Random Sequence: "Quail" Without Feathers

"She had a strong, and to me incomprehensible dread of the sea, a terror as unconquerable as it was irrational. The everlasting thunder of its waves awed and oppressed her with a sense of overwhelming power; its eternal silence, its empty vastness of uninhabitable brine, chilled and repelled her; all that was weak and untrue in her nature quailed before its stern, solemn grandeur."
--Margaret Hunter Grant, "Unto the End", in Godey's Lady Book and Magazine, June 1864

(I found a bound copy of several issues of Godey's in my basement and have been flipping through the dusty pages.)

quailed or "quail" = to cower in fear. It has nothing to do with birds, although I'm sure a quail would quail if you got too close.