"Crone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wind blew from the place of rains; and upon the one hand of her the sea beat, and upon the other the dead leaves ran. This was the loneliest beach between two seas, and strange things had been done there in the ancient ages. Now the King's daughter was aware of a crone that sat upon the beach. The sea-foam ran to her feet, and the dead leaves swarmed about her back, and the rags blew about her face in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have learnt to sit behind the stove like an old crone, and to dangle at the apronstrings of the women. You have been dragged to meeting as tamely as a Spanish monk's mule; that is what ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Strange to relate, a battered Bible was seldom out of his sight; and whenever he had leisure, and his mistress' back was turned, he was forever poring over it. This pious propensity used to enrage the old crone past belief; and oftentimes she boxed his ears with the book, and tried to burn it. Mother Tot and her man Josy were, indeed, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... was the time of the war. The neighbors told of some maiden aunt, an old crone like herself, who had left Joe's mother ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... aged crone sat on the beach, And, pointing to the ship, "She'll never return again," she said, With a scorn upon ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... be only an idea of mine, born of after brooding upon the scene. I am inclined to think it must be so, for I was only a child at the time, and would hardly have noticed such a thing. But it seems to my remembrance that as the old crone ceased, another woman in the crowd raised her eyes slowly, and fixed them on a withered, ancient man, who leant upon a stick, and that for a moment, unnoticed by the rest, these two stood looking strangely ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... both disputants hung back. The woman—an old crone, with a face like a carved nutcracker—dropped an obeisance and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground. The man shifted his weight from foot to foot while he glanced furtively from one to the other of us. I recognised ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... summons. Ellinor sprang forward and detained her: the poor old woman stared at her in amazement, wholly unable to comprehend her abrupt gestures and her rapid language. It was with considerable difficulty and after repeated efforts, that she at length impressed the dulled sense of the crone with the nature of their alarm, and the expediency of refusing admittance to the Stranger. Meanwhile, the bell had rung again,—again, and the third time with a prolonged violence which testified the impatience ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... replied, "No," and Obayd said, "Belike thou art grown used to them." Then they broke their fast and drank coffee, after which they fared forth to their affairs, and Kamar al-Zaman betook himself to the old crone, and related to her what had passed, And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the pigs and the goats, were the blackest of picaninnies. Everywhere black faces peered from black squares of windows, most of them cheery and round and prosperous looking, but here and there a tragically old crone with witch-like white hair. ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... an amiable rheumatic native woman, and a crone who must have lived a century, much shrivelled and tattooed, and nearly childish. She talks to herself in weird tones, stretches her lean limbs by the fire most of the day, and in common with most of the old people has a prejudice against clothes, and prefers huddling herself up in a ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... manifold." "And a woman thirty of age?"—"One who the hearts of enjoyers can engage." "And in her fortieth year?"—"Fat, fresh and fair doth she appear." "And of the half century?"—"The mother of men and maids in plenty." "And a crone of three score?"—"Men ask of her never more." "And when three score and ten?"—"An old trot and remnant of men." "And one who reacheth four score?"—"Unfit for the world and for the faith forlore." "And ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... shove together, and it flew open. The hut was much larger than we had expected to find it, and would afford, I saw at a glance, not only shelter for the ladies but for all our party, and for the horses also. At the farther end sat an old crone, her white locks escaping from under her coif; and her bony arms, which were bare to the elbow, extended over a large pan, beneath which were burning coals. She glanced round at us with a ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... The crone continued her orgies, one time blowing her fire, again stirring the liquid in the caldron, and then making it run from the end of a stick that she might note its gelidity. All her operations were being gone through to call up certain familiar ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... was Prince of fragrant Eleusis. There sat she at the wayside in sorrow of heart, by the Maiden Well whence the townsfolk were wont to draw water. In the shade she sat; above her grew a thick olive-tree; and in fashion she was like an ancient crone who knows no more of child-bearing and the gifts of Aphrodite, the lover of garlands. Such she was as are the nurses of the children of doom-pronouncing kings. Such are the housekeepers ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... the white men who stepped forward to meet her, desiring Squanto to assure her of welcome. Coming so close to the little group that Standish muttered, "Sure she is minded to salute us," the poor old crone peered into the face of one after another of the white men, then wofully shook her head and began to mutter in her own tongue with strange gesticulations, but as he heard them Squanto uttered a shrill cry ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... old man, seer, patriarch, graybeard; grandfather, grandsire; grandam; gaffer, gammer; crone; pantaloon; sexagenarian, octogenarian, nonagenarian, centenarian; old stager; dotard &c 501. preadamite^, Methuselah, Nestor, old Parr; elders; forefathers &c (paternity) 166. Phr. superfluous lags the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sixteen children, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in a roadside tent. She says that she was married out of one of these tents; and her brother died and was buried out of a tent at Packington, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch.' The experience of this old crone is akin to that of most of her class. She also tells Mr. Smith that she could not read herself, and she did not believe one in twenty could. Morally, as well as from a sanitary point of view, Gipsy life, as it really exists, is a social plague-spot, and consequently a social danger. Especially ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... and quiet, did as she was bid, stirred the fire, till its ruddy glow brightened every nook of the little white-washed chamber, and made the old crone beside it wince and mutter in her sleep. Having shielded her from its fierce light, she then, with trembling fingers, opened a little penknife which lay upon the table, and cut the twine with which the cover was sewed at the back. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... photograph showing General Emilio Aguinaldo as he is to-day, standing with Director of Education Frank L. Crone, beside a field of corn raised by Emilio Aguinaldo, Jr., in a school contest, typifies the peace, prosperity, and enlightenment which have been brought about in the Philippine Islands under ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... "Any old crone's would serve as well for a lullaby," she answered, playfully. "Now go, and be sure you find out whether the countess liked the chocolate ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... scene of bustle and noise, at the door of a small tent, sat two female gypsies. One of these was the queen, an aged crone, who, though bent with age and care, and wrinkled by time and the indulgence of vehement passions, yet prided herself upon the unfrosted darkness of her raven tresses, which fell over her shoulders in profusion. A turban of rich crimson cloth crowned her head, and a shawl ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... meaning— For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning; If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow, 430 She, foolish today, would be wiser tomorrow; And who so fit a teacher of trouble As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double? So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture, (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture, The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate With the loathsome squalor ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... apathetically and could not stir. He saw tears on Margaret's face; and once he was sure he heard Forsythe's voice in contempt: "Well, he seems to be well occupied for the present! No danger of his waking up for a while!" and then the voices all grew dim and far away again, and only an old crone and the harsh girl's whisper over him; and then Margaret's tears—tears that fell on his heart from far above, and seemed to melt out all his early sins and flood him with their horror. Tears and the consciousness that he ought to be doing something for Margaret now ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... wandered about town to find a maiden for the Prince Zayn al-Asnam. Whatever notable beauty she saw she would set before Mubarak; but each semblance as it was considered in the mirror showed exceedingly dark and dull, and the inspector would dismiss the girl. This endured until the crone had brought to him all the damsels in Cairo, and not one was found whose reflection in the mirror showed clear-bright and whose honour was pure and clean, in fact such an one as described by the King of the Jann. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... old crone leaning on a crutch. "He has been confined these fifteen years in the house, which he'll ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... thinking," said Betsey; "you be wonderin' how I got so much sperrits. Well, p'raps I shall tell 'ee zoon. We sh'll zee, Jasper, we sh'll zee." And with that the old crone chuckled. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... play Beguiles the rustic's closing day, When, drawn the evening fire about, Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout, And child upon his three-foot stool, Waiting until his supper cool, And maid whose cheek outblooms the rose, As bright the blazing fagot glows, Who, bending to the friendly light, Plies her task with busy sleight, Come, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... reprobates. He's just the kind of protector you need in these lurid times, when it seems as if no one could be trusted. To think that that boy Chunk, who has been treated so well, could play us such an infernal trick! His old crone of a grandam must know something about it, and I'll make her tell. Perkins!" and Mr. Baron ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... understand in the present day the deep-seated faith in amulets and charms, which were thought to have brought about what would now be regarded as curious coincidences, or to place reliance upon the babbling utterances of some old crone who posed as a witch or a fortune-teller. Yet among such old-world stories there are germs of truth although misapplied. The emblems, amulets, and charms so implicitly believed in a few centuries ago are objects numbered among ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... how I came to know that Agatha Webb had money in her house," said Mr. Sutherland, as they stepped back into the other room. "Two days ago, as I was sitting with my family at table, old gossip Judy came in. Had Mrs. Sutherland been living, this old crone would not have presumed to intrude upon us at mealtime, but as we have no one now to uphold our dignity, this woman rushed into our presence panting with news, and told us all in one breath how she ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... elbows, the veins in his arms standing out like cords, his legs wrapped in a blanket and resting upon a stool, sat Dr. Buzzard, to all appearances in a deep sleep. On the floor, close to the hearth, was a most evil-looking old crone, continually stirring a pot bubbling on the coals. She threw one glance at Religion, and went on stirring. The doctor never moved. A splendid-looking mulatto noiselessly brought a box, and the girl ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... glance of stupid hate Behind him, every step he took, Where followed him, like following fate, An aged crone, with bloated look: A something checked his listless gait; She neared him, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... her, no doubt, from the fancied resemblance of a lava flow, which, when in the form of a-a, rolls and tumbles along over the surface of the ground in a manner suggestive of the motions and attitude of a palsied crone.] [Page 201] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... about me Like an enchanted palace, and I wished I knew enough of magic or of Witchcraft To change them into gold. Then suddenly A tree shook down some crimson leaves upon me, Like drops of blood, and in the path before me Stood Tituba the Indian, the old crone. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... relief for poor Fleda. Aunt Syra was her next neighbour, and opposite to her, at Miss Anastasia's left hand, was the disagreeable countenance and peering eyes of the old crone, her mother. Fleda kept her own eyes fixed upon her plate, and endeavoured to see ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... passing up the path, met a woman named Ma' Chik—a very aged, bent, and feeble crone—and her he stabbed in the breast, killing her on the spot. Thence he went to the compound of a pilgrim named Haji Mih, who was engaged in getting his property out of his house in case the fire spread. Haji Mih asked To' Kaya ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... one day to the old crone, when she was alone, and her stout son was away on a distant job. He told her to remove the charm, which she had laid on his beasts, or he would tie her arms and legs together, and ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... bringing him a roundabout way, introduces him into Sir Cautious' house, where, after having been entertained with a masque of dances and songs as by spirits, he is conducted to Lady Fulbank's chamber by her maid disguised as an ancient crone, and admitted to his mistress' embraces. Meanwhile Sir Feeble Fainwou'd, who just at the moment of entering the bridal chamber has been hurriedly fetched away by Bellmour under the pretext of an urgent message from Sir Cautious concerning some ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... failed to enable Siner utterly to annihilate his adversary. Jim Pink Staggs, a dapper gentleman of ebony blackness, of pin-stripe flannels and blue serge coat— altogether a gentleman of many parts—sat on one of the bales and indolently watched an old black crone fishing from a ledge of rocks just a little way below the wharf-boat. Around Jim Pink lounged and sprawled black men and youths, stretching on the cotton-bales like cats in ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Mackenzie's only daughter. And naturally these rumors and stories were exaggerated by the kindly interest and affection of the people into something far beyond what Sheila's father intended; insomuch that many an old crone would proudly and sagaciously wag her head, and say that when Miss Sheila came back to Borva strange things might be seen, and it would be a proud day for Mr. Mackenzie if he was to go down to the shore to meet Queen Victoria herself, and the princes and princesses, and many fine people, all come ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... picture as he ran, of an old crone, crazed by excitement, whirling like a dervish, rocking her skinny arms and twisting her neck into attitudes as ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... witch," she said, with gayety. "You young men, at least, think every old, toothless gray-haired crone like me ready for the ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Holloway, sir Richard Heath, sir Roger l'Estrange William Molineux, Thomas Tynde-sly, colonel Townley, colonel Lundy, Robert Brent, Edward Morgan, Philip Burton, Richard Graham, Edward Petre, Obadiah Walker, Matthew Crone, and George ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... a wrestling match in earnest between Thor and the ancient crone Ellie. Round and round the hall they wrestled, and Thor was not able to bend the old woman backward nor sideways. Instead he became less and less able under her terrible grasp. She forced him down, down, and at last ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... he, "is shaped us the true idea of a witch,—an old, weather-beaten crone, having her chin and her knees meeting for age, walking like a bow, leaning on a staff; hollow-eyed, untoothed, furrowed on her face, having her limbs trembling with the palsy, going mumbling in the streets; one that hath forgotten her Pater-noster, and ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... was young in years, But often in mid-spring will blighting winds Do autumn's work; and there is grief at heart Can do the work of years, can pale the cheek, And cloud the brow, and sober down the spirit. This gewgaw scene hath fewer charms for her Than for the crone, that numbering sixty winters, Pronounceth it all folly.—Marvel not ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... cheeked, wrinkled, with nose and chin almost meeting. Bent almost double, they walked about with a crutch, shaking and mumbling as they went. If any one had an ache or a pain it was easily accounted for. For why, they were bewitched! The poor old crone was the witch who had "cast the evil eye" upon them. And sometimes these poor creatures were put to death for their so-called ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... and limbs, and then have rubbed their own. A young woman went up to him, rubbed the back of his neck, and then rubbed her own. Then a modest-looking girl, leading an ancient woman with badly inflamed eyelids and paralysed arms, rubbed his eyelids, and then gently stroked the closed eyelids of the crone. Then a coolie, with a swelled knee, applied himself vigorously to Binzuru's knee, and more gently to his own. Remember, this is the great temple of the populace, and "not many rich, not many noble, not many mighty," enter its dim, dirty, crowded ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... if she had really been going to say that at first. They went back, and the subject was smoothed over, and her aunt took rather kindly to Sue, telling her that not many young women newly married would have come so far to see a sick old crone like her. In the afternoon Sue prepared to depart, Jude hiring a neighbour to ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years, would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing and in review of those slips and errors which ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... transgressed the decalogue,—and why should I despair of my share of the good things of life? I am neither Cain nor Jezebel, and therefore Fates and Furies have no warrant to dog my footsteps. Moreover, how do I know that Destiny is indeed the hideous, vindictive crone that luckless wretches have painted her, instead of an amiable, good soul, who is quite as willing to scatter blessings as curses? Because some dyspeptic Greek dreamed of three pitiless old weavers, blind to human tears, deaf to human petitions, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... said to be a hundred years of age, was sent for by the Board of Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous figures, and the contrast their appearance offered to that of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty knows, sir,' was her reply, 'but ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... I hadn't done laughing," said the crone. "I had only got to Hi, hi! and I had to go through Ho, ho! and Hu, hu! So I decree that if she wakes all night she shall wax and wane with its mistress, the moon. And what that may mean I hope her royal parents will live to ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Thereupon the crone took the shining cauldron, wherefrom {*} she set to wash his feet, and poured in much cold water and next mingled therewith the warm. Now Odysseus sat aloof from the hearth, and of a sudden he turned his face to the darkness, for anon he ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... An old crone with a face like a withered apple followed her, whining for a nickel. The others stared at her with the stolid dignity of their race. She gave the woman the nickel ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... old and very ugly woman was there exposing to sale. All that escaped being smashed to pieces was scattered away, and the street-urchins joyfully divided the booty which this quick gentleman had thrown in the way. At the murder-shriek which the crone set up, her gossips, leaving their cake and brandy-tables, encircled the young man, and with plebeian violence stormfully scolded him, so that, for shame and vexation, he uttered no word, but merely held out his small and by no means ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... of that old crone Marie there. He caught the dope habit evidently from his master and has been to the bad ever since Arsdale senior died. The old lady has been hiding him part of the time in the ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... with his big fists, until the sound of footsteps within, descending the stairs, showed that he had succeeded in rousing somebody. A ray of light shone through the cracks in the rickety old door, then it was cautiously opened just a little, and an aged, withered crone, striving to protect the flame of her flaring candle from the wind with one skinny hand, and to hold the rags of her most extraordinary undress together with the other, peered out at them curiously. She was evidently just as she had turned out ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "The old crone is lost on the same day that the young governor was missing, eh? Very significant. I want you to take a paper for me to the Peakeville Gazette. I will advertise a thousand dollars reward for the discovery of that woman. She knows ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... said the old crone, before he could arise to leave her sight, "tell me, I pray thee, what hard thing ye seek. I am old, and have had much wisdom. It may happen that I can help you out of the great trouble ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... enemy, old Mrs. Herne. Only the accidental appearance of the Welsh preacher, Peter Williams, saved him. Years afterwards, in 1854, it may be mentioned here, he told a friend in Cornwall that his fits of melancholy were due to the poison of a Gypsy crone. He spent a week in the company of the preacher and his wife, and was about to cross the Welsh border with them when Jasper Petulengro reappeared, and he turned back. Jasper told him that Mrs. Herne had hanged herself out ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... sunshine there is a chill in the wind that tells of approaching storm. All this is warranted by the prophetic rhymes which are several times spoken, beginning—"When the last lord of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride." A crone, Ailsie Gourlay by name, embodied with grim and grisly vigour by Alice Marriott,—whose ample voice and exact elocution, together with her formidable stature and her faculty of identification with the character that ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... eternal strength. Before the gate Stood eager EXPECTATION, as to list The half-heard murmurs issuing from within, Her mouth half-open'd, and her head stretch'd forth. On the other side there stood an aged Crone, Listening to every breath of air; she knew Vague suppositions and uncertain dreams, Of what was soon to come, for she would mark The paley glow-worm's self-created light, And argue thence of kingdoms overthrown, And desolated nations; ever fill'd With undetermin'd terror, ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... the negresses who had watched my couch during my illness there was one old crone who appeared to exert considerable authority over the others. She was exceedingly attentive to me, and I gathered from the few words that passed between us that she had heard of me, and that she was grateful to me for ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a sharpshooter as any in the rifle-pits around Richmond. A hard walk up-hill for a quarter of an hour brought him to the brow of the cliff on which stood the forlorn and wind-swept house where John Manning lay. An unkempt and hideous old crone as black as night opened the door for him. He left in the hall his hat and overcoat and a little square box he had brought in his hand; and then he followed the ebony hag up-stairs to Colonel Manning's room. Here at the door she left him, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... weep at it, when the old crone who nursed me would tell it over as I sat by her side in the evening. See, here is holy relic that my mother wore round her neck, and my nurse hung round mine. It has never been parted from me. So I grew up to the years of pagehood, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she said?" mumbled a weak, angry voice somewhere behind Crefton's shoulder. Turning hastily, he beheld another old crone, thin and yellow and wrinkled, and evidently in a high state of displeasure. Obviously this was Martha Pillamon in person. The orchard seemed to be a favourite promenade for the aged women of ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... The old crone gave him one angry glance, which sank frightened beneath the cruel gleam of his eyes, and hastening up the stairs with a quicker stride than her age seemed to warrant, cried out, "Mistress, mistress! here is Mr. Losely! Jasper Losely himself!" ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thou antiquated crone, art thou? I ne'er forget a face, but names I can't So well remember. I have seen thee oft. When in the middle season of the night, Curved with a cucumber, or knotted hard With an eclectic pie, I've striven to keep My head and heels asunder, thou has come, With ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... indeed! I have something better to do than that!' And slamming the gate in the crone's face she went her way. And she never heard the words that followed her: 'You shall not have done ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... met my sight, Grinning back to me as my own; I well-nigh fainted with affright At finding me a haggard crone. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... Australian explorations. He was to have plenty of opportunity for the study of the Australian Aborigine, who, by and by, received him in better wise than at the point of a spear. Somewhere, an old crone felt inspired to hug and kiss him, in the belief that he was her own dead son, spun white, and back on earth. Having recruited from his earlier sufferings, he had gone by Perth, up the coast to Shark's Bay in an American whaler. He arranged to make a depot of Bernier Island, ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... so!" returned De Fulke. "From overgluttony, from over wine-bibbing, from cringing to a king's leman, from quaking at a king's frown, from unbonneting to a greasy mob, from marrying an old crone for vile gold, may the saints ever keep Raoul de Fulke and his sons! Amen!" This speech, in which every sentence struck its stinging satire into one or other of the listeners, was succeeded by an awkward silence, which Montagu was ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the hall-floor and abided them; and they saw him and his shining war-gear, and ceased their talking and laughter, and drew round about him, and gazed at him; but none said aught till an old crone came forth from the ring, and said "Who art thou, standing under weapons in ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... the first syllable: 'history' and 'story'; 'etiquette' and 'ticket'; 'escheat' and 'cheat'; 'estate' and 'state'; and, older probably than any of these, 'other' and 'or';—or with a dropping of the last syllable, as 'Britany' and 'Britain'; 'crony' and 'crone';—or without losing a syllable, with more or less stress laid on the close: 'regiment' and 'regimen'; 'corpse' and 'corps'; 'bite' and 'bit'; 'sire' and 'sir'; 'land' or 'laund' and 'lawn'; 'suite' and 'suit'; 'swinge' and 'swing'; 'gulph' and 'gulp'; 'launch' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... her tapering fingers a cigarette, which she occasionally raises to her "ripe red lips", afterwards languidly following with her lustrous black eyes the blue wreaths of smoke as they float above her head and vanish in the air; next, the withered crone, with silver hair, wrinkled skin, and no trace of her early beauty, sitting in the chimney corner, and still smoking, though now it is a clay pipe,—to the amazement and disgust of the villagers. Yet we, believing in the only correct interpretation of noblesse oblige, and that he only ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... I sate, marble, as they, when rose The Hunter and the Crone; and smiling on me— Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of The Hunter smiled upon me—I should say, His lips, for his eyes moved not—and the woman's Thin lips relaxed to something like a smile. Both rose, and the crowned figures on each hand Rose also, as if aping their chief shades— ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... by loud laughter and tramping came from the road—a sound of numerous footsteps. Zora listened, leapt to her feet and started to the door. The old crone threw an epithet after her; but she flashed through the lighted doorway and was gone, followed by the oath and shouts from the approaching men. In the hut night fled with wild song and revel, and day dawned again. Out from some ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a withered crone, who, to his question whether Mr. Froud was in, answered in an injured tone, "Yes, he was in; he always was;" and, as she spoke, she half-pushed the visitor into a room on the left side of the entrance, and vanished from the ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... me, the man who had conducted the horse to the stable entered the apartment, and discovered to me a countenance yet more uninviting than that of the old crone who was performing with such dexterity the office of cook to the party. He was perhaps sixty years old; yet his brow was not much furrowed, and his jet-black hair was only grizzled, not whitened, by the advance of age. All his motions spoke strength unabated; and, though rather ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... her nativity. When once this disaffected animal had been conquered and cast out, Asako's future should be a very bright one. The family witch agreed with the Fujinami that the Dog had in all probability departed with the foreign husband. Then the toothless crone breathed three times upon the mouth, breasts and thighs of Asako; and when this operation was concluded, she stated her opinion that there was no reason, obstetrical or esoteric, why the ransomed daughter of the house of Fujinami should not become the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... wanes; the children are grown; Fun and frolic no more he knows; Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; When you can pipe that merry old strain, Robert of Lincoln, come ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... The old crone, knuckled, hard-breathing, climbed in, holding uncertainly to the windscreen and pulling after her her ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... Sibyl, as all the countryside called her, an old crone who had, since before the memory of our oldest patriarchs, lived in a cave in the woods on the Aemilian Estate, supported by the gifts doled out to her by the kindness, respect or fear of the slaves and peasantry living nearest her abode, for she ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... aetate declivis, diu vidua, mater olim, parum decore matrimonium sequi videtur, an old widow, a mother so long since ([4741]in Pliny's opinion), she doth very unseemly seek to marry, yet whilst she is [4742]so old a crone, a beldam, she can neither see, nor hear, go nor stand, a mere [4743]carcass, a witch, and scarce feel; she caterwauls, and must have a stallion, a champion, she must and will marry again, and betroth herself to some young man, [4744]that hates to look on, but for her goods; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... he heard the crone mutter some words, which Mobarec imagined to be used in order to stifle the ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... fire to blind the sight With splendour built of fruitful things in ashes; The gory chariot-wheel on cries for justice; Her deepest planted and her liveliest voice, Heard from the babe as from the broken crone. Behold him in his vessel of bronze encased, And tumbled down the cave. But rather look - Ah, that the woman tattler had not sought, Of all the Gods to let her secret fly, Hermes, after the thirteen songful months! Prompting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... flitting up and down the ward smiles appeared on wan and sorrowful faces, and querulous murmurs were hushed. Even to-day the patients nodded to her languidly as she passed, observing with transitory cheerfulness that they were kilt with the hate, or that it was terrible weather entirely. One crone raised herself sufficiently to remark that it was a fine thing for the counthry, glory be to God! which patriotic sentiment won a smile from Sister Louise, but failed to awaken much ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... along without him? How honest and affable! What long ells and heavy pounds he gave! And then his tea! how it inspired the village gossip on long winter nights in a chimney corner! All the matrons of the village were quite in love with Tom, or his tea; and many an old crone, as she sat inhaling cup after cup of the divine beverage, has been known to pause in the midst of her inspirations, and exclaim with uplifted hands, 'God ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... strength and have good reason to be grateful. You might think you were rewarding her by marrying her; but you'll find your mistake. Look at Simpson! Could a man have done a girl a worse turn than he did when he married Florrie Crone? They haven't a thought in common except when he's ill and she nurses him; but a man can't be always getting ill in order to keep in touch with his wife. I don't know, of course, what this girl's like; but half of them are adventuresses ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... fear, as he wandered, muttering to himself, among the sandhills and along the beach. After a while the power of thought and a sense of the outward things of life returned to him. He found that an aged crone from the village had established herself in his house, and was caring for Hyacinth. He let her stay, and according to her abilities she cooked and washed for him and the boy, neither asking wages nor taking orders ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... Snecky. His son left Thrums at the age of ten for the distant farm of Tirl, and did not return until the old bellman's death, twenty years afterward; but the first remark he overheard on entering the kirk-wynd was a conjecture flung across the street by a gray-haired crone, that he would be "little Snecky come ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... children, and the scolding of the mother, which had preceded the dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... increased our curiosity, and, after some flattering language about Janet's good nature, retentive memory, and Covenanting lineage, the old crone proceeded to the following purpose; and, as nearly as we can mind, (for it is a tale o' fifty years,) repeated it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... everybody don't know him; but I do—he's a devil I And women love him, always did love him, the fools! Why, I used to love him. You wouldn't think that now, would you? Well, I did." She laughed a broken cackle, and seemed surprised that her listener remained mute. "Did you love him?" demanded the crone sneeringly. ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... before his men. He flung off the old crone's cap which he had worn so cleverly. "Come, kill me, then, lord," he called, cheerfully. "Here am I, waiting for your pikes and their pokes. Hasten to make sure business of it, for I am in ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... her reception-days. An Elysian master of ceremonies was waiting for me, and I followed him into the salon where Madame Faure sat, surrounded by numerous ladies. A servant wrestled in vain with my name, "Crone" being the only thing he seized, but the master of ceremonies announced to the President that I was the Danish Minister's wife, after which things went smoothly. To leave no doubt in the other guests' minds that I was a person of distinction and the ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... sentiment, without any pre-occupants. There was not a soul on the island, but the innkeeper, his wife, a child, a cook, a crone who did all sorts of work, and three Prussian soldiers, who were billeted on the house, part of a detachment that we had seen scattered along the road, all the way from Bonn. I do not know which were the most gladdened by the meeting, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... what nonsense!" Anstice, whose mother had been an Irishwoman, had heard of the superstition before, had even known an old crone in a little Irish cabin high up in the mountains who had, so it was said, practised the rite with success; but to hear the unholy gospel from Cherry's innocent lips was distinctly distasteful; and instinctively he tried to shake her ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... gentleman's family, whether there were men servants in the house, and whether a dog was kept. In fact, she made herself fully acquainted with Mr. Yates' domestic arrangements. This was thought nothing of at the time, but the old crone's curiosity was recalled to mind after the event took place, which ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... down to soothe the weary eyes, How all the griefs and heart-aches we have known Come up like pois'nous vapors that arise From some base witch's caldron, when the crone, To work some potent spell, her magic plies. The past which held its share of bitter pain, Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise, Comes up, is lived and suffered o'er again, Ere sleep comes down to ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... an old crone, the "father and mother" of all corncrakes, who comforted him, cossetted him, and from a fund of deep experience offered him hints on voice production. She also gave him of a nostrum of toadwort and garlic, which mollified his lacerated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... fair, or feast, or waddin', The crone's in the sulks, for she 'd fain be gaddin', A wink to the girls sets her soul a-maddin', She 's a shame and sorrow to me. If I stop at the hostel to buy me a gill, Or with a good fellow a moment sit still, Her fist it ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Marseilles, was one day starting on a journey with his whole force to Avignon. He met an old woman herb-gathering at daybreak, and said, 'Mother, hast thou seen a crow or other bird?' 'Yea,' answered the crone, 'on the trunk of a dead willow.' Beral counted upon his fingers the day of the year, and turned bridle. With troubadours of name and note they had dealings, but not always to their own advantage, as the following story testifies. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... do not know whether Butler thus wrote his name. As late as in 1660, a Dr. Crovne was at such a loss to have his name pronounced rightly, that he tried six different ways of writing it, as appears by printed books; Cron, Croon, Crovn, Crone, Croone, and Crovne; all of which appear under his own hand, as he wrote it differently at different periods of his life. In the subscription book of the Royal Society he writes W. Croone, but in his will at the Commons he signs W. Crovne. Ray the naturalist informs us that he first ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... for practising them. He then conceded to the impetuous penitent the kiss of peace, in a slight embrace which was like the accolade given by a monarch to new knights.[308] The whole scene is ignoble. We seem to be watching an unclean cauldron, with Theresa's mother, a cringing and babbling crone, standing witch-like over it and infusing suspicion, falsehood, and malice. When minds are thus surcharged, any accident suffices to release the evil creatures that ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... company did full justice to the precious tallow and smacked their lips over it as a great delicacy. A lot of potatoes about the size of walnuts, boiled and peeled and added to a potful of salmon, made a savory stew that all seemed to relish. An old, cross-looking, wrinkled crone presided at the steaming chowder-pot, and as she peeled the potatoes with her fingers she, at short intervals, quickly thrust one of the best into the mouth of a little wild-eyed girl that crouched beside her, a spark of natural love which charmed her withered face ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... prospered afterwards; their crops failed, the fisheries failed, and they became extinct in the second generation. The last of them, Ursula Babb, the grand-daughter of John, was to be seen wandering up and down the little beach of Lynmouth, a half-crazed old crone, cursed with the evil-eye, and babbling disjointed and incoherent stories of the ruin ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... it, you know; but it's not till this next Act that I show my full power. [Curtain rises on a drawing-room, furnished with dingy wrecks from the property-room—the home of JASPER, the Villain, who is about to give an evening party. Enter a hooded crone. "Sir JASPER, I have a secret of importance, which can only be revealed to your private ear!" (Shivers of apprehension amongst the audience.) Sir J. "Certainly, go into yonder apartment, and await me there." (Sigh of relief from spectators.) A Footman. "Sir, the guests wait!" Sir ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... to ward off old age by some of my potions made from these roots I carry here, a bundle too heavy for an ancient crone like me to bear on her back? Thou shalt have none ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... minister, ethics its lord. It spares no prejudice, respects no habit, honours no tradition. Institutions are stubble in the fire it kindles. The present and the past it throws without remorse into the jaws of the future. It is the angel with the flaming sword swift to dispossess the crone that sits ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... lifelike as to get quite interwoven with our impressions of the present; and from that moment the past must share, in a measure, some of the everyday thoughts which we give to the present. In such a city as this, the sudden withdrawal, by sacristan or beggar-crone, of the curtain from before an altar-piece is many a time much more than the mere displaying of a picture: it is the sudden bringing us face to face with the real life of the Renaissance. We have ourselves, perhaps not an hour before, sauntered through ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... showed under the edge of the closed window-blind. In the room day was mingling incongruously with night, for the candle looked sickly, and the aged crone's face was of a leaden colour, lighted by the piercing eyes that brooded hungrily on her son— her only son: the dwarf had told her of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... old crone, leaping from her seat and dancing about the room, "the dhrame's come true at last! Och, hullybaloo! didn't I know that the pretty Paudeen wasn't born for the pig-stye! Bedad, but he'll ruffle the gentles! Wont ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... might change to a pitiful crone's, My lips to a lizard's, my hair to weed, My features, in fact, to a series of loans; Thus much is conceded; now, you, concede You would hardly salute me ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... care!" cried an aged old crone, "Take care what you promise," said she. "At first 'twill be fun, But, in the long run, You'll wish you had let the thing be. Through this stick with an eye I look and espy That for ages and ages you'll sit and you'll sew, And longer ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... batteries, searching round with apparent aimlessness, would drop a score or so of shells about the neighbourhood; but the peasant, with an indifference that was almost animal, would still follow his ox-drawn plough; the old, bent crone, muttering curses, still ply the hoe. The proprietors of the tiny epiceries must have been rapidly making their fortunes, considering the prices that they charged the unfortunate poilu, dreaming of some small luxury out of his five sous a day. But as one of them, a stout, smiling lady, explained ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the disappearance of the crone, had, however, made an impression; "'Twould be deuced provoking, though, if he should break my neck after all." He turned and gazed at Dolphin with the eye of a veterinary surgeon. "I'll be shot if he is not groggy!" said ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... never dies even in our modern society, is embodied in the gipsy crone who, in rags and scarcely clinging to life, suddenly lifts into youth and queenliness, just as in a society, where romance seems old or dead, it springs into fresh and lovely life. This is the heart of the poem, and it is made to beat the more quickly by the wretched attempt of the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... coming and her revelations as to some, at any rate, of James Gilverthwaite's history, we were just as wise as ever at the end of the first week after the murder of John Phillips. And it was just the eighth night after my finding of the body that I got into the hands of Abel Crone. ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... being remote from neighbors,—and the house placed under quarantine. Abner Blossom has prudently absented himself from the chances of infection, and the daughter has fled. The sick man is attended only by a black servant and an ancient crone; so that, if the poor major escapes with his life or without disfigurement, pretty Mistress Bolton of Morristown need ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... into the kitchen. An aged crone descended, and raking the charcoal embers, kindled a flame, by which the rower was enabled to ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... fairy-story for them, too, about a Princess who was so ill and unhappy that all the kingdom was searched far and wide for some one to cure her. And at last an old crone was found who swore that she had the right remedy. "What is it?" all the wise men asked; but the old woman said, "It is written in this scroll. To-morrow the Princess must start out alone upon a journey. Whatever ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... of all this, there crept out from among the woods an old crone, doubled up under the weight of a faggot of dry sticks, who stayed to stare at me. I did not mind her, but of a sudden she dropped her bundle of wood, and I saw that it was like to be a heavy task for her to raise it again. So I turned and laid hold of it, for she ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... do with this old crone?" Beorn said. "It would never do to risk her giving an alarm, and though she looks feeble she might be able to ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... my bosom? Tell me whither he is gone." Now when the duenna heard this, the light starkened in her sight and she feared from her mischief with sore affright, and said to her, "O my Lady Budur, what unseemly words are these?" Cried the Princess, "Woe to thee pestilent crone that thou art! I ask thee again where is my beloved, the goodly youth with the shining face and the slender form, the jetty eyes and the joined eyebrows, who lay with me last night from supper-tide until near daybreak?" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the hard marks of vice already branded on their features; young girls with flaunting ribbons and bold, flushed faces; pale-faced operatives, and strong men whose brawny limbs told of the Titanic labours of the foundry; the clerk from his desk; the shopkeeper from his store; the withered crone, and the careless navvy, swayed and struggled through the living mass; and with them trooped the legions of want, and vice, and ignorance, that burrow and fester in the foetid lanes and purlieus of the large British cities: from the dark alleys where misery ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... them to be decently drowned, for it's worse luck yet to tamper with a witch's cat's kittens, particularly when they're as black as the hinges of Gehenna. Mandy thinks their mother had them black as a delicate mark of respect for the late crone." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... That smote her. Half herself was reft away, Body and soul. Yet no repining word Announc'd her agony. The tolling bell To hill and valley, told with solemn tongue That death had been among them, and at door And window listening, aged crone and child Counted its strokes, a stroke for every year, And predicated thence, as best they might, Whom they had lost. Neighbor of neighbor ask'd, Till the sad tidings were possess'd ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... observed that the spirits shew a decided preference for plump young women. Hence when such a damsel is passing near a plot of haunted ground, if she does not wish to become a mother, she will disguise herself as an aged crone and hobble past, saying in a thin cracked voice, "Don't come to me. I am an old woman." Such spots are often stones, which the natives call child-stones because the souls of the dead are there lying in ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... amongst the rest, pitch'd on The Wife of Bath's Tale; not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue, because 't is too licentious: there Chaucer introduces an old woman of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight of noble blood was forc'd to marry, and consequently loath'd her; the crone being in bed with him on the wedding night, and finding his aversion, endeavors to win his affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... actress in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the character capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had inherited with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice or her lovely face, and when she had to represent some old crone in her dotage, or a stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces, screwing up her eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking.... She did not herself laugh during the reading; but when her audience (with ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Then the crone told her the story of Anaxarete who was so cold to her lover Iphis that he hanged himself, and she at the window watching his funeral train pass by was changed to a marble statue. Advising Pomona to avoid such a fate, Vertumnus donned his proper form, that of a handsome ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... crone I'd toady Like a lass in young-eyed prime, Could she tell some tale of Lodi At that moving ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... apart from the rest on the slope of the hill. Nature had carved it in a moment of prankishness. There were all the features of an old crone, forehead, nose, sunken mouth, nut-cracker jaws, while small streams of lava, hardening as they had flowed, gave ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod, So soothly kind is Erin to her own! And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone,— For Phelim's gone to tend his step-dame's cow; Ah! Phelim's step-dame is a canker'd crone! Whilst other twain play at an Irish row, And, with shillelah small, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... not by Cupid's coy advance (Some crone conniving at the fraud), But simply by mechanic chance, I get this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... squat down. They crone their wild refrain, praising the one who wins in strife and love. They seize in their right hand the hula gourd, clattering with pebbles inside. They whirl it aloft, they shake, they swing, they strike their palms, they thump the mat; and now with supple joints ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... no welcome for her and her whole life seems to be an apology. You read it in the face of every Indian girl or woman you meet, from the shrinking pathetic little figure in the camp to the bent old crone, whose upturned face with its sadly acceptive look gives you the flicker of ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... indeed, but also a woman in the full pride of her beauty and maturity. And this boy would condemn her—the most delightful, the most attractive, the most unselfish companion ever desired by a man—to sit in the chimney-corner like an old crone with a distaff, throughout all the years that fate may yet hold in store for her—with no greater interest in life than to watch the fading of her own sweet face in the glass, and to await the intervals during which he would be graciously pleased ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... himself the gladest goodliest figure, His honest face ruddy with health and joy, And smiling like the AEgean, when the sun Hangs high in heaven, and the freshening wind Comes in from Melos, rippling all its floor: And there was Manto too, the good old crone, So dear to children with her store of tales, Warmed with new life: how to her old grey face And withered limbs the very dance of youth Seemed to return, and in her aged eyes The waning fire rekindled: little Maeon, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... at last, with a sigh, "I must make acquaintance with this caricature of my former self. I must accustom myself to the mortifying fact that this is Maria Theresa, or I might some of these days call for a page to drive out that hideous old crone! I must learn, too, to be resigned, for it is the hand of my heavenly Father that has covered my face with this grotesque mask. Since He has thought fit to deprive me of my beauty, let His divine will ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... letter addressed to "Herr Franz Linder" he had found in the cabin connected the old crone, in Whistler's mind, with the German spy system. She was ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... imperturbable in its circular variety. But the inner world, the vision,—ah, there was the extraordinary variation in human lives! From heaven to hell through all gradations, and whether it were heaven or hell did not depend on being like this crone at the end of the road or like herself in its ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... goede vrouw, on the opposite side, would employ herself diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in the corner of a chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... much aboard, here," returned the old tar, drawing nearer to the person of his captain, under an impulse of strong curiosity; "though crone presume to be acquainted with the particulars. I am not one of those who ask impertinent questions, more especially under Her Majesty's pennant; for the worst enemy I have will not say I am very womanish. One would think, however, that there was neat work ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... roads before Hercules, so there were before him two roads, shown by two figures, in order to serve him; the one an old crone, the other a youth, beautiful as the angel that ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... maiden flies; Monsieur follows, and he overtakes the maiden. Then he bears her away with guards around her, through a deep valley, till he reaches a hut. Now he hands her over to an ugly hag— and the name of that hag is Jubal. Is it not so, Monsieur?" and the crone, turning from the cup, looked with a hideous grin in the face ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... of the first syllable: 'history' and 'story'; 'etiquette' and 'ticket'; 'escheat' and 'cheat'; 'estate' and 'state'; and, older probably than any of these, 'other' and 'or';—or with a dropping of the last syllable, as 'Britany' and 'Britain'; 'crony' and 'crone';—or without losing a syllable, with more or less stress laid on the close: 'regiment' and 'regimen'; 'corpse' and 'corps'; 'bite' and 'bit'; 'sire' and 'sir'; 'land' or 'laund' and 'lawn'; 'suite' and 'suit'; 'swinge' and 'swing'; ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench |
