on one's heels

To be clear, I am not talking about slowing to hold swung-open doors for people exiting a Starbucks or fleeing a Kwik-E-Mart on one’s heels—a courtesy that even barbarians habitually extend to persons of all sexes and genders.

������ turn the passions of the people may take can never be foretold, nor that element of the unknown, which is always under the invisible cap and close on one's heels.

It consists in kneeling down and sitting back on one's heels, a posture the very reverse of easy, at least, so it appears to us good Christians, accustomed to the use of chairs &c.

For our meals we have to sit on the floor, and it is surprising how awkward it is to eat in such a position; it is better by far to kneel and sit back on one’s heels, as do the Japanese.”

The children began picking at once with cries of delight, but their elders scattered through the woods in search of the larger patches, where one might sit on one's heels and fill a pail in an hour.