pluck up

"If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, plucking up the short grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall: […]

cæsar [taking the dates] My age! [He shakes his head and bites a date]. Yes, Rufio: I am an old man—worn out now—true, quite true. [He gives way to melancholy contemplation, and eats another date]. Achillas is still in his prime: Ptolemy is a boy. [He eats another date, and plucks up a little]. Well, every dog has his day; and I have had mine: I cannot complain.

[…] But she knew that she must pluck up courage for an important moment, and she collected herself, braced her muscles, as it were, for a fight, and threw her mind into an attitude of contest.