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More "Croak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sheol) do you reckon on bein' shoved into when you croak, Bob?" asked Donovan, with a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... come "in express mission from the Jacobins," to inquire sharply, better then than later, touching certain things: "Shaven eyebrows of Volunteer Patriots, for instance?" Also "your threats of shivering in pieces?" Also, "why you have not chased Brunswick hotly enough?" Thus, with sharp croak, inquires the Figure.—"Ah, c'est vous qu'on appelle Marat, You are he they call Marat!" answers the General, and turns coldly on his heel. (Dumouriez, iii. 115.—Marat's account, In the Debats des Jacobins and Journal de la Republique (Hist. Parl. xix. 317-21), agrees to the turning on the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Grip had been busily plucking away the straw from the hidden plunder; now his hoarse croak showed them the hoard and they unearthed it all. At length, closing ranks around Barnaby, they marched him off to a barracks, from which he was taken to Newgate Prison, where a blacksmith put irons on his arms and legs, ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... coat, sir, is a brave one! So black and glossy, on my word, sir, With voice to match, you were a bird, sir, Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days.' Sir Raven, overset with praise, Must show how musical his croak. Down fell the luncheon from the oak; Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:— 'The flatterer, my good sir, Aye liveth on his listener; Which lesson, if you please, Is doubtless worth the cheese.' A bit too late, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... out of the gloom beneath them, and they hung motionless to listen. The speech was Spanish garnished with oaths, its meaning not altogether clear. They could distinguish Mendez's harsh croak ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... class, but at nineteen reason is not always supreme; and many a time he went back with a sigh from his window to his books, and tried to forget the alluring strains of the quadrille and waltz in the descriptions of the lion's roar and the bull-frog's croak in the far-off tropics. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... drawing-room: whereupon Carnot glided out; groped in Robespierre's pocket; found a list of Forty, his own name among them; and tarried not at the wine-cup that day!—Ye must bestir yourselves, O Friends; ye dull Frogs of the Marsh, mute ever since Girondism sank under, even ye now must croak or die! Councils are held, with word and beck; nocturnal, mysterious as death. Does not a feline Maximilien stalk there; voiceless as yet; his green eyes red-spotted; back bent, and hair up? Rash Tallien, with his rash temper and audacity of tongue; he shall bell the cat. Fix ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... that he was as hoarse as a crow; result, no doubt, of the intense emotion. It passed off in a moment. But these fateful words issued forth from his contracted throat in a discordant, ridiculous croak. They required no answer. The thing was done. However, the man personating the inspector judged it expedient to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... you any more. That's against the laws of hospitality, isn't it?—only there are some things which you can't expect a man to forget, you know. However, let bygones be bygones. As for poor old Tom, I daresay he'll live to be a hale, hearty old man, in spite of the croakers. People always will croak about something; and it's a kind of fashion to say that a big, hearty, six-foot man is a fragile blossom likely to be nipped by any wintry blast. Come, come, Mrs. Halliday, your husband mustn't discover that I've been making ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... a leaping Fish Send through the Tarn a lonely chear; The Crags repeat the Raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the Rainbow comes, the Cloud; And Mists that spread the flying shroud; 30 And Sun-beams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past, But that enormous Barrier binds ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... He has had a love-affair. There was a time when he too joined in the dance and song, as one might say; but all that is over for him. One morning he turned up late, his usual merry call changed to a croak like that of a bull-frog virtuoso. I peered between the curtains to make sure that it was not Number Five (as yet hypothetical); but no—it was Three, with a look on his face that could only bear one interpretation. Belinda ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... Arthur; no longer was he a mortal boy. Instead of this, a frog—a green speckled frog, with great bulging eyes and a fishy mouth—looked up at him. He tried to call, to shout, but in vain; he could only croak, and this in the most dismal manner. What was he to do? Sit and stare about him, try to catch flies, plunge down into the mud—charming amusements for the rest of his life! A little brown bird hopped down for a drink from the rivulet; she stooped and rose, ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... heard of the Stanhope scheme, nor did she allude to her former opinion when Eleanor called her late friend Charlotte a base, designing woman. She re-echoed all the abuse that was heaped on Mr. Slope's head and never hinted that she had said as much before. "I told you so, I told you so!" is the croak of a true Job's comforter. But Mary, when she found her friend lying in her sorrow and scraping herself with potsherds, forbore to argue and to exult. Eleanor acknowledged the merit of the forbearance, and at length allowed ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... fixedly). I hear a raven's croak; I feel The icy breath of some strange body when Thou standest burning by my side, thou fool! ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Between us, even ten feet from the stairs, the deck was littered with bodies, ghastly faces staring up, with black stains of blood everywhere. It was Manuel's hand which had kindled the light, and the first croak of his voice ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... orifice in the bark. Here, as well as in the library, the presentations were numerous: Col. Rhodes was represented by a glossy Saguenay raven. I listened, expecting each moment to hear it, like Poe's nocturnal visitor, "ghostly, grim and ancient," croak out "nevermore!" ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of heavy wings and croak of alarm flew up a great heron from a marshy pool, and in a moment all was forgotten as I unhooded my hawk—one that Olaf had given me from the Danish spoils at Canterbury. Then the rush of the long-winged falcon, and the cry of the heron, and the giddy climbing of both ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... another inch," cried the obstinate frog with an angry croak, "nor shall any of your people advance another step while that insulting ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... cannot be put down, nor would we wish to see it pass away. All great improvement is the fruit of speculation, upon which, indeed, commerce itself is based. We have, therefore, no sympathy for that numerous class of gentlemen who profess a pious horror for every venture of the kind, who croak prophetical bankruptcies, and would disinherit their sons without scruple, if by any accident they detected them in dalliance with scrip. A worthier, but a more contracted, section of the human race does not exist. They are the genuine descendants ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... gloom of a thundery sky that has not yet begun to growl, and hears no sounds but that of an occasional big rain-drop, plashing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead sometimes utters a sullen groan—the pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on his face, but sees no bird on ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... slow towards a mother an' wife like what mine be, after near a month from 'em; but let's have your news, Billy, an' doan't croak, for God's sake. ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... are more reasons than one; if there is a bad reason, Elder Semple will be sure to croak about it. I could wish that just now he ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... off abashed and trembling, and the Vere began to sing, or rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her shoulders a rich mantle glittering with embroidered trimmings, and poised a coquettish Paris model hat on her thick untwisted coils of hair. Thus attired, she passed out of her dressing-room, locking the door behind her, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... here,' he grumbled. 'They're enough to make one croak. Mind, doctor, no priests, and no physics when I go off, or we shall quarrel. Let him come in, however, as he is ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... for all, and all for one, One soul! and therefore have we shatter'd back The hugest wave from Norseland ever yet Surged on us, and our battle-axes broken The Raven's wing, and dumb'd his carrion croak From the gray sea for ever. Many are gone— Drink to the dead who died for us, the living Who fought and would have died, but happier lived, If happier be to live; they both have life In the large mouth of England, till her voice ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... to purchase his cow: upon which he said, "Reverend mother of Solomon, dost thou wish to buy my cow?" The bird croaked again. "Well," replied he," what wilt thou give if I will sell her a bargain." The bird repeated her croak. "Never mind," said the foolish fellow, "for though thou hast forgotten to bring thy purse, yet, as I dare say thou art an honest woman, and hast bidden me ten deenars, I will trust thee with the cow, and call on Friday for the money." The bird renewed her croaking, which he fancied to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... ways at any time and in anybody," said the thin croak, made more husky by snuff, a pinch of which she held between thumb and finger, the joined digits punctuating her strictures. "And she's one of the fair-and-softy sort. A pleasant word to this one, and a smile to that, and always recollecting who is sick, and who is away from home, and ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... put on, Ferris; yer don't know a t'ing, see?" cried Macklin, with a laugh that sounded more like a croak. ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... folks," he said; and his voice sounded to them like a harsh croak, because it had become much deeper in tone since he had ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... Why should England be agreeable to you?" she replied, with a smiling sharpness. "You do nothing but croak about England." ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... out a gallant soldier, anyway," said John, cheerily. "Don't croak, Blundell; we'll make ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... correctly. Seated on the crumbling maintop of the ship was a huge, evil-looking bird of the kind called "Gallinazos" in South America. The carrion creature eyed the newcomer with a red malevolent eye and again gave voice to its harsh croak—the sound that had so startled ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... pretty. It is well shaded, under a shelter of large trees with dense foliage, and a miniature lake close by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on the finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artificial islets decked with gardenias in full bloom. From time to time, one of them informs us of his thoughts by a 'Couac', uttered in a deep bass croak, infinitely more hollow than that of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... would have hired Me to the poisoning of my patron, sir? Are not you he that have to-day in court Profess'd the disinheriting of your son? Perjured yourself? Go home, and die, and stink. If you but croak a syllable, all comes out: Away, and call your porters! [exit corbaccio.] ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... evident enough, namely, to protect the corpse from the dingo, or native dog. That the ravens and other carrion-eating birds should make a banquet upon the body of the dead man does not seem to trouble the survivors in the least, and it often happens that the traveler is told by the croak of the disturbed ravens that the body of a dead Australian is lying in ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... physical reason. For these are clearly the most mountainous parts of the United Kingdom; and the clear mountain air seems to produce on the average a better type of human larynx than the mists of the level. The men of the lowland, say the Tyrolese, croak like frogs in their marshes; but the men of the upland sing like nightingales on their tree-tops. And indeed, it would seem as if the mountain people were always calling to one another across intervening valleys, always singing and whistling and shouting over their ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... Chuzzlewit,' she said, in a sort of quavering croak, 'to see the t'other person. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... I've got a lump in my throat, 'n' I think it's a bunch of bright conversation stuck there. But just then a chunk of water rolls out of my eye, 'n' hits my hat—pow! It looks bigger'n Lake Erie, 'n' 'fore I kin jerk the hat away—pow!—comes another one. I knows the colonel sees 'em, 'n' I hopes I croak. ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... chilly wide-mouth'd quacking chorus From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak: So was it, neighbour, in the times before us, When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak, Romp'd with the Graces; and each tickled Muse 5 (That Turk, Dan Phoebus, whom bards call divine, Was married to—at least, he kept—all nine) Fled, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... grew very small; their green coats and white vests turned into skin, and their children wear to-day the same kind of suits their parents wore that day they waded into the pool. Though they have the whole pond to themselves, they croak away until their mouths have grown wide and ugly, as mockingly as did their ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... "Croak, croak, croak," Thus the Raven spoke, Perched on his crooked tree As hoarse as hoarse could be. Shun him and fear him, Lest the Bridegroom hear him; Scout him and rout him With his ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... sun and the soft breeze, an unwonted heaviness pervaded the male-bird's body. Formerly he used to fly or roost, croak or sit silent, fly swiftly or slowly, because there were causes both around and within him: when hungry he would find a hare, kill, and devour it; when the sun was too hot or the wind too keen, he would shelter from them; when he saw a crouching wolf, he ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... made the least acquaintance. Whether from fear or presence of mind I do not pretend to say, but I remained perfectly still, and in a minute or two Jack put his head forward and stared me in the face, uttering a sort of croak; he then descended on to my knees, examined my hands as if he were counting my fingers, tried to take off my rings, and when I gave him some biscuit, curled himself compactly into my lap. We were friends from that ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... while I have a voice in the affairs of my own husband's niece! How are you, Evelina, and are you crazy, Sallie Carruthers?" came in a deep raven croak of a voice that sounded as if it had harked partly from the tomb, as Aunt Augusta Shelby stood in the doorway, with reproof on her lips and sternness on her brow. "Peter and I will have Evelina move down immediately with us. James Hardin has as much in the way of a family as he ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was warm and pleasant. No sound, except the soft lapping of the waves on the shore, the chirp of a cricket or the occasional croak of a tree frog, disturbed the quiet of the night. As the time wore on, without any disturbance, the watches began to doze until Gerald was suddenly roused with a start by a splash in the water and saw a boat gliding ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... they lay scratched and panting, there was a darkening of the air, the soft whishing of wings, and the raven dropped on the big pinnacle close at hand, to utter its hoarse, barking croak as it gazed wickedly at them with first one ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... a little awkward uncomfortable inward suggestion began to croak that elder sisters are occasionally right, and may even be wiser in their generation than tall girls who have entered the Fifth. Gwen's cough, which had been hacking all day, came on much worse, and began to hurt ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... know," said Mr. Worthington; "don't croak, Flint. We can buy more hitch ropes, if necessary. Well, what's the outlay up to the present? Large, I suppose. Well, whatever it is, it's small compared to what we'll get for it." He laughed a little and rubbed his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the fierce, eager glance of every brown face, the rapt attention, and the utter silence, save for the multiplied breathing of so many. A crow, wheeling on black wings in the blue overhead, uttered a loud croak, astonished perhaps at the spectacle below, but no one paid any attention to him, and, uttering another croak, he flew away. A rash bear at the edge of the wood was almost overpowered by the human odor that reached his nostrils, but, recovering his senses, he lurched ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Nor beast has stirred, The spotted bullfrog's croak is heard. The wind is high, The grasses sigh, The sluggish stream ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... like to know what became of Stingy? When the web was broken and he tumbled to the ground, he fell into the open mouth of the Frisky Frog, who gave a comfortable croak as he swallowed him. Nobody was sorry that Stingy was swallowed. Mrs. Cricky said it served him right, but then, poor Mrs. Cricky's good wishes were often lost in anxiety, lest harm should come to one of her own little ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... to govern them. When the Frogs discovered his easy good nature, they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still another King. Jupiter, displeased with all their complaints, sent a Heron, who preyed upon the Frogs day by day till there were none left to croak upon the lake. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... its fellows, alighted upon the poor beast's head, and was just bending over that coveted dainty, the eye—which was open and staring—when a heavy step, coming over the snow, startled him. With a croak of disappointment he quitted his post of vantage, rose heavily in the air, and flapped slowly off to a neighbouring tree, followed by his companions, cawing and scolding hoarsely. The figure of a man appeared, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... he barked. "O'Mara, I'm glad you came down this morning. I've been carrying a lot of those ideas around in my head until they had become nightmarish. But I'm through now. You won't hear me croak again. I staked what I had on you, months ago; I'd do it again this minute. What's the odds, after all, who it is that's playing us to lose. It's only the fact that somebody may be fighting us that needs to occupy our attention. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the hope that an investigation will be ordered by the Legislature, and, if the facts be as they are represented here (this being a faithful record of what I have been credibly told), in the further hope that the men who have tampered with the honor of Dennie McCafferty and his friend, The Croak, will speedily be ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... as is the puppy to the dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride. He mounts his head as if he was above The world, when yet 'tis that which has his love. And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and sponger!" how those words stung him. How contemptuously his father had always spoken of such people. They rankled in his heart as he sped up the road. A squirrel in an old fir-tree had shouted them at him, while a forlorn crow soaring overhead had looked down and given its hoarse croak of contempt. He was a sucker—a sponger! living upon others! What was he doing to earn his living? Nothing. What would his father think were ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... rain, And the robins richly call To their mates mercurial, And the tree-boughs creak and strain In the wind; When the river's rough with foam, And the new-made clearings smoke, And the clouds that go and come Shine and darken frolicsome, And the frogs at evening croak Undefined Mysteries of monotone, And by melting beds of snow Wind-flowers blossom all alone; Then I know That the bitter winter's dead. Over his head The damp sod breaks so mellow,— Its mosses tipped ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... dog bestowed upon me." So he took the price of the dish and a suitable gift; and, setting out, journeyed day and night, till he came to that city; he entered it and sought the place where the man lived; but he found there naught save ruins mouldering in row and croak of crow, and house and home desolate and all conditions in changed state. At this, his heart and soul were troubled, and he repeated the saying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... not quiet till one of the waiters have poured wine on his lap; and when he sneezeth, thinks them not his friends that uncover not. In the morning he listens whether the crow crieth even or odd, and by that token presages of the weather. If he hear but a raven croak from the next roof he makes his will, or if a bittern fly over his head by night; but if his troubled fancy shall second his thoughts with the dream of a fair garden, or green rushes, or the salutation of a dead friend, he takes leave of the world ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... in the early spring a raven was sitting on one of the branches of an old oak. He felt very ugly and cross, and could only say, "Croak! Croak!" ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... coat, and never a decent one, at his work. He blows no cheery music out of a brass bugle as he approaches a town, but pricks the loins of the fiery beast, and makes him scream with a sound between a human whistle and an alligator's croak. He never pulls up abreast of the station-house door, in the fashion of the old coach driver, to show off himself and his leaders, but runs on several rods ahead of his passengers and spectators, as if to be clear of them and their comments, good or bad. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... assented sharply; "but we could beat off double their numbers. Don't go and croak among ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... tidings of impending disaster. But as yet these doves have no news save of the deluge. Presently an early reveille startles us from our beds of soft plank, and, as we fall in sleepily, fagged and exhausted in mind and body by this work, so new and so trying, we are electrified by the hoarse croak of Sergeant Files—he too is used up. 'Volunteers to go beyond the District,' step two paces t'the front—H'rch!' Four men remain in the ranks. All eyes turn to this shabby remnant, but they remain immovable, with the leaden expression belonging to the victims of the Confederate lexicon, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... more than all other men of publicity, to vanish from the scene betimes. Being at best but painted shadows flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo anther's thought, it is a sad disenchantment when the colors begin to fade and the voice to croak ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... year. Three novels of more than full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work—certainly that was "good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that The Quarterly Review, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to mature," and to warn him that as he had "risen like a rocket," so he ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... are an ill-omened night-bird who thus croak to me continually of the death of kings," broke in Cetewayo with suppressed rage. Then calming himself with an effort added, "Tell me now, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... you mean?" retorted Gayford; "a lot you've done for the public good. There are plenty of seagulls about without you to croak, too." ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... voice hoarse and thick with rheum, a voice like the croak of a crow, "though it is little thanks to your Excellency. Those must be strong who can bathe in Rhine water through a hole in the ice and take ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... him. To her, he appeared ugly and loathsome. His smile was a vicious leer, and his voice sounded like a harsh croak. ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said, O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend, We hold them slight: they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... survivors of Hosea Biglow's Cornwallis; the sole remaining protestants against a banker's Olympus which had become, for five-and-twenty years, more and more despotic over Esop's frog-empire. One might no longer croak except to vote for King Log, or — failing storks — for Grover Cleveland; and even then could not be sure where King Banker lurked behind. The costly education in politics had led to political torpor. Every one did not share it. Clarence King and ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... dispelled the fog, came from the north and blew colder and colder as the night wore on. In the morning the Captain woke stiff and chilled and with a very sore throat. "I'm all right," he protested when Aunt Clara came in to administer remedies, but his voice was a mere croak. Aunt Clara felt of his head and found a high fever. She promptly ordered him to stay in bed and set herself to the task of breaking up the cold. Hinpoha ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... wind. And when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a singular, indescribable sound. A crack from a hoof on a stone rang like a hollow bell and echoed from wall to wall. And the croak of a frog—the only living creature he had so far noted in the canyon—was a weird ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... attention even of the most incurious—they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling on the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner; crows and daws swagger in their walk; woodpeckers fly with an undulating ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... must positively be the last," she declared reluctantly. "I'm so hoarse now I can scarcely croak. You see, I don't pretend to ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... expectations, on account of the shallowness of its channel. The river, however, was then at a low ebb; its banks were marshy, and its waters moved slowly and silently between forests of mangrove trees. The air was filled with the discordant croak of innumerable parrots, diversified somewhat by the notes of a few singing birds. As they proceeded, the river, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase in volume. At Embomma, much interest was excited among the natives, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of doors the evening brooded darker and darker over garden and lake. Moths whirred past the open doors through which the fragrance of flower and bush floated in increasingly; up from the water came the croak of the frogs, under the windows a nightingale commenced his song answered by another from within the depths of the garden; the moon ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... the croaking of the frogs, and realized how much it lowered his art. Swieten showed him an old piece of Gretry's in which the croak was imitated with striking effect. Haydn contended that it would be better if the entire croak were omitted, though he yielded to Swieten's importunities. He declared afterwards, however, that the frog passage was not his own. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... lessons with clearness and good emphasis, and that he strove to prevent his criminal congregation from enjoying the luxury of a stealthy nap. He occasionally furnished them with some amusement by attempting to lead the singing. The melody of his voice, which suggested the croak of an asthmatical raven, threw them into transports of sinister appreciation; and the remarkable manner in which he sometimes displayed the graces of Christian courtesy to the schoolmaster afforded them an opportunity of contrasting ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... send some word home, old man?' says I, to cheer him up; for don't you see, I allowed we was all in the drink—just tumble to what an old tub she was—117 of us at the start, and we all croak but me and the moke—the ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... heather of quiet Cruachan, the sorrowful croak from the ridge of the Two Lakes; the voice of the eagle of the Valley of the Shapes, the voice of the cuckoo on the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... over! Our walk has been along ranges of sepulchres, greatly more wonderful than those of Thebes or Petraea, and mayhap a thousand times more ancient. There is no lack of life along the shores of the solitary little bay. The shriek of the sparrow-hawk mingles from the cliffs with the hoarse deep croak of the raven; the cormorant on some wave-encircled ledge, hangs out his dark wing to the breeze; the spotted diver, plying his vocation on the shallows beyond, dives and then appears, and dives and appears again, and we see the silver glitter of scales from his beak; and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the moon shines bright, Both current and ripple are dancing in light. We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak, As we plashed along beneath the oak That flings its broad branches so far and so wide, Their shadows are dancing in midst of the tide. "Who wakens my nestlings," the raven he said, "My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red. For a blue swoln corpse ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... A colony of French possess the Court, Pimps, priests, buffoons, i' the privy-chamber sport. Such slimy monsters ne'er approached the throne Since Pharaoh's reign, nor so defiled a crown. I' the sacred ear tyrannic arts they croak, Pervert his mind, his good intentions choke; Tell him of golden Indies, fairy lands, Leviathan, and absolute commands. Thus, fairy-like, the King they steal away, And in his room a Lewis changeling lay. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... themselves to the wealthy; for his part he should blush to make a present here, rather than a repayment there, turning and, pointing to Callicles, the money-lender. Being still clamored upon and importuned, he told them this tale. A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing the same music, once more made a stop. "For," said he, "you may croak till you are tired, but you shall make no ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... out here some weeks since, where, by dint of the insensible exercise which one takes in the country, I feel myself gathering strength daily, but am still obliged to observe a severe regimen. It was not to croak about myself, however, that I took up the pen, but to wish you joy of your triumphant answer to that coarse-minded William Smith. He deserved all he has got, and, to say the truth, you do not spare him, and have no cause. His attack seems to have proceeded from the vulgar insolence of a ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... And first the Indians, the red sort, owned it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard in an ocean ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... was blithe, her heart was light; The Broom might have pursued Her speech, until the stars of night Their journey had renew'd. But in the branches of the Oak Two Ravens now began to croak Their nuptial song, a gladsome air; And to her own green bower the breeze That instant brought two stripling Bees ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... as he rose to his knees, and caught hold of one of the forelegs; "he arn't going to croak, ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... an ear for their own native woodnotes as any signor or signora for an Italian air; that the boars of Westphalia gruntle as expressively through the nose as the inhabitants in High German; and that the frogs in the dykes of Holland croak as intelligibly as the natives jabber their Low Dutch. However this may be, we may consider those whose tongues hardly seem to be under the influence of reason, and do not keep up the proper conversation of human creatures, as imitating the language ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... put exquisite tinge upon the shell washed in the surf, and planted a paradise of bloom in a child's cheek, let us leave it to the owl to hoot, and the frog to croak, and the fault-finder to ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... expected, the girl laughed a quick negative. "Not me," she returned, ungrammatical and emphatic. "I can't croak a note and my fingers never would make melody if I tried till I were a hundred. I'm doing the other side—paint and ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... with thine evil croak. There will be time enough to discourse with danger when it comes. Besides, I would know it blindfold, and the night doth bear no token ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a strolling player and had gone on the stage,— an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood- encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... us reduce this fable to the smallest number of words possible. The crow, to prove himself musical—for the fox pretended that this, the absence of a voice, was the sole slur on such exquisite beauty—began to croak, and delivered over the spoil which he carried in his mouth to the enemy who ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... scorn his Raven's croak, And well may mock his mystifying cloak Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read To make the ignoramus turn his head. The artificial glitter of his eyes Has captured half-grown boys. They think ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... thin as russet silk, at random are spread out. The croak of frogs from the adjoining lane but faintly strikes the ear. The pillow a slight chill pervades, for rain outside the window falls. The landscape, which now meets the eye, is like that seen in dreams by man. In plenteous streams the candles' tears do drop, but for whom do they weep? Each particle ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... moment, as before, a hawk had crossed her vision, so now a raven sailed by, black as coal, uttering a hoarse croak. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... animal. The players in the circle immediately imitate the animal, both as to its movements and cries. For instance, for a bear they claw or run on "all fours," or climb and at the same time growl; for a frog they may hop or swim and croak. The list may include the hopping kangaroo, the snarling and springing tiger, the humped and swaying camel, the balking and braying donkey, the flopping and barking seal, the scratching and cackling hen, the ponderous and mooing cow, the neighing ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... His croak was a pretence—he had hoaxed us all! Before we recovered from our stupefaction he had vanished. The school clamoured for his return, but though they cheered for three minutes on end Acton did not reappear, and Brown struck up "God save the Queen!" Biffen's ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... fled: Eke I in grief shall ever mourn and yearn, * Dwelling on days of love and lustihead; Long was our joyance, seeming aye to last, * When night and morning to reunion led; Till croaked the Raven[FN351] of the Wold one day * His cursed croak and did our union dead. We sped and left the homestead dark and void * Its gates unpeopled ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... self-denial, practised meditation, according to a new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... began. But she was so nervous that she felt as though her throat had suddenly closed up, and only a faint, quavering note issued from her lips, breaking off abruptly in a hoarse croak. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... to subside. The mackaw's screams gave place to a low quivering croak; and the insulted pug's yells yielded to a gentle whine. The aunts' obstreperous joy began to be chastened with fear for the consequences that might follow an abrupt disclosure; and, while Lady Juliana condoled with her favourites, it was concerted between the prudent aunts that the joyful ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... domesticity. The sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if he did not, like the illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled the Prison Ordinary in comforting the condemned. Had it only been his fate to die on the gallows, how unctuous had been his croak! ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... fools who see only the pleasant side? Are they alone the visionaries who see the best rather than the worst? It is strange that the critics see only weakness in the "pleasant- spoken," and only truth and safety in those who croak. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... again do those frogs of the Stoics croak at me and say that nothing is more miserable than madness. But folly is the next degree, if not the very thing. For what else is madness than for a man to be out of his wits? But to let them see how they are clean out of the way, with ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... living creatures are silent, a brook not far off may be flowing along with a rippling musical sound. These and a hundred other noises you will hear in the most quiet country spot; the lowing of the cattle, the song of the birds, the squeak of the field-mouse, the croak of the frog, mingling with the sound of the woodman's axe in the distance, or the dash of some river torrent. And beside these quiet sounds, there are still other occasional voices of nature which speak to us from time to time. The howling ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... shade the hides unbroached. Some roll the flowery turf into a seat, And others press the helmet—now resounds The signal—queen and monarch mount the thrones. The brazen clarion hoarsens: many leagues Above them, many to the south, the heron Rising with hurried croak and throat outstretched, Ploughs up the silvering surface of her plain. Tottering with age's zeal and mischief's haste Now was discovered Dalica; she reached The throne, she leant against the pedestal, And now ascending ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... sterling, or nearly $50,000; and this is but one of several inventions for which he has found a ready market here at liberal prices. I cite his case (for he is one of several Americans who have recently sold their European patents here at high figures) as a final answer to those who croak that our country is disgraced, and regret that any American ever came near the Exhibition. Had these discerning and patriotic gentlemen been interested in these patents, they might have taken a different view of the matter. Even my New-York friend, whose toadyism in exhibiting a capital pair ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... says I; whereupon he gives a cry like the croak of a frog, and his comrades steal up almost unseen and unheard, save that each as he came whispered his name, as Spinks, Davis, Lee, Best, etc., till their number was all told. Then Groves, who was clearly chosen their captain, calls Spinks, Lee, and Best to stand with ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... before his death, pursuing, with a friend, the melancholy and speculative employment of reading epitaphs in the churchyard of St. Pancras, absorbed by his own reflections, he fell into a new-made grave. There was something akin to the raven's croak, the death-fetch, the fading spectre, in this foreboding accident: he smiled at it, and told his friend he felt ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... his plumage is black and white. In both sexes the bill is yellow with chestnut grooves. The naked skin round the eye is blue, and that of the throat is scarlet. The call of this species is a deep hoarse croak. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... bird-shooting is but little practised, and the fowl fly in these heavens as unscared as in the original paradise. The nightingale sings in the thickets; the woodpecker makes the primeval woods resound with his chisel; crows of the pink and black species croak from the dead branches of the oaks; ravens with dark red legs and scarlet bills build their nests in the top of the elms; detachments of blue wood-pigeons cover the fields as numerous and as tame ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... left desolate—you, so good a human being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at all? Yes, I know—I know it well—that I ought not to say it, for to do so savours of free-thought; but why should that raven, Fate, croak out upon the fortunes of one person while she is yet in her mother's womb, while another person it permits to go forth in happiness from the home which has reared her? To even an idiot of an Ivanushka such happiness is sometimes granted. "You, you fool Ivanushka," says ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and I never smile, And I never lark nor play, But sit and croak, and a single joke I ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... to be perfunctory. It will acquire a fresh and more genuine significance, which, however, will not in any way inconvenience those who have never let go of the older significance. No tradition will be overthrown, no shock administered, and nobody will be able to croak about iconoclasm and new-fangled notions and the sudden end of the world, and ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... The form not only never yields to the sweep of the thought, but that thought, touching and fearful as is its tone, is made to turn and double fantastically, almost playfully, in many of the lines. The croak of the raven is taken up and moulded into rhyme by a nimble, if not a mocking spirit; and, fascinating as is the rhythmic movement of the verse, it appears like the dancing of the daughter of Herodias. This looks incongruous; and so do the words of the fool which Shakspeare has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... man, his voice sounding like the croak of a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... political excitement and strong party feeling, Washington was the last man in the world not to be decidedly on one side or the other. He was possessed of too much sense, force, and virility to be content to hold himself aloof and croak over the wickedness of people, who were trying to do something, even if they did not always try in the most perfect way. He was himself preeminently a doer of deeds, and not a critic or a phrase-maker, and we can read very distinctly in the extracts which have been brought together in this chapter ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... silence of a cell, I should not miss even the foolish cawing of those black jackdaws that croak without pause," he went on, looking up with a smile at the cloud of birds that settled on the towers; and he recalled a legend which tells that since the fire in 1836 these birds quit the cathedral ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... is still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who I am. I am still wasting ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... "They were trying to croak me, Jerry, and they nearly did it. Got a bump on my head big as a ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... obliging, was here unwilling to oblige. "Shall the owl croak the notes of the nightingale?" he asked, extending his open palms in a gesture of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... . I have been loitering out in the garden here this golden day of Spring. The woodpigeons coo in the covert; the frogs croak in the pond; the bees hum about some thyme, and some of my smaller nieces have been busy gathering primroses, 'all to make posies suitable to this present month.' I cannot but think with a sort of horror of being in London now: but I doubt I ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... the frog had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river with ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... sardonic tone, his bitter yellow face, the croak in his voice, and his stiff gait—all these things were signs of his hostility to her. And his mention of Anne Boleyn, who had been Queen, much as she was, and of her bitter fate, this mention, if it could not be a threat, was, at least, a reminder ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes—the cloud, And mists that spread the flying shroud, And sunbeams, and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past, But that enormous ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... of these rapids filled the air with its humming; but their ears were accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed beds, until Jo Lagasse imitated it ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of command: the birds crowded on the gibbet; not one was on the corpse. They were talking among themselves. The croaking was frightful. The howl, the whistle and the roar, are signs of life; the croak is a satisfied acceptance of putrefaction. In it you can fancy you hear the tomb breaking silence. The croak ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... till he was hoarse, he shouted after him till his voice was a wheezy croak. Tinker passed out of sight without a glance back, and, for a while, that iron-hearted, inexorable man of many loans, sobbed like a child with mingled rage and fear. Then he scrambled down the ladder, and tried the door. There was no chance of his bursting it open; that was a feat ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... this moment his eyes wandered to the Colonel's face. The laughter stopped with a dry croak. He saw that his old master and friend was serious, and reaching for one of the goblets he ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... softly out again. She was a country girl, it is true; but her laugh was as sweet to hear as the ripple of the waters among the stones. The laugh of anybody tells very much of what he is, making revelations undreamt of often by the laugher. A harsh croak does not come from a mind at peace, nor an empty clangour from a heart full of sensitive happiness; nor a coarse laugh from a person of refined sensibilities, nor a hard laugh from a tender spirit. Moreover, people cannot dissemble ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... U.S.A., And first the Indians, the red sort, owned it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard in an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... Eleanor called her late friend Charlotte a base, designing woman. She re-echoed all the abuse that was heaped on Mr. Slope's head and never hinted that she had said as much before. "I told you so, I told you so!" is the croak of a true Job's comforter. But Mary, when she found her friend lying in her sorrow and scraping herself with potsherds, forbore to argue and to exult. Eleanor acknowledged the merit of the forbearance, and at length allowed herself to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically sailing came the harsh croak of frogs. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... one poor creature, and him wounded and bleeding, too!" The gang stood back for a minute; then up spoke Poker Bill: "Young man, yer a stranger, I reckon. We don't wish yer any ill; But come out of the range of the Greaser, or, as sure as I live, you'll croak;" And he drew a bead on the stranger. I'll tell yer it wa'n't no joke. But the stranger moven' no muscle as he looked in the bore of Bill's gun; He hadn't no thought to stir, sir; he hadn't no thought to run; But he spoke out cool and quiet, "I might live for a thousand year And not die at last ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... out of Holberg's comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!" said she. "It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in Sorbe!" She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old woman. "One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet; ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, and he could only observe ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... philosophy," the croak of ravens, the hoot of owls, anything that has the touch, the charm, and infinite suggestion of Nature and life, will be more than welcome; and in good time we have reached ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... run down hill!" cried Mange, with a laugh that resembled nothing so much as the discordant croak of a crow. "He never misses a night, and this is the hour when the brandy ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... frog had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... words the black-browed Queen gave a cry that changed, even as she uttered it, to a croak, and a moment after she was nothing but a great black raven that spread its wings, and flew away over the heads of the dwarfs, out of the window and on out ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... cried the obstinate frog with an angry croak, "nor shall any of your people advance another step while that ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... the Serpent's bows. Einar worked his way along to the end of the yard, and, steadying himself, fixed an arrow to the string. As the bird came within easy bow shot the lad took aim. But as he drew the string he saw the great dusky bird open its stout beak. He heard a hoarse croak, and knew it to be the croak of a raven. Now the croaking of a raven was held in those times to be a sound of very ill omen; it was also considered that the man who killed one of these birds was certainly doomed to meet with speedy misfortune. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... Cicada, a fellow-lodger in the house, attracts me by its domestic chirp back into my bedroom, and is there my social companion, while, in a happy dreaming state, I await the coming day, kept half awake by the buzz of the mosquites, the kettle-drum croak of the bull-frog, or the complaining cry of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... appropriate, but they'll do," whispered Roger to Dr. Watkins, whose clear tenor supported him. Dorothy's sweet voice soared high, Tom's croak made a heavy background, and the more or less tuneful voices of the others added a hearty body of sound. There was no response from the house except that a corner of an upstairs curtain was ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... not serenity, what profits it?—"Nay, but it doth secure it," quoth he, "and that is why I repine at being deprived of it."—And what serenity is this that lies at the mercy of every passer-by? I say not at the mercy of the Emperor or Emperor's favorite, but such as trembles at a raven's croak and piper's din, a fever's touch or a thousand things of like sort! Whereas the life serene has no more certain mark than this, that it ever moves with ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... The owl clamours all through the night; Duncan's horses devour each other in frenzy; the dawn comes, but no light with it. Common sights and sounds, the crying of crickets, the croak of the raven, the light thickening after sunset, the home-coming of the rooks, are all ominous. Then, as if to deepen these impressions, Shakespeare has concentrated attention on the obscurer regions of man's being, on phenomena which make ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... vicious croak from the end of the street argued that Berry's patience was wearing thin, but to have asked the girl to make ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... speak, but voiced nothing more than a hoarse croak; the candle in his hand described ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... all his toil for a score of years, working every day from the first croak of the raven, until the stars came out, Bimbo and his wife owned only three tan (3/4 acre) of terrace land. Sometimes a summer would pass, and little or no rain fall. Then the rivulet dried up and crops failed. It seemed all in vain that their backs were ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don't want to draw any further conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man's future. We've seen to-day in this court that there are still good impulses in his young heart, that family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of faith and cynicism, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to croak if there wasn't two of 'em with the stren'th of eight," rejoined Phelan, wiping his dripping forehead and rolling his eyes. "An' they chloroformed me an' stuffed me into the chest. You ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... willows, tramping them down by main force, till I came to a wide stream of water, three inches deep, languidly creeping along over a bottom of sleek mud. My arrival produced a great commotion. A huge green bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a loud splash: his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked them energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing himself in the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence several large air bubbles ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Cappy. All you old graybeards can do is sit on the fence and decry the efforts of the rising generation. You just croak and knock. Of course I admit that once on a time an opportunity couldn't fly by you so fast you wouldn't get some of the tail feathers; but that was a long ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... would like to know what became of Stingy? When the web was broken and he tumbled to the ground, he fell into the open mouth of the Frisky Frog, who gave a comfortable croak as he swallowed him. Nobody was sorry that Stingy was swallowed. Mrs. Cricky said it served him right, but then, poor Mrs. Cricky's good wishes were often lost in anxiety, lest harm should come to one of her own little ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... then, the fools who see only the pleasant side? Are they alone the visionaries who see the best rather than the worst? It is strange that the critics see only weakness in the "pleasant- spoken," and only truth and safety in those who croak. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... when they saw an old woman engaged in collecting firewood among the bushes, and a little girl holding out her apron to receive the sticks with which the crone's skinny arms unsparingly filled it. The child trembled, and seemed half-crying; while the old woman, in a harsh, grating croak, was muttering forth ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up stairs, careful not to spill a drop of the brimming cup, and approached the old woman's bedside, where she lay, groaning as before, and breaking out into a spiteful croak the ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... omit of this charming woman, which I believe will weigh with you in her favour; her political doctrine is so exactly like yours, that it is never started but I exclaim, 'Dear ma'am, if my Daddy Crisp was here, I believe between you, you would croak me mad!' And this sympathy of horrible foresight not a little contributes to incline her to believe the other parts of speech with which I regale her concerning you. She wishes very much to know you, and I am sure you would hit ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... sultans and private individuals, form garlands of black and white along the cornices of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets; sea-gulls dart and play over the water; thousands of turtle-doves coo amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries; crows croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers halcyons come and go in long files between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; and storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. For the Turk, each one of these birds has a gentle meaning, or a benignant virtue: turtle-doves are ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... atop of the last load, and at my own door drank my own health, with three cheers for everything and everybody, to which "Flap," the gull gave a kind of croak, by way of approval to ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... yonder rock Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock. 20 Had we not been perverse and careless grown, This dire event by omens was foreshown; Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... him only time and he will pulverize his opponents; he will show them whether this work of his is unintelligible, or that other will not live. But let them die; and they slink out of his reach with their malice, stupidity, and ignorance, while survivors croak 'respect the dead' over the hole in which they are laid. At all events, he retorts on them when he can—unwisely perhaps, since those he flings mud at are only immortalized by the process. Euripides knew better than to ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... his works that he who drains a marsh must necessarily expect to hear the frogs croak. I had graduated, and of course the newspapers had to have a say about it. Some of the articles are really amusing. I couldn't help laughing at them when I read them. Here is something from the New York ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... London amid rumours of all kinds. The Metropolis was shrouded in a fog of credulous uncertainty, broken only by the sinister gleam of the placarded lie or the croak of the newsman. Terrible disasters had occurred and had been contradicted; great battles were raging—unconfirmed; and beneath all this froth the tide of war was really flowing, and no man could shut his eyes ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... swine, horse]; , squeak [swine, mouse]; neigh, whinny [horse]; bray [donkey, mule, hinny, ass]; mew, mewl [kitten]; meow [cat]; purr [cat]; caterwaul, pule [cats]; baa[obs3], bleat [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat[obs3], croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... temper, and this evening, as Crocker remarked carelessly, he was "more ornery than ever." The rest seemed to pay no attention to the lanky, dark man with the narrow head, round, black eyes, and rasping voice. But Bent would croak: "Whitman's struck nothin'; thar ain't no gold in Garotte; it's all work and no dust." In this strain he went on, offending local sentiment ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... prepared to pass the winter, with only a coverlid of wet matted leaves between it and zero weather. Forthwith I set up as a prophet of warm weather, and among other things predicted a failure of the ice crop on the river; which, indeed, others, who had not heard frogs croak on the 31st of December, had also begun to predict. Surely, I thought, this frog knows what it is about; here is the wisdom of nature; it would have gone deeper into the ground than that if a severe winter was approaching; so I was not anxious about my coal-bin, nor ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... began and ended in a croak for water. The Prussian nodded, disappeared, returned with an aluminium cup of stale cold water mixed ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Mispoon and tore ferociously at her new assailant. For a space Mispoon was saved, but it was at a terrible sacrifice to Newish. With a single lucky slash of her long-fanged jaws, Maheegun literally tore one of Newish's great wings from her body. The croak of agony that came out of her may have held the death-note for Mispoon, her mate; for he rose on his wings, poised himself for an instant, and launched himself at the she-wolf's back with a force that drove Maheegun ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... flying, and plucking it out of the child's hand, carried it up into a tree; the child suddenly began to cry, and the mother, hearing it, left her washing, and running to the child, forthwith missed the ring, but hearing the raven croak in the tree, she lifted up her eyes, and saw it with the ring in its beak. The woman, in great terror, called her brother, and told him what had happened, adding that she durst not approach the king if the raven took away the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Through it all the buzzards sit on the fences and low hummocks, with wings spread fanwise for air. There is no end to them, and they smell to heaven. Their heads droop, and all their communication is a rare, horrid croak. ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... alone!" The voice dropped to a hoarse croak. The man was close to the table now, and in amazement Olga recognized the face of the old moonstone-seller. But it was convulsed with a terror such as she had never seen on the face ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Hurst, and let Miss Charley alone," drawled Bywater. "I don't want him, or anybody else to get pummelled to powder; I'll find it out for myself, I say. Won't my old aunt be in a way though, when she sees the surplice, and finds she has another to make! I say, Hurst, didn't you croak out that solo! Their lordships in the wigs will be soliciting ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... calls of Honkers and Waveys we heard the glorious trumpeting of the White Crane. It has less rattling croak and more whoop than that of the Brown Crane. Bellalise says that every year a few come to Chipewyan, then go north with the Waveys to breed. In the fall they come back for a month; they are usually in flocks of three and four; two old ones and their ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... blossoming May, when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvellous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... reprove princes, priests, and people for breaking it. The prophets, so far from seeking popularity, are foolhardy enough to denounce the bonnets, hoops, and flounces of the ladies, and to cry, Woe! against the regular business of the most respectable note-shavers,[142] to croak against the march of intellect, and shake public confidence in the prosperity of their great country,[143] to ally themselves with fanatic abolitionists, and introduce agitating political questions into the pulpit; ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious—they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling on the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner; crows and ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... it over all before him"—for in those days Ody was lithe and limber—"and it's hard-set the thievin' Turk 'ill be to get the better of him at a racin' match—Hi—Och." She had begun to hail him with a call eager and shrill, which broke off in a strangled croak, like a young cock's unsuccessful effort. "Och, murdher, murdher, murdher," she said to the bystanders, in a disgusted undertone. "I'll give you me misfort'nit word thim ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... it so! The pundits say we should study the philosophies. They made me study, hours and hours when I was little. Why? To bind me to the wheel of their philosophy, and keep me subject to them! I say philosophy is good for pundits, as a pond is good for frogs; but shall I be a frog, too, and croak about the beauties of the mud? The priests say we should obey them, and pray, and make offerings, and keep the religious law. I say, that religion is good for priests, which is why they cherish it, and add to it, and persuade foolish women to believe it! As for the gods, if they ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... an altitude of one or two and one half miles for three hours and a half, stayed there until the silence became intolerable, until the buzz of a fly or the croak of a frog would have been music to our ears. Here was absolute silence, the silence of the grave and death, a silence never to be experienced by living man in any ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Badinguet—portraits of the heroic Uhrich, and infallible cures for the small-pox or for worms, are offered for sale by stentorian lungs. Citizens, too, equally bankrupt alike in voice and in purse, place four lighted candles on the pavement, and from the midst of this circle of light dismally croak the "Marseillaise" and other patriotic songs. As for beggars, their name is legion; but as every one who wants food can get it at the public cantines, their piteous whines are disregarded. Lodgings are to be hired in the best streets for about one-tenth part of ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... always liked to sit out on the quaint wooden steps of the mill and under the red shadow of the sails, watching the swallows flutter to and fro in the sunset, and hearing the droll frogs croak in the rushes, while the old people told her tales of the time of how in their babyhood they had run out, fearful yet fascinated, to see the beautiful Scots Grays flash by in the murky night, and the endless ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... to drink, he saw himself reflected in its smooth surface. No longer did he see Arthur; no longer was he a mortal boy. Instead of this, a frog—a green speckled frog, with great bulging eyes and a fishy mouth—looked up at him. He tried to call, to shout, but in vain; he could only croak, and this in the most dismal manner. What was he to do? Sit and stare about him, try to catch flies, plunge down into the mud—charming amusements for the rest of his life! A little brown bird hopped down for a drink from the rivulet; she stooped ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... "Don't croak," said Captain Dinks, who seemed to have quite recovered his spirits as the others around him became despondent. "Look, the snowstorm has ceased already and the sea-fog is rising and drifting away. Why, we'll have a fine bright ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... all you require?" said Mr. Harley, his voice the same dry, husky croak. "You are to see my daughter? and Mr. Storms is ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the newspapers do say the same thing," said the prince. "That's true. But so it is the same thing that all the frogs croak before a storm. One ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... credit, be it said, the two Cocos—male and female—never for an instant part company. Where one trips, there trips the other. If Senor Coco starts off on any important enterprise, his Senora gives a croak expressive of her readiness to follow, and is after him like his own shadow. Similarly, when la Senora Coco dives into the depths of an old boot in quest of emptiness, her ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... pity melts, To cut them up as food for smelts! Think what a very shocking fate, Caught and killed, and used as bait, To take those harmless little fishes To multiply man's dainty dishes." Now, as the Frog this sentence spoke, Each brother gave a solemn croak. The gentleman in bottle-green Was quite exhausted by his theme; He paused a moment, wiped his brow; Then said, "I think you will allow We've been a persecuted race, Since first on earth we had a place. There is, ...
— The Ducks and Frogs, - A Tale of the Bogs. • Fanny Fire-Fly
... the manifold music of winged creatures combined in a single harmonious chorus. In the rye the quail would be calling, and, in the grass, the corncrake, and over them would be wheeling flocks of twittering linnets. Also, the jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark executing its roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and cranes sending forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards the zenith in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the Red Sea; take on, take to heart; shrug the shoulders; make a wry face, pull a long face; knit one's brows; look blue, look black, look black as thunder, look blank, look glum. take in bad part, take ill; fret, chafe, make a piece of work[Fr]; grumble, croak; lament &c. 839. cause discontent &c. n.; dissatisfy, disappoint, mortify, put out, disconcert; cut up; dishearten. Adj. discontented; dissatisfied &c. v.; unsatisfied, ungratified; dissident; dissentient &c. 489; malcontent, malcontented, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... like as is the puppy to the dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride. He mounts his head as if he was above The world, when yet 'tis that which has his love. And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither loveth Jesus ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... blood?" cried Lady Ogram, in a high croak of exasperation. "Isn't she my brother's grandchild—the only creature of ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... bullied and instructed, losing both his composure and his temper. Arithelli lost neither. "I don't understand music," she observed calmly. "But show me what to do and I'll do it. Mine's a queer voice, isn't it? A regular croak." ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... and without trade; few leave it and still fewer think of going there, for there one feels as if on the very verge of society; for there, even by day, reigns a monastic gloom, a desertion, a melancholy, a uniform and voiceless silence, broken only by the croak of the gleds and the cawing of the clamorous gulls nestling on the old church tower, while the sea booms incessantly as it rolls on ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... these rapids filled the air with its humming; but their ears were accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed beds, until Jo Lagasse imitated it ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not going to croak, nor spend the day imagining all kinds of unpleasant things. Father has written me a long letter, and there are some things in it which I don't quite like; but I am not going to talk them over at present. All the end of the letter is taken up with Nan's birthday, and that is the ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... howl of midnight wolves, The scaly serpent's hiss, the raven's croak, The burst of fighting winds that vex the main, The widowed owl and turtle's plaintive moan, With all the din of hell's infernal crew, From my grieved soul forth issue in one sound— Leaving my senses all confused and lost. For ah! no common language can ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... little satirist Piped, chattered, shrieked, and hissed; He then would moan, and whistle, quack, and caw; Then, carol, drawl, and croak, As if he'd pass a joke On every ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... it to sound as if spoken absently, as if she were preoccupied in search for a certain paper. Instead it was an eldritch note in the room, like the croak of an evil bird... He was standing near the outer door. Something of her tumult must have come to him, she thought, for his voice was strangely altered when ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... The leaves in the forest turned yellow and brown; the wind caught them so that they danced about, and up in the air it was very cold. The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snowflakes, and on the fence stood the raven, crying, "Croak! croak!" for mere cold; yes, it was enough to make one feel cold to think of this. The poor little Duckling certainly had not a good time. One evening—the sun was just setting in his beauty—there came a whole flock of great handsome birds out of the bushes; ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... Suddenly a loud croak in the distance caused us to look up, and we beheld another dragon on the wing, coining rapidly towards us from a pass among the mountains. There was not a moment to be lost, and Gazen, taking Miss Carmichael ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... take to blow him up! Aw, you fellers make me sick!" He went off, muttering his opinion of them all, and particularly of the Native Son, who smiled while he listened. "You go awn and start something—and you'll wisht you hadn't," they heard him croak from the big gate, and ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... frogs. Woe to the unlucky frog that fell in the way of the active, curious boy. Some one had told him that old, old countryside story, "If you kill a frog, the cows will give bloody milk." Eager to see such a phenomenon, he watched sharply. Let an unlucky frog give one unfortunate croak, quick, sure-aimed, flew a stone, and he raced home at night to see the miracle performed. He was just a boy as other boys—mischievous, disobedient, fonder of play than work or study. But underneath, uncalled upon as yet, lay that vein of perseverance as ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... hair, closely cropped. He has handsome dark eyes, with a rather mocking expression in them, and has a trick of shutting them slightly if puzzled or annoyed. His voice is extremely charming, though it has a distinct croak (that can hardly be called husky or hoarse) that is rather fascinating. His short upper lip is covered by a heavy brown moustache that hides a laughing mouth. He is aristocratic and good-looking, without being able to lay claim ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... "And I will croak once more," said the discharged official. "You will never make that mine pay, for there is no coal there. It is all on the other side of ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... by heat that it is neither river nor land, and the grumbling croak of the frog, sole ruler of the realm from which the fish are banished, is heard in the lonely swamp; but when the rain pours down, the flood swells, and what was a ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... whether it was Soane or Callan who was poor old Grogram's "quite irresponsible person," when I caught the sound of Gurnard's name. I turned irritably away. I didn't want to hear that fool read out the words of that.... It was like the warning croak of a raven in an ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... supposed to have a brood of frogs in her stomach, owing to drinking water containing frogs' spawn. She thought she could feel three of them, and that she and those beside her could hear them croak. Her uneasiness was alleviated by drinking brandy. Salt had no effect in killing the frogs, and even nux vomica, which had cured another case of the same kind, was useless. I advised her to try tar, but she had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... him up first, get a boy to keep the flies from him, and he will remain almost immoveable through the day. He will put on a sad expression in the morning which will not change; he will give no trouble whatever, he will but sit still and croak."—Chap. IV., 'Our Models.' ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... one, bolder than its fellows, alighted upon the poor beast's head, and was just bending over that coveted dainty, the eye—which was open and staring—when a heavy step, coming over the snow, startled him. With a croak of disappointment he quitted his post of vantage, rose heavily in the air, and flapped slowly off to a neighbouring tree, followed by his companions, cawing and scolding hoarsely. The figure of a man appeared, coming along the road at a brisk ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... it is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or perhaps worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything now but croak like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is still chattering about the emancipation of woman, with one eye on her grave and the other on her learned books, in which she is always looking for the dawn of ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... "Croak 'em, of course. But don't make no noise doin' it. Better use a blackjack. We're not sure about the ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... desolate—you, so good a human being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at all? Yes, I know—I know it well—that I ought not to say it, for to do so savours of free-thought; but why should that raven, Fate, croak out upon the fortunes of one person while she is yet in her mother's womb, while another person it permits to go forth in happiness from the home which has reared her? To even an idiot of an Ivanushka such happiness is sometimes granted. ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... SMART's on the job in the ice-covered fens, And at Hampstead and Highgate they're "sleighing." There is plenty of stuff for pictorial pens, And boyhood at snowballs is playing. To sit by the fire and to grumble and croak At "young fools," I presume is improper, Yet (chuckle!) the Skater sometimes has a "soak," The Sleigher sometimes comes a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... abashed and trembling, and the Vere began to sing, or rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her shoulders a rich mantle glittering with embroidered trimmings, and poised a coquettish Paris model hat on her thick untwisted coils of hair. Thus attired, she passed out of her dressing-room, locking the door behind ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... rapid decline of modern civilized society, in a political or social view, in the most favored sections of Christendom; I do not sing dirges over republican institutions; I would not croak Jeremiads over the changes and developments of mankind. I simply speak of the marvellous similarity which the spread and triumph of Mohammedanism seem to bear to the spread and triumph of what is corrupt and wicked in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... of his gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck the desk such a blow with his clenched fist, that the old blackbird tumbled off his perch with the start it gave him, and actually uttered a feeble croak, in ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... when, some fine night, In a friendly throng, From the swampy places where They have slept so long Hop the frogs, and all Loudly croak together, Then there will be, we are sure, No more ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... here, now there, as if the utterer were dashing in all directions. That was followed by a hollow trumpeting, and a short, harsh whistle, and a strange clanging sound from far away, while close at hand there was a soft, plaintive whistling and a subdued croak. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... bird," laughed the executioner. "I think you will croak sorrowfully enough before long. Call me 'man of letters' if you will; to-night the dogs tear that soft skin of yours, while my hide is sound. Now off for the Porta Esquilina! Trot along with you!" and he swung his lash ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... queen of Fay,— Ponder well what words I say; Hide that fair and velvet skin Some secluded spot within; In the tree where ravens croak,— In the hollow of the oak, In the cave with mosses lined, In the earth where none may find; Hide it quick and hide it deep,— So secure shall be thy sleep, Thine shall bride and blessings be, Thine a fair posterity,— So doth Membril ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... cup. It might be that just for an instant the reckless light went out of his eyes and left them startled and glazing. Then he got to his feet. "Then God Almighty!" he cried. "What you waiting for? Why don't you croak him off before this ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... plucking it out of the child's hand, carried it up into a tree; the child suddenly began to cry, and the mother, hearing it, left her washing, and running to the child, forthwith missed the ring, but hearing the raven croak in the tree she lifted up her eyes, and saw it with the ring in its beak. The woman, in great terror, called her brother, and told him what had happened, adding that she durst not approach the king if the raven took away the ring. Gaspar, seizing ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and around me until about five o'clock. Then there came a knock at my door, an occurrence so unprecedented that I sat and stared at the said door instead of speaking, as if Edgar Poe's raven had put in a sudden appearance and begun to croak its ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... twain, the chords of the major and minor may not be harmonized in some new and altogether marvellous fashion of music such as we wot not of!" And turning to Khosrul he added—"Wilt break a lance of song with me, sir gray-beard? Thou shalt croak of death, and I will chant of love,—and the King shall pronounce judgment as to which melody hath the most potent ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of the British Columbia boys who were there. Sergeants Potentier, George Fitz, and Mudge, of Grand Forks; Reid, Diplock, and Johnson, of Vancouver; Munroe and Wildblood, of Rossland; Keith, Palmer, Larkins, Scott, and Croak. Captain Scudamore, my Company Captain, came over to where I sat, and kindly inquired about my wounds. He wrote down my father's address, too, and said he would try to ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... streaming and his narrow, hooked nose was adorned by a drop of moisture at its tip. In fact, poor old Grosjean looked more like a dilapidated scarecrow than a dangerous conspirator. Tournefort literally gasped at sight of him, and Grosjean uttered a kind of croak, intended, no doubt, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... "It is the croak of a raven newly alighted in the tree above us," replied Richard. "The sagacious bird will ever attend the huntsman in the chase, in the hope of obtaining a morsel ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Then don't say it Leave him alone. It's not bad enough to croak over. Here, Gaddy, take the chit to Bingle and ride hell-for-leather. It'll do you ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... always supreme; and many a time he went back with a sigh from his window to his books, and tried to forget the alluring strains of the quadrille and waltz in the descriptions of the lion's roar and the bull-frog's croak in the far-off tropics. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... among the watercress and the brooklime in the clear pool below the spring, moorhens occasionally awakening the echoes by running down a weird chromatic scale or calling with their loud and mellow note to their friends and relations over at the brook; here, too, the softer croak of the mallard and the wild duck is also heard. A hawk, chasing some smaller bird, is darting and hovering over the tops of the firs, but, catching a glimpse of me, disappears from sight. Presently a little bird, with an eye keener even ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... my nocturnal visitors, the bull-frogs, who, sans facon, jumped about the room as if dancing a quadrille, not to my amusement but their own, making a most unmusical noise to the tune of something like, "Pay your debts, pay your debts, pay your debts." After the third croak they paused, probably to give time for everybody to become honest. I made daily excursions to the neighbouring quays, and picked up a quantity of ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... to be lost. Either the Union is to be made stronger, or it is to perish; and the sooner every man's position is defined, the better. If you are opposed to the war, say so, and step over to Secession, but do not falter and equivocate, croak and grumble, and play the bat of the fable. The manly, good, old-fashioned Democrats, at least, are above this, and are rapidly dividing from the copperheads. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... old thief himself says—he might have held his infernal croak. I hate to make sail with a croak astern; 'tis as bad as a crow ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... his left shoe 'fore his right, Had like to have been slain that day By soldiers mutin'ing for pay. Are there not myriads of this sort, 705 Which stories of all times report? Is it not ominous in all countries When crows and ravens croak upon trees? The Roman senate, when within The city walls an owl was seen 710 Did cause their clergy, with lustrations, (Our Synod calls humiliations), The round-fac'd prodigy t'avert From doing town or country hurt And if an owl have so much pow'r, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... staring ruefully into the pipe-bowl, "the infernal thing is bottomless! Exit another can of tobacco. I'll have to ask Johnny to buy me a barrel." And Philip flung the empty can into the pool whence a frog leaped with a frightened croak. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... it,' I says, 'Come and let's get off.' So he gave a good pull, and it came away. Leastways most of it did, but the end was gone. Torn off it was, and Evans looked at it for a second and then he gave a sort of a croak and let it drop, and we both made off out of there as quick as ever we could. When we got outside Evans says to me, 'Did you see the end of that paper.' 'No,' I says, 'only it was torn.' 'Yes, it was,' he says, 'but it was wet too, ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... foe, And mutter'd, still gazing in our wake, "'Tis he; now I will not fight The brother again, for the sister's sake, While I can escape by flight." "Who, Harold?" I asked; but he never spoke. By the cry of the bittern harsh, And the bull-frog's dull, discordant croak, I guess'd that we near'd the marsh; And the moonbeam flash'd on watery sedge As it broke from a strip of cloud, Ragged and jagged about the edge, And shaped like a dead man's shroud. And flagg'd and falter'd ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... smiled slightly and wearily. "And I can't say I care a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact," he added, "I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over you'll probably find they'll ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... Fought like a king; the king like his own man, No better; one for all, and all for one, One soul! and therefore have we shatter'd back The hugest wave from Norseland ever yet Surged on us, and our battle-axes broken The Raven's wing, and dumb'd his carrion croak From the gray sea for ever. Many are gone— Drink to the dead who died for us, the living Who fought and would have died, but happier lived, If happier be to live; they both have life In the large mouth of England, till her voice ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... us, and enlighten our eyes, and flood our souls with His own gladness. Our needs are dumb appeals to Him; and in regard to all outward and lower things, they bind Him to supply us, because they themselves have been created by Him. He that hears the raven's croak satisfies the necessities that He has ordained in man and beast. But, for all the best blessings of His providence and of His love, the first steps towards receiving them are the knowledge that we need them and the desire that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a croak, calling out the data. Dane, though he had had basic theory, was completely lost before Shannon had finished the first set of co-ordinates. But Jellico replied, hands ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... on," said the page, "for you will be presently interrupted; the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will wing to roost presently.—This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... was now much larger than that little animal's, and therefore she was uglier than ever: she looked like a miserable dwarf, with a frog's head and webbed fingers. There was something very sad in her eyes; voice she had none except a kind of croak like a child sobbing in its dreams. Then would the Viking's wife take her in her lap; she would forget the ugly form, and look only at the melancholy eyes; and more than ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... two of them had slipped by since parting from Johnny Spreen. They were now in the heart of the swamp. All around them lay a solemn silence broken only by the splash of a bullfrog leaping from a bank, the gurgle of some water snake or the solemn croak of a bittern fishing near by, followed by the flap of its wings as it flew away, alarmed by ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... companionable because of the somewhat relaxed discipline. Certainly the child has learned more how to use its own judgment. After that age, however, the fact of a loose parental discipline may come to be an evil. But there is, after all, no need to croak about the Australian child, who grows up to be a good average sort of woman or ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... Poor Croak was almost annihilated by this summons, and, clinging to the bed-clothes in all the agony of despair, forgot to busy his midnight ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... old housekeeper gave utterance to a doleful croak or two, and a more doleful prophecy. But after a summons from John Arthur, and a brief interview with him in the closely shut sacredness of his especial den, not even the social intercourse of the kitchen ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the friends of the sick man and by the lesser witches, is the Klana-ayelisk[)i] or Raven Mocker, so called because he flies through the air at night in a shape of fire, uttering sounds like the harsh croak of a raven. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... in the district on the day before, scattered like poppy beds over the bog, and signalling and firing till the misty October air tingled with excitement. When you have lived your life among wide-bounded solitudes, where the silence is oftenest broken by the plover's pipe or the croak of some heavily flapping bird, you will know the meaning of a bugle-call. Mick and his contemporaries had acted as camp-followers from early till late with ever intensifying ardour; one outcome whereof ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... the silence of a cell, I should not miss even the foolish cawing of those black jackdaws that croak without pause," he went on, looking up with a smile at the cloud of birds that settled on the towers; and he recalled a legend which tells that since the fire in 1836 these birds quit the cathedral every evening at the very hour when the conflagration began, and do not return till dawn, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... another rancher, surnamed Crosby, hatchet-faced, slow of speech, who spoke, "Ain't that question a bit superfluous, pard? We're all with you—that is, as many as you want, I reckon. None of us ain't cats, so we can't croak but once—and that might as well be now as ten years ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... bonny thing As ever wakened in the Spring, And blythe she to herself could sing At milking o' the kye. She loved to hear the old crows croak Upon the ash tree and the oak, And noisy pies that almost spoke At milking ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... believed his story. But he is altogether wrong when he imagines that he is the author of the belief in Angelic visions. I was in France hearing stories of angelic intervention long before Mr. Machen wrote his delightful yarn. A frog might as well imagine that his croak is responsible for the whole world of music, as to postulate that his story gave rise to the theory of Angels. Men had visions of such long before the first stone of our venerable shrine at Westminster was laid, before the Romans ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... Dauphin you must bless," he said, and opened the door for her. As she disappeared into the dusk and silence he adjusted his eye-glass, and stared musingly after her, though there was nothing to see save the summer darkness, nothing to hear save the croak of the frogs in the village pond. He was thinking of the trial of Joseph Nadeau, and of a woman in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... scream'd All day the sister strumm'd and sung; The petted maid was such a scold! My Susan learn'd to use her tongue: Her mother had such wretched health, She sate and croak'd like any frog— What d'ye think of that, my Cat? What d'ye think of that, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... are fleet, And with all his might he flings his feet, But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work him ill. They bade the wave before him rise; They flung the sea-fire in his eyes, And they stunned his ears with the scallop stroke, With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak. Oh! but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree; —Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblin's spite, For he saw around in the sweet ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... hopes of all the flock. Had we not been perverse and careless grown, This dire event by omens was foreshown; Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, ) And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, ) Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. ) ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... laugh was as mirthful as a grave-yard raven's croak. "Nothing to it, old man. Forget it, and ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... heaving, destructive ocean; and over it there goes for ever—black-pinioned, winging its solitary and hopeless flight—the raven of his anxious thoughts, which finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future. Live in Christ, 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever'; and His presence shall make all your past, present, and future—memory, enjoyment, and hope—to be bright and beautiful, because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to the wealthy; for his part he should blush to make a present here, rather than a repayment there, turning and, pointing to Callicles, the money-lender. Being still clamored upon and importuned, he told them this tale. A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing the same music, once more made a stop. "For," said he, "you may croak till you are tired, but you shall make ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak. ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... for a score of years, working every day from the first croak of the raven, until the stars came out, Bimbo and his wife owned only three tan (3/4 acre) of terrace land. Sometimes a summer would pass, and little or no rain fall. Then the rivulet dried up and crops failed. It seemed ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river with ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... fierce wolf's savage howl, The horrid hissing of the scaly snake, The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed, The crow's ill-boding croak, the hollow moan Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea, The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull, The plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove, The envied owl's sad note, the wail of woe That rises from ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... attend him, As blust'ring bullies to defend him. At once the ravens were discarded, And magpies with their posts rewarded. Those fowls of omen I detest, That pry into another's nest. State lies must lose all good intent, For they foresee and croak th' event. My friends ne'er think, but talk by rote, Speak when they're taught, and so to vote. When rogues like these (a Sparrow cries) To honour and employment rise I court no favour, ask no place, From such, preferment is disgrace: Within my thatch'd retreat I find (What ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... breaking, and my frogs, though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out; and with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning song. As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began to croak as loud as ever they could. The noise their united concert made, seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach, quite deafening. Well might the Germans look angry: they wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but I gave the bottle ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... open, blew aside the gray fog-wall. It was not a minute, nor half that; but it was long enough for Happy Jack to see, clear and close, Blink pausing irresolutely upon the edge of a deep, brush-filled gulley. Happy Jack gave a hoarse croak of triumph and fired, just as the fog-curtain swayed back maddeningly. Happy Jack nearly wept with pure rage. Weary and Slim came up, and together they galloped to the place, riding by instinct of direction, for there was no longer any ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... James's ear, and he angrily turned round: 'Foul-mouthed raven, peace with thy traitor croak!' but ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hibernaculum; here it was prepared to pass the winter, with only a coverlid of wet matted leaves between it and zero weather. Forthwith I set up as a prophet of warm weather, and among other things predicted a failure of the ice crop on the river; which, indeed, others, who had not heard frogs croak on the 31st of December, had also begun to predict. Surely, I thought, this frog knows what it is about; here is the wisdom of nature; it would have gone deeper into the ground than that if a severe winter was approaching; so I was not anxious about my coal-bin, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... have been raining. "Yes, that it has," said she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!" said she. "It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in Sorbe!" She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old woman. "One must dress according to ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... am going. Really I didn't think how it would bore you for me to come around here and croak ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... keep the flies from him, and he will remain almost immoveable through the day. He will put on a sad expression in the morning which will not change; he will give no trouble whatever, he will but sit still and croak."—Chap. ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... the money-value of that which his dog bestowed upon me." So he took the price of the dish and a suitable gift; and, setting out, journeyed day and night, till he came to that city; he entered it and sought the place where the man lived; but he found there naught save ruins mouldering in row and croak of crow, and house and home desolate and all conditions in changed state. At this, his heart and soul were troubled, and he repeated the saying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... on her heart seemed to grow lighter, and even to vanish altogether; but when she turned to go home by the shortest way, it returned. "Stop! stop!" and the words came quite clear, though they were like the croak of a frog, or the wail of a bird. "A grave! dig me ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Numidian crane, and, just beyond the river growths, some splendid oleanders gave an effective splash of scarlet to the surrounding greens and greys. In the waters of the marsh the bullfrogs kept up a loud sustained croak, as though they were True Believers disturbed by the presence of the Infidels. The N'fiss is a fascinating river from every point of view. Though comparatively small, few Europeans have reached the source, and it passes through parts of the country where ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... shook her head as if the silver lining of that cloud was hard to find; but she had no time to croak again, for just then Mr Laurie came in looking well ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... hate the noise they make," declared Bess. "It sounds like a dead, dark night. Why do they croak in the daytime?" ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... is larger than the other—no human being can doubt" sobbed the lady—"and surely your Divine Majesty cannot be aware that her hair reaches but to her waist, and that there is a brown mole on the nape of her neck? When she sings it resembles the croak of the crow. It is true that most of the Palace ladies are chosen for anything but beauty, yet she is the most ill-favored. And is it this—this bat-faced lady who is preferred to me! Would I had never been born: Yet even your Majesty's ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... grunt, gruntle[obs3]; snort [pig, hog, swine, horse]; , squeak [swine, mouse]; neigh, whinny [horse]; bray [donkey, mule, hinny, ass]; mew, mewl [kitten]; meow [cat]; purr [cat]; caterwaul, pule [cats]; baa[obs3], bleat [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat[obs3], croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... it has rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. It is well shaded, under a shelter of large trees with dense foliage, and a miniature lake close by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on the finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artificial islets decked with gardenias in full bloom. From time to time, one of them informs us of his thoughts by a 'Couac', uttered in a deep bass croak, infinitely more hollow than that of our ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... of them had slipped by since parting from Johnny Spreen. They were now in the heart of the swamp. All around them lay a solemn silence broken only by the splash of a bullfrog leaping from a bank, the gurgle of some water snake or the solemn croak of a bittern fishing near by, followed by the flap of its wings as it flew ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... forget my nocturnal visitors, the bull-frogs, who, sans facon, jumped about the room as if dancing a quadrille, not to my amusement but their own, making a most unmusical noise to the tune of something like, "Pay your debts, pay your debts, pay your debts." After the third croak they paused, probably to give time for everybody to become honest. I made daily excursions to the neighbouring quays, and picked up a quantity ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... sit here," he said, and taking Eve's hand, he went to a great baulk of timber lying below the wheels of a paper-mill. "Let me breathe the evening air, and hear the frogs croak, and watch the moonlight quivering upon the river; let me take all this world about us into my soul, for it seems to me that my happiness is written large over it all; I am seeing it for the first time in all ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the first time I ever heard you croak, except in a public speech where you had a point to gain," said Livingston. "Do you ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak—an' that bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'—an' go—home—" His voice flattened out and he ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... was ours," said Chafi Three. He had not vocalized since fledgling days and his voice had a jarring croak of disuse. "Our Zid escaped its cage and destroyed two of us, forcing us to maroon it here for our own safety. Unfortunately, we trusted our star manual's statement that ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... geese, cheerful harbingers of spring, and the prairie-chickens had set up their morning symphony, wide-swelling, wonderful with its prophecy of the new birth of grass and grain and the springing life of all breathing things. The crow passed now and then, uttering his resonant croak, but the crane had not yet sent ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvellous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have a predilection ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... melancholy croak proceeding from the other side of the wall. The skipper's cell had been changed, as Archie had hoped, and the skipper himself was doing his duty to the bitter end. The street was deserted. They acted ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... malarial pond is expected to croak and make all the protest he can against his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown and sent upon earth to be educated for the court of the King of kings! Placed in an emerald world with a hither edge of opaline shadow and a fine spray of diamond-dust to set it sparkling; with ten million ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... sometimes doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud— And mists that spread the flying shroud, And sunbeams; and the sounding blast, That if it could would hurry past; But that ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law at Fullerton Point— for you and ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... lies clean and bright, Prepared in foreign lands to fight: Our ravens croak to have their fill, The wolf howls from the distant hill. Our brave king is to Russia gone,— Braver than he on earth there's none; His sharp sword will carve many feast To wolf ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... brink and slid into the water,—cows plashed in the shallows,—fishes leaped from the placid depths,—a squirrel sobbed and fretted on a neighboring stump,—a katydid across the lake maintained its hard, dry croak,—the crickets chirped pertinaciously, but with little fatigued pauses, as if glad that their work was almost done,—the grasshoppers kept up their continual chant, which seemed thoroughly melted and amalgamated into the summer, as if it would go on indefinitely, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... horror-struck at the sight, and seized a heavy stick to kill the frog; but the creature looked at her with such strange, mournful eyes, that she was not able to strike the blow. Once more she looked round the room—the frog uttered a low, wailing croak, and she started, sprang from the couch, and ran to the window and opened it. At that moment the sun shone forth, and flung its beams through the window on the couch and on the great frog; and suddenly it appeared as though the frog's great mouth contracted and became small and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Maheegun gave up her grip on Mispoon and tore ferociously at her new assailant. For a space Mispoon was saved, but it was at a terrible sacrifice to Newish. With a single lucky slash of her long-fanged jaws, Maheegun literally tore one of Newish's great wings from her body. The croak of agony that came out of her may have held the death-note for Mispoon, her mate; for he rose on his wings, poised himself for an instant, and launched himself at the she-wolf's back with a force that drove ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... and ended in a croak for water. The Prussian nodded, disappeared, returned with an aluminium cup of stale cold water ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... disappointed their expectations, on account of the shallowness of its channel. The river, however, was then at a low ebb; its banks were marshy, and its waters moved slowly and silently between forests of mangrove trees. The air was filled with the discordant croak of innumerable parrots, diversified somewhat by the notes of a few singing birds. As they proceeded, the river, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase in volume. At Embomma, much interest was excited among the natives, by the discovery that their ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... there is, I believe, a sufficient physical reason. For these are clearly the most mountainous parts of the United Kingdom; and the clear mountain air seems to produce on the average a better type of human larynx than the mists of the level. The men of the lowland, say the Tyrolese, croak like frogs in their marshes; but the men of the upland sing like nightingales on their tree-tops. And indeed, it would seem as if the mountain people were always calling to one another across intervening valleys, always singing ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... him, Reddy," said Buckrow hoarsely. "Pass the bottle and let the old devil croak. You stick ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said: 'What did he say?' The peasant answered: 'In the first place, he says that there is some wine hidden under the pillow.' 'Bless me!' cried the miller, and went there and found the wine. 'Now go on,' said he. The peasant made the raven croak again, and said: 'In the second place, he says that there is some roast meat in the tiled stove.' 'Upon my word!' cried the miller, and went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven prophesy still more, and said: 'Thirdly, he says that there ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... go another inch," cried the obstinate frog with an angry croak, "nor shall any of your people advance another step while that ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... passages written expressly for our Bull-Frog. After this, we shall challenge Mr. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN to compete in public speaking with the Frog of PUNCHINELLO, for a purse of $20,000—Mr. TRAIN to speak ten minutes solo; the Frog to croak ten minutes; and then both to speak and croak in duet also for ten minutes—the most sonorous performer to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow, The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow, And hoot of Owls,—all join the soul to harrow, And grate the ear. We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing, As if all creatures thou wert catechizing, Tuning their voices, and their notes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... them, dangling a milk pail on his arm. At sight of Margarita his jaw dropped, he shivered violently and appeared ready to faint, but as she called encouragingly to him he mustered courage to approach and feel of her skirt timidly. He was evidently feeble-minded as well as dumb, for with a sort of croak he dropped the bucket and began to dance clumsily up and down, snapping his fingers the while. Plainly he had thought her gone for good and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a pourboire, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first "Vous n'etes pas Francais!" and then "Vous etes Prussien!" No sooner had he said it than ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... taking off his cap and fumbling with it while he stared wide-eyed at the threatening revolver, "I—I ain't a real thief—cross me heart and hope to die, I ain't! Don't croak ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... sponger!" how those words stung him. How contemptuously his father had always spoken of such people. They rankled in his heart as he sped up the road. A squirrel in an old fir-tree had shouted them at him, while a forlorn crow soaring overhead had looked down and given its hoarse croak of contempt. He was a sucker—a sponger! living upon others! What was he doing to earn his living? Nothing. What would his father ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... sound! The faint creak of a tree as the night wind stirred the branches; the rustle of leaves on the ground or the breaking of a twig as some prowling animal moved about; the flight of a bird, disturbed at its rest; the hoot of an owl on the hillside or the croak of a frog in the swamp were all magnified tenfold by the half-darkness and the sense of danger near. One end of his beat ended at the brook and here he waited longest, for the sentry he met there was, like himself, hardly out of his teens, and unused to war. A bond of fellowship sprang ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... the Knight, sitting up. "If I were a bird, riding in yon nest would be easier." The last of his sentence ended in a hoarse croak. Sir Hokus vanished, and a great raven flopped down in the ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... shall have to buck myself up if I am to reduce the damages to any reasonable amount, and that he had been desirous from the first to brief WITHERINGTON. But this is to croak like a raven, for the cross-examining is, after all, of very minor importance compared to the Gift of the Gab—in which I am notoriously ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... me, with no restrictive covenants, the freehold of one of those mills, for I have coveted a mill ever since I succumbed to the enchantments of Lettres de mon moulin. True, Flanders is not Provence, and the croaking of the frogs, croak they never so amorously, among the willows in the plains below is a poor exchange for the chant of the cigale. But these mills look out over a landscape that is now dearer to me than Abana and Pharpar, for many a gallant friend of mine lies ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... not," said the mother. "I will teach you to fly, and when you have learnt, we will fly into the meadows, and pay a visit to the frogs, who will bow themselves to us in the water, and cry 'Croak, croak,' and then we shall eat them ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Vigour, he gave her 10000l. and his Blessing, which was a double Portion, on their Wedding-Day, which he celebrated with all the Cost and Mirth that his Estate and Sorrow would permit: Sorrow for the Loss of his Son, I mean, which still hung upon him, and still hover'd and croak'd over and about him, as Ravens, and other Birds of Prey, about Camps and dying People. His Melancholy, in few Months, increas'd to that Degree, that all Company and Conversation was odious to him, but that of Bats, Owls, Night-Ravens, &c. Nay, even his Daughter, his dear and only Child, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... to state that the one most dreaded, alike by the friends of the sick man and by the lesser witches, is the K[^a][']lana-ayeli[']sk[)i] or Raven Mocker, so called because he flies through the air at night in a shape of fire, uttering sounds like the harsh croak of ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... where the great yellow cat, so soft and beautiful, springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and, purring, insists on caresses; in the large, clean stables where the horses munch the corn lazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croak and flutter, and strut about ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... when they called us gunmen—Ben and me. But, so help me God, Doc, we never did any work like that ourselves. We never fired a shot to croak any living guy. Did ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... chance, Cappy. All you old graybeards can do is sit on the fence and decry the efforts of the rising generation. You just croak and knock. Of course I admit that once on a time an opportunity couldn't fly by you so fast you wouldn't get some of the tail feathers; but that was a long ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the king's, I bid you go back to your master and say this: Kings are great in the eyes of their people, but the people are great in the eyes of God, and it is the people of France who answer you in the name of this epitome. The people of Paris are not so poor of spirit that they fear the croak of the Burgundian ravens. We are well victualled, we are well armed; we lie snug and warm behind our stout walls; we laugh at your leaguer. But when we who eat are hungry, when we who drink are dry, when we who glow are frozen, when ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hears no sounds but that of an occasional big rain-drop, plashing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead sometimes utters a sullen groan—the pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on his ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... challenge ringing Shrill, and each headpiece lined with fence of proof. Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife; Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak. But when grasshopper feels the vulture's talons, Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last, Prevail the mules, butts ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... back and have a chance to give us away to that bunch, not if I knows it. I've about made up my mind to croak him. He knows too much. Go on and find a place to ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still another King. Jupiter, displeased with all their complaints, sent a Heron, who preyed upon the Frogs day by day till there were none left to croak upon the lake. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... "gentleman," as No. 3 called him, had turned very red at the doubt thus thrown on his accuracy, and put a rather threatening croak into his voice, ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... the rippling lake the wild swan flaps her wing. Out in the lignum swamps once more frogs croak and crickets sing. Once more the wild fowl, sporting midst the crab-holes, may be seen, For prosperity is hovering o’er the ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... such wood!" Jennie grew angry. "What's better according to you—to rot on straw with a nose fallen through? To croak under the fence like a dog? Or to turn honest? Fool! You ought to kiss his hands; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... verse: how long shall I forbid? For all forbiddal thou persistest more, * And my sole grace it is to keep it hid; Then hide thy love nor ever dare reveal, * For an thou speak, of thee I'll soon be rid If to thy silly speech thou turn anew, * Ravens shall croak for thee the wold amid: And Death shall come and beat thee down ere long, * Put out of sight and bury 'neath an earthen lid: Thy folk, fond fool! thou'lt leave for thee to mourn, * And through their lives to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stretch her legs any more than Nimble stretches his," he objected in his hoarse croak. "Nimble jumped the fence twice to stretch his legs. She has jumped once already. Let her jump the fence once more and then they'll be even and ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... must get up off this log, for the ante are crawling over us, and the bull-frogs croak as though the night were coming on. The evening star hangs its lantern at the door of the night to light the tired day to rest. The wild roses in the thicket are breathing vespers at an altar cushioned with moss, while the fire-flies are kindling their dim lamps in the cathedral of the woods. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... fallen to your lot? How comes it that you are left desolate—you, so good a human being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at all? Yes, I know—I know it well—that I ought not to say it, for to do so savours of free-thought; but why should that raven, Fate, croak out upon the fortunes of one person while she is yet in her mother's womb, while another person it permits to go forth in happiness from the home which has reared her? To even an idiot of an Ivanushka such happiness is sometimes granted. "You, you fool Ivanushka," says ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "Her voice was blithe, her heart was light; The Broom might have pursued Her speech, until the stars of night Their journey had renewed; But in the branches of the oak 95 Two ravens now began to croak Their nuptial song, a gladsome air; And to her own green bower the breeze That instant brought two stripling bees To rest, or [10] murmur ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or perhaps worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything now but croak like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is still chattering about the emancipation of woman, with one eye on her grave and the other on her learned books, in which she is always looking for the dawn of ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... that, Neekewa? It was not the wing of a duck, nor was it the croak of a loon far up the shore, or a fish leaping in the still water. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... wonder. He stretched forth his hand with his rod over the rivers, and caused frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. Moses, whose life had been preserved by the water, was kept from poisoning his savior with the reptiles. At first only a single frog appeared, but he began to croak, summoning so many companions that the whole land of Egypt swarmed with them. Wherever an Egyptian took up his stand, frogs appeared, and in some mysterious way they were able to pierce the hardest of metals, and even the marble palaces of ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... swoops down, and he blows—and blows,— While I drum on his swollen cheek, And croak in his angered eye that glows With the lurid lightning's streak; While the rushes drown in the watery frown That his bursting ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Thebes or Petraea, and mayhap a thousand times more ancient. There is no lack of life along the shores of the solitary little bay. The shriek of the sparrow-hawk mingles from the cliffs with the hoarse deep croak of the raven; the cormorant on some wave-encircled ledge, hangs out his dark wing to the breeze; the spotted diver, plying his vocation on the shallows beyond, dives and then appears, and dives and appears again, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... rides a toboggan! FISH SMART's on the job in the ice-covered fens, And at Hampstead and Highgate they're "sleighing." There is plenty of stuff for pictorial pens, And boyhood at snowballs is playing. To sit by the fire and to grumble and croak At "young fools," I presume is improper, Yet (chuckle!) the Skater sometimes has a "soak," The Sleigher sometimes comes a cropper! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... me by its domestic chirp back into my bedroom, and is there my social companion, while, in a happy dreaming state, I await the coming day, kept half awake by the buzz of the mosquites, the kettle-drum croak of the bull-frog, or the complaining cry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... in seconds. Rounding the truss, Friday caught the man in the armored crook of his arm. A startled croak preluded the thump of two bodies on the hull; there was the tinkle of a falling hand-flash and a slight squirming which was quickly stopped by a ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... "Oh, don't begin to croak!" cried Rattleton. "Merriwell knows his business. Hurry up with your makeup. Can't tell how early ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... great wide stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... the woods! Silence! Deep silence! Save for the chortle of the night-jar, the tap of the snipe's beak against the tree-trunks, the snores of a weary game-keeper, the chirp of the burying-beetle, the croak of the bat, the wild laughter of the owl and the boom, boom of the frog, deep silence reigned. The crescent moon stole silently above the horizon. Wonderful, significant is that silent, stealthy approach of the moon. Red Head lumbered from his lair and crouched beside ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... grandfather had taken a liking to him, and when he quitted the sea Krok followed him, and became his man and served him faithfully. He could neither read nor write at that time, and his only vocal expression was a hoarse croak like the cawing of a crow, and this, combined with ample play of head and hand and facial expression and hieroglyphic gesture, formed his only means of communication with ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... meditation, according to a new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... a great English poet had rushed down on Venice like a raven on a corpse, to croak out in lyric poetry—the first and last utterance of social man—the burden of a de profundis. English poetry! Flung in the face of the city that had given birth to Italian ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... was shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to imitate all the birds in the air at once,' said Louis, beginning to chirp like a melee of sparrows, turning it into the croak of a raven, and breaking off suddenly with, 'I beg your pardon—I forgot it was Sunday! Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than that I was a wretch not to remember. Next time I'll write it all down in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that if my hat be stolen, the thief shall ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said, O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend, We hold them slight: they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... blue-white now, and looked oddly shrunken. His voice came in a rasping croak from his ashen lips as ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... appear to take much note of the sense of what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its profit. His sister's voice, too, naturally harsh, had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled melancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who I am. I am still wasting ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the birds crowded on the gibbet; not one was on the corpse. They were talking among themselves. The croaking was frightful. The howl, the whistle and the roar, are signs of life; the croak is a satisfied acceptance of putrefaction. In it you can fancy you hear the tomb breaking silence. The croak is night-like ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... by our side. We were thus proceeding onward to the house of the minister, whose blessing was to make a couple happy, and the arm of the blooming bride was through mine, when I heard a voice, or rather let me say a sound, like the croak of a raven, exclaim— ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... by whittling a stick, or hacking slowly at the already deeply scored threshold-block, with their clumsy wood-knives. Sitting thus, they gossip with a passing neighbour, who stops to chatter as he sits propped upon the stair ladder, or they croak snatches of song, with some old-world refrain to it, and, from time to time, break off to cast a word over their shoulders to the wife in the dim background near the fireplace, or to the little virgin daughter, carefully secreted on the shelf ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... worse. I'd sooner croak in harness than have an eight-horse funeral. But say, if you don't like it you go back and join those two fellows at the oasis. There'll be no ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... his eyes wandered to the Colonel's face. The laughter stopped with a dry croak. He saw that his old master and friend was serious, and reaching for one of the goblets he ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... never made the least acquaintance. Whether from fear or presence of mind I do not pretend to say, but I remained perfectly still, and in a minute or two Jack put his head forward and stared me in the face, uttering a sort of croak; he then descended on to my knees, examined my hands as if he were counting my fingers, tried to take off my rings, and when I gave him some biscuit, curled himself compactly into my lap. We were friends from that moment. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror—the ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with loud splashes into the water. The croakings of others were heard on every side. Frequently a huge bat or bird of night flitted by. The wings of the former fanned our faces, while the latter uttered a harsh croak or shriek as it flew through the gloom. Generally all around us was silent and dark, an oppressive gloom pervading the atmosphere, except when we passed through a swarm of fireflies or elaters, as we ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... explained Al. "Besides, Pete thought he was going to croak. He was laid up longer than Hooker, even, and Hooker had got a bullet. Pete's skull was cracked, and for a time it was a toss-up whether he'd pull through or not. He went nutty up there, I guess. He was lying sidewise across the saddle, unconscious but holding on for dear life, when the horse ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... more, and as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a pourboire, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first "Vous n'etes pas Francais!" and then "Vous etes Prussien!" No sooner had he ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... its hibernaculum; here it was prepared to pass the winter, with only a coverlid of wet matted leaves between it and zero weather. Forthwith I set up as a prophet of warm weather, and among other things predicted a failure of the ice crop on the river; which, indeed, others, who had not heard frogs croak on the 31st of December, had also begun to predict. Surely, I thought, this frog knows what it is about; here is the wisdom of nature; it would have gone deeper into the ground than that if a severe winter was approaching; so I was ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... mountainous parts of the United Kingdom; and the clear mountain air seems to produce on the average a better type of human larynx than the mists of the level. The men of the lowland, say the Tyrolese, croak like frogs in their marshes; but the men of the upland sing like nightingales on their tree-tops. And indeed, it would seem as if the mountain people were always calling to one another across intervening valleys, always singing and ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... myself alive, I warrant you," Diogenes responded, "and to pay for your favor I will sing you a song." So he began to sing, or rather to croak, to a Neapolitan air, the words of the Venus-song of the light ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... those, then, the fools who see only the pleasant side? Are they alone the visionaries who see the best rather than the worst? It is strange that the critics see only weakness in the "pleasant- spoken," and only truth and safety in those who croak. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... of the hut was so dark that at first they could see nothing at all; but presently they heard a feeble croak from one corner. But sisters turned to look, and there, tied by wings and feet, and their eyes sunken, were the husbands that they sought. Quick as lightning the wives cut the deer-thongs which bound them; but the poor birds were too weak from pain and starvation to ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... his toil for a score of years, working every day from the first croak of the raven, until the stars came out, Bimbo and his wife owned only three tan (3/4 acre) of terrace land. Sometimes a summer would pass, and little or no rain fall. Then the rivulet dried up and crops failed. It seemed all in vain that their backs were bent ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... back—and then wanted to know who in thunder I was. They almost dropped dead when I told 'em. No question about it, that address was a stall. This dame had something up her sleeve, and took care to see that your taxi man was given a long drive so she'd have plenty of time to croak Warren." ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... crows, to be sure," said Harry, "and they keep up such a talking; it is like a hail-storm all the time; you never heard any thing like the way crows can scold. If one crow is caught stealing, all the rest caw and croak at him, till he very nearly goes into fits, and then they all fly at him till he hasn't a feather left; I read all about ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... any more than Nimble stretches his," he objected in his hoarse croak. "Nimble jumped the fence twice to stretch his legs. She has jumped once already. Let her jump the fence once more and then they'll be even and ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... us sit here," he said, and taking Eve's hand, he went to a great baulk of timber lying below the wheels of a paper-mill. "Let me breathe the evening air, and hear the frogs croak, and watch the moonlight quivering upon the river; let me take all this world about us into my soul, for it seems to me that my happiness is written large over it all; I am seeing it for the first time in all its splendor, lighted up by love, grown fair through you. Eve, dearest, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,— an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood- encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ventured to ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... 'doesna agree wi' me. The last time I had cream—ma aunt had got it in for her cat that had the staggers—I lay in agony for three days an' three nichts an' several 'oors into the bargain. Ma aunt feared I was gaun to croak ma last.' ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... Was it morning? She could not tell. She opened her eyes to a weird and incomprehensible twilight, to the gurgling sound of water, the booming croak ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... sword lies clean and bright, Prepared in foreign lands to fight: Our ravens croak to have their fill, The wolf howls from the distant hill. Our brave king is to Russia gone,— Braver than he on earth there's none; His sharp sword will carve many feast To wolf and raven ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... are building a house, do not leave it rough-hewn, or a cawing crow may settle on it and croak. ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... flooded time we used to lie awake listening to their concerts. The Ceratophrys croaks when angry, and as it is the most truculent of all batrachians it works itself into a rage if you go near it. Its first efforts at chanting or singing sounds like the deep, harsh, anger-croak prolonged, but as the time goes on they gradually acquire, night by night, a less raucous and a louder, more sustained and far- reaching sound. There was always very great variety in the tones; and while some continued deep and harsh—the harshest sound in nature— ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... up suddenly. He opened his mouth to answer. There issued from his throat a strange and absurd little croak. ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... the chords of the major and minor may not be harmonized in some new and altogether marvellous fashion of music such as we wot not of!" And turning to Khosrul he added—"Wilt break a lance of song with me, sir gray-beard? Thou shalt croak of death, and I will chant of love,—and the King shall pronounce judgment as to which melody hath the most potent ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Three, I could tell you a little story about him. He has had a love-affair. There was a time when he too joined in the dance and song, as one might say; but all that is over for him. One morning he turned up late, his usual merry call changed to a croak like that of a bull-frog virtuoso. I peered between the curtains to make sure that it was not Number Five (as yet hypothetical); but no—it was Three, with a look on his face that could only bear one interpretation. Belinda had been perverse, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... were just ended, when in rushed Guiomar in wild affright, gesticulating as if she was in a fit, and in a voice between a croak and a whisper, she stammered out, "Master wake, senora; senora, master wake: him getting up, and coming." Whoever has seen a flock of pigeons feeding tranquilly in the field, and has marked the fear and confusion with which they take flight at the terrible sound ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... verandah beside her,—"Poor Poll, Pretty Poll"—came from the thin, pretty coral lips. Poll, thrust his head on one side, and looked almost calculatingly upon the svelte figure of his mistress, and said in a meaning croak, "come to dinner—the guest ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... in him, I tell you, from his father," Mr. Higginbotham went on accusingly. "An' he'll croak in the gutter the same way. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... poor little innocent creature, you knew perfectly well that it must kill him, if it did not press him as flat as a pancake. We will not forget what you have done, Master Norman Vallery. When you come into the garden we will not sing to you sweetly, but we will croak at you like so many crows, and call you 'Naughty, naughty boy!' When you run away we will follow you, for we can fly faster than you can run, and we will perch on the branches round you, and croak out, 'Naughty, naughty boy!' ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... with all his might he flings his feet, But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work him ill. They bade the wave before him rise; They flung the sea-fire in his eyes, And they stunned his ears with the scallop stroke, With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak. Oh! but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree; —Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblin's spite, For he saw around in the sweet moonshine, ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... arms! Let the battle-cry rise, Like the raven's hoarse croak, through their ranks let it sound; Set their knell on the wing of each arrow that flies, Till the shouts of the free shake the mountains around; Let the cold-blooded, faint-hearted changeling now tremble, For the war-shock ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lake in the U.S.A., And first the Indians, the red sort, owned it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... mouth And don't grumble nor croak; Go put your poor head And your poor heart in soak; Lay all of your sorrows And sins on the shelf, For the world is all right If you're all ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... of the tui or parson-bird—so called from his glossy black suit and white wattles curling exactly where a clergy-man's bands would be,—could be heard at a distance; whilst overhead the soft cooing of the wild pigeons, and the hoarse croak of the ka-ka or native parrot, made up the music of the birds' orchestra. Ah, how delicious it all was,—the Robinson Crusoe feel of the whole thing; the heavenly air, the fluttering leaves, the birds' chirrups and whistle, and the foreground of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... yet begun to growl, and hears no sounds but that of an occasional big rain-drop, plashing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead sometimes utters a sullen groan—the pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... namely, to protect the corpse from the dingo, or native dog. That the ravens and other carrion-eating birds should make a banquet upon the body of the dead man does not seem to trouble the survivors in the least, and it often happens that the traveler is told by the croak of the disturbed ravens that the body of a dead Australian is lying in the branches over ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... may scoff, and the pessimist may croak, but even they must take hope at the picture presented in the simple and touching incident of eight Grand Army veterans, with their silvery heads bowed in sympathy, escorting the lifeless body of the Daughter of the Confederacy from Narragansett to ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... to sound as if spoken absently, as if she were preoccupied in search for a certain paper. Instead it was an eldritch note in the room, like the croak of an evil bird... He was standing near the outer door. Something of her tumult must have come to him, she thought, for his voice was strangely altered ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... make people laugh, though I don't think I can do much in that line. I see the funny side of things too quickly to ever be able to write them down, as that takes time; but I am certainly going to be cheerful, and I am not going to croak. I don't mean I am going to be smiling all the time. I am not. Perpetual smilers are more than human nature can stand. Nothing is ever wrong, everything is beautiful, their smiles seem to say, which isn't so. There is a lot of life that is wrong, and ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... Aoife'll know and all her people know To have been my gifts. Mananan son of the sea Gave me this heavy purple cloak. Nine Queens Of the Land-under-Wave had woven it Out of the fleeces of the sea. O! tell her I was afraid, or tell her what you will. No! tell her that I heard a raven croak On the north side of the house and ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... and talents like his own. Thousands of hireling cocks attend him, As blust'ring bullies to defend him. At once the ravens were discarded, And magpies with their posts rewarded. Those fowls of omen I detest, That pry into another's nest. State lies must lose all good intent, For they foresee and croak th' event. My friends ne'er think, but talk by rote, Speak when they're taught, and so to vote. When rogues like these (a Sparrow cries) To honour and employment rise I court no favour, ask no place, From such, preferment is disgrace: Within my thatch'd retreat I find (What these ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... cry which was meant to be triumphant, although it came like a hoarse croak from his parched throat. Then the tears gushed into his eyes as he gazed again upon the flag. It almost seemed as if he ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... 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, and bloody encounters ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... do," whispered Roger to Dr. Watkins, whose clear tenor supported him. Dorothy's sweet voice soared high, Tom's croak made a heavy background, and the more or less tuneful voices of the others added a hearty body of sound. There was no response from the house except that a corner of an upstairs curtain was drawn aside for ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... there was a boy of this name, who tended sheep on the hill sides. His father was a hard working farmer, who every year tried to coax to grow out of the stony ground some oats, barley, leeks and cabbage. In summer, he worked hard, from the first croak of the raven to the last hoot of the owl, to provide food for his wife and baby daughter. When his boy was born, he took him to the church to be christened Gruffyd, but every body called him "Gruff." In time several little sisters came ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... sound between a laugh and a croak. "Tell me what deputies are sheltered in Caen. Come, child, their names." He took up and dipped his quill, and drew a sheet of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... native woodnotes as any signor or signora for an Italian air; that the boars of Westphalia gruntle as expressively through the nose as the inhabitants in High German; and that the frogs in the dykes of Holland croak as intelligibly as the natives jabber their Low Dutch. However this may be, we may consider those whose tongues hardly seem to be under the influence of reason, and do not keep up the proper conversation of ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... murmuring fondly among the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically sailing came the harsh croak of frogs. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... sometimes doth [2] a leaping fish 25 Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak, [C] In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes—the cloud— And mists that spread the flying shroud; 30 And sunbeams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past; But that enormous ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... night air on my heated limbs. A Cicada, a fellow-lodger in the house, attracts me by its domestic chirp back into my bedroom, and is there my social companion, while, in a happy dreaming state, I await the coming day, kept half awake by the buzz of the mosquites, the kettle-drum croak of the bull-frog, or the complaining ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... more reasons than one; if there is a bad reason, Elder Semple will be sure to croak about it. I could wish that just ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... belong to men of his class, but at nineteen reason is not always supreme; and many a time he went back with a sigh from his window to his books, and tried to forget the alluring strains of the quadrille and waltz in the descriptions of the lion's roar and the bull-frog's croak in the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... in the large cities) the appalling note of the bull-frog will reach you, loud, deep, and hoarse, issuing from a thousand throats in ceaseless continuity of croak. The tree-frog adds her chirping and almost human voice; the kattiedid repeats her own name through the livelong night; the whole tribe of locusts chirp, chirrup, squeak, whiz, and whistle, without allowing one instant of interval to the weary ear; and when to this ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... know another of its own kind? Why does the water here remain pure, when all other water turns to blood? Why do not the frogs croak in Seti's halls, and why do the flies avoid his meat? Why, also, did the statue of Amon melt before her glance, while all my magic fell back from her breast like arrows from a shirt of mail? Those are the questions that Egypt asks, and I ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... That harsh croak of voice was running down, as a clock runs down for lack of winding. Shann sped on, reacting to a plea which did not lay ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... did hate the noise they make," declared Bess. "It sounds like a dead, dark night. Why do they croak in the daytime?" ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... delicious, blossoming May, when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvelous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have a predilection for them. So much ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... song at the end of his remarks, with a portion of a stave of "The Mermaid"; but singing was not his strong point, and he made a noise partaking a good deal of a melodious croak. ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... necks of the lewd nobles ride: His brethren damn, the civil power defy; 300 And parcel out republic prelacy. But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke And tyrant power will puny sects provoke; And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train, Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane. The cut-throat sword and clamorous gown shall jar, In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war: Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend; Lords ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... these doves have no news save of the deluge. Presently an early reveille startles us from our beds of soft plank, and, as we fall in sleepily, fagged and exhausted in mind and body by this work, so new and so trying, we are electrified by the hoarse croak of Sergeant Files—he too is used up. 'Volunteers to go beyond the District,' step two paces t'the front—H'rch!' Four men remain in the ranks. All eyes turn to this shabby remnant, but they remain ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pleasant. No sound, except the soft lapping of the waves on the shore, the chirp of a cricket or the occasional croak of a tree frog, disturbed the quiet of the night. As the time wore on, without any disturbance, the watches began to doze until Gerald was suddenly roused with a start by a splash in the water and saw a boat gliding silently toward ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... him this time, you won't have to again," said T. B. knowingly. "He'll croak up there, mark my word. Says he never ties the burro at night now, for fear he might be called sudden, and the beast would starve. I guess that animal could eat a lariat rope, all right, and ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... his mouth was too parched for speaking. Nick's voice was very like a raven's croak, and he licked his dry lips and relapsed into silence. Their spell at the window came to an end. They stepped down, and went to a corner. Two sailors took ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... king's ring to play with. A raven, who saw the glittering ring, came flying, and plucking it out of the child's hand, carried it up into a tree; the child suddenly began to cry, and the mother, hearing it, left her washing, and running to the child, forthwith missed the ring, but hearing the raven croak in the tree she lifted up her eyes, and saw it with the ring in its beak. The woman, in great terror, called her brother, and told him what had happened, adding that she durst not approach the king if the raven took away the ring. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... 'watch-bird,' or apateplu, so called from his cry; he is wary and cunning, but we bagged two. The 'clock-bird,' supposed to toll every hour, has a voice which unites the bark of a dog, the caw of a crow, and the croak of a frog: he is rarely seen and even cleverer than 'hair grown.' More familiar sounds are the roucoulement of the pigeon and the tapping of the woodpecker. The only fourfooted beast we saw was the small bush-antelope with black robe, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... home, old man?' says I, to cheer him up; for don't you see, I allowed we was all in the drink—just tumble to what an old tub she was—117 of us at the start, and we all croak but me and the ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... does a leaping Fish Send through the Tarn a lonely chear; The Crags repeat the Raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the Rainbow comes, the Cloud; And Mists that spread the flying shroud; 30 And Sun-beams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past, But that ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... In the cool morning, with the hoe fresh in her hand, she thought of fatigue as something very far away. Stan was always a little inclined to croak. The thing ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... some fine night, In a friendly throng, From the swampy places where They have slept so long Hop the frogs, and all Loudly croak together, Then there will be, we are sure, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the sun and the soft breeze, an unwonted heaviness pervaded the male-bird's body. Formerly he used to fly or roost, croak or sit silent, fly swiftly or slowly, because there were causes both around and within him: when hungry he would find a hare, kill, and devour it; when the sun was too hot or the wind too keen, he would shelter ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... understood what all the bustle meant: that the day of desolation so long foretold by the Cassandra-croak of her aunt, had at length actually arrived, and that all the things she knew so well were vanishing from her ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... himself on his gold-spurred heel, And away, with a speechless frown; And up in the oak, with a greedy croak, The carrion-crow ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... 'Croak, croak, croak,' Thus the Raven spoke, Perched on his crooked tree As hoarse as hoarse could be. Shun him and fear him, Lest the Bridegroom hear him; Scout him and rout him With his ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... pleasing thee, Albert.—Why, who should speak genuine Scottish but myself?—Was I not their King for a matter of ten months? and if I did not get knowledge of their language, I wonder what else I got by it. Did not east country, and south country, and west country, and Highlands, caw, croak, and shriek about me, as the deep guttural, the broad drawl, and the high sharp yelp predominated by turns?—Oddsfish, man, have I not been speeched at by their orators, addressed by their senators, rebuked by their kirkmen? Have I not sate on the cutty-stool, mon, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... a sort of large parrot or cockatoo came flying down the valley, perching on the branch of a tree near the waterfall, where he began to croak away; so Denis Brown ups with a piece of stone and chucking it at the bird brings it down. In a moment he had picked off the feathers, when Magellan, taking out his knife again, cuts the parrot into six portions, entrails and all, ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one! So black and glossy, on my word, sir, With voice to match, you were a bird, sir, Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days.' Sir Raven, overset with praise, Must show how musical his croak. Down fell the luncheon from the oak; Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:— 'The flatterer, my good sir, Aye liveth on his listener; Which lesson, if you please, Is doubtless worth the cheese.' ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... I heard both them interestin' facts. Who is this goil you was comin' through a window to see in the middle o' the night. And what's that gat for if it ain't to croak some other guy? You oughtta be ashamed of yourself for not pullin' a better wheeze ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... serious face at the disappearance of the letter, and the apparent proof that it had been called for, showed him to have been its original depositor, and probably awakened a remorseful recollection in the dark bosom of the omnipresent crow, who uttered a conscious-stricken croak from the bough above him. But the young man quickly disappeared again, and the squirrel was once more left ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... they trailed far afield, scattering widely, each pair to its own particular fishing grounds; but when the shadows grew long, and night prowlers stirred abroad, the herons came trailing back again, making curious, wavy, graceful lines athwart the sunset glow, to croak and be sociable together, and help each other ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... spoken of such people. They rankled in his heart as he sped up the road. A squirrel in an old fir-tree had shouted them at him, while a forlorn crow soaring overhead had looked down and given its hoarse croak of contempt. He was a sucker—a sponger! living upon others! What was he doing to earn his living? Nothing. What would his father ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... (mimicking.) Croak, croak, by the gods I shall choke, If you pester and bore my ears any more With your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... branches from my path, and lacerating my skin at every step. Onward, through sluggish rivulets of water, through tough miry mud, through slimy pools, filled with horrid newts, and the spawn of the huge rana pipiens, whose hoarse loud croak at every step sounded ominous in ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... time a little awkward uncomfortable inward suggestion began to croak that elder sisters are occasionally right, and may even be wiser in their generation than tall girls who have entered the Fifth. Gwen's cough, which had been hacking all day, came on much worse, and began to hurt her chest: she wished ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... tuyfels—as the stingy old thief himself says—he might have held his infernal croak. I hate to make sail with a croak astern; 'tis as bad as ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... long, wait still longer before you answer. My mother has been in the country for a few days, and has returned with a terrible cough and cold, with which pleasant maladies she finds the house full here to welcome her, so that we all croak in unison most harmoniously. I was at the Siddonses' the other evening. My aunt was suffering, I am sorry to say, with one of her terrible headaches; Cecilia was pretty well, but as it was a soiree chantante, I had ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... through the wind-blown dust That defiles the flowers of Lama-ula, Outraged by the croak of this bird, That eats of the aphrodisiac cane, 5 And then boasts the privileged bed. He makes me a creature of outlaw: True to myself from crown to foot-sole, My love I've kept sacred, pent up within. He flouts it as common, weeping it forth— 10 That ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... few yards of you, or, if all living creatures are silent, a brook not far off may be flowing along with a rippling musical sound. These and a hundred other noises you will hear in the most quiet country spot; the lowing of the cattle, the song of the birds, the squeak of the field-mouse, the croak of the frog, mingling with the sound of the woodman's axe in the distance, or the dash of some river torrent. And beside these quiet sounds, there are still other occasional voices of nature which speak to us from time to time. The howling of the tempestuous wind, the roar of the ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... young masters have gone, and we are left with fossils, fretting because they are too old to fight, and making our lives unbearable because we are too young. As soon as I am old enough I mean to go and fight; but I can't stick the way these masters croak away about the trenches all day long. If you play badly at rugger you are asked what use you will be in a regiment. If your French prose is full of howlers, you are told that slackers aren't wanted in the trenches. Damn it all, we know that all these ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... between a duck and a heron, both of which were in the hotel garden. The heron looked very ill and weak, and used to remain in the same spot for a long time, standing first on one leg and then the other, the duck lying a little distance off. When the heron wished to walk about it gave a feeble croak, and the duck would immediately join it, and the two commenced walking round the garden. When the heron was tired, it gave another croak, and the two companions stopped their walk. The only time that the duck left the heron entirely ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through five hundred fathoms of ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the slender junipers shake With the weight of the nimble bear, And the pool resounds with the cayman's plash, And the owl sings out of the boughs of the ash, Where he sits so calm and cool, And above his head the muckawiss Sings his gloomy song, And croak the frogs in the pool, And he hears at his feet the horn-snake's hiss; Then often flit along The shades of the youth and maid so true, That haunt the Lake of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... surface. No longer did he see Arthur; no longer was he a mortal boy. Instead of this, a frog—a green speckled frog, with great bulging eyes and a fishy mouth—looked up at him. He tried to call, to shout, but in vain; he could only croak, and this in the most dismal manner. What was he to do? Sit and stare about him, try to catch flies, plunge down into the mud—charming amusements for the rest of his life! A little brown bird hopped down for a drink from the rivulet; she stooped and rose, ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... portrait painter ever had in England. Feed him up first, get a boy to keep the flies from him, and he will remain almost immoveable through the day. He will put on a sad expression in the morning which will not change; he will give no trouble whatever, he will but sit still and croak."—Chap. IV., 'Our Models.' ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... a long querulous bark, and rising aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretch himself after his night's sleep, bung motionless, watching every lark which chirruped on the cliffs; while from the far-off Nile below, the awakening croak of pelicans, the clang of geese, the whistle of the godwit and curlew, came ringing up the windings of the glen; and last of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a morning hymn to some wild Eastern air; and a new day ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... ear to what Ivan said, and flew to his brothers and began to croak above their heads. The brothers awoke, and when they heard the cry of the Raven, they hastened to their brother's aid. And they killed the Snake, and then, having taken his heads, they went into his hut and destroyed ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... word, Vane," said Mr. Flint, "I wish you'd chosen some other day to croak. What do you want me to do? Put all the rates back because this upstart politician Crewe is making a noise? Who's going to dig up ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... purty man yit that was worth the powder it'd take to blow him up! Aw, you fellers make me sick!" He went off, muttering his opinion of them all, and particularly of the Native Son, who smiled while he listened. "You go awn and start something—and you'll wisht you hadn't," they heard him croak from the big gate, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... soldier, anyway," said John, cheerily. "Don't croak, Blundell; we'll make a man of ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... and each headpiece lined with fence of proof. Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife; Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak. But when grasshopper feels the vulture's talons, Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last, Prevail the mules, butts his swift foals ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... can always remember it by recalling the croak of the raven." She raised one hand to her brow, posing reflectively, and ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... awry. As the ponies sought a path at a snail's pace through the sharp flints, she showed in a thousand ways how high the gaiety of her animal spirits had mounted. She sang airy little pieces of songs. She uttered single clear notes. She mocked, with a ludicrously feminine croak, the hoarse voice of a crow sailing over them. She rallied Bennington mercilessly on his corduroys, his yellow flapped pistol holster, his laced boots. She went over in ridiculous pantomime the scene ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... however, the sides of the pool were very steep, and the ass of the Cogia, on seeing the water, not being able to restrain himself, ran forward to the pool. Just as he was falling in, the frogs of the pool began to croak violently; their voices frightening the ass, he ran back. The Cogia, however, seized hold of him, and exclaiming, 'Bravo, ye birds of the pool!' he took out a handful of aspres, and flung them into the pool, saying, 'Here's ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... is doing a croak. Giving up the ghost for all he's worth—he is. Better come and take a look for yourself if you don't ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... cricket left, of summer's choir. One glow-worm, flashing life's last fire. One frog with leathern croak Beneath the oak,— And the pool stands leaden Where November ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... thrush, and we laughed together - Laughed till the woods were all a-ring; And he said to me, as he plumed each feather, "Well, people must croak, if they cannot sing!" ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dear," said Mrs Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night, don't you think? You have no idea how ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... leaves in the forest turned yellow and brown; the wind caught them so that they danced about, and up in the air it was very cold. The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snowflakes, and on the fence stood the raven, crying, "Croak! croak!" for mere cold; yes, it was enough to make one feel cold to think of this. The poor little Duckling certainly had not a good time. One evening—the sun was just setting in his beauty—there came a whole ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... merry croak From river, pond, and stream; O, now I know that Spring has come, And ...
— The Tiny Picture Book. • Anonymous
... up her grip on Mispoon and tore ferociously at her new assailant. For a space Mispoon was saved, but it was at a terrible sacrifice to Newish. With a single lucky slash of her long-fanged jaws, Maheegun literally tore one of Newish's great wings from her body. The croak of agony that came out of her may have held the death-note for Mispoon, her mate; for he rose on his wings, poised himself for an instant, and launched himself at the she-wolf's back with a force that drove Maheegun ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... them down by main force, till I came to a wide stream of water, three inches deep, languidly creeping along over a bottom of sleek mud. My arrival produced a great commotion. A huge green bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a loud splash: his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked them energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing himself in the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence several large air bubbles struggled lazily to the top. Some little ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... was by nature an honest man and faithful as a dog. My grandfather had taken a liking to him, and when he quitted the sea Krok followed him, and became his man and served him faithfully. He could neither read nor write at that time, and his only vocal expression was a hoarse croak like the cawing of a crow, and this, combined with ample play of head and hand and facial expression and hieroglyphic gesture, formed his only means of communication ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... delightful half-hour watching them from my own hiding-place. Although they have such thick, long and clumsy legs, and coarse splay feet they run to and fro with marvelous speed, continually uttering their insistent croak. Usually they were in pairs, male and female, although I once saw a male and three female birds together. The former can easily be recognised, for it is considerably larger than its mate, and the coloration of the plumage ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... the enemy too confident. Then I held out the palm of my hand for inspection and tried to look like a man pretending he does not believe in magic. Whatever Maga thought, the old hag was delighted. She began to croak an incantation, shuffling first with one foot, then with the other, and finally with both together in a weird dance that almost shook her old frame apart. Then she went through a pantomime of finger-pointing, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... bad night for us, Frederick," she said out loud, "it air. But you'll not sleep in the log to-night, but in Daddy's bed. And I'll just pretend ye air Daddy, and when ye croak with the daylight ye can have all the flies lightin' on the sugar, and then we air goin' after Daddy and bring him home to ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... and waving a hand at me. I thought he was choking, or was desperately ill or something, and I sprang toward him, but he waved me back. "Stop! Wait!" he said, or stammered, or choked; it was more like a croak than a human voice. "Don't come here! Let me be! What are you trying to tell me? Who—who is this girl?" I asked him what was the matter—his manner and his look frightened me—but he wouldn't answer, kept ordering me to tell him again who you were. So I did tell him that you were ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... A raven cried "Croak"; And they all tumbled down; Bumpety, bumpety, bump! The mare broke her knees, And the farmer his crown; Lumpety, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... narrowness of mind or covetousness. Listen now, with these Brahmanas here, to the words of truth I utter. I do not ask for anything. I shall, however, instruct thee in the ways of righteousness. All persons will croak and bray and cry fie on me (for what I am going to do). They will even call me sinful. My kinsmen and friends will discard me.[442] Without doubt, however, my kinsmen and friends, hearing the words I speak, will succeed in vigorously crossing the difficulties of life. Some that are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... morning's thunder shall be of guns, And the morning's mist of smoke, And higher and higher o'er din and fire, We crows shall rise and croak. ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... like unto the bullet of my big gun, and obey me! When I throw up in the air this cigarette, thou shalt run and plunge into the river, but not into the depth; lie hidden in the reeds of the bank until thou shalt hear a frog croak thrice and then once. Come out and go to the frog, and be not afraid, for thou shalt see me in the spirit ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... feel allied, To frogs by kinship tied; For water drinking is no joke, Ere long you all will hear me croak Quack water! CHORUS:—Of wine, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... the sky and misty in the east— Low vapours creeping bleakly o'er the hills— The rain will soon come plashing on the rills— No sound in all the place of bird or beast, Save that hoarse croak that all ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... but one croak heard in all the applause. It came from Murger's father. He could not believe his eyes and his ears, when they avouched to him that his son's name and praises filled every paper and every mouth. It utterly confounded him. The day of the second performance of the piece ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... wings and croak of alarm flew up a great heron from a marshy pool, and in a moment all was forgotten as I unhooded my hawk—one that Olaf had given me from the Danish spoils at Canterbury. Then the rush of the long-winged falcon, ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... oxen will lick themselves the wrong way of the hair, sheep will bleat and skip about, hogs turned out in the woods will come grunting and squealing, colts will rub their backs against the ground, crows will gather in crowds, crickets will sing more loudly, flies come into the house, frogs croak and change color to a dingier hue, dogs eat grass, and rooks soar like hawks. It is probable that many of these actions are due to actual uneasiness, similar to that which all who are troubled with corns or rheumatism experience before a storm, and are caused both by the variation ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... yuh got to do is go back to the car an' wait," retorted Lynch. "I ain't so partic'lar. Besides," his tone changed subtly, "his head's smashed in an' he's sure to croak, anyhow. It would be an act of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a singular, indescribable sound. A crack from a hoof on a stone rang like a hollow bell and echoed from wall to wall. And the croak of a frog—the only living creature he had so far noted in the canyon—was ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and purring, insists on caresses; in the large clean stables where the horses munch the corn lazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croak and flutter, and strut about Kitty's feet. It was Kitty; yes, it was Kitty everywhere; even the blackbird darting through the laurels seemed ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... and was waiting till the next night to get away in that darkness which had aided his coming thither. But the night, like the day, passed and brought no news. On the morrow, the pope, tormented by the gloomiest presentiments and by the raven's croak of the 'vox populi', let himself fall into the depths of despair: amid sighs and sobs of grief, all he could say to any one who came to him was but these words, repeated a thousand times: "Search, search; let us know how my unhappy ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... himself. The second week he spent his nights forming desperate plans. The young men followed him as they always did, and they held their meeting down the rigole, clustered together on the bank. They could hear the frogs croak in the marais; it was dry, and the water was getting low. Gabriel used to say he never heard a frog croak afterwards without a sinking of the heart. It was the voice of misery. But Gabriel had strong partisans in this council. Le Maudit Pensonneau ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and radiant Transfigured them. Upon him fell aslant That lovely light, while in her cheeks the hue Of throbbing dawn came sudden. So he knew Her best before she spoke; for when she spoke It was as if the nightingale should croak In April midst the first young leaves, so bleak, So harsh she schooled her throat, that it should speak Dry matter and hard logic—as if she Were careful lest self-pity urged a plea Which was not hers to make; or as one faint And desperate ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... This piece will contain several obligato passages written expressly for our Bull-Frog. After this, we shall challenge Mr. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN to compete in public speaking with the Frog of PUNCHINELLO, for a purse of $20,000—Mr. TRAIN to speak ten minutes solo; the Frog to croak ten minutes; and then both to speak and croak in duet also for ten minutes—the most sonorous ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... ready for any emergency likely to turn up, and in a very audible prompt whisper replied: "Go on, go on with the scene. Die as fast as you can. Don't give them any fancy dying frills, but croak at once and ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... raven's croak, the low wind choked and drear, The baffled stream, the grey wolf's doleful cry, Were all the sounds that mariner could hear, As through the wood he wandered painfully; But as unto the house he drew anigh, The pillars ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... those of Thebes or Petraea, and mayhap a thousand times more ancient. There is no lack of life along the shores of the solitary little bay. The shriek of the sparrow-hawk mingles from the cliffs with the hoarse deep croak of the raven; the cormorant on some wave-encircled ledge, hangs out his dark wing to the breeze; the spotted diver, plying his vocation on the shallows beyond, dives and then appears, and dives and appears again, and we see the silver ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... leave it,' I says, 'Come and let's get off.' So he gave a good pull, and it came away. Leastways most of it did, but the end was gone. Torn off it was, and Evans looked at it for a second and then he gave a sort of a croak and let it drop, and we both made off out of there as quick as ever we could. When we got outside Evans says to me, 'Did you see the end of that paper.' 'No,' I says, 'only it was torn.' 'Yes, it was,' he says, 'but ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... co-worker, shrugged her bony shoulders and laughed; but not with the upward glee of a bird—downward, rather, until it died in a croak in her throat. But then Hattie Krakow was ten years older than Sara Juke; and ten years in the arc-lighted subcellar of the Titanic Department Store can do much to muffle the ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... two little evergreen-trees within a foot of each of their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase till their front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadow fit only for ravens to croak in. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... most mountainous parts of the United Kingdom; and the clear mountain air seems to produce on the average a better type of human larynx than the mists of the level. The men of the lowland, say the Tyrolese, croak like frogs in their marshes; but the men of the upland sing like nightingales on their tree-tops. And indeed, it would seem as if the mountain people were always calling to one another across intervening valleys, always ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in the corner of a chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, and hair-breadth escapes and bloody ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak in it! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... some myself, I laid off an' went down to the river to wash the blood off, tie up my wounds, an' drink a leetle. While I was down there along comes one of the cutthroats with a bucket. Instead of gettin' water he got lead, an' as he was about to croak he tells me a whole bunch of outlaws was headin' in there, doo to-morrer. An' if I wanted to rescoo the gurl I hed to be hurryin'. There was five fellers left ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... but they'll do," whispered Roger to Dr. Watkins, whose clear tenor supported him. Dorothy's sweet voice soared high, Tom's croak made a heavy background, and the more or less tuneful voices of the others added a hearty body of sound. There was no response from the house except that a corner of an upstairs curtain was drawn ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... Black-bird who lived in the apple-tree beneath his window, (the tree of the inquisitive turn of mind), this Black-bird fellow, opening a drowsy eye, must needs give vent to a croak, very hoarse and feeble; then, (apparently having yawned prodigiously and stretched himself, wing, and leg), he tried a couple of notes,—in a hesitating, tentative sort of fashion, shook himself,—repeated the two notes,—tried three, found them mellower, and more what ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... brought Big 'Un into the cabin, cuffed up, and with the drop on him. He says the hen squawked, and the Old Man shut her in her room. Then they kicked him out on deck, so he wouldn't see too much o' what was goin' on. He says they put the Big 'Un down in the lazaret, and they're goin' to croak him sure, and if we got any guts we'll go aft tonight and turn him ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... British Columbia boys who were there. Sergeants Potentier, George Fitz, and Mudge, of Grand Forks; Reid, Diplock, and Johnson, of Vancouver; Munroe and Wildblood, of Rossland; Keith, Palmer, Larkins, Scott, and Croak. Captain Scudamore, my Company Captain, came over to where I sat, and kindly inquired about my wounds. He wrote down my father's address, too, and said he would try to ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... who left on yonder rock Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock. 20 Had we not been perverse and careless grown, This dire event by omens was foreshown; Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... you are building a house, do not leave it rough-hewn, or a cawing crow may settle on it and croak. ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... do not generally croak, but you are earning the character of the raven for yourself to-night. The thing is growing on you. What IS the use of bringing up unpleasant subjects? You are an old woman." I fear there was the slightest irritation in my voice; but, truth is, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Shelby, "don't growl. We've been a pretty good sort, haven't we? We're going home, aren't we? Why croak ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... whom I had never made the least acquaintance. Whether from fear or presence of mind I do not pretend to say, but I remained perfectly still, and in a minute or two Jack put his head forward and stared me in the face, uttering a sort of croak; he then descended on to my knees, examined my hands as if he were counting my fingers, tried to take off my rings, and when I gave him some biscuit, curled himself compactly into my lap. We were friends from that moment. My aversion thus cured, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... sudden, mysterious croak that issued from inside the great head caused Arline to start and step back. "Ask me a question. I am as old as the world. I am the world's great riddle, the one which has never been solved. Ask me a question, only one, one only." The eerie voice died away into yards of drapery ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... that large boots were trampling among his treasures kept him transfixed for just the length of time necessary for Wyatt to cross the garden and climb the opposite wall. As he dropped into the lane, Mr. Appleby recovered himself sufficiently to emit a sort of strangled croak, but the sound was too slight to reach Wyatt. That reveller was walking down the Wrykyn road before Mr. Appleby ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... wandering "with a vague surmise" over the nearest hilltops in search of Boers, nor measuring unconsciously the range from the top of Table Mountain, which I find myself doing even as I write this, looking up at it through the window. The trekking, the fighting, the croak of the invisible rifle, the glare of the sun, the row of swarthy determined faces, the roar of horse hoofs, all this, and the lounging days by river banks (shooting guinea-fowl and springbuck), will drop back and be shut off from one's ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... draw the attention even of the most incurious—they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling on the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... The evening was a fine one, and the setting sun displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, and reflected that these birds were no longer so charitable. Then, not being able to stand it any longer, he closed his window, drew the curtain, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... goes well," says I; whereupon he gives a cry like the croak of a frog, and his comrades steal up almost unseen and unheard, save that each as he came whispered his name, as Spinks, Davis, Lee, Best, etc., till their number was all told. Then Groves, who was clearly chosen their captain, calls Spinks, Lee, and Best to stand with him, and bids the others ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... church-bells of London ring; The hoarser horns of London croak; The poor brown lives of London cling About the poor brown streets like smoke; The deep air stands above my roof Like water, to the floating stars. My Friend and I—we sit aloof,— We sit and smile, and ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... stopping up the orifice with a sponge, allow her victim to pine in wonder why he felt so incomplete. With ointments compounded of dead men's flesh she could transform a lover into a beaver, or an innkeeper into a frog swimming in his own vat of wine and with doleful croak inviting his former customers to drink; or herself, with the aid of a little shaking, she could convert into a feathered owl uttering a queasy note as it flitted out of the window. Indeed, the whole of nature was uncertain, especially if disaster impended, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... now the frog had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... poor bird had arrived at the noble age of 117 and was entirely bereft of feathers. Flapping his stumpy wings he cried incessantly, "I'll fly, by God, I'll fly!" So, many singers, having lost their voices, continue to croak, "I'll sing, by God, I'll sing!" The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, himself a man of considerable years when he published his highly diverting "Musical Reminiscences," gives us some extraordinary pictures of senility on the stage at the close of the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the sick man and by the lesser witches, is the K[^a][']lana-ayeli[']sk[)i] or Raven Mocker, so called because he flies through the air at night in a shape of fire, uttering sounds like the harsh croak of ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... wandering in groups without food, or howling over the dead. The men are flying in every direction. The proud, warlike, and noble looking Blackfeet are no more. The deserted lodges are seen on the hills, but no smoke issues from them. No sound but the raven's croak, and the wolf's long howl, breaks the awful stillness. The wolves fatten on the dead carcases. The scene of desolation is described as appalling beyond the powers ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the midges seemed to have forgotten their calling. No place on earth can be so deathly still as a deer-forest early in the season before the stags have begun roaring, for there are no sheep with their homely noises, and only the rare croak of a raven breaks the silence. The hillside was far from sheer-one could have walked down with a little care-but something in the shape of the hollow and the remote gleam of white water gave it ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... snort [pig, hog, swine, horse]; squeak, [swine, mouse]; neigh, whinny [horse]; bray [donkey, mule, hinny, ass]; mew, mewl [kitten]; meow [cat]; purr [cat]; caterwaul, pule [cats]; baa^, bleat [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat^, croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, warble, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... English. Every man about his king Fought like a king; the king like his own man, No better; one for all, and all for one, One soul! and therefore have we shatter'd back The hugest wave from Norseland ever yet Surged on us, and our battle-axes broken The Raven's wing, and dumb'd his carrion croak From the gray sea for ever. Many are gone— Drink to the dead who died for us, the living Who fought and would have died, but happier lived, If happier be to live; they both have life In the large mouth of England, till her voice Die with ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... winter, with only a coverlid of wet matted leaves between it and zero weather. Forthwith I set up as a prophet of warm weather, and among other things predicted a failure of the ice crop on the river; which, indeed, others, who had not heard frogs croak on the 31st of December, had also begun to predict. Surely, I thought, this frog knows what it is about; here is the wisdom of nature; it would have gone deeper into the ground than that if a severe winter was approaching; so I was not anxious ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... "Now don't croak," she said. "The stars are shining, and there is no sign of a storm. You have already proved that an earthquake cannot occur. You know the old saying about worry over what never happens. The true way to enjoy life is to take the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... to know what became of Stingy? When the web was broken and he tumbled to the ground, he fell into the open mouth of the Frisky Frog, who gave a comfortable croak as he swallowed him. Nobody was sorry that Stingy was swallowed. Mrs. Cricky said it served him right, but then, poor Mrs. Cricky's good wishes were often lost in anxiety, lest harm should come to one of her own ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... righteousness. I am not reproving thee from fear or narrowness of mind or covetousness. Listen now, with these Brahmanas here, to the words of truth I utter. I do not ask for anything. I shall, however, instruct thee in the ways of righteousness. All persons will croak and bray and cry fie on me (for what I am going to do). They will even call me sinful. My kinsmen and friends will discard me.[442] Without doubt, however, my kinsmen and friends, hearing the words I speak, will succeed in vigorously crossing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... sightless and gloomy, on the crest of a bare cliff, laid bare its crumbling turrets; above the old forgotten stones, a little golden star was shining peacefully. From a small almost black lake rose, like a mysterious wail, the plaintive croak of tiny frogs. I fancied other notes, long-drawn-out, languid like the strains of an AEolian harp.... Here we were in the home of legend! The same delicate moonlight mist, which had struck me in Schwetzingen, was shed here on every side, and the farther away the mountains, the thicker ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... flowers on the bank; their cups run over—the marsh marigold, that fine lady, can bear it better! Hurra! it is a feast! it pours, it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song. Tomorrow the frogs will croak the same after us and say, 'it is ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... the ever obliging, was here unwilling to oblige. "Shall the owl croak the notes of the nightingale?" he asked, extending his open palms in a gesture ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... is!" Kelson whispered—and whilst he was speaking there came a dismal croak, croak, and the swaying ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... you go to work and destroy the good effect that you've produced. For that matter, I won't let you. I'm off, old chap. It's fifteen minutes to three. You'd better seek your balmy couch. No—don't stop me. You'll croak me into despair ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... Frog were friends in a pond. The Snake taught the Frog to hiss, and the Frog taught the Snake to croak. The Snake would hide in the reeds and croak. The Frogs would say, "Why, there is one of us," and come near. The Snake would then dart at them, and eat all he could seize. The Frog would hide in the reeds and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... reputations. No more he defies His "lying opponents" with deadlier lies. His trumpet is hushed and his belt is unbound— His enemies' characters cumber the ground. They bloat on the war-plain with ink all asoak, The fortunate candidates perching to croak. No more he will charge, with a daring divine, His foes with corruption, his friends by the line. The thunders are stilled of the horrid campaign, De Young is triumphant, and never again Will he need, with his life in his hand, to roar: "Count fair or, by G——, I will die on your floor!" His ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... blithe, her heart was light; The Broom might have pursued Her speech, until the stars of night Their journey had renewed; But in the branches of the oak 95 Two ravens now began to croak Their nuptial song, a gladsome air; And to her own green bower the breeze That instant brought two stripling bees To rest, or [10] ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... shavelings here,' he grumbled. 'They're enough to make one croak. Mind, doctor, no priests, and no physics when I go off, or we shall quarrel. Let him come in, however, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... your own mind, but I can't help thinking, when Will's ma was down here keeping house for him—SHE used to run in to SEE me, real OFTEN!—it was good enough furniture for her. But there, there, I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you find you can't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the Haydocks and the Dyers—and heaven only knows how much money Juanita Haydock blows in in a year—why then you may be glad to know that slow old Aunty Bogart is always ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... at the base of the tree to which they form a crawling, writhing girdle.] The Toads, croak! croak! the ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... rapids filled the air with its humming; but their ears were accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed beds, until Jo Lagasse imitated ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... execute a deed of conveyance assigning to me, with no restrictive covenants, the freehold of one of those mills, for I have coveted a mill ever since I succumbed to the enchantments of Lettres de mon moulin. True, Flanders is not Provence, and the croaking of the frogs, croak they never so amorously, among the willows in the plains below is a poor exchange for the chant of the cigale. But these mills look out over a landscape that is now dearer to me than Abana and Pharpar, for many a gallant friend ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Again he smiled slightly and wearily. "And I can't say I care a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact," he added, "I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... five thousand dollars. That's mine, anyhow. It's in that bag there. I'm working on a new set of tools now in my shop. I'm going to get that money back from the two thieves who stole it from me by law. I'll take it by force, the way they took it. If I can croak them both in the fight—well, there'll be two thieves less to rob honest men and ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... had ceased to croak, for one of our men, standing on the edge of the pond, was throwing pellets of mud at them. All at once he dropped like some inanimate object and lay on his side. At the same time a motor-ambulance came rushing up and stopped at the cross-roads. ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... that spinster, in the hoarse croak that distinguishes her. "The fact that you were here yesterday and couldn't reasonably be supposed to come again for a week, made it at once a certainty that you would turn up immediately. The unexpected is what always ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... day—and Carew's madness grows. Ye'll meet him again, lad, if you stay wi' the ship. Wi' Old Nick to help him, 'tis black fortune he'll bring to the lass, ye'll see." And Sails would croak out dismal prophecies concerning Wild Bob Carew's future activities, so ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the night air—as was customary in the plains—with short curtains of lawn to screen the interior from public view. Outside, the shrill chirping of crickets vibrated in the air, and the occasional croak of a bull-frog from a pond in the garden, could be heard. Otherwise, the silence of the night was oppressive ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... discouraged me, but I watched for it to reach the foremost bird. He was surprised by it, but made one step sideways, and, lifting his great right leg, the stone rolled under him without any damage. He gave a queer, guttural croak, accompanied by a most violent motion of the head and neck. The other birds, thus warned, dodged quickly sidewise, and avoided the slowly rolling boulder; but all three of the riders were thrown by the swift lateral movement ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... esculenta) "the sacs are peculiar to the males, and become, when filled with air in the act of croaking, large globular bladders, standing out one on each side of the head, near the corners of the mouth." The croak of the male is thus rendered exceedingly powerful; whilst that of the female is only a slight groaning noise. (50. Bell, ibid. pp. 112-114.) In the several genera of the family the vocal organs differ considerably in structure, and their development ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... was another rancher, surnamed Crosby, hatchet-faced, slow of speech, who spoke, "Ain't that question a bit superfluous, pard? We're all with you—that is, as many as you want, I reckon. None of us ain't cats, so we can't croak but once—and that might as well be now as ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... peculiar skill or gift, but also lungs of brass and a throat of iron. A transport rider without a voice is as a tenor in the same fix. He may—and does—get so hoarse that it is a pain to hear him; but as long as he can croak in good volume he is all right. Mere shouting will not do. He must shriek, until to the sympathetic bystander it seems that his throat must split wide open. Furthermore, he must shriek the proper things. It all sounds alike to every one but transport riders and oxen; but ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... spite of his mother's warnings, whenever he met Mr. Crow Frisky Squirrel would always stop and ask the old gentleman how his cold was. You see, Mr. Crow's voice was never what you would call clear. You might say that there was a decided croak in it. And very often, even on hot summer days, he would have a muffler wound about ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... we laughed together - Laughed till the woods were all a-ring; And he said to me, as he plumed each feather, "Well, people must croak, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... silken curtains, thin as russet silk, at random are spread out. The croak of frogs from the adjoining lane but faintly strikes the ear. The pillow a slight chill pervades, for rain outside the window falls. The landscape, which now meets the eye, is like that seen in dreams by man. In plenteous streams the candles' tears do drop, but for whom do they weep? Each particle ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping hags; and the "Thou shalt be King" could be quite as mournfully hurled at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of Armuyr. The croak ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... "Oh, oh!" and we hurried upstairs. There was the old woman on the floor, her face twitching to right, and her breathing a sort of hoarse croak. The big Bible lay open on the floor, and I knew what had happened. It was a ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... Moreover, it happened once that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,— an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood- encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ventured ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... located its source correctly. Seated on the crumbling maintop of the ship was a huge, evil-looking bird of the kind called "Gallinazos" in South America. The carrion creature eyed the newcomer with a red malevolent eye and again gave voice to its harsh croak—the sound that had so startled him ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... pail on his arm. At sight of Margarita his jaw dropped, he shivered violently and appeared ready to faint, but as she called encouragingly to him he mustered courage to approach and feel of her skirt timidly. He was evidently feeble-minded as well as dumb, for with a sort of croak he dropped the bucket and began to dance clumsily up and down, snapping his fingers the while. Plainly he had thought her gone for good and this was ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal, And the Old Woman knew what he said, And she grew pale at the Raven's tale, And sicken'd ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... larf, and I never smile, And I never lark nor play, But sit and croak, and a single joke ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... sat up and listened attentively. Once or twice he thought he heard the sound of a dip of a paddle, out on the lake, but he could not be sure of it; while from time to time he heard the croak of a frog, sometimes near, sometimes at a distance along the shore. He would have thought little of this, had not a slight pressure of Jonathan's hand, against his foot, told him ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... hush and gloom of a thundery sky that has not yet begun to growl, and hears no sounds but that of an occasional big rain-drop, plashing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead sometimes utters a sullen groan—the pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on his face, but sees no bird on the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... and private individuals, form garlands of black and white along the cornices of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets; sea-gulls dart and play over the water; thousands of turtle-doves coo amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries; crows croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers halcyons come and go in long files between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; and storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. For the Turk, each one of these birds has a gentle meaning, or a benignant virtue: turtle-doves are favorable to lovers, swallows ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... robins richly call To their mates mercurial, And the tree-boughs creak and strain In the wind; When the river's rough with foam, And the new-made clearings smoke, And the clouds that go and come Shine and darken frolicsome, And the frogs at evening croak Undefined Mysteries of monotone, And by melting beds of snow Wind-flowers blossom all alone; Then I know That the bitter winter's dead. Over his head The damp sod breaks so mellow,— Its mosses tipped with points of yellow,— ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... represented to him the last remnants of the eighteenth century; the survivors of Hosea Biglow's Cornwallis; the sole remaining protestants against a banker's Olympus which had become, for five-and-twenty years, more and more despotic over Esop's frog-empire. One might no longer croak except to vote for King Log, or — failing storks — for Grover Cleveland; and even then could not be sure where King Banker lurked behind. The costly education in politics had led to political torpor. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Jack, you see; I expect that Jill is busy sitting on her eggs. Fly away, Jack, and look after your wife." She clapped her hands, and the great bird, giving a reproachful croak, spread his ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... wide stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... characteristic is this impersonation in magical dancing that among the Mexicans the word for magic, navali, means "disguise." K. Th. Preuss, "Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft", 1906, page 97.) A very common animal dance is the frog-dance. When it rains the frogs croak. If you desire rain you dress up like a frog and croak and jump. We think of such a performance as a conscious imitation. The man, we think, is more or less LIKE a frog. That is not how primitive man thinks; indeed, he scarcely thinks ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... talons and Maheegun gave up her grip on Mispoon and tore ferociously at her new assailant. For a space Mispoon was saved, but it was at a terrible sacrifice to Newish. With a single lucky slash of her long-fanged jaws, Maheegun literally tore one of Newish's great wings from her body. The croak of agony that came out of her may have held the death-note for Mispoon, her mate; for he rose on his wings, poised himself for an instant, and launched himself at the she-wolf's back with a force that ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... cracked in his throat. It was a miserable croak that he sent back, but he blew her ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... the nimble bear, And the pool resounds with the cayman's plash, And the owl sings out of the boughs of the ash, Where he sits so calm and cool, And above his head the muckawiss Sings his gloomy song, And croak the frogs in the pool, And he hears at his feet the horn-snake's hiss; Then often flit along The shades of the youth and maid so true, That haunt the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... here?" said Mrs Culpepper to her husband, in a sort of low croak; for she was so smothered with fat that she could ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Jacky is still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who I am. I am still wasting useless blandishments on him, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... armed, and she soon won a fearful name at Kentish cottage-hearths, though she 'was not black to see, nor old. No, she was very young. But she did all the things that soldiers do,—was a bit of a foreigner;—she brought a reputation up from the Welsh land, and it had a raven's croak and a glow-worm's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... poor Bottom back to life and made the arms of the Cervantian wind-mill turn and the frogs of Aristophanes croak. But oh, shade of Yorick! how the sap, the ichor, the sharp authentic tang, that really tickles our sensibilities, has thinned out and fallen flat during the centuries. My hearers have smiled and tittered perhaps—with a pathetic ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... crow croak: "Don' work, no, no;" But de fiel'-lark say, "Yaas, yaas, An' I spec' you mighty glad, you debblish crow, Dat de Baptissis's in de grass, grass, Dat de Baptissis's ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... "But we won't croak, whatever else we do. If we are to be sent to the bottom of this bay, we will go down with the best grace possible," added Felix, who was certainly in as good humor as ever he was, in spite of the brass gun that protruded at the side of the Fatime. "Do you suppose Captain ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... not that Hideous Bulk of Honour scape, Nadab that sets the gazing Crowd agape: That old Kirk-founder, whose course Croak could sing The Saints, the Cause, no Bishop, and no King: When Greatness clear'd his Throat, and scowr'd his Maw, Roard out Succession, and the Penal Law. Not so of old: another sound went forth, When in the Region from Judea North, By the Triumphant Saul ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... rippling lake the wild swan flaps her wing. Out in the lignum swamps once more frogs croak and crickets sing. Once more the wild fowl, sporting midst the crab-holes, may be seen, For prosperity is hovering o’er the ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... a vagrant, without visible means of support, and they'll put you in the lockup for six months or a year. And let me tell you, our lockup is no joke! Likely you'll get on the chain gang, and then, God help you! If they don't take a fancy to you, they're liable to croak you any time. Now, I'd like to see you get out of this easy, and here's what you'd better do. You own up to the crime, and I'll have a word with the judge, so he'll let you off with a short sentence in a place where they treat men right, and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... down below us, all with their bells tinkling, made a fine picture of a peaceful evening scene. As we sat and smoked beside a towering pinnacle of volcanic rock a raven went sailing past us, with his croak, croak. I remember Professor McGillivray, in his "Natural History of Deeside," describes what was perhaps a not altogether dissimilar scene among the Cairngorms, and addressing a raven on a rock beside him calls ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... worked his way along to the end of the yard, and, steadying himself, fixed an arrow to the string. As the bird came within easy bow shot the lad took aim. But as he drew the string he saw the great dusky bird open its stout beak. He heard a hoarse croak, and knew it to be the croak of a raven. Now the croaking of a raven was held in those times to be a sound of very ill omen; it was also considered that the man who killed one of these birds was certainly doomed to meet with speedy misfortune. Einar slackened his bow, and the arrow slipped ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... to play with. A raven, who saw the glittering ring, came flying, and plucking it out of the child's hand, carried it up into a tree; the child suddenly began to cry, and the mother, hearing it, left her washing, and running to the child, forthwith missed the ring, but hearing the raven croak in the tree she lifted up her eyes, and saw it with the ring in its beak. The woman, in great terror, called her brother, and told him what had happened, adding that she durst not approach the king if the raven took away the ring. Gaspar, seizing his cross-bow and quiver, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... him, I tell you, from his father," Mr. Higginbotham went on accusingly. "An' he'll croak in the gutter the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... "Swell chanct I'd have wit him an' Squint Eye holdin' court over me. Not on yer life, Bony. I'm here, an' here I stays till I croaks, but yeh better believe me, I'm goin, to croak a few before I goes, so if any of you ginks are me frien's yeh better keep outen here so's yeh won't get hurted. An' anudder ting I'm goin' to do afore I cashes in—I'm goin' to put a few of dem ginks in de cabin wise to where dey stands wit one anudder. If I don't start something ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... less than four years, besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work—certainly that was "good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that The Quarterly Review, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to mature," and to ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... by this little exchange of civilities, Bud started a fire in the stove and made coffee for Cash, who drank half a cup quite meekly. He still had that tearing cough, and his voice was no more than a croak; but he seemed no worse than he had been the night before. So on the whole Bud considered the case encouraging, and ate his breakfast an hour or so earlier than usual. Then he went out and chopped wood until he heard Lovin Child chirping inside the cabin ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... was beginning to croak, which, taken together with a dawning passion for socks, ties, and brilliantine, was an unmistakable sign of growing up; Russell was preternaturally thin and looked all arms and legs; while Tim had forsaken knickers for full-fledged trousers, and resented any attempt ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the gray fog-wall. It was not a minute, nor half that; but it was long enough for Happy Jack to see, clear and close, Blink pausing irresolutely upon the edge of a deep, brush-filled gulley. Happy Jack gave a hoarse croak of triumph and fired, just as the fog-curtain swayed back maddeningly. Happy Jack nearly wept with pure rage. Weary and Slim came up, and together they galloped to the place, riding by instinct of direction, for there was no longer any ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... one croak heard in all the applause. It came from Murger's father. He could not believe his eyes and his ears, when they avouched to him that his son's name and praises filled every paper and every mouth. It utterly confounded him. The day of the second performance of the piece Murger ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... flowing blue river. Huge caverns had been hollowed out by water or wind. And when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a singular indescribable sound. A crack from a hoof on a stone rang like a hollow bell and echoed from wall to wall. And the croak of a frog—the only living creature I noted in the canyon—was ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... an old croak," interrupted one of the younger men, smiling encouragement. "Don't waste your time on him,—talk to me. He is such a grouch that he gives the bugs a regular bed to sleep in. He'd have been well years ago if he hadn't been such a chronic kicker. Cheer up, Mrs. Duke. ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... trembling, and the Vere began to sing, or rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her shoulders a rich mantle glittering with embroidered trimmings, and poised a coquettish Paris model hat on her thick untwisted coils of hair. Thus attired, she passed out of her dressing-room, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... better days. With a good grace did Euphrosyne go out to meet her; with a good grace did she welcome and entertain her. The time was past when she could be terrified with evil prognostications. In the hour of the earthquake, no one heeds the croak ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... he burst forth. "Court's going to take Gila to church! You don't suppose he'll take her to that dump where he led you this morning, do you? I can see her nose go up now. I thought I'd croak when she told me! Wait till you hear her call me up on the 'phone when she gets home! She'll give me the worst balling out I ever had! And Aunt Nina would have apoplexy if she knew her 'darlin' pet' was going into ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... and the gurgle of water in the scuppers, for it was still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton, the bo'sun, the swabbers were at work in the waist and forecastle. Despite the heat and the stagnant air, one of the toilers found breath to croak a ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... wind and hurried on their several ways, with never a thought or a look for the men in field-grey, moving, many of them for the last time, through the streets of the capital. The old man who angered the war-mad throng before the Schloss on August 1st, 1914, with his discordant croak of "War is a serious business, young man," lives in the spirit of to-day. And he did not have to go to ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at all? Yes, I know—I know it well—that I ought not to say it, for to do so savours of free-thought; but why should that raven, Fate, croak out upon the fortunes of one person while she is yet in her mother's womb, while another person it permits to go forth in happiness from the home which has reared her? To even an idiot of an Ivanushka such happiness is sometimes granted. "You, you fool Ivanushka," says Fate, "shall succeed to ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... like unto this Frog, As like as is the puppy to the dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride. And though this world is that which he doth love, He mounts his head as if he lived above. And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither seeketh Jesus nor ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... that rube a wallop ... he let one croak out of him and flopped flat ... it would have made ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... another of its own kind? Why does the water here remain pure, when all other water turns to blood? Why do not the frogs croak in Seti's halls, and why do the flies avoid his meat? Why, also, did the statue of Amon melt before her glance, while all my magic fell back from her breast like arrows from a shirt of mail? Those are the questions that Egypt asks, ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... limbs. A Cicada, a fellow-lodger in the house, attracts me by its domestic chirp back into my bedroom, and is there my social companion, while, in a happy dreaming state, I await the coming day, kept half awake by the buzz of the mosquites, the kettle-drum croak of the bull-frog, or the complaining ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... It is not all easy. But as far as I ken, or yet as I go, We silly wed-men dree mickle woe;[95] We have sorrow then and then, it falls often so, Silly capyl, our hen, both to and fro She cackles, But begin she to croak, To groan or to cluck, Woe is him, say of our cock, For he is in the shackles. These men that are wed, have not all their will, When they are full hard sted,[96] they sigh full still; God wait they are led full hard and full ill, In bower nor in bed they say ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... purchase his cow: upon which he said, "Reverend mother of Solomon, dost thou wish to buy my cow?" The bird croaked again. "Well," replied he," what wilt thou give if I will sell her a bargain." The bird repeated her croak. "Never mind," said the foolish fellow, "for though thou hast forgotten to bring thy purse, yet, as I dare say thou art an honest woman, and hast bidden me ten deenars, I will trust thee with the cow, and call on Friday for the money." The bird renewed her croaking, which he fancied to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... talking about all this, towards the evening, they heard the same complaint in the whispering that came from the great wood, in the bell of the stag and the bay of the fox and the croak of the frog and the squeak of the mouse in her hole. The ranger and the farmer went past and talked about it; they looked up at the bright sky and shook ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... gone away," mutters Khorre. "Thus will they cook hot soup on the wrecks of our ship, too. Eh, Dan! Do you know he ordered me to drink no gin for three days. Let the old dog croak! ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... process, accompanied by an extraordinary amount of wheezing, sighing, creaking, and bumping. When the pump descended, there was heard a plunge, a heavy sigh, and a loud bump: then, as it rose, and the sucker began to act, there was heard a croak, a wheeze, another bump, and then a strong rush of water as it was lifted and poured out. Where engines of a more powerful and improved description are used, the quantity of water raised is enormous—as much as a million and a half ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... little life astir even in the most luxuriant fields. It was still to-night—scarcely the croak of a frog or the note of a bird. There was no moon, but in the deep, vast, clear spaces of the sky the stars burned like torches held down from the heavens. A wind blew lightly, but hot off the fields. The weeds beside the ditches shook slitheringly, and the dry grass ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... shewed him the gipsey's scroll, and begged him to make use of the retreat prepared for him till the year expired. Walter at first treated the matter lightly, laughed at the prophecy, and declared he would not lose a year's liberty if all the astrologers in the world were to croak their ridiculous prophecies against him. Seeing, however, his father so earnestly bent on the matter, his resolution began to give way, and at length he consented to the arrangement. At six the following morning, therefore, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... thou the vine Within this kindly soil of Tibur; Nor temporal woes, Nor spiritual, knows The man who's a discreet imbiber. For who doth croak Of being broke, Or who of warfare, after drinking? With bowl atween us, Of smiling Venus And Bacchus shall we sing, ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... pros ornicha theion]. Olymp. ii. 159. Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... by at the play I should," cried Risque, while the pock-marks in his face were like the thawings of ice. "You would croak like an old raven, and I should ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... fell into the humour of the multitude. Salaams were made to Israel; selhams were flung on the ground before the feet of Naomi. Reuben Maliki pushed through the crowd, and walked backward, and cried, in his harsh, nasal croak— ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Base barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. Croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big ships' chandler's business he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships' lanterns. Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh home. Cubicle number so and so. Number ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... answered: 'In the first place, he says that there is some wine hidden under the pillow.' 'Bless me!' cried the miller, and went there and found the wine. 'Now go on,' said he. The peasant made the raven croak again, and said: 'In the second place, he says that there is some roast meat in the tiled stove.' 'Upon my word!' cried the miller, and went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven prophesy still more, and said: 'Thirdly, he says ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... come, why do you stay? Our business will not brook delay; The owl is flown from the hollow oak, From lakes and bogs the toads do croak; The foxes bark, the screech-owl screams, Wolves howl, bats fly, and the faint beams Of glow-worms light grows bright a-pace; The stars are fled, the moon hides her face. The spindle now is turning round, Mandrakes are groaning ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... said Sugarman with a little croak of victory, "I have told her the story before. When the Almighty Shadchan was making marriages in Heaven, before we were yet born, the name of my wife was coupled with my own. The spirit of her eldest ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards my horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... follow them. My companions' plans were soon formed. It was arranged that the whole party should creep forward as we had done, and that each man should single out one of the enemy according to his position, and that at a signal from Sigenok, the low croak of a frog, all should fire at the same moment. With the sound of the first shot the men with the horses were to come galloping on, as if a fresh party were approaching the scene of conflict. As, undoubtedly, all the Sioux would not be killed, some might, otherwise, attempt to rush ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... woods proceeded from two birds, the red lories, who utter shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large green nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two notes struck upon a very large gong, or sometimes a harsh toad-like croak, altogether peculiar and remarkable. Only two quadrupeds are said by the natives to inhabit the island—a wild pig and a Cuscus, or Eastern opossum, of neither of which ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... watch-dog, howl long and loud before daylight; another that he had seen a corpse candle as he went homewards the previous evening; a third that she had seen her mistress all in white at her bedside, looking beautiful; a fourth that she had heard a raven croak; in short, if sighs and wonders could kill poor Mrs Prothero, there was little chance for her life. Where every one was usually so busy, so full of energy and spirit, there was more than a Sabbath calm. They were expecting some ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... were murmuring fondly among the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically sailing came the harsh croak of frogs. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... chin, and black, attentive, prominent eyes. He approached, and I gave him my ticket, which is as long as a neck-tie, and has my height, the color of my eyes and hair, and my general description, punched in the margin. "Why, you ain't middle-aged!" he shouted, and a singular croak sounded behind me. But the lady was writing. "I have been growing younger since I bought that ticket," I explained. "That's it, that's it," he sang; "a man's always as old as he feels, and a woman—is ever young," he ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... Frome, that's the kind of a man that breeds anarchy. I've seen his paper. He fills it full of stuff that makes the workingman discontented with his lot. A trouble maker, that's what he is. Stops the wheels of industry. Gets in the road of the boosters to croak hard times." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... the door and looked out. He was still standing in the doorway when the Frogman approached and said with a haughty croak: ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... is a very extraordinary man. I have now twice seen him. Without any thing of politeness, his manners are pleasing, though their freedom is out of the common; and his conversation, though in a half-uttered, half-Cornish, half-croak, is interesting. There is a strange contrast between his genius, which is not confined to painting, and the vulgarity of his appearance, —his manners, and sometimes of his language. You will however easily conceive that a man who can paint like Opie, must display the same taste ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... remained. "Gus" was the only Gus in New York that mattered, and this resolute and injured female before him was the Girl Friend, in whose slim hands rested the happiness of New York's baseball followers, the destiny of the unconscious Giants, and the fate of his thousand dollars. A strangled croak proceeded ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... Vandal's music day or night! Vain! vain! Each isle of hidden Hope! Alas! Alas! Each olpe of Remorse! Each vaulted soul and spiral thought, Swirl in the throes of waters cold; Where rivers with the venom crawls, Croak bat-faced incubi till hoarse. And succubi that Hecate taught, Bedecked in byss and spangled gold, Sing runes unto the dungeoned halls. Then burning ghauts and crimsoned peaks, Vomit each, green, abhorrent clouds; The Temple's drum sounds tomb and death To those that came for unsung ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... he asked in his harsh croak of a voice. "So long as we be at sea? What harm can the ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... time a change came upon his countenance—a ghastly smile. And above his hissing breath, that gushed between his lips with the sound of air pumped through the fine mesh of a colander, there rose a still more ghastly croak of exultation and of triumph. Laboriously he wrote. A few words, and the pencil dropped from his stiffening fingers into the snow. Around his neck he wore a long red scarf held together by a big brass pin, and to this pin ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its profit. His sister's voice, too, naturally harsh, had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled melancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune is conveyed in its slightest ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... away lustily, but no one listened to him. "The jury must vote by ballot," he said as he finished the last croak. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... Calf!" he exclaimed in English, like the croak of a parrot, striking his hand upon his breast with a gesture which should have been ludicrous or pompous, but was neither. "Me, White Calf!" said the chief again, and lifted the medal which lay upon his breast. "Good. White man come. White man go. ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... again. They grew very small; their green coats and white vests turned into skin, and their children wear to-day the same kind of suits their parents wore that day they waded into the pool. Though they have the whole pond to themselves, they croak away until their mouths have grown wide and ugly, as mockingly as did their forefathers ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... the stingy old thief himself says—he might have held his infernal croak. I hate to make sail with a croak astern; 'tis as bad ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
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