"Crone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should not remain in the house another night. She wondered that Sir Joseph had not ousted her from the family at the first crash of war. The old crone! She could have posed for one of the Grimms' most vulturine witches. But she had kept a civil tongue in her head till now; the children adored her, and Sir Joseph had influence enough to save her ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... maid hath a fit of the sullens, or doeth her work amiss, or your man breaketh a dish, the witch is in fault, and her shoulders can bear the blame. On this very day of the year—namely, May Day,—the foolish folk hold any aged crone who fetcheth fire to be a witch, and if they catch a hedge-hog among their cattle, they will instantly beat it to death with sticks, concluding it to be an old hag in that form come to dry up ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Zeus; he never ceased to be. No sooner born, than they exposed the babe (And that in winter), in an earthen crock, lest he should grow a man, and slay his father. Then with both ankles pierced and swoln, he limped away to Polybus: still young, he married an ancient crone, and her his mother too. Then scratched out both ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... say is, I have lived here, man and boy, nigh on to forty months; and I know it always has happened about this time. I am young for a Chipmonk; but I was in full career long before the oldest crone among you was born; and if there is anything hereabouts that I don't know, you may take your affidavit it isn't worth knowing." And he sat back, and betook himself once more to his "confiscated" corn with the most ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... 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 deeds ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... invited him forthwith to Charlies-hope, the name of his farm, where he promised him he should both see blackcock, shoot blackcock, and eat blackcock. Dandie Dinmont was going on to tell Brown of his wanderings, when the old crone in the red cloak by the side of the fire suddenly broke silence by asking if he had been recently in Galloway, and ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... secured by her master, that no hand but his own could remove the intricate fastenings. This expedition had for its object the purchase of bread and animal food at the nearest market; and every time she sallied forth an oath was administered to the crone, the purport of which was, not only that she would return, unless prevented by violence or death, but that she would not answer any questions put to her, as to who she was, whence she came, or for whom the fruits of her ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... crone now stood before Hildegardis, and winked to her, in the midst of her low and humble salutation, in a strangely familiar manner, as though there were some secret between them. The lady felt an involuntary shudder, and could ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... poisoned him at the instigation of his 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 ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... no water, senor," the old crone, who has emerged from one of the huts, replies. "God has sent us no rain for many days, but if the senor would like some pulque—" I close with the suggestion and instruct the mozo to try it, to see if, in his experienced judgment, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... hear how he died. It was about two o'clock in the morning that he awoke from an uneasy slumber, and felt his end approaching. The old crone who had been hired as a nurse to watch at night, was fast asleep in her chair. The rushlight had burned low down in the socket, and, through the interstices of its pierced shade, threw a feeble ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 of the applicant. As soon as the good dame ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The aged crone, Nanni—half the female population of the Tyrol are called either after the Virgin Mary or her traditionary mother, Saint Ann—gazed in intense astonishment when we screamed to her our simple requirements. We asked for a light, and she brought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... meeting come to pass," said the aged crone, "according as thou hast desired. Say quickly what thou wouldst have of me, for there is but a short hour that we may ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the domestic economy of Berwin's house, was a deaf old crone with a constant thirst, only to be assuaged by strong drink; and a filching hand which was usually in every pocket save her own. She had neither kith nor kin, nor friends, nor even acquaintances; but, being something of a miser, scraped and screwed to amass money she ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... rings and brilliants, and their jewelled boxes. Two or three of the younger girls satisfied my Western ideas of beauty, with their clear, mellow, olive complexions, and their almond-shaped eyes, so dark yet glowing. Those among them who were really old were simply hideous and repulsive. One wretched crone shuffled through the noisy throng with an air of authority, and pointing to Boy lying in my lap, cried, "Moolay, moolay!" "Beautiful, beautiful!" The familiar Malay word fell pleasantly on my ear, and I was delighted to find some one through whom I might possibly ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... 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 ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... sure, no need was felt of one in the villages, for most of the nobility knew no more of reading and writing than the peasants. If any one fell ill, he found no help but the secret remedies of some old village crone, for there was not an apothecary in the whole country. If any one needed a coat he could do no better than take needle in hand himself—for many miles there was no tailor, unless one of the trade made a trip through the country ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... more distressing; and with their bare necks and arms—it was etiquette at Madame Fontaine's receptions—which allowed one to see through filmy lace their flabby flesh or bony skeletons, they were as ridiculous as an elegant cloak would be upon an old crone. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Beautiful, nay more than others beautiful, Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, You know what she will be; At six years old or seven her life is round her; A company, all ages, old men, young men, Whose vices she must prey on. And the bent crone she will be is there too, Patting her head and chuckling prophecies.— O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought Of will, of virtue— Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, Of opportunities ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... and shopkeepers had remained. At intervals, the German 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 ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Michael Daragh had never seen her more alert and alive to the things about her. Nothing escaped her darting glance,—the lyrical, first grass in the Square, the stolid and patient tiredness of an Italian crone on a bench, the pictorial quality of a hurdy-gurdy man, and yet, for all her chattiness, the smart young person beside him seemed leagues upon leagues away from him. He supposed, miserably, that she ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... to play the young lover's part if it were but for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her. And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the afternoon in the backwaters up by Shiplake; there had been a little dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as chaperone—a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was in bed by nine o'clock, ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... unseemly? Worse it is in women than in men, when she is 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 ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... made no comment. The old crone, knuckled, hard-breathing, climbed in, holding uncertainly to the windscreen and pulling after her her ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... master, forgive your humble slave,' moaned the old crone, Rakaya, grovelling in a corner of ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... and maid Followed the dismal cavalcade; And from door and window, open thrown, Looked and wondered gaffer and crone. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... flat expanse of charnel, over which the scattered houses of the barriers looked widowed through their mournful windows; and now and then a crippled crone, or a bereaved old pauper, hobbled to the roadway and shook her white hairs ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... feckless, good-for-little creature. By trade a hurdle-maker, he lived in one of the few remaining mud cottages on the skirts of Hadleigh Upper Wood, and in his hovel he had bred an immense family. His wife had long since died; her mother, a toothless old crone, kept house for him and was supposed to look after the younger children; but generally the Veales and their domestic arrangements were considered as a survival of a barbaric state of society and a disgrace in these highly polished modern times. People said that Veale was half a gipsy, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Any ancient 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
... unlawful lawfullest * And witchcraft wisdom in her sight are grown: A mischief making brat, a demon maid, * A whorish woman and a pimping crone.[FN330] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... old crone the balance of my lunch, and told her I was going to see that mountain some day and see their houses, but she held up her hand and said, "Away up mountain long time ago, maybe so, no ...
— The Sheep Eaters • William Alonzo Allen
... to the throne, where beauty late had sat: Her ugliness distorted thus; whereat The herald cries: "Who will this woman take With smallest dowry? She can cook and bake, And many household duties well perform, Although she does not claim a beauty's charm. Who wants a wife?" The ugly crone with blinks Doth hideous look, till every bidder shrinks. A sorry spectacle, mis-shapen, gross, She is, and bidders now are at a loss How much to ask to take the hag to wife. At last one cries: "Five bilti,[20] for relief Of herald I will take, to start the bid!" ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... Lafitte and L'Olonnois that we were now come into the neighborhood of possible treasure, and the sight of a few pearls, none of very great worth, which the old crone produced from a cracker box, was enough to set off Jimmy L'Olonnois, who was ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... trees 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
... said an old crone leaning on a crutch. "He has been confined these fifteen years in the house, which ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... no good you saw that, my lady," said the crone; "something terrible is coming; it's a sign, my lady—a ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in the English version of that hero's adventure with the sister of Brandelis.[5] So keen a critic as Dr Brugger has not hesitated to accept the theory of the existence of this Geste, and is of opinion that the German poem Diu Crone may, in part at least, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... Aimee back to her apartments he pulled sharply upon a bellcord. In a few moments the slave woman, Fatima, made her appearance, no kindly-eyed old crone like Miriam, but a sallow, furtive-faced creature, with an old disfiguring scar across ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... croaked one old crone, who had something of a reputation among her neighbours. "What I want to know is—who killed ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... no mystery about Shebotha's disappearance nor aught out of the way save in the adroitness with which the aged crone contrived to effect her escape. Soon as touching the ground, and feeling herself free from the arms hitherto holding her on horseback, she has darted into the underwood, and off; not even rising erect to her feet, but on all fours, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... sure. What would you have them be?' replied the crone, who seemed to think that drinking was a ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... 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 lurk ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... another alms, and so on for twelve times in succession; but, whenas she returned for the thirteenth time, he said to her, 'Good woman, thou art very diligent in this thine asking,' and natheless gave her an alms. The old crone, hearing these words, exclaimed, 'O liberality of Nathan, how marvellous art thou! For that, entering in by each of the two-and-thirty gates which his palace hath, and asking of him an alms, never, for all that he showed, was I recognized of him, and still ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... the fortune-teller raised her head, and, shading her eyes with one skinny hand, looked curiously at the new comers. Calton thought he had never seen such a repulsive-looking old crone; and, in truth, her ugliness was, in its very grotesqueness well worthy the pencil of a Dore. Her face was seamed and lined with innumerable wrinkles, clearly defined by the dirt which was in them; bushy grey eyebrows, drawn ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... he lay 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 ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... "down-stairs." "Down-stairs" had a distinct meaning in the Compton vocabulary. It was spoken of with significance, and with a laugh, as something half hostile, half ridiculous. It meant a sort of absurd criticism and inspection, as of some old crone sitting vigilant, spying upon everything—a mother-in-law. Phil's cronies thought it was the most absurd weakness on his part to let such an intruder get footing in his house. "You will never get rid of her," they said. And Phil, though ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... passed through her mind, the room seemed to darken, the air to thicken. The girl's proud young body sank, doubled till she seemed a crone, old and withered and jocose; a sneering laugh came from her drawn lips; her hands, trembling together, hookedly reached towards Kate; the eyes were sunk lidless and gleaming with malice; a voice that was like ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... soon showed a discontented curve not to be belied by the merry words that issued from them, and when we would have escorted her across the fields to her father's house, she made a mocking curtsy, and wandered away with the ugliest old crone who mouths and mumbles in the meeting-house. Did she do this to mock us or him? If to mock him he had best take care, for beauty scorned is apt to grow dangerous. But perhaps it was to mock us? Well, well, there would be nothing ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... About the outskirts loafed a dozen or so of the less socially eligible of Newbern. Above a fire at the camp centre a kettle simmered on its pothook, being stirred at this moment by a brown and aged crone in frivolous-patterned calico, who wore gold hoops in her ears and bangles at her neck and bracelets of silver on her arms—bejewelled, indeed, most unbecomingly for a ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... creature that anybody can make for himself, but it must be done so secretly that no human eye sees it. Its body is a broomstick, its head a broken jug, its nose a piece of glass, and its arms two reels which have been used by an old crone of a hundred years. All these things are easy to procure. You must set up this creature on three Thursday evenings at a cross-road, and animate it with the words which I will teach you. On the third Thursday the creature ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone shook ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... who chuckled continuously in his huge gray beard. But such doubts only added to the excitement of the evening, which reached a climax when a lighted candle was thrust in at the door and the pair advised not to make a night of it by the candid crone on her ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... teepee. On the couch the boy still lay, his eyes brilliant with fever but more with hate. At the foot of the couch still crouched the old crone, but there was no ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... 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 difficulty she encounters ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... what kind of a Box the Merry Box has been found. It is odd to know nothing of all this. We had an old woman to do devil- work for you about a month ago, in a Chinaman's house on Apaiang (August 23rd or 24th). You should have seen the crone with a noble masculine face, like that of an old crone [SIC], a body like a man's (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain of the EQUATOR, and the Chinaman and ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rising or setting, and the Atheist, falsely so called, starts in wonder and in delight, which his soul, because it is immortal, cannot resist, to behold that Bible suddenly opened before his eyes on the sky. Or some old, decrepit, greyhaired crone, holds out her shrivelled hand, with dim eyes patiently fixed on his, silently asking charity—silently, but in the holy name of God; and the Atheist, taken unawares, at the very core of his heart bids "God bless her," as he ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... close-built cities, where so much of the common life of the people goes on, now as it has for hundreds of years. For the piazza, descending in direct tradition from the ancient Forum, is the public hall of citizens, where they trade, gossip, quarrel, plot, love, and hate, from the crone sunning herself in a sheltered nook over her bag of chestnuts to the grandee whose palace windows open above the noisy commonalty. The Chancellor saw this common meeting-ground, this glorified street, filled ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... and 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, ourselves or the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... moved to and fro. Outside in the courtyard the sun would be shining perhaps, the trees would wave, and cast flickering shadows on Madelon, as she sat, the pigeons would come fluttering and perching on the window-sill, and Soeur Lucie, whilst paring, cutting, boiling, skimming, would crone out for Madelon's benefit the old tales she knew so well that she could almost have repeated them in her sleep. Madelon only begged to be let off the tragical ending, which she could not bear, at last always stopping her ears when the critical moment of the sword, or ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... 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
... thou left thy good wife?" said one old crone. "Did she not take good care of thee? What didst thou lack? Why not have waited another month? Thy daughter-in-law would have borne thee a grandson!" A tall young fellow, Pietri's son, pressed his father's cold hand and cried: "Oh! why hast thou not died of the ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... 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 chords, and she prescribed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... opened by 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 Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... thoughtfully. "Who would have thought it! Carrying medicine to an old bedridden crone! And was going to stick to his job even when his mother was dying! He's got some stuff in him, after all, if he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... times, and three times to drop stones into my bosom, each stone she wrapped up in purple after she had muttered charms over it; then, directing her hands to my privates, she commenced to try out my virility. Quicker than thought the nerves responded to the summons, filling the crone's hand with an enormous erection! Skipping for joy, "Look, Chrysis, look," she cried out, "see what a hare I've started, for someone else to course!" (This done, the old lady handed me over to Chrysis, who was greatly delighted at the recovery of her mistress's treasure; she hastily ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... 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 ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... care of the old crone, who, to judge from appearances, was hardly an improvement upon the ungracious attendant she had left at the Chateau des Anges. This hag had evidently the worst possible opinion of her guest, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... appearance that amazed—and really startled—the girls most was the figure that sat facing them, as they entered the van. It was that of an old, old crone, sitting on a stool, bent forward with her sharp chin resting on her clenched fists, and her elbows on her knees, while iron-gray elf-locks hung about her wrinkled, nut-brown face, half ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... you saw all I see in this cup, you would not be so eager to know its contents," said the crone in a boding voice. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... there appeared no maid, no stewardess, Who every stranger erst, with friendly greeting, hailed. But when I neared at length the bosom of the hearth, There saw I, by the light of dimly smouldering fire, Crouched on the ground, a crone, close-veiled, of stature huge, Not like to one asleep, but as absorbed in thought! With accent of command I summon her to work, The stewardess in her surmising, who perchance My spouse, departing hence, with foresight there had placed; Yet, closely muted up, still ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... morning in which he saw Maria was bald, and keeping silence upon the matter, had wheedled the old woman into keeping Maria's hair for him, and dressing for the mayoress some other hair of the same hue which the crone had from a dead woman—a bargain by which the crafty old dame acquired many a bright crown. And the story relates that as soon as Maria regained her much lamented and sighed-for hair by the hands of the gallant sword-cutler, the master appeared to her much less ugly ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... appellant, apple-pie order, baker's dozen, bamboozle, bay window, between whiles, bicker, blanch, to brain, burly, catcall, clodhopper, clutch, coddle, copious, cosy, counterfeit money, crazy (dilapidated), crone, crook, croon, cross-grained, cross-patch, cross purposes, cuddle, to cuff (to strike), cleft, din, earnest money, egg on, greenhorn, jack-of-all-trades, loophole, settled, ornate, to quail, ragamuffin, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... 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. The last stitch severed, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... his new treasure in his arms, and to crone over him a little lullaby well known in Tergon, with which his own mother had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... whole horde of dirty, ragged youngsters on the place, who were in the habit of running loose all day, shrieking after passing vehicles, and calling the occupants bad names; there was an old crone, who usually sat by the roadside, tipsy; and there were a husband and wife who were always quarrelling and fighting, and who had never been known to do any honest work. No one could say whether they begged more than they stole, or stole more than ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... herself given him. She looked at the hand-writing, which she could not mistake, and repeated to herself the words—"Do not, I charge you, I entreat you, permit your guests to wonder at my absence:" the while the old crone going on with her talk, filled her ear with a strange medley of truth and falsehood. At length Perdita ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... wholly unsuspected by them, the old crone who was in charge of the gang of female labourers had, for some days past, been keeping a sharply watchful eye upon the investigators, and upon the day in question she had been, if possible, more sharply watchful than ever. So interested in them did she at last become that, turning ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... old crone, poor old body! She will soon have to give in. She can't even keep the children from ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ifrin with the souls of Odin and of Thor!" answered Cedric impatiently, and would probably have proceeded in the same tone of total departure from his spiritual character, when the colloquy was interrupted by the harsh voice of Urfried, the old crone of the turret. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... passage is, however, from "his more popular and wider honour"—his superstitious character,—whilst, as Mr. Tytler prettily observes, "his miracles and incantations are yet recorded beside the cottage fire, by many a grey-headed crone, and his fearful name still banishes the roses from the cheeks of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... "What!" screamed the old crone, now furious with rage. "Do you dare tell me that—to my face? Never, impudent huzzy—never, while I have strength and spirit and power to say you no—shall you wed this ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... friendly and most protracted howling contest in which my malamute "Muk" plainly outdid all competitors. How much longer the noise would have kept up it is hard to say—dogs never seem too tired to howl—but when the limit of Indian patience was reached, an aged crone rolled out of the bed into which she had rolled "all standing," seized a staff and went outdoors to lay it impartially upon the backs of all the disturbers of the peace, domestic and foreign, with a screech that was as formidable as the blows. The ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... shall get the last sheaf, called the Grandmother. Whoever gets it will be married in the next year, but his or her spouse will be old; if a girl gets it, she will marry a widower; if a man gets it, he will marry an old crone. In Silesia the Grandmother—a huge bundle made up of three or four sheaves by the person who tied the last sheaf—was formerly fashioned into a rude likeness of the human form. In the neighbourhood ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... endeavour'd to adjust; With difficulty she could find a place To hang them on in her unshapely face; For if the Princess's was somewhat small, This Fairy scarce had any nose at all. But when by help of spectacles the Crone Discern'd a Nose so different from her own, What peals of laughter shook her aged sides! While with sharp jests the Prince ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and to forget her wretchedness over a book, the execrable old woman railed and stormed, and complained that she was neglected. Yet, when Frances stayed, she was constantly assailed with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, in the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a proof that the person who enjoyed it was meanly born, and out of the pale of good society. All her scanty stock of broken English was employed to express the contempt with which she regarded the author of Evelina and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into a world that has 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 New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... ever thus over the fire like some old crone?" he growled, voicing at last the irritability that so long had been growing ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... from this 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 ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... 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
... pits of despondency, even as one that yieldeth without further struggle to the waves of tempest at midnight, when he was ware of one standing over him,—a woman, old, wrinkled, a very crone, with but room for the drawing of a thread between her nose and her chin; she was, as is cited of them who betray the doings ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. "Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke," Were the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the objects ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... stigmatic professor began to search for the hidden signs with unsparing scrutiny. Upon finding a mole or wart or any similar mark, they tried the 'insensibleness thereof' by inserting needles, pins, awls, or any sharp-pointed instrument; and in an old and withered crone it might not be difficult to find ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... 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 435 That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture, The life ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... "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 and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... many terms to express the word "woman" which we have not. A traveller in the rural districts speaks of a "kindly old wife who received me," or a "wretched old crone," or a "saucy lassie," or a "neat maid," etc. We should use the word "woman," or "old woman," or ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the Thessalian crone replied: "If you asked to change the fate of an individual, though it were to restore an old man, decrepit with age, to vigorous youth, I could comply; but to break the eternal chain of causes and consequences exceeds ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... 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 ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... passionately devoted mother, 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 ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... across the ford. There as I passed, a certain aged crone, Whom I had fed, and nursed, year after year, Met me mid-stream—thrust past me stoutly on— And rolled me headlong in the freezing mire. There as I lay and weltered,—'Take that, Madam, For all your selfish ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... 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 back again. ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... said Utgard-Loki, looking at the men sitting on the benches, "who would not think it beneath him to wrestle with thee; let somebody, however, call hither that old crone, my nurse Elli, and let Thor wrestle with her if he will. She has thrown to the ground many a man not less strong ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... least, anything but a comfortable sensation; but their hostile intentions, if ever entertained, were immediately removed by a wave of the hand from our conductress, who, leading my companion towards the sibyl, whispered something in her ear. The old crone appeared incredulous. The 'Unknown' uttered one word; but that word had the effect of magic; she prostrated herself at his feet, and in an instant, from an object of suspicion he became one of worship to the whole family, to whom, on taking leave, he made a handsome present, and departed with ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... door, we gave a 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 ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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
... 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, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... like the nightingale, Nor shalt thou in those fair white feathers go, Thou silly thief, thou false, black-hearted crow; Nor shalt thou ever speak like man again; Thou shalt not have the power to give such pain; Nor shall thy race wear any coat but black, And ever shall their voices crone and crack And be a warning against wind and rain, In token that by thee my wife ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... to her, Theron 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, That mischievous satyr with his tipsy wreath, Who kept ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... drive her mad. But matters now were changed. Day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year, a rose had been unfolding itself at Collingswood, and with every opening petal had grown more and more precious to the blind man, until more than one crone foretold the end; and Grace Atherton, grown fonder of gossip than she was wont to be, listened to the tale, and watched, and wondered, and wept, and still caressed and loved the bright, beautiful girl, whom she dreaded as a powerful rival. This it was which prompted her ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... into the air, but now a deathly silence received them. Silence broken only by the rustling of garments, as a withered old crone shambled forward and ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Sim; "it was the time of the war. The neighbors told of some maiden aunt, an old crone like herself, who had left Joe's mother aboon a ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... cottage of the old bedridden crone whom Aubrey had referred to. It was as a gleam of sunshine,—that sweet comforting face; and here, seated by the old woman's side, with the Book of the Poor upon her lap, Evelyn was found by Lady Vargrave. It was curious to observe ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the doorway waved his hand in assent, and Renwick followed him into the house, where his host made a motion for him to be seated. A girl and a woman sat by the table knitting, and an old crone sat in a large chair by the fireplace, in which some embers still glowed. Renwick was hungry, but not nearly so hungry as impatient for the crumbs of information that these worthy people might possess, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... soon ushered into the kitchen. An aged crone descended, and raking the charcoal embers, kindled a flame, by which the rower was enabled ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... later, Crone, the advertising manager, came up to Bobby very much worried, to report that not only the First National but the Second Market Bank had stopped their advertising, as had Trimmer and Company, and another of ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... 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 ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... where to find the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon. But it was only the same thing once again. "Maybe it was you who should have had the Prince," said the old woman. "Yes, indeed, I should have been the one," said the girl. But this old crone knew the way no better than the others—it was east of the sun and west of the moon, she knew that, "and you will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get to it at all," she said; "but you ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... masquerade meets Gayman, and 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 midnight plot and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... red heifers. At other times we hear fearful tales of old women who, like the Jigar Khwar of Persia, feed upon man's liver: they are fond of destroying young children; even adults are not ashamed of defending themselves with talismans. In this country the crone is called Bidaa or Kumayyo, words signifying a witch: the worst is she that destroys her own progeny. No wound is visible in this vampyre's victim: generally he names his witch, and his friends beat her to death unless she heal him: many are thus martyred; ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... down to Ghilendzhik, I said to my husband, 'Let us go and see our house and land.' Accordingly we went along to look. What was our astonishment to find it occupied by another old crone. I went up to ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... Preparations for the first War Administration of James at Dublin An auxiliary Force sent from France to Ireland Plan of the English Jacobites; Clarendon, Aylesbury, Dartmouth Penn Preston The Jacobites betrayed by Fuller Crone arrested Difficulties of William Conduct of Shrewsbury The Council of Nine Conduct of Clarendon Penn held to Bail Interview between William and Burnet; William sets out for Ireland Trial of Crone Danger of Invasion and Insurrection; Tourville's Fleet in the Channel ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for a penny! He never can learn the cat's tread!" thought the crone, as she arose and withdrew the bolt of the ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... by Surtees. "A friend of Mr. Taylor's" gave him a Tynedale ballad, "Hey, Willy Ridley, winna you stay?" which is also "aut Diabolus aut Robertus." As to "Barthram's Dirge," "from Ann Douglas, a withered crone who weeds my garden," copies with various tentative verses in Surtees' hand have been found. Oddly enough, Sir Walter had once discovered a small sepulchral cross, upset, in Liddesdale, near the "Nine Stane Rig;" and this ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... forget the simple origins of royal dominion; he had heard the rustle of that Vanity whose tinsel seems to us to be the symbol of power. However cynical Vautrin's words had been, they had made an impression on his mind, as the sordid features of the old crone who whispers, "A lover, and gold in torrents," remain engraven ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... then I fell down; I lay there, I could not get up again. But the flames burst out through the window and over the roof; they saw it down below, and they all ran as fast as they could to help me; the poor old crone they believed would be burned; there was not one who did not come to help me. I heard them come, and I heard, too, such a rustling in the air, and then a thundering as of heavy cannon-shots, for the spring-flood was loosening ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... half-shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the 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 a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, and hair-breadth escapes ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... hair, 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 |
