as he had jumped from the old coach long ago, and, ducking in and out among the horses and carriages, ran for his life. The men came after him; but he ran like the wind—pant, pant, nearer, nearer; at last the coach was reached, and Melchior seized the prodigal by his ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... bent herself backwards and backwards, till she was nearly doubled into the form of a hoop, so he must try to imitate a hoop by stooping forwards and ducking down his head. ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... you wild Indians! Just remember that you're in canoes that can be upset easily, and unless you want a ducking out in the middle of the lake, restrain your enthusiasm a bit, please. It isn't the easiest thing in the world, climbing over the stern of a canoe with all your ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... in Spain, exposure in England in a rainy time, and then the ducking when we came on board, had done him no good. He looked ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... quick succession, till at last, while he was exploring a dead spruce which had toppled half-way to the ground, a hawk screamed loudly overhead. Instantly the little creature flattened himself against the trunk, spreading his wings to their very utmost and ducking his head until, though I had been all the while eying his motions through a glass at the distance of only a few rods, it was almost impossible to believe that yonder tiny brown fleck upon the bark was really ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... her faults of manner, held the respect of the neighborhood, and was looked up to only in a less degree than her brother; whether Squire Pinner, their master, had let drop, in their hearing, a word of the ducking he had hinted at, when at East Lynne, or whether their own feelings alone spurred them on, was best known to the men themselves. Certain it is, that the ominous sound of "Duck him," was breathed forth by a voice, and it was caught up ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... loud ringing at my door-bell. Hastily dressing myself, I went down, and there, to my surprise, stood Tod Duncan. He was so disguised, however, that I did not recognize him until he addressed me and told me who he was. He was attired in a suit of coarse brown ducking, heavy boots, and a slouch hat; around his neck he wore a large red handkerchief, and he looked more like a German tramp than like my old friend. I felt at once that something was wrong, or that he was in some trouble; so I asked him in, and we went to my room. My family ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... make my bed comfortable, might have been owing to the fact, that the feathers under me had been only half-baked, or were picked from geese of Aunt Polly's raising; at any rate, I was as restless as the good lady herself until daylight, when I fell into as uneasy dreams—blessing the ducking that saved me a more lingering fate before. After a brief morning-nap I arose, and seeing fresh eggs brought in from the farm-yard, confidently expected to have my appetite appeased, knowing that they could be cooked in "less than no time;" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... make any mistake about that, and you'd never get a look-in, only, sore as the mob is on the Gray Seal, it ain't healthy for any guy around these parts to get the reputation of being a snitch, no matter who he snitches on. Bump him off—sure! Snitching—well, you get the idea, eh? I'm ducking that too. Get me?" ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... curtains right across the bed, to shut from the old warrior the horrors that lay in the middle of the room. The constable, too, stepped softly across to fasten the window. Then, following the others out, he closed and locked the door, turning round directly, ducking down, and involuntarily attempting to draw his truncheon, as he raised his left arm to ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... no great stomach for such a combat, and no very particular interest in the quarrel, was making for the door, a little Portuguese, as withered and as nimble as an ape, came ducking under the table and plunged at his stomach with a great long knife, which, had it effected its object, would surely have ended his adventures then and there. Finding himself in such danger, Master Harry snatched up a heavy chair, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... separate him from the people whose assistance he was so anxious to secure. The hedge was easily clambered over, though an impediment he had not anticipated awaited him on the other side, in the form of a small fishpond, into which he bundled, and so got a second ducking. But as this pond, or rather that portion of it into which he had fallen, was not deep, he soon splashed across it, to the amazement of the assembled party who witnessed the feat, which a fresh blue-light, just then ignited, afforded them ample means of doing—the heavy souse he had made in tumbling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... also, that there is a fine old painting in fresco, whitewashed over from the Reformation, but of that I know nothing. The town had other antiquities. Its stocks were a marvel of age and efficiency. A ducking-stool for scolds yet remained in the courthouse, beside the beam with which they weighed witches against the Bible; but the oldest thing in Great Tattleton was its charter: a native antiquary demonstrated, that it had been signed by King John ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... drawer to rescue his mistress from the clutches of her antagonists, and to drive them from the premises. But their services in this respect were not required. They next decided on giving Sir Francis Mitchell a sound ducking in the Thames. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... years ago, but all the rest is hearty. And in the matter o readin', Sir,' said Toodle, ducking again, as if to remind Mr Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject long ago, 'them boys o' mine, they learned me, among 'em, arter all. They've made a wery tolerable scholar ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of this there was no doubt - firing Martini-Henry bullets which cut up the ground a hundred yards in front of the leading company. Over that pock-marked ground the Regiment had to pass, and it opened the ball with a general and profound courtesy to the piping pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it had been brazed on a rod. Being half capable of thinking for itself, it fired a volley by the simple process of pitching its rifle into its shoulder and pulling the trigger. The bullets may have accounted for some of the watchers on the hill side, but they ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... the light—out with the light!" exclaimed he, ducking down suddenly. "Were you mad to keep it burning till I came, with that"—pointing to a huge bay window opening upon a balcony—"uncurtained and the grounds, no ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... that the captain was on shore. Looking down upon them, he threatened to sink them in the ocean if they did not bring everything on deck in a minute. When I saw the portmanteaus brought up, and my friend and I safely on board, I thought that all was well enough, although we had got a ducking in the surf; but in a little, my friend found that he had been robbed of his purse, containing two sovereigns and some small money; but nobody could tell whether this had been done in the crowd on the pier, or when he was in the boat, or when helped up the side of the ship. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... him on his head. Unfortunately, we are unable to learn the art of falling correctly, because we have only one neck, and, if we break that, our experiments must abruptly cease. We may, however, minimise the danger of its fracture by leaning well back at our fences, and by ducking our chins into our chests when we feel ourselves coming the inevitable cropper. The worst kind of fall is when a horse breasts a stiff fence and either turns a complete somersault, or falls violently on to his head. In ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... early dusk, having finished his task early. "Hurry home, boy," he called out, in that great kind voice which Jerome so loved—"hurry home; you've got something good for supper!" and he gave the boy, ducking low before him with the love and gratitude which had overcome largely the fierce and callous pride in his young heart, a hearty slap on the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the Admiralty. We understood afterwards that he was under an engagement of marriage to the sister of a nobleman, which was to have taken place in three months. Nothing worth notice occurred during the passage, except the visit from Neptune and his wife, and the shaving and ducking all his new acquaintances, who were rather numerous. We saw several tropical birds, which the sailors call boatswains, in consequence of their having one long feather for a tail, which they term a marlin-spike—an iron ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and, ducking beneath it, himself delivered a mighty one, with clenched fist, in the pit ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... three swimmers turned round and, with a good deal of ducking and slipping, climbed aboard the raft, which triumphantly survived and remained afloat, though decidedly wet about the deck. They proceeded to unfurl the sail, which one boy held while the other two took to the oars, and, after some ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... times, a woman who was convicted of being a common mischief-maker and scold, was sentenced to the punishment of the ducking-stool; which consisted of a sort of chair fastened to a pole, in which she was seated and repeatedly let down into the water, amid the shouts of the rabble. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a woman convicted of the same offence ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... doctrines, plausible statements, bold assertions, appeals to the weaknesses of human nature, to our fancies, our eccentricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false philosophies. We see its agents, smiling and nodding and ducking to attract attention, as gipsies make up to truant boys, holding out tales for the nursery, and pretty pictures, and gilt gingerbread, and physic concealed in jam, and sugar-plums for good children. Who can but feel shame when the ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... succeeded in not insisting upon the fact—though to conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible—that Banghurst had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled by the deceased. The public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed "like a party that has been ducking a welsher," and there wasn't a soul in the train to London, it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying was a quite impossible thing for man. "But he might have tried it," said many, "after carrying the ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... as powerful man, proved himself more than a match for them all. During the melee he managed to throw himself in the way of one of the best-mounted among the Arabs, who instantly charged him, but Ted sprang aside and let him pass, ducking low to avoid a cut ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... admitted Jimmie, while Bruce circled around them, barking madly. "Now we'll have to look out that you don't surprise us more by catching cold from this ducking." ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... passed a plumire, or "hen-bath." Here was a tank—another thermal spring—in which the water was something more than "tepid." In fact, it was almost on the boil; and yet in this tank a number of women were ducking their hens—not, as might be supposed, dead ones, in order to scald off their feathers, but live fowls, to rid them, as they said, of parasitical insects, and make them feel more comfortable! As the water was almost hot enough to parboil ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... to pick it up, but no woodcock can he find; for on raising his eyes, lo! and behold, he sees the provoking bird some five hundred paces distant, cleaving the air with sails full set; and as his eyes follow it still further, he perceives it flying with all its might, ever and anon prudently ducking down ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... by the feelings of a long-trusted servant, whose sympathy with the mother's affections gives her privileges and rank in the household; and observe the mode of connection by accidents of time and place, and the childlike fondness of repetition in a second childhood, and also that happy humble, ducking under, yet constant resurgence against, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... stop for stories now, Tom," said sister Dora. "We must attend to our bathing. Here comes a wave that will give us a good ducking." ...
— The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... down in a chair to Puddock's lodgings, to borrow a pair of magnificent knee-buckles. Puddock had a second pair, and Cluffe's own had not, he thought, quite recovered their good looks since that confounded ducking on the night of the serenade. The gallant captain, learning that Puddock and Devereux intended walking—it was only a step across to the barrack-yard—and finding that Puddock could not at the moment lay his hand upon the buckles, and not wishing to keep the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 'em a ducking!" and in another moment there we were, myself and Ivimey, being lugged at a quick scuffle down the street towards the Severn. There was no hope of escape, and I had resigned myself to the imminent bath, when at a turn in the narrow ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... themselves against their accusers. Overcrowded? The ferry-boat had been as crowded on two previous days, and all had gone well. It was impossible to account for the accident. Since no further harm than a few minutes' ducking had happened to the passengers, the greater loss was on their ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... placed it on the top of the butt - which was full of water - and persuaded me to make this my rostrum. Here, again, in the midst of my harangue - perhaps I stamped to emphasize my horror of small loaves and other Tory abominations - the board gave way; and I narrowly escaped a ducking by leaping into the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Gasping, clawing the air, ducking, diving here and there to escape the stream, Herbert Hutton presented a spectacle most amusing and satisfying to ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... suppose I paid no heed; jumping, ducking, and breaking through, I ran straight before my nose, till ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... overheard his soft words in my ear, but to be sure, I added, "I think it would be suicide to disqualify myself from this case. That's just the first step to disqualifying myself from the job. If there's any hint of telepathic heredity in my case, ducking this decision would be a public admission that I'm sensitive in that area. ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... the owner of some extra garments, these were donned by the fellow who had received such a ducking; and, as the room was pleasantly warm, he experienced no ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... getting her afloat, when Basset, without his hat flung himself, in the extremity of his terror, headlong in, pitching Primus down upon the bottom, breaking his wooden leg, and capsizing Tom into the water. It was so shoal that he found no difficulty in getting in again, escaping with only a thorough ducking. It was now sauve que peut, and the three addressed themselves, so far as their bewildered faculties would permit, to the business ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... at each other like opposing birds of enormous size, passed and dived, as though ducking to avoid the hot fire. Tom looked back, hoping to discover the enemy winged and dropping out of the fight. Nothing of the kind occurred; but on the contrary his antagonist was sailing on, apparently untouched, at ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... of sparks jetted from the flint and steel of a patent cigar-lighter in the hands of the spy. And as Lanyard rose from his knees after ducking beneath the line, a stream of fatter sparks spat from ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... followed sure. If the law would not help, he never hesitated to employ lawlessness, of which he could always command a satisfactory supply. Bumble might have the Board of Guardians at his back, Shylock legal support for his pound of flesh; but sooner or later the dark night brought punishment, a ducking in dock basin or canal, "Brutal Assault Upon a Respected Resident" (according to the local papers), the "miscreants" always making and keeping good their escape, for he ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... actually repellant; not one should I, even under more favourable circumstances, have enjoyed meeting. The first time I caught water everybody in the town was returning from church, and a terrific sight it was. Vive la bourgeoisie, I said to myself, ducking the shafts of censure by the simple means of hiding my face behind the moving ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... delude the people, or to abuse their understanding by exercise of the pretended arts of witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, or sorcery, or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished by ducking and whipping, at the discretion of a jury, not, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... give her a ducking in the mud, near the hovel at the other end of the island," added Nicholas; "and if she comes up again, I'll put her under again with ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... place of the house: hee that comes into his neighbours house doth first salute his saints, although he see them not. If any foorme or stoole stand in his way, hee oftentimes beateth his browe vpon the same, and often ducking downe with his head, and body, worshippeth the chiefe Image. The habite, and attire of the Priests, and of the Lay men, doth nothing at all differ: as for marriage, it is forbidden to no man: onely this is receiued and held amongst them for a rule, and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... careful that they don't see your heads," admonished Lewis, ducking his own and gesticulating to those behind him. "Sh! look quick! there ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... this way," and she started with her hands out before her like some one feeling his way in the dark, though it was as bright about them as the electric lights could make it. All at once the door she had in view disappeared like magic and she stood before herself in a mirror ducking her head backwards and forwards like two young chickens with their beaks just touching in the preliminaries of a fight. The situation was becoming too serious to be ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... curious eye like a flash into the window and back again, ducking behind the boxes just in time to miss the heavy one coming out with an excited air, and a feverish eye up the track where the train was coming into view ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... as quick as they could, and put her to bed between hot blankets, and the next day she was none the worse for her ducking, though she carried the print of my teeth in her tender flesh for many a day; for how was I to know where the child's clothes left off and ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... and a Tory. "If," said he, "I saw a Whig and a Tory drowning, I would first save the Tory; and when I saw that he was safe, not till then, I would go and help the Whig; but the dog should duck first; the dog should duck;" laughing with pleasure at the thoughts of the Whig's ducking. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... sleigh-bells off-stage, and Mr. Creamer, rather poorly disguised as Santa Claus, will emerge from the opening in the imitation fire-place. A great popular demonstration for Mr. Creamer will follow. He will then advance to the footlights, and, rubbing his pillow and ducking his knees to denote joviality, will say thickly through his ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... noble, eloquent, human appeals, could the soul of power be reached and conquered then—the soul of him 'within whose eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,' the man of the thirty legions, to whom this argument must be dedicated. 'Ducking observances,' basest flatteries, sycophancies past the power of man to utter, personal humiliations, and prostrations that seemed to teach 'the mind a most inherent baseness,' these were the weapons,—the required weapons of the statesman's warfare ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... climbed a back fence and stole thru a neighbor's chicken-yard and got away. He had a fine time ducking and dodging in the crowds, making sure that no one was trailing him to his secret rendezvous—no "Red" who might chance to be suspicious of his "comradeship." It was in the "American House," an obscure hotel, and Peter was to take the elevator to the fourth floor, ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, was a shrew, and had she lived in New England in Cotton Mather's time would have been a candidate for the ducking-stool. Socrates said he married her for discipline. A man in East Aurora, however, has recently made it plain to himself that Xantippe was possessed of a great and acute intellect. She knew herself, and she knew her liege as he never did—he was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... places where the North, South, and Royal Lancashire Regiments lay, but it cost me a whole hour to find our Fusiliers. They are in reserve, with the supports and firing lines just in front of them, all on the steep slope of Hizlar Dagh. During Sick Parade we had to keep ducking from shells, the Turks evidently having discovered that the 86th Brigade was once more among them. As I was passing through the Dublin lines on my return to our base two shells fell just beyond them when de Boer shouted to me to take shelter under a projecting rock where all their officers ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... the times that he had with his companions, ducking under the rollers; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did; or playing ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... the singer lady, ducking her head behind Martin Luther again, but smiling up out of the ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... went, with the "ould dhragoon" skipping and bounding on before us, over fallen trees and mossy rocks; now ducking under the low, tangled branches of the white cedar, then carefully piloting us along rotten logs, covered with green moss, to save us from the discomfort of wet feet. All this time he still kept one of his feet safely ensconced in the boot, while the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... great piece of cruelty; he has insisted upon dragging Bailie Macwheeble out to the field of battle. Now, you must know, the Bailie's greatest horror is an armed Highlander or a loaded gun; and there he stands, listening to the Baron's instructions concerning the protest, ducking his head like a sea-gull at the report of every gun and pistol that our idle boys are firing upon the fields, and undergoing, by way of penance, at every symptom of flinching a severe rebuke from his patron, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... and you, Jerry, grab hold of this wheel here. Keep her just as we are, and dodge the big waves as they come, or else we'll all get a beautiful ducking." ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... Here, after ducking the man several times in the water, he laid him down gently on the dry ground, as much as to say, "Now, sir, behave yourself, and treat me like a gentleman, or I will give you ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... followed. He grew breathless with delight as the cool water stole soothingly around his body. He wanted it over his back, too, so went farther out. Then he felt that the water could hold him up, and began to swim. He swam all around Karr, ducking and snorting, perfectly ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... snapped across, and, falling heavily on the gunwale, he would have upset the little craft had not Jacques, whose wits were habitually on the qui vive, thrown his own weight at the same moment on the opposite side, and counterbalanced Charley's slip. The action saved them a ducking; but the canoe, being left to its own devices for an instant, whirled off again into the stream, and before Charley could seize a paddle to prevent it, they were floating in the still water at the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... You may or may not find some bits on page 706, such as the ducking in the pond of the political agitator (very small figures including the old Postman, ex-soldier of Chelsea Pensioner type). Old inn and coach in distance, geese (not the human ones) ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... those officers who paid a hasty visit now and then to the lines, ducking his head when his guide said, "Duck, sir!" where the wall of the traverse was low, and who, after a perfunctory glance about him through a gold-rimmed monocle went back again to headquarters, "having seen nothing and learned nothing." General Dashwood knew ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... located in Allegheny (just across the river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no protection against Indians there, an amendment established Pittsburgh as the county seat. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at "The Point" in ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... become a little too sentimental. During the Trafalgar Square riots in 1887, it was suggested by some that the Fire Brigade should pump cold water on to the rioters in order to disperse them; and one writer seriously deprecated such a step, on the ground that possibly the poor fellows who got the ducking might catch cold! It is possible to go from one extreme to another, and, while wishing to avoid harshness and cruelty in any form, to become too sentimental, and thus do harm in an opposite direction. Sentimental people too often forget ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... such an awkward hurry, grinning and leering the whole time, that you would have thought he had just started from a dream; and even then he would generally forget to finish the rude ceremony by making one of his ducking bows. It is true, indeed, he had been under the hands of a dancing master; but notwithstanding the utmost care and assiduity of his teacher, who was esteemed a very excellent one; he was never able to perform a whit better than he does in his present shape. In short, ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... to have it ready for immediate use, should occasion require it, they ran the risk of forfeiting the right of holding a market, which was a most serious matter in the olden time. Lords of Manors, in addition to having the right of a pillory, usually had a ducking-stool and gallows. Thomas de Chaworth, in the reign of Edward III., made a claim of a park, and the right of free warren, at Alfreton, with the privilege of having a gallows, tumbrel, ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... get into St. Albans, and see whether there is any fresh information to hand. If possible, I should like to run over to Shefford, for I want to look at the place where I had my ducking, and recover the piece of cord with which that almighty scoundrel secured me. Then there's the inquest at Towcester at twelve, and sometime to-day I must put in an appearance at head-quarters to hand in my report. Perhaps ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... Blackthorne with a ducking-chair. (Blackthorne and Caldwell carry between them a rude chair fashioned hastily from wood on which the bark still clings.) Well and ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... a short, though exciting scene. Five of them were speared and drowned, while the sixth crawled out upon the ice and was rapidly making off, frightened enough at his cold ducking. ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... game of preaching. We made friendly but derisive gestures at him, and from below he lifted one arm, holding on with the other, moved his lips; he beamed up to us, straining his voice—earnest, and ducking his ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... for her health," said Joceline, "lest I give her a ducking for digestion.—But give me the pitcher, Mistress Alice—meeter I bear it than you.—How now? what jingles at the bottom? have you lifted the pebbles as well as ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... eloquent, human appeals, could the soul of power be reached and conquered then—the soul of him 'within whose eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,' the man of the thirty legions, to whom this argument must be dedicated. 'Ducking observances,' basest flatteries, sycophancies past the power of man to utter, personal humiliations, and prostrations that seemed to teach 'the mind a most inherent baseness,' these were the weapons,—the required weapons of the statesman's warfare ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
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