Groan

“ The Raven! In a solitary glen sits down on a stone the roaming pedestrian, beneath the 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. ”

“ Foreseeing their decay each hour so fast come on,
Under the axe's stroke, fetched many a grievous groan.
When as the anvil's weight, and hammer's dreadful sound,
Even rent the hollow woods and shook the queachy ground ”

“ To every appearance it was apparently a corpse they handled, except for their tenderness, and a single groan to which the white lips gave utterance, when one of the bearers slipped, wrenching the wounded body with a sharp pang of pain. ”

“ Half of the rocks were passed when he came to a sudden halt. A low groan ahead had reached his ears. As he stopped and listened the groan was repeated.
"That sounds familiar," he thought. "I've heard that before. But where?" ”

“ The youngest brother was forbidden to go away from home lest he too should be lost. One day the two were out in the woods, when the younger one, stepping over a log, heard a noise like a groan, which seemed to come from the earth. The groan being repeated, they concluded to dig into the earth, where they discovered a man covered with mould, and taking him and setting him up they saw some signs of life and were convinced that he was alive. Then the old man said to the lad, "Run for the bear's oil." ”

“ The brood mares moreover they purposely starve into leanness, and when now the instinctive pleasure stirs them first to union, deny them the boughs and fence them from the fountain, and often shake them with galloping and tire them in the sun, while the threshing-floor groans dully under the corn-flail, and while the empty chaff flutters to the freshening west wind. ”

“ In the meantime the groans changed into the protracted, thunderous roar by which all living creatures are struck with terror, and the nerves of people, who do not know what fear is, shake, just as the window-panes rattle from distant cannonading. ”

“ Or, if you will, it is like a battle at night by the faint light of the moon, when none can discern the faces of friends or foes; or like a sea fight on the surge, with the driving winds, and boiling foam, and dashing waves, and crashing vessels, with the thrusts of poles, the pipes of boatswains, the groans of the fallen, while we make our voices heard above the din, and not knowing what to do, and having, alas! no opportunity for showing our valour, assail one another, and fall by one another’s hands. ”

“ Lord Gro came now to his horse again, and mounted and rode northaway through the fells all that summer afternoon, full of cloudy fancies. When it was eventide his way was high up along the steep side of a mountain between the screes and the grass, following a little path made by the wild sheep. Far beneath in the valley was a small river tortuously flowing along a bouldery bed amid hillocks of old moraines which were like waves of a sea of grass-clad earth. ”

“ In the open, elevators rose high as church steeples; long lines of canal-boats stretched themselves out like huge water-snakes, with hissing tugs for heads; enormous floats groaned under whole trains of cars; big, burly lighters drifted slowly with widespread oil-stained sails; monster derricks towered aloft, derricks that pick up a hundred-ton gun as easily as an ant does a grain of sand—each floating craft made necessary by some special industry peculiar to the port of New York, and each unlike any other craft in the harbor of any other city of the world. ”

“ In all towns dwells one of the 'sons of the Giant'—the Giant Grog—red-eyed, with steel muscles and iron claws; once in these, which have held many and better men to the death, neither Barney nor Bill emerges, save pale, fevered, nerveless, and impecunious. ”

“ Grogue; three or four sods of turf standing on end, supporting each other like a little pyramid on the bog to dry. (Limerick.) Irish gruag, same meaning. Groodles; the broken bits mixed with liquid left at the bottom of a bowl of soup, bread and milk, &c. Group or grup; a little drain or channel in a cow-house to lead off the liquid manure. (Ulster.) Grue or grew; to turn from with disgust:—'He grued at the physic.' (Ulster) . Grug; sitting on one's grug means sitting on the heels without touching the ground. (Munster.) Same as Scotch hunkers. ”

“ The old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. ”

“ The hills abounded with red deer, the moors and forests with other game—the lochs and rivers teemed with fish—the pastures of the Grahames were full of cattle; thus, Rob and his outlawed followers lived sumptuously in their mountain fastnesses, whither none, as yet, dared to follow them. ”

“ Everybody knows the Common Crow that goes caw-cawing over the fields through the long summer day, and hunts in the freshly-turned furrows for grubs and wire-worms, and settles down upon the marshes where the white flocks are feeding, dotting them here and there with great black spots, as though some literary giant had taken too much ink in his pen, and scattered it out over the landscape before he began to write. Oh yes, everybody knows the familiar Crow, called by scientific people Corvus corone, Latin and Greek again for the same thing—a Crow! ”

“ The cranes pursue, and, clustering in a ring,
Chatter triumphant round the captive king.
But, ah! what pangs each pygmy bosom wrung,
When, now to cranes a prey, on talons hung, [98]
High in the clouds they saw their helpless lord,
His wriggling form still lessening as he soared!
Lo! yet again, with unabated rage,
In mortal strife the mingling hosts engage.
The crane with darted bill assaults the foe,
Hovering; then wheels aloft to scape the blow:
The dwarf in anguish aims the vengeful wound ”

“ Grogram gowns were worn by countrywomen, 15th to 17th centuries. Fairholt says that the mixed liquor called grog obtained its name from the admiral who ordered it to be given to the sailors; who from wearing a grogram coat was called “Old Grog.”
Groin, Arch. The angular curve formed at the intersection of a vaulted roof; the line made by the intersection of arched vaults crossing each other at any angle. (See Fig. 173.)
Grolier Scroll. A beautiful and elaborate style of decoration for bookbinding, introduced by Grolier, a celebrated patron of bookbinding, in the 15th century. ”

“ To many this clothing of verdure is most restful and pleasing. I missed the sharp outlines, the delicate artistic sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite peaks and ridges, with the purple and violet color of the northern mountains, and which it seems to me that limestone and granite formations give. There are none of the great gorges and awful abysses of the White Mountains, both valleys and mountains here being more uniform in outline. There are few precipices and jutting crags, and less is visible of the giant ribs and bones of the planet.
Yet Roan is a noble mountain. ”

“ Blood and feathers may soon be strewn around the ground, for in the spring grouse will fight as fiercely as game-cocks. Sportsmen in the autumn woods {242} often hear grouse drumming at the old stand, merely from excess of vigour and not because they take the slightest interest then in a mate. ”

“ With a quick, sudden heave the summer sea, calm and gleaming, runs a little way up the side of the groyne, and again retires. There is scarce a gurgle or a bubble, but the solid timbers are polished and smooth where the storms have worn them with pebbles. ”

“ On a dead, withered branch sits a crow, down-peering askance at the old man; On the marge of the river below romp the nut-brown and merry-voiced children, And the dark waters silently flow, broad and deep, to the plunge of the Ha-ha. ”

“ There were many instances of Glora's skill. We squeezed into a gully and waited until it widened; we leaped little expanding caverns; we slid down a smooth yellowish slide of rock like a child's toboggan, and saw it behind and over us, rising to become a great spreading ramp extending upward into the blue of the sky. Now, up there, little sailing white clouds were visible. And down where we stood it was deep twilight, queerly silvery with the phosphorescence from the luminous rocks as though some hidden moon were shining. ”

“ Down the bleak hill-sides of the other ridge I could trace more than one silver line which marked the descent of tributary rills. I could have remained long on that bald mountain-peak, but was warned by the descent of the sun to proceed downward. Taking the horses by the bridle, for I committed the care of the pack-mule to poor Barny, I began carefully to follow the pathway, and was ultimately enabled to reach the base in spite of sundry falls of the heavy pack, which, in spite of discipline, wrung hearty curses from poor Barny’s over-burdened heart. ”

“ The usual cry of the bittern is, as already mentioned, a hoarse, raven-like croak; and it is only during the breeding-season that the male utters the resounding boom, which has been compared to the bellowing of a bull, and on a still night may be heard at a distance of a mile or more. ”

“ They cross the Beautiful Mountain. Horse warns boy to touch nothing. A feather blows in his mouth. He spits it out again and again, but it returns. He looks at it, thinks it pretty, puts it in his pocket. They descend other side of the mountain. Boy hears noise of bellowing in a castle. Finds sick giant in bed, without servant-maid. Boy gets him food. Giant promises gratitude. Horse asks boy if he touched anything on mountain. ‘Nothing but this feather.’ ‘That feather will bring you sorrow, but keep it now you have it.’ They come to a castle. Boy asks for work. ”

“ The drumming of the ruffed-grouse imparts a sense of life and companionship to the woods such as few other sounds convey. Bonasa umbella! there is a whir of vigor in his very name. Every one should be born a sportsman to appreciate his glorious crescendo; hunting is given to man of the gods, Xenophon rightly said. The grouse is the woodland guide, the alcaid who holds the keys to all its guarded recesses, the courier who knows every lane and passage that thread the forest depths. ”

“ Then they came out again, and when I reached the lodge, all looked at the bird, and said how big it was, and how fine, and that it must be shown to my uncle before it was cooked. They sent word to him, asking him to come to the lodge, and soon he did so, and when he saw what I had killed, he was glad, and told me that I had done well, and that I was lucky to have killed a crane. "There are many grown men," said he, "who have never killed a crane ”

“ Cf. gronn, gronni, sb.
gronn [grȯᶇ and gronni [grȯᶇɩ] , sb., 1) ambiguous disposition in a person. 2) inclination to hint darkly at something; I kenn (I know) his gronn. 3) a) ambiguous mode of expression; b) covert remark; I kenn by deir gronni, what dey want. 4) sulkiness; dissatisfied state of mind, disinclination to speak plainly, hinting at something; I kent what was in his gronni, I knew what he was brooding over. Conn. — The word is prob. derived from O.N. grunr, m., handed down in sense of suspicion. Cf. No. grun and grune, m., a) supposition; b) brooding, speculating; Sw. dial. ”

“ The pink and white of her face reminded you of the shells of her palace, while her long black hair was intertwined with strings of coral, and her dress of green silk seemed formed out of the sea. At the sight of her Houarn stopped, dazzled by her beauty.
‘Come in,’ said the Groac’h, rising to her feet. ‘Strangers and handsome youths are always welcome here. ”

“ There are various forms of grouse—the red grouse, the willow grouse, and others—but the one thing that does not exist here is sand grouse, and why in the name of common sense we are going on year after year with the object of acclimatising a form of grouse which is not a grouse at all I cannot understand. ”

“ As we passed a clearing, in which we saw a young white woman and a boy dropping corn, and some negroes covering it with their hoes, we beheld a large flock of white cranes which rose in the air, and hovered over the forest, and wheeled, and wheeled again, their spotless plumage glistening in the sun like new-fallen snow. ”

“ So next morning, before the Giant was up, she fetched his creel, and put her eldest sister into it, and covered her with all the fine silken hangings and tapestry that she could find, and on the top of all she put a handful of grass, and when the Giant came downstairs she asked him, in her sweetest tone, if he would do her a favour. ”

“ The bird I have been describing is the red grouse; that is in fact the common grouse. But there is also found in Scotland, though less frequently, the black grouse, which is a much larger bird. The red grouse is rather bigger than a partridge.
I once made the acquaintance of a tame grouse—one at least that had been domesticated. The gentleman it belonged to had picked it up out of its nest when a tiny thing on the moors in Scotland; and being a great bird-fancier, and having a collection, he had brought it in a cage to his house in Kent. ”

“ When he had been at home a few days, he rode out with Regin one morning to the heath where the Dragon used to lie. Then he saw the track which the Dragon made when he went to a cliff to drink, and the track was as if a great river had rolled along and left a deep valley. ”

“ As the Crow must go to the Deer, the Cow, the Grass, and the Blacksmith, and each time varies the beginning of his speech, four other children could represent the Crow successively, thus bringing in a social element which would relieve any one child's timidity. ”