"Ankle-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anyway?" said Gettysburg, remaining ankle-deep in the mud. "Don't you know this here is the 'Laughin' Water' claim, which ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... night—black, cool, profound night, with an inky sky low down upon the tree-tops, and out of it such a glorious deluge of rain descending swiftly and silently as filled my veins even to listen to. Eagerly I shuffled away to the porch steps, down them into the swimming courtyard, and ankle-deep in the glorious flood, set to work lapping furiously at the first puddle, drinking with gasps of pleasure, gasping and drinking again, feeling my body filling out like the thirsty steaming earth below me. Then, as I still drank insatiably, ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... when the English ship still continued to overhaul us, they drew the edges of their weapons along our flesh, making the blood spurt. We were, as you perhaps know, all manacled together, and at least half our slaves were killed by the enemy's shot. The floor of the vessel was ankle-deep in blood, and the corpses of the dead, still manacled to the living—for there was no time to separate us,—kept time with our strokes as we pulled, in a manner most horrible to look upon. The man next me had had his head cut off by a cannon-shot—I remember at the time wishing it ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... before, I once more paid a visit to the old town. I left my side-car on the outskirts of the place and was taken by Mr. Bean, the Australian War Correspondent, into his car. He was going up to take some photographs. The day was intensely hot, and the dust of the now ruined town was literally ankle-deep and so finely powdered that it splattered when one walked as though it had been water. I saw the ruins of the school-house which our ambulances had used, and noticed that the image of the Virgin had ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... position was exceedingly awkward, for the ladder obliged them to stoop, and they did not dare to move their feet except with caution, for fear of slipping off the beams into the water—in which, even as it was, they were ankle-deep while standing on the beams. They were soon soaked to the skin by the drippings and spirtings from the pipes, and almost incapable of hearing each other speak, owing to the din. If Rooney had dropped the lead-soled boots or the shoulder-weights, they would have sunk at once beyond recovery, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... which we were peering was about six feet wide at the bottom, coming together some twenty feet above our heads, having been apparently widened at the base by the action of the water, which, being here ankle-deep, rushed foaming over and around the many blocks of lava with which the channel was encumbered. As far as we could see, the fissure led straight away without a bend; and Joe was for trying to walk down it at once. I suggested, however, that we leave that for the ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... lamp burned in the street. He started to walk slowly and uncertainly towards it. Near by he saw a hat on the ground. It was his own. He put it on. Suddenly the street lamp went out. He walked on, and stepped ankle-deep into broken glass. Then the road was clear again. He halted. Not a sign of Christine! He decided that she must have run away, and that she would run blindly and, finding herself either in Leicester Square or Lower Regent Street, would by instinct run home. At any rate, she could not be ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... work—dragging canoes over sandy and pebbly river-bottom, or unloading and carrying around the foam of perilous rapids. For compensation there is the pleasure of splashing ankle-deep and deeper in the cool current, and casting for trout in the "laughing shallow," which I much prefer to the "dreaming pool." They who choose it may fish from boat or ledge: for me, to wade and cast ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... too low for them to stand upright, often so low as to compel them to creep on all- fours in the black slime of the floors. Some with laden baskets on their backs climbed many times a day up steep ascents. Some stood ankle-deep in water from morning till night in the depths of the pit, wearing out their little lives at ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... morning of the 7th the Brigade had been under weigh for an hour and we were tramping over the uneven ground which marked the site of the enemy's old front line, battered out of all shape by seven days' artillery bombardment. The sand was more than ankle-deep and the going heavy in the extreme. The day was hot and steel helmets were never the lightest of head-gear. Still the men marched admirably and by 17.00 the Battalion was at the Wadi Hesi, twelve miles north of Gaza, where the B.G.C. gave orders ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... work. The base line was to be measured south from near Kanab for about ten miles. Christmas day came with rain and small prospect of special enjoyment, and we all kept the shelter of the tent after hunting up the horses in mud ankle-deep. But our dinner was a royal feast, for Mrs. Thompson herself made a huge plum-pudding and Prof. supplied butter and milk from Kanab, making this feature of the holiday an immense success. In the evening a ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... and stood ankle-deep in the sweet grass, and looked about her for a while, and saw no shape of man astir. She was yet weary, and stiff with abiding so long amongst the hard ribs of the boat, so she laid herself down on the grass, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... and creations that chilled words, walked ankle-deep in white flower petals and golden clippings, pearls rained, and on all sides were grouped the most beautiful Eastern ladies in most exquisite silks of every tint of the rainbow, with diamonds, pearls, and emeralds and trailing draperies, skirts, and soft veils, and silken trousers; sweet ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... spruce are seen, against which the white stems of the graceful birch stand out in bold relief; while the bank of some stream, or the margin of a lake, is marked by fringing thickets of alder. In many parts are moist, swampy bogs, into which the sportsman sinks ankle-deep at every step. The ground, however, is everywhere thickly carpeted by a luxuriant growth of a species of lichen. It possesses wonderfully nutritive qualities; so much so, that large quantities of alcohol have lately been extracted from it, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... the violence of the eruption is diminished," remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared to wade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... were homeless in the street. Half a dozen patrol wagons and five ambulances were taking the people away to shelter, women and babies first. It was an hour—an hour of standing in the street, with bare feet on the ice, under the ankle-deep slush—before old Tom and his wife got their turn to be taken. Then Susan and Etta and Ashbel, escorted by a policeman, set out for the station house. As they walked along, someone called out to ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... tower over grown with ivy, and was half surrounded by a wall, whose tottering, ornamental pinnacles told a story of comparative grandeur that had come to grief in this remote spot. The farmer had been winnowing his corn outside, and the narrow lane was ankle-deep with chaff. The only human being that I could find here was a wild-looking girl, with a bush of hair on her head, who made me understand, half in French, half in patois, that I should never reach Vayrac by the way I was going. She sent me ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... We straightened in our saddles, we breathed deep, we joked. The country was scorched and sterile; the wagon-trail, almost paralleling the mountains themselves on a long easy slant toward the high country, was ankle-deep in dust; the ravines were still dry of water. But it was not the Inferno, and that one fact sufficed. After a while we crossed high above a river which dashed white water against black ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... riot of light, thronged as he had never seen it with a carnival crowd which swept its glittering way through scraps of paper, piled ankle-deep on the sidewalks. Here and there, elevated upon benches and boxes, soldiers addressed the heedless mass, each face in which was clear cut and distinct under the white glare overhead. Anthony picked out half a dozen figures—a drunken sailor, tipped backward and supported by two other gobs, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... and plodded away across the grass, sinking ankle-deep in the spongy moss among the roots of it When he had grown scarcely distinguishable in the haze he turned and ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... sunburned and ragged but with erect head, in the first canoe. His canoemen checked their swing, for the beach was close at hand, and then backed water. The bow scraped, and a dozen hands were outstretched in aid, but Governor Denonville stepped briskly out into the ankle-deep water and carried his own pack ashore. A cheer went up from the little line at the sally-port. Du Luth's voyageurs and coureur de bois caught it up, and then it swept far out over the water and was ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... tragic incident; to come upon it after so many days, and to find it (in the seclusion of a desert) still unchanged, must have impressed the mind of the most careless. And yet it was not that which struck us into pillars of stone; but the sight (which yet we had been half expecting) of Secundra ankle-deep in the grave of his late master. He had cast the main part of his raiment by, yet his frail arms and shoulders glistered in the moonlight with a copious sweat; his face was contracted with anxiety and expectation; his blows resounded on the grave, as thick ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... usual curious self, nothing had alarmed or excited its interest. And he did not try to establish more than a casual contact as they made their way down the bank to the edge of the stream, Sssuri splashing in ankle-deep for the sheer pleasure of feeling liquid curl about his feet ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... was alive and much to be feared, for was it not so big that no one could see where it ended? They sat and watched its enticing gestures, and, gathering courage, stood tremulously while the tide splashed their feet and retreated. The boldest walked in ankle-deep and danced in daredevilry, and soon young and old were gambolling uncouthly, tasting the sea's quality, shouting and splashing. None ventured more than knee-deep; some crawled and wallowed in the wet sand, too fearful to trust their lives to so big ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... fact that everybody was clear hitherto that the rainy season was over months ago. Exercise at eight, and a smart trot round the country warmed horses and men, for it is very cold. Meanwhile, the horse lines had been shifted, for they were ankle-deep in mud. Once or twice in the day we were called out to rub legs, ears, and backs ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... and unutterably filthy, was ankle-deep in mud, even at the close of this hot August day. Down one side a long blank wall, stone-built and green with mildew, presented an unbroken frontage: on the other the row of houses with doors perpetually barred, and windows whereon dust and grit had formed effectual curtains ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... and there they sat, ankle-deep in cards. No attempt at breakfast now, no affectation of making a toilet or airing the room. The atmosphere was hot, to be sure, but it well became such a Hell. There they sat, in total, in positive ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... face. Yet I had seen it but once and then only for a moment. I had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and, in a lonely little valley dim with pines, where I thought myself alone, I had come suddenly upon her, standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of a brook, the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered dark hair. She was very young—no more than sixteen; yet the face and eyes were already those of a woman. Such a face! Beautiful? Yes, but I thought ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... arms, with the strength of an ox. An iron lever was inserted between the bars. The heavy breathing and the low sounds of the straining were drowned by the tropic storm. The prisoner leaped from the bench and stood ankle-deep in the water, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... place you ought to have come to two days ago, had the water permitted you. In crossing the plain at the most advantageous place you are above ankle-deep in water for three hours; the remainder of the way is dry, the ground gently rising. As the lower parts of this spacious plain put on somewhat the appearance of a lake during the periodical rains, it is not improbable but that ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... upon Kazan without regret, in the fervid heat of that midsummer morning. We did not shake its dust from our feet. When dust is ankle-deep that is not very feasible. It rose in clouds, as we met the long lines of Tatar carters, transporting flour and other merchandise to and from the wharves across the "dam" which connects the town, in summer low water, with Mother Volga. In spring floods Matushka ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... thirteen miles off; but were obliged to alight halfway, and walk a short distance. The Embankment had given way. Luckily the weather was favourable, inasmuch as we had only a violent storm of wind. Had it rained, we should have been wetted to the skin, besides being compelled to wade ankle-deep in mud. We were next obliged to remain in the open air, awaiting the arrival of the train from Stockerau, which unloaded its freight, and ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... girl who was compelled to stand in a wet place, though water overflowed sometimes into the girls' quarters from the wash-rooms, where the men worked. In some of these wash-rooms the water is at times ankle-deep, a condition due only to bad drainage, as other wash-rooms are absolutely dry. Whatever the condition of the work-rooms, the women's dressing-rooms frequently had insanitary plumbing, and were verminous and unhealthful. In one laundry the water supply ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... remember hearing a gentleman relate the following incident in a large meeting: 'Some time back,' he said, 'I was passing through the streets of Liverpool. It was a cold, raw, wintry day. The streets were ankle-deep in an unpleasant mixture of mud and ice, and battling through it all, the came along a little procession of ragged, haggard, hungry looking boys. Splash, splash, on they went, through freezing slush, at every step making the onlookers shudddered as they stood ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... and what they saw in nowise relieved the tenseness of the situation. Two carabinieri and an inspector of seals, dusty but stern of countenance, came up the path. O'Mally, recollecting the vast prison at Naples, saw all sorts of dungeons, ankle-deep in sea-water, and iron bars, shackles and balls. Every one stood up and waited for this new development to unfold itself. La Signorina alone seemed indifferent to this official cortege. The inspector signed to the carabinieri, who stopped. He came on. Without touching ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... into the gully, stumbled over the boulder wash, and began to toil in the ankle-deep sand of a little sage-brush flat this side of the next ascent. Schwartz followed steadily enough now, but had fallen forty or fifty feet behind. This was a nuisance, as we bad to keep turning to see ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Miss Minetts themselves could subsequently give no very coherent account. They only knew that some half-hour later, with petticoats raised to a height gravely imperilling decency, they splashed landward across the causeway—now ankle-deep in water—while the lads congregated before the Inn laughed boisterously, the men turned away with a guffaw, dogs of disgracefully mixed parentage yelped, and the elder female members of the Proud and Sclanders families flung phrases ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... town, to the other side from that where they had landed, and the way towards Cap Gris Nez. The streets were narrow, tortuous, and mostly evil-smelling, with a mixture of stale fish and damp cellar odours. There had been heavy rain here during the storm last night, and sometimes Marguerite sank ankle-deep in the mud, for the roads were not lighted save by the occasional glimmer from a ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... a peaty amber colored stream rippled across their way, with ferny over-grown banks, where the blue kingfisher flitted busily from side to side, or the gray and pensive heron, swollen with trout and dignity, stood ankle-deep among the sedges. Chattering jays and loud wood-pigeons flapped thickly overhead, while ever and anon the measured tapping of Nature's carpenter, the great green woodpecker, sounded from each wayside grove. On either side, as the path mounted, the long sweep of country ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... obscured the rising drifts. According to the Pocket Hunter's account, he knew where he was, but couldn't exactly say. Three days before he had been in the west arm of Death Valley on a short water allowance, ankle-deep in shifty sand; now he was on the rise of Waban, knee-deep in sodden snow, and in both cases he did the only allowable thing—he walked on. That is the only thing to do in a snowstorm in any case. It might have been the creature instinct, which in his ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... mushrooms. Beneath the ashes, after the first frost, the air is full of the bitterness of their blackened leaves, which have all come down at once. By the beeches there is little underwood, and the hollows are filled ankle-deep with their leaves. From the pines comes a fragrant odour, and thus the character of each group dominates the surrounding ground. The shade is too much for many flowers, which prefer the nooks of hedgerows. If there is no scope for the use of "express" rifles, ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... like a jackal, to the appointed place which was near the byre of the headman's house. But my Love was already there, weeping. She feared that the flood had swept my hut at the Barhwi Ford. When I came softly through the ankle-deep water, She thought it was a ghost and would have fled, but I put my arms round Her, and—I was no ghost in those days, though I am an old man now. Ho! Ho! Dried corn, in truth. Maize without juice. Ho! Ho! [Footnote: I grieve to say that the Warden ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... river running through a place where living waters had never flowed. The stream begins with a few strings of water trickling out from under the door-step of the temple, and rises gradually but steadily ankle-deep, knee-deep, loin-deep, over-head, until flood-tide is reached, and an ever rising and deepening flood-tide. And everywhere the waters go is life with beauty, and fruitfulness. There is no drought, no ebbing, but a continual flowing in, ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... arrangements of man utterly failed to supply. While dazzled by the glitter and splendor of "Le Bocage," she shivered in its silent dreariness, its cold, aristocratic formalism, and she yearned for the soft, musical babble of the spring-branch, where, standing ankle-deep in water under the friendly shadow of Lookout, she had spent long, blissful July days in striving to build a wall of rounded pebbles down which the crystal ripples would fall, a miniature Talulah or Tuccoa. The chrism of nature had anointed her early life and consecrated her ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... poultry, tough tup-mutton, stringy cow beef, or stale fish, at a very little less than the price of prime and proper food. With savings like these they toddle home in triumph, cackling all the way, like a goose that has got ankle-deep into ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... and the woods, but scarcely touched by the blight of autumn, were gray as usual from the limestone turnpike, which, when he crossed it, was ankle-deep in dust. A cloud of yellow butterflies fluttered crazily before him in a sunlight that was hardly less golden, and when he climbed the fence a rabbit leaped beneath him and darted into a patch of ironweeds. Instinctively he leaped after it, ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... I. threatened to invade England; and on January 31, 1803, by some mistake, the fire on Hume Castle, in Berwickshire, was lighted; other beacons responded, and ere morning dawned thousands were marching ankle-deep through the dense mud of the winter roads to their appointed stations. The mistake was not without its uses, as Napoleon saw that England was ready, and did not venture to attack our shores. A similar accident took place in the reign of Henry VIII. There was a conspiracy against the king ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... sisters were playing in the pastures. Rich, green, Dutch pastures, unbroken by hedge or wall, which stretched—like an emerald ocean—to the horizon and met the sky. The cows stood ankle-deep in it and chewed the cud, the clouds sailed slowly over it to the sea, and on a dry hillock sat Mother, in her broad sun-hat, with one eye to the cows and one to the linen she was ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... side dripping with the fog-drops and looking dirty and cheerless with the black streaks running from the corners of each window, like tears down the face of some chimney-sweep or coal-boy, till, reaching the foot of Ludlow Street, we stood ankle-deep in mud, waiting for the little steamer, which still ploughed its way through the dark, sullen-looking water thick with the red mud which the late rise had brought down, and with here and there heavy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... ankle-deep in mud before a | |wildly enthusiastic gathering of football| |rooters, the gridiron warriors of Siwash | |College defeated the Tigers this | |afternoon on Siwash athletic field by the| |score of 5 ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... skin and passed out again, for I could not stay still. I went to and fro, till at length I reached the spot where my huts had been. The outer fence of the huts still stood; the fire had not caught it. I passed through the fence; there within were the ashes of the burnt huts—they lay ankle-deep. I walked in among the ashes; my feet struck upon things that were sharp. The moon was bright, and I looked; they were the blackened bones of my wives and children. I flung myself down in the ashes in bitterness ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... along the passages. Soon they were in total darkness. The flood was gaining upon them, and the noise rendered it impossible to exchange a word. Sometimes the water hissed and gurgled at their heels, and sometimes they plunged ankle-deep into pools. ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... The foot sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss, The shroud of some dead giant of his race; Dun gold and green and brown thick interlace, Their tiny exquisite leaves in cunning trace, Weaving their beaded ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... hands in his pockets and splashed cheerfully into the ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little bag and followed. Somehow he had vaguely expected some ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... him pitifully. Paul himself was wet to the skin; and as he dismounted for a moment to ease his stiff limbs, he was conscious of a distinct inclination to shiver. The grey mists were rolling up all round them; and directly Paul's feet touched the ground, he felt himself sink ankle-deep in the wet, soft sand. It was all horribly uncomfortable, and more than that, it was serious; for immediately he had passed his hand over his horse's flanks and felt her knees, Paul knew that she was ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mud-holes where one sank ankle-deep, for no one paved the street at that time, strangely enough preferring to pay the sixpence fine per square yard for leaving it undone. At one place, Brandon told me, a load of hay blocked the streets, compelling them to squeeze between the houses and ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... and then the other—"Oh dear" said Isabel, seized with a great disposition to laugh. Lawrence was not amused. His boots were full of mud and water and he had an aching sense of injured dignity. The bog was not even dangerous: and ankle-deep, calf-deep, knee-deep he waded through it and got out on the opposite bank, bringing up a cloud of little marsh-bubbles on his heels. Isabel would have given all the money she had in the world—about five shillings ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... part of the sand which lay on our east side, this misguided multitude extended themselves; and being, most of them, not above their knees, or most of them not above ankle-deep in the water, they as it were surrounded us on that side, and on the side of the mainland, and a little way on the other side of the sand, standing in a half-circle, or rather three-fifths of a circle, for about six miles in length. The other horn, or ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... with stirring incident. When the company reached Bradford, Pennsylvania, they found the town in the throes of oil excitement. Oil was on everybody's tongue and ankle-deep in some of the streets. A great multitude collected at the theater. After the first part of the show the gallery, which was full of people, creaked and settled a few inches, creating a near panic. While this was being subdued an oil-warehouse on the outskirts of the town ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... made at Constantinople, and who had been appointed quarantine physician here four weeks before my departure, had not come to fetch me. The streets of Larnaka are unpaved, so that we were obliged literally to wade more than ankle-deep in sand and dust. The houses are small, with irregular windows, sometimes high and sometimes low, furnished with wooden grated shutters; and the roofs are in the form of terraces. This style of building I found ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... them, but were oftener stopped up with rags. Before the doors were heaps of manure and pools of stagnant water. There was no regular footway, but a mere beaten track in front of the cabins, and this, on wet days, was ankle-deep in mud. The women hung about the doors all day long, knitting the men's blue stockings, and did little else apparently. Both men and women were usually in a torpid state, the result, doubtless, of breathing a poisoned atmosphere, and of insufficient ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... while Lucia Harden read out titles to him in the sonorous Latin tongue. She was standing ankle-deep in Gnostics and Neo-Platonists; as for Mr. Rickman, he was, as he observed, out ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... They carried their shock blasters cocked and ready to fire. The rain continued, increasing in fury until they were enveloped in a nearly solid wall of water. In a little while the floor of the jungle became one continuous mudhole, with each step taking them ankle-deep into the sucking mud. Their climb was uphill, and the water from above increased, washing down around them in torrents. More than once one of the cadets fell, gasping for breath, into the dirty water, only to be jerked back to more solid footing ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... once more loosened up the roads. There is a quite unanimous chorus of condemnation from all—British, Americans, and Canadians. One lively traveller in 1840 protested that on his way from Montreal, he was compelled to walk at the carriage side for hours, ankle-deep in mud, with the reins in his hands, and that, with infinite fatigue to both man and beast, he accomplished sixty miles in two days—a wonderful performance.[5] In the very heart of the rebellion, W. L. Mackenzie seems to have found the roads fighting against ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... about the table were embossed with gold, and those of Cleopatra and Antony were of gold set with jewels. The dishes also were all of gold set with jewels, the walls were hung with purple cloths sewn with gold, and on the floor, covered with a net of gold, fresh roses were strewn ankle-deep, that as the slaves trod them sent up their perfume. Once again I was bidden to stand, with Charmion and Iras and Merira, behind the couch of Cleopatra, and, like a slave, from time to time call out the hours as they flew. And there being no help, I went wild at heart; ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... she had spent the greater part of the past year in that State. She closed by saying: "Our reception by the Californians was such as to make them forever dear to us. I wish you could have seen Miss Anthony for once walking ankle-deep in roses. It showed that the sentiment for suffrage had reached the point where its advocates not only were tolerated but honored. I used to like to see her sitting in a chair all adorned with flowers and with a laurel crown suspended over her head, and to feel that it was woman suffrage ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... ferment, it is also the inspiration, and even the standard, of a young, violent, and fierce generation. It is the most visible and the most successful manifestation of their will, or they think it is. Political reform, social reform, literature even, move slowly, ankle-deep in the mud of materialism and deliquescent tradition. Though not without reason Socialists claim that Liberals ride their horses, the jockeys still wear blue and buff. Mr. Lloyd George stands unsteadily on the shoulders of Mr. Gladstone; the bulk of his colleagues ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... minutes later Russ and Jack had shoved out the fisherman's craft, and were quickly rowing toward the rocks. The tide was now so high that Paul and the two girls stood ankle-deep in the water that completely covered ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... and nearer, but we saw no boar. Many other animals came wonderingly forward: some foxes, trailing their long tails gracefully over the snow, looked about them and trotted off; a furtive deer cautiously peered around with ears erect and trotted off also; but it is not for such as these we stand ankle-deep in the snow, shivering with cold and half frozen. A shot now would spoil all the sport. One has a longing to talk when one is told to be quiet. I can't remember ever having thought of so many clever things I wanted to say as when I stood behind the ducal back—things that would be forever ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... separate—they diverge and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers; The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats—others stand negligently ankle-deep in the water, poised on strong legs; The boats are partly drawn up—the water slaps against them; On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green- backed ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... and raw, with a wet snow that changed to rain as it fell. The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside paths thick with sodden leaves. The dreariness of the countryside that Saturday afternoon suited his mood. He had ridden to the end of the street-car line, and started his walk from there. As was his custom, he wore no overcoat, but a short sweater ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Ankle-deep in the reeking slush stood thirty or forty men, clad mostly in laced boots, corduroys or overalls, canvas or Mackinaw jackets; woolen-shirted, slouch-hatted. Rough of face and figure, they stood before the bar or lounged at the few tables, talking in ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... to Maragon the next morning. The city was shrouded in a low layer of cloud, and his glassed-in penthouse office was gloomy with the morning. He motioned me to sit down. I dragged one of his Bank of England chairs through the ankle-deep pile of his rug and set it down ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... raged on amid the terrible storm beating on the combatants. The wind blew violently, and the rain descended in torrents. The men sank ankle-deep in the softened soil, but "Forward!" sounded the battle-cry, and the soldiers left their shoes in the mud, rushing in their socks or bare-footed on the enemy, who fought with lion-hearted courage, here ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... that, though this was not the season for that dread disease, cases of it had already broken out in the city; at the same time he stated that more than eight hundred cases of small-pox were reported in Merida, and that many of them were of the most virulent. Sunday we had walked through dust ankle-deep upon the roads; Tuesday and Wednesday it was with difficulty that we could cross the streets, which were filled with mud, and, part of the time, with muddy water a foot and more in depth. This is a frequent occurrence, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in the inferior animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be lightly taken by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be sold for filthy lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is possible for a person to walk ankle-deep—literally to wade—in bright-plumaged bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either side of him—a sight ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the sparks fly upward; it has its hardships and privations. There were days, as the wagons dragged their slow lengths along, when the clouds obscured the sky and the wind whistled dismally; days when torrents fell and swelled the streams that must be crossed, and when the mud lay ankle-deep; days when the cattle stampeded, and the round-up meant long, extra hours of heavy work; and, hardest but most needed work of all, the eternal ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... water in with its bushy, mop-like tail. The rising sea poured down the ever- deepening hole. They worked with a will together; there was no complaining, though the rabbit wore its tail down till it was nothing but a stump, and the mouse stood ankle-deep in water, and the squirrel's fluffy tail looked like a stable broom. They worked like heroes without stopping even to talk, and as the water went pouring down the hole, the level of the sea, of course, sank lower and lower and lower, the shores of ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... oil-lamp, which the captain had hung to the ceiling, and which swung to and fro with the lurching of the ship. The wind was whistling shrilly among the rigging, and every plank and board in the vessel groaned and creaked under the beating of the waves. Now and then her feet were ankle-deep in water, and she dreaded to see it sweep over the low berth. In the rare intervals of the storm she could hear the hurried movements overhead, and the shouts of the sailors as they called to one another from the ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... degenerate into something that is neither pleasant to the eye nor good for food. I believe in a rotation of crops, morally and socially, as well as agriculturally. When you have taken the measure of a man, when you have sounded him and know that you cannot wade in him more than ankle-deep, when you have got out of him all that he has to yield for your soul's sustenance and strength, what is the next thing to be done? Obviously, pass him on; and turn you "to fresh woods and pastures new." Do you work him an injury? By no means. Friends that are simply ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... land and the healing of its waters, saw a man with a radiant face, a line of flax in his hand and a measuring reed. And wherever this man of radiant face measured he caused the waters to run in dry places and deep rivers to course where the waters were but ankle-deep; fish to swarm again in the rivers and the seas to be free of pollution; salt to come in the miry places and trees to grow upon the land with unwithering leaves and ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... more I see the rocking masts That scrape the sky, their only tenant The jay-bird, that in frolic casts From some high yard his broad blue pennant. I see the Indian files that keep Their places in the dusty heather, Their red trunks standing ankle-deep In moccasins of ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... therefore, not to encounter any such eccentric "fox" alone; hence I refused to listen to my friend's entreaties, but simply followed on, over fallen tree-trunks, under drooping branches, and through unyielding brush; now sinking ankle-deep in a pile of dead leaves, now catching my hair in a broken branch, and now nearly falling over a concealed root; wading through swamps, sliding down banks, cutting and tearing our shoes, and leaving bits of our garments everywhere. On we went recklessly, intent upon ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... was pure irony, for the weather was the most disagreeable that could be imagined. A very heavy snow storm had prevailed for several days. It was now beginning to thaw, and on all the frequented thoroughfares the slush was ankle-deep. It was still cold, however; a damp chill filled the air, and penetrated to the very marrow of one's bones. Besides, there was a dense fog, so dense that one could not see one's hands before ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... The explorers walked ankle-deep in dust through a maze of rooms until they came to a big central hall of statues. So artistically fashioned were they that they seemed lifelike in their attitudes, and for a moment all held their breath. This hall was ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... miles of the sea, it seemed to them that they could taste the saltness of the incoming breeze; the road was ankle-deep in dust; the garden flowers were glaring in their brightness. It was a new world. And when at last they emerged from the marsh-bordered road upon a ridge of sand, and turned a sudden corner, Mrs. Pike ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Middle Channel, running the boat ashore on Apes' Island at a spot where a stream of fresh water discharged into the narrowest part of the channel. Here we landed, and started to walk eastward over and through ashes that were ankle-deep and in places still unpleasantly hot. I was quite prepared to find evidences that the destruction of animal life had been tremendous; but even so I was amazed at the innumerable scorched and shrivelled carcasses of creatures that had made their way to the water's edge ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... defender of Egypt, the Nile, which, in due time arising, inundated the whole Christian camp, and washed away the stores. The troops, already reduced by sickness, were living in a swamp, the water and mud ankle-deep, and with currents of deeper water rushing in all directions, drowning the incautious; while want and disease preyed upon the rest, till Jean de Brienne was obliged to go and treat with the Sultan. When received courteously in the commodious, royal ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not?" retorted the Lake King. "Behold if I have boasted vainly or not!" And he waved his sceptre, which was surmounted by a crystal fish. Instantly the artificial lake came pouring over its marble border, and the Royal Family were ankle-deep in water. "It's no good!" said King Sidney, as the flood spread and threatened to rise higher still, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... compared to what they do now. Which might also be signified by this, that they 'issued out,' that that issues out ordinarily comes forth but slowly. Also the prophet saith, the first time he went through the waters, they were but up to the ankles (Eze 47:3,4). But what is ankle-deep to that which followeth after? It is said also to come out from Jerusalem, where, I perceive, were no great rivers, to intimate, that as long as the first priesthood, first temple, and type, were in their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... American "mountain dress" and Wellington boots,—the only costume in which ladies can enjoy pedestrian or pack-horse travelling in this country,—with a light straw mat—the waterproof of the region—hanging over my shoulders, and so we plodded on with two baggage horses through the ankle-deep mud, till the rain cleared off, the mountains looked through the mist, the augmented Kinugawa thundered below, and enjoyment became possible, even in my half-fed condition. Eventually I mounted a pack-saddle, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the Rhine early in 1743, both in the same regiment. James was now sixteen, Edward fifteen. The march was a terrible one for such delicate boys. The roads were ankle-deep in mud; the weather was vile; both food and water were very bad. Even the dauntless Wolfe had to confess to his mother that he was 'very much fatigued and out of order. I never come into quarters without aching hips and knees.' Edward, ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... again, however, at Washington, in the spring of 1863. I was passing up Fifteenth Street, by the Treasury Department, and reached one of the cross-streets just as a large troop of cavalry came along. The street was ankle-deep with mud, only the narrow crossing being passable, and I hurried to get over before the cavalry came up. Midway on the crossing I encountered Gurowski, wrapped in a long black cloak and a huge felt hat, rather the worse for wear. He threw ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... yards from the enemy's front we tumbled into the trenches already in possession of Battalion B, and I found myself ankle-deep in mire, beside a unit of another regiment who was enjoying a cigarette and blowing rings of smoke into the air. Although no enemy was visible we got the order to fire, and I discharged three rounds ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... to take me aboard again," said the captain, when the wharf was reached; and the two men went slowly together into the town, along the streets of ankle-deep sand, towards the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... stepped as he bade her. The stone yielded beneath her tread and she stood ankle-deep in the water. Wogan sprang to her side and lifted her out. She had uttered no cry, and now she only laughed as she stood shivering on the further edge. It was that low musical, good-humoured laugh to which Wogan had never listened without ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... him; but he did not know that it was the sound of the sea. At length he came to a place where the earth rose up in long ridges of yellow sand, on which nothing grew but scattered tufts of stiff, yellow grass. As he toiled over the loose sand, sometimes sinking ankle-deep in it, the curious deep murmuring sound he had heard for so long grew louder and louder, until it was like the sound of a mighty wind in a wood, but deeper and hoarser, rising and falling, and at intervals broken by great throbs, as of thunder ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... their toes as though anticipating a dance rather than the oven; and by their sides sausages, their somewhat plethoric waists girdled by pink ribbon sashes, seemed ready to join them in the frolic. In one cookshop window a trio of plaster nymphs who stood ankle-deep in a pool of crimped green paper, upheld a huge garland of cunningly moulded wax roses, dahlias, and lilac, above which perched a pheasant regnant. This trophy met with vast approbation until a rival establishment across the way, not ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... Tom Blacker was ensconced in a fair-sized office with vaguely oriental furnishings and an ankle-deep rug. Livia's pretty ankles visited ...
— Get Out of Our Skies! • E. K. Jarvis
... ice were gone, I liked to wade ankle-deep in the mud. Father had to buy me a pair of rubber boots, and that is the first present I remember. They filled my soul with joy. When I said my prayers I had one on each side of me, and when I slept it was with both boots on my pillow. At first I could think of nothing else to wish for; ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... great hardship to go out to meet the salutary discipline when the country is beautiful in mid-April, and the road good and the sun pleasant. The Spring air sets the blood racing as you ride, and when you stop and stand for a moment to enjoy these things, ankle-deep in roadside grass, you can seem to hear the healthy pulses beating and see the wavy line of hills beating with them, as you ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... was still rising, though more slowly, and as soon as they left the high ground they were splashing along ankle-deep in the water. Winding in and out among the trees, they came upon a boat which had been hauled out the previous fall. And three chechaquos, who had managed to get into the country thus far over the ice, had piled ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... bed stones and bottom gravel with my feet, striving in vain to pierce the dense obscurity, I moved forward with infinite caution, balancing as best I might against the current. Ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep we waded out. Presently the icy current chilled my thighs, rising to my waistline. But ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... reader will accompany us now to the cellar to bid our Syrian friends farewell, we promise a few things of interest. When we first came here some few years ago in Winter, or to another such underground dwelling, the water rose ankle-deep over the floor, and the mould and stench were enough to knock an ox dead. Now, a scent of ottar of roses welcomes us at the door and leads us to a platform in the centre, furnished with a Turkish rug, which Shakib will present to the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... over with a mixture of emotions, tore through the garden and into the old orchard. Bees were busy, and countless bright-coloured butterflies flitted hither and thither, sipping from hundreds of trees, white or pink with bloom—their beauty was lost upon me. I stood ankle-deep in violets, where they had run wild under a gnarled old apple-tree, and gave way to my ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... to worship her brings a little wet, trembling kid: the warm blood that flows after the priestly ax has done its work is supposed to please the terrible goddess. The morning of my visit there were sacrifices every few minutes, and on the great day of Kali-worship, in October, the place runs ankle-deep in blood. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... lined with pleasant but weedy orange-gardens and often shaded by live-oak and sycamore trees, i. e., when the latter leave out, as they will soon. The soil is a fine sand, very like ashes, and the streets are ankle-deep with it already, wherever the grass doesn't grow. Dilapidated fences, tumble-down outbuildings, untrimmed trees with lots of dead branches, weedy walks and gardens and a general appearance of unthrift attendant upon ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... interspersed with many others of different species, growing in great profusion, within three yards of the edge of the water, upon a soil of decomposed vegetable matter, which in many parts was so soft that we often suddenly sank ankle-deep, and occasionally up to the knees in it: this swampy nature of the soil is to be attributed to the crowded state of the trees; for they grow so close to each other as to prevent the rays of the sun ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... last oleaginous corpse was pushed over the edge. And the city, save for an ankle-deep sheet of water that was rapidly draining out the vents in the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... fully and precisely every night by the camp-fire (even when I had to crouch over him and the precious paper with my water-proof focusing cloth) somehow bestowed about him. Up and down pathless cliffs, through tangled canons, fording icy streams and ankle-deep sands, we travailed; no blankets, overcoats, or other shelter; and the only commissary a few cakes of sweet chocolate, and a small sack of parched popcorn meal. Our "lodging was the cold ground." When we could find a cave, a tree, or anything to temper ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... proceeded to mop up, as best I could, and then endeavoured to find a dry place to sleep in. This, however, was no easy task, for my own bed was drenched, and every other berth occupied. The deck, too, was ankle-deep in water, as I found when I tried to get across to the deck-house sofa. At last I lay down on the floor, wrapped up in my ulster, and wedged between the foot stanchion of our swing bed and the wardrobe athwart-ship; ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... downhill was laborious, for they sank ankle-deep, but it was very much worse when they faced the ascent. Short as the hill was, it took them some time to climb; and, with the hired man's assistance, Edgar carried a heavy trunk up the last part of ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... is the greenest and weediest. I went to see the old palace of the Capulets, which is still distinguished by their cognizance (a hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). It is a miserable inn. The court was full of crazy coaches, carts, geese, and pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and dung. The garden is walled off and built out. There was nothing to connect it with its old inhabitants, and a very unsentimental lady at the kitchen door. The Montagues used to live some two or three miles off in the country. It does not appear quite clear whether they ever ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... away, with a wave of his hand to Leddy; he was going over the precipice's edge after thanking the danger sign. He did not hasten, nor did he loiter. The precipice resolved itself into an incident of a journey of the same order as an ankle-deep ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... into my friend before my eyes. I never dreamed of giving nor did he of claiming it. At last, hearing my steps close upon him and my breathing at his very shoulder, he sprang wildly through the reeds and dashed into the treacherous morass. Ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep, we struggled and staggered, I still gaining upon him, until I was within arm's-reach of him, and had whirled up my sword to strike. It had been ordained, however, my dear children, that he should die not ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was getting dark, and we could not see very well, but I could see a nose of rock, and it looked like the end of a ledge. 'I'll get out and shove her off!' said I. I sounded with an oar, and found the water barely ankle-deep on the ledge. So I took off my shoes and stockings, rolled up my trousers a little, and ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... grace and amuses the ear by wit. A philosophy which takes the things of this life very easily; which has a smile and a shrug of the shoulders for any pretender to the Heroic; which subdivides the wealth of passion into the pocket-money of caprices, is always in or out of love ankle-deep, never venturing a plunge; which, light of heart as of tongue, turns "the solemn plausibilities" of earth into subjects for epigrams and bons mots,—jests at loyalty to kings and turns up its nose at enthusiasm ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and the remaining essential portion of our attire consisted of an extraordinary article, manufactured by a squaw out of smoked buckskin. Our muleteer, Delorier, brought up the rear with his cart, waddling ankle-deep in the mud, alternately puffing at his pipe, and ejaculating in his prairie patois: "Sacre enfant de garce!" as one of the mules would seem to recoil before some abyss of unusual profundity. The cart was of the kind that one may see by scores around ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... dangerous of the piratic captains, Claus Stoertebeker and Godeke Michel, with their followers and their fabulous treasures, and brought them to Hamburg. Tradition has it that for three days the public executioner stood ankle-deep in the blood of the condemned. Nevertheless, the seafaring public did not suspect the presence of a robber behind every bush or cliff. After all, an undisturbed voyage was the rule rather than the exception; sensational ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... brushing ankle-deep in flowers, We heard behind the woodbine vail The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... umbrageous tops, the stems of which seemed like pillars supporting a vast roof; and through between these stems he could see a vista of smaller stems which appeared absolutely endless. There was no grass on the ground, but a species of soft moss, into which he sank ankle-deep, yet not so deep as to render walking difficult. In one direction the distance looked intensely blue, in another it was almost black, while, just before him, a long way off, there was a bright sunny ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... quadrangle of the cloisters looked like ponds, and the various water-spouts from the dormitory, the refectory, and the chapter-house, continuing to jet forth streams into the court below, the ambulatories were soon filled ankle-deep, and even the lower apartments, on which they ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The sun was almost set before we reached Datliboo. In the evening we had a most tremendous tornado. The house in which we lodged being flat-roofed, admitted the rain in streams; the floor was soon ankle-deep, the fire extinguished, and we were left to pass the night upon some bundles of firewood that happened ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... elastic and nimble and I pushed on at a quick pace, the wind blowing at my back the whole time; still onward I went until I got into a country lane and had another steep hill to mount. The roads were very heavy. The sidewalk was badly kept, and the rain made it ankle-deep with mud. On surmounting the hill, which I afterwards learned was called Edge-hill, I still kept on to the right hand road, which was lined on both sides with high trees. I at length arrived at a little village (Wavertree) as a clock was striking ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... road that climbs above and bends Round what was once a chalk-pit: now it is By accident an amphitheatre. Some ash-trees standing ankle-deep in brier And bramble act the parts, and neither speak Nor stir." "But see: they have fallen, every one, And brier and bramble have grown over them." "That is the place. As usual no one is here. Hardly can I imagine ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... the ground by those swift, keen sickles which no man's hand had held. In the section of the city through which Lynde passed to the railroad the streets were literally strewn with broken tiles and chimney-pots. In some places the brown and purple fragments lay ankle-deep, like leaves in autumn. Hundreds of houses had been unroofed and thousands of acres laid waste in a single night. It will take the poor of the canton fifty years to forget the summer ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... day after day, from daybreak to dark, most of the time through spruce bogs where the water was sometimes ankle-deep, and at times up to our thighs. We were wet all the time, and our shoes began to rot ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... imagined. The city was mainly of canvas either in the form of tents or of crude canvas and wooden houses. The few substantial buildings stood like rocks in a tossing sea. No attempt, of course, had been made as yet toward public improvements. The streets were ankle-deep in dust or neck-deep in mud. A great smoke of dust hung perpetually over the city, raised by the trade winds of the afternoon. Hundreds of ships lay at anchor in the harbor. They had been deserted ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... off his clothes, while the others wait, O Zarathustra! he shall enter the river, and take the dead out of the water; he shall go down into the water ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, or a man's full depth, till he can ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... the usual game of quaits" was in progress, and the drug clerk on the corner was chasing a crony with the squirt pump, with which he was about to wash the windows. A few teams stood ankle-deep in the mud, tied to the fantastically gnawed pine pillars of the wooden awnings. A man on a load of hay was "jawing" with the attendant of the platform scales, who stood below, pad and pencil ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the shore from head to heel, and then ran back again for a moment, and then up again a little farther, till, as he sat on the extreme line of the shore and with his back huddled up close against the cliff, it first wetted the soles of his feet, and then was over his shoes, then ankle-deep, then knee deep, then to the waist. Already it seemed to buoy him up; he knew that in a few moments more he would be forced to swim, and the last struggle ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... shadow. One tiny square of light stood opposite at Crossleigh Bank Farm. Brightness was swimming on the tops of the hills. Miriam came up slowly, her face in her big, loose bunch of flowers, walking ankle-deep through the scattered froth of the cowslips. Beyond her the trees were coming into ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Absyrtus, or turn your inquiries After Milton's prose metaphor, drawn from Osiris; But, as Cicero says he won't say this or that (A fetch, I must say, most transparent and flat), After saying whate'er he could possibly think of,— I simply will state that I pause on the brink of A mire, ankle-deep, of deliberate confusion, 350 Made up of old jumbles of classic allusion: So, when you were thinking yourselves to be pitied, Just conceive how much harder your teeth you'd have gritted, An 'twere not for the dulness ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... thought the farmer had been swept away. Then I heard his whistle, and back I ran recklessly through the thickening darkness to the school-house. When I saw the tree rise, I had been on ground hardly wet as yet with the rain; but by the time Waster Lunny sent that reassuring whistle to me I was ankle-deep in water, and the rain was coming down like hail. ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... the surrounding cliffs. As if they had caught fire from it, a score of torches broke into flame on the eastward rocks, and in the sudden blaze, under the detonating fire of musketry, the men of Troy could be seen tumbling out of their boats and splashing ankle-deep to the shore. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was floating high, from the many feet; and as the street became a road out of the town, the dust was thicker than ever, from parties on before. It lay brown and powdery, ankle-deep and hot to the boots. The sun blazed down fiercely. Leading the little burro, in his heavy clothing Charley soon was streaming with perspiration; before, tramped with long stride the Fremonter, a rifle on shoulder; at the rear stanchly limped Mr. Adams, ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... stones upon the road, were, here and there, at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by, there were peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or lounging at the doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And then there was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and vast outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an immense, old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows blinded, and green damp crawling lazily over it, from ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... rain. In the course of the morning he lay in wait very patiently near a spot overflowed by the river, where, the day before, he had noticed lily-pads growing. After a time a doe and a spotted fawn came and stood ankle-deep in the water, and ate of the lily-pads. Thorpe lurked motionless behind his screen of leaves; and as he had taken the precaution so to station himself that his hiding-place lay downwind, the beautiful animals were unaware ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of the house looked more like a pig-sty than a human dwelling. The Germans had broken all locks and emptied the contents of all bureaus, closets, and desks upon the floor, the more easily to pick and choose what they wanted. The floors were covered ankle-deep in the resulting litter which was composed of everything from lace to daguerreotypes, from bric-a-brac to hosiery. The relics and treasures of past generations of the owner's family carpeted the house, ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... warty and pimply growth which appears on the other side. Nothing could be more wearisome to the Alpine climber than such a country: he would scale the peaks and ridges for fifty feet, to descend thirty on the other side; and the frequent Wadys, ankle-deep in loose sand, generally end in steep stony couloirs. The watercourses, whose broad mouths are scattered with thin green, contain pebbles and rolled quartzes, including fine specimens ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... of gas arise, loathsome to the smell. We became aware also that the pitch was soft under our feet. We left the impression of our boots; and if we had stood still awhile, we should soon have been ankle-deep. No doubt there are spots where, if a man stayed long enough, he would be slowly and horribly engulfed. 'But,' as Mr. Manross says truly, 'in no place is it possible to form those bowl-like depressions round the observer described by former travellers.' What we did see ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... sledge-hammer sun from their bevelled summits—close enough to be the channel, in summer, of every scorching blast diverted by them; in winter, every icy draught. Pestilential place, goal of whirlwinds and dust-devils, ankle-deep in desert drift—prototype of Berber in a sandstorm—as comfortless by night as day. But as in nature, so in the handiwork of men, even in the most repulsive shapes it is possible to find some saving feature. De Aar has one—one ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... the dusty streets, Nor travel, ankle-deep, Through mush and slush, but quiet stands Where ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... wandered through new clearings neglected for a season and waded ankle-deep in strawberry blooms, and, later, fed there upon such scarlet fruit, so fragrant and with such a flavor of its own that the scientific horticulturist owns to-day his weakness? Have you looked out upon the flats some bright spring morning and found ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... the march all summer, it seemed to me. We'd travel through dust ankle-deep all day that was just like ashes, and halt in the red-hot sun five minutes to make coffee. We'd make our coffee in five minutes, and sometimes we'd make it in the middle of the road; but that's neither here ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... HORSLEY. lowering his voice to whisper; "we've picked em out. Gone through the Force; mustered all the bald-headed men. They say that at conclusion of argument on Woman's Suffrage in St. James's Hall last night, floor nearly ankle-deep in loose hair. They don't get much off ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... country to a town named Nanglooi, distant six miles. The men were in high spirits notwithstanding the difficulties we had to encounter in traversing a route wellnigh impassable from the recent rains, and ankle-deep in mud. Two broad swamps also had to be crossed, the soldiers wading waist-high in the water, and carrying their ammunition-pouches on their heads. Three hours and more were passed before we arrived ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... water, where it lay rocking back and forth, three or four feet from the boom piles. Suddenly a man ran the length of the boom, leaped easily into the air, and landed with both feet square on one end of the floating log. That end disappeared in an ankle-deep swirl of white foam, the other rose suddenly, the whole timber, projected forward by the shock, drove headlong to the middle of the little pond. And the man, his arms folded, his knees just bent in the graceful nervous attitude of the circus-rider, ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... detested brutes we killed I cannot say, but we did not leave off until our hands had become powerless from exhaustion, and our tomahawks were so blunted as to be rendered of no use. When we left the scene of massacre, we had to pass over a pool of blood ankle-deep, and such was the bowling of those who were not quite dead, that the deer and elk were in every direction struggling to rise and fly [see note 1]. We had been employed more than four hours in our work of destruction, when we returned to the camp, tired and hungry. Roche ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... by the corporation for the hands are some five or six minutes' walk, not more, from the palace-like structure of the mill proper. To reach them I plod through a roadway ankle-deep in red clay dust. The sun is bright and the air heavy, lifeless and dull; the scene before me is desolate, meager ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, the deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked satins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water, warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the state sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty box and wore his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hand and sprang for another rock. But her feet slipped on the seaweed, and she splashed down into a pool ankle-deep. ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... variegated pelts cause us to resemble an unsuccessful compromise between Esau and an Eskimo, they keep our bodies warm. We wish we could say the same for our feet. On good days we stand ankle-deep; on bad, we are occasionally over the knees. Thrice blessed then are our Boots, Gum, Thigh, though even these cannot altogether ward off ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... off her hat, and, heedless of the ribbon upon it, filled it with water again and again and drenched the swollen leg. It was so great a relief to him that he hardly noticed that she stood ankle-deep in the river to do it. She wore a little red tartan shawl upon her shoulders, and she dipped this also in the river, binding it round and round the ankle, and tying it tight with ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... brains out in Paris. They spattered the ceiling and ruined the carpet—I forgot the rest, (there was a lovely account of it in the People), for over-taxed nature could stand no more, and I fell asleep dreaming of reporters wading ankle-deep in blood in a Louis Quatorze drawing-room, taking notes of a terrible tragedy in high life, and was horrified to hear a loud report, followed by a gurgling sound, and, opening my eyes, beheld—Mr. Orderly holding one of my bottles ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... blew with increased violence, twisting the branches off the trees, tearing slates from the roofs, and shaking the street-lamps so furiously as to extinguish the gas. They could not see a step before them; the mud was ankle-deep, and not a person, not a solitary soul ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... cleared away. Under the skilful hands of the Russians the rebuilt trenches had taken on a neat and orderly appearance. The earthen walls had been revetted with wire chicken-netting, and instead of tramping through ankle-deep mud, we had beneath our feet neat walks of corduroy. We tramped for what seemed interminable miles in the darkness, always zig-zagging. Now and then we would come upon little fires, discreetly screened, built at the entrances to dugouts burrowed from the ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... legalize the rights of my sword. I, too, adore my native land—no one more than I! I, too, bow before the infinite judge and submit my case to His wise decision. O God, Thou who protecteth France, look down and behold him who rides yonder, his horse ankle-deep in the blood of his countrymen, who looks without pity on the dying legions and says, 'It is well!' Then, O God, look Thou upon this saint here, who prays for her persecutors, and pass judgment between the two: which of the two is ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... saw Captain Amilcar, who had come back to hurry up his rear- guard. We stood ankle-deep in mud and water, by the swollen river, while the rain beat on us, and enjoyed a few minutes' talk with the cool, competent officer who was doing a difficult job with such workman-like efficiency. He had no poncho, and was wet through, but was much too busy in getting his laden oxen ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt |
