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More "Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... optimism. He had been at sea, and shipwrecked on several islands in the Pacific; he had passed a rainy season at Panama, and a yellow-fever season at Vera Cruz, and had been carried far into the interior of Peru by a tidal wave during an earthquake season; he was in the Border Ruffian War of Kansas, and he clung to California till prosperity deserted her after the completion of the Pacific road. Wherever he went, he carried or found adversity; but, with a heart fed on the metaphysics of Horace Greeley, and buoyed up by a few wildly interpreted maxims of Emerson, he had always ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... moaning piteously, and a stream of blood was flowing from her lacerated person, which soaked the matting that covered the floor. Her dress was hanging in tatters, and the blood trickling down her cheeks had a horrifying effect. As soon as the ruffian was tired, he bid the woman get down stairs and wash herself. The miserable creature arose with difficulty, and picking up her apron and turban, which were in different parts of the room, she hobbled out crying bitterly. As soon as she was gone, the major pointed ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... hand-to-hand conflict. But Grace felt her heart sink a little as she saw the round and rather pursy form of her natural protector walk away into the depths of a mirror at the forward end of the car, and so vanish. And in this same mirror she beheld, seated only two sections behind her, the scowling ruffian! ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... unshared exaltation looks down equally upon plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying from some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from his pinnacled castle, and darting down towards the river for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding about in the zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his bravery, finally persecutes him back to his stronghold. The otherwise dauntless bandit, soaring at his topmost height, must needs succumb to this sable image ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... caught the blow on his own cutlass. The sword flew from the man's hand, and Tom at once cut him down. Dimchurch engaged in a single-handed contest with the great mulatto captain. Strong as the sailor was he could with difficulty parry the ruffian's blows, but skill made up for inequality of strength, and after a few exchanges he laid the man low with a clever thrust. The fall of their leader completed the discomfiture of the pirates, most of whom at once sprang overboard and made for the shore, those ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... filled with wretched inmates. Some of these have secret passages connecting them with other buildings, and are used for purposes of crime, or they have hiding places known only to the initiated, where the offender against the law may hide from the police, or where a ruffian may conceal or imprison his victim, without fear of detection. Rum, gin, whisky, and other liquors of the vilest kind, are used in profusion here. Some of these wretches never leave their dens, but remain ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... upward, seeking to crush us at whatever sacrifice, by sheer force of numbers. We met them with the point, in the good old Roman way, thrusting home remorselessly, fighting with silent contempt for them which must have been maddening. I even heard Brennan laugh, as he pierced a huge ruffian through the shoulder and hurled him backward; but at that moment I saw Craig knock aside a levelled gun and press his way to the front of the seething mass to assume control. His face was inflamed, his eyes bloodshot; drink had changed him into ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... a ballad-monger; a corranto-coiner; a decoy; an exchange man; a forrester; a gamester; an hospitall-man; a iayler; a keeper; a launderer; a metall man; a neuter; an ostler; a post-master: a quest-man; a ruffian; a sailor; a trauller; an vnder sheriffe; a wine-soaker; a Xantippean; a ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... extension and attenuation of the hearty contentment springing from a thorough delivery of the fist upon the prominent features of an assailant that yields to it perforce. Even when you receive such perfect blows you are half satisfied. Feeling conqueror, my wrath was soothed; I bent to have a look at my ruffian, and ask him what cause of complaint gipsies camping on Durstan could find against Riversley. A sharp stroke on the side of my neck sent me across his body. He bit viciously. In pain and desperation I flew at another of the tawny devils. They multiplied. I took to my heels; but this ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... against his son, who, according to him, had turned his father out of the Manitoba farm in consequence of a family quarrel, and had never cared since to find out whether he was alive or dead. "Sorry to trouble you, sir, I'm sure—a genelman like you"—obsequious old ruffian!—"but my sons were always kittle-cattle, and George the worst of 'em all. If you would be so kind, sir, as to gie 'im a word ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... raid the "Welshman's house" all alone one dark and threatening night.[11] This house stood half-way up Holliday's Hill ("Cardiff" Hill), and its sole occupants were a poor but quite respectable widow and her young and blameless daughter. The invading ruffian woke the whole village with his ribald yells and coarse challenges and obscenities. I went up there with a comrade—John Briggs, I think—to look and listen. The figure of the man was dimly risible; the women were on their porch, but not visible in the deep ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... property, and who had the writings in his possession, determining, by one bold stroke, to strip Darnford of the succession,] had planned his confinement; and [as soon as he had taken the measures he judged most conducive to his object, this ruffian, together with his instrument,] the keeper of the private mad-house, left the kingdom. Darnford, who still pursued his enquiries, at last discovered that they had fixed their ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... September 15, 1838, says:—"A ruffian of the name of Charles Gibson, attempted to murder a girl named Mary Green, of Louisville, Ky. on the 23d ult. He cut her in six different places with a Bowie knife. His object, as stated in a subsequent investigation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... they speaks of wot I wants to know, I'll keep quiet. Well, sir, to my surprise, the Arab—he speaks in bad English, whereby I came to suppose the other was an Englishman, but, if he is, the climate must have spoiled him badly, for I never did see such a ruffian to look at. But he only laughed, and didn't speak, so I couldn't be sure. Well, to come to the pint, sir, the Arab said he'd got hold of two shipwrecked Englishmen, whom he meant to put on board of his dhow, at that time lyin' up a river not ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... had his Condotta gradually increased. Meanwhile his cousins, the murderers of his father, began to dread his rising power, and determined, if possible, to ruin him. He was not a man to be easily assassinated; so they sent a hired ruffian to Caldora's camp to say that Bartolommeo had taken his name by fraud, and that he was himself the real son of Puho Colleoni. Bartolommeo defied the liar to a duel; and this would have taken place before the army, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... lad was Tom the Bootblack. He was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. Mr. Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad. The plan failed, and Gilbert Grey, once Tom the bootblack, came into a comfortable fortune. This is one of ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... when the door was opened and a drunken ruffian entered, I awoke from my troubled slumbers. "Hi, Dutchy, and have yez any tin?" he threatened. "Kind sir," I replied, "when I departed for the West I left all my wealth behind me." Verily, now I was proving myself the worthy scion of valiant men, who had laid ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... "Here comes the young ruffian!" said Mrs. Badger as soon as he came within hearing distance. "Here comes the wicked boy who tried to kill my ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... ruffian does all he can to cheer the declining years of your father, whom you have rendered unhappy ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... I waited until the ruffian beside me turned to speak to the men behind. The moment he did so, and his eyes were averted, I slipped out the scrap of satin in which I had placed the pebble, and balancing it carefully on my right thigh as I rode, I flipped it forward with all the strength of my thumb and finger. I meant ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... other titles; and who have disgraced and debased the former denomination, and under the latter have enjoined triple perjuries, and at last cannot fix on any code which should exact more forswearing. I own I am pleased that that ruffian pedant Condorcet's new constitution was too clumsy and unwieldy to go down the throats of those who have swallowed every thing else. I did but just cast my eyes on the beginning and end, and was so ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... distinguish objects more clearly, I perceived that there were two men standing on either side of him, with pistols in their hands; and it instantly occurred to me that they were there to act the part of executioners, and to blow his brains out, at the command of the ruffian I saw sitting as judge in this lawless court. We recognised each other at the same moment; and if I could judge by the expression of his countenance, he had more compassion for me than fear for himself. He made no attempt to speak to me, but instantly resumed his former undaunted attitude, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... screamed the boy. The ruffian caught the saree with a fearful oath and turning on him said: "Now I can deal with you. I will fetch a brick from yonder kiln and pound the breath out of you," With these words he strode forward, tying the jewels in the saree as he went. Now ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... county gentlemen, and at least two notable ecclesiastics from Sussex, the Abbot of Battle and the Prior of Lewes. The testimony to Cade's character is that he was the unquestioned and warmly respected leader of the host. The Cade depicted by his enemies—a dissolute, disreputable ruffian—was not the kind of man to have had authority as a chosen captain over country gentlemen and clerical landowners in ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... for this assault," stormed Mr. Drayne, applying a handkerchief to the bruised spot under his eye. "Both you and Prescott—-your ruffian friend for ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... therefore, but do what indeed would be justly reckoned the cruellest of all things, tell my reader the name of this miserable; which we find to be J. TILLARD." "Mr. Tillard was first condemned (says the author of 'Confusion Worse Confounded,') as a ruffian that stabs a man in the dark, because he did not put his name to his book against the 'Divine Legation;' and afterwards condemned as lost to shame, both as a man and a writer, because he did put his name to it." Would not one imagine this person to be one of the lowest of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... soldier, half brigand, measured the youth with his eye, as if balancing the prospect of booty with the chance of desperate resistance; and read such indications of the latter in the fearless glance of the passenger, that he changed his ruffian purpose for a surly "Good morrow, comrade," which the young Scot answered with as martial, though a less sullen tone. The wandering pilgrim, or the begging friar, answered his reverent greeting with a paternal benedicite [equivalent to the English expression, "Bless you."]; ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Gambouge, "thou art an inexorable ruffian, Troisboules; but I will give thee all I am worth." And here he produced a billet of five hundred francs. "Look," said he, "this money is all I own; it is the payment of two years' lodging. To raise it, I have toiled for many months; and, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the Harmanbeck, If we mawnd Pannam, lap, or Ruff-peck, Or poplars of yarum: he cuts, bing to the Ruffmans, Or els he sweares by the light-mans, To put our stamps in the Harmans, The ruffian cly the ghost of the Harmanbeck If we heaue a booth we cly ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... neckless, broad-shouldered ruffian of the type known in England as "unemployed"—looked round with triumphant head well thrown back. From his attitude it was obvious that he had been the salvation of the countries named, and had now come to Russia to do the same for her. He spoke with ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... and were threatening to overturn the coach, to prevent which our captors, before meddling with us, cut the animals loose with their machetes or swords, and drove them over the brink of the abyss, where, like the drivers, they vanished. Then a dusky-faced ruffian, with a scar on his cheek, came to the door of the diligence and bowing politely beckoned to us to come out. As there were at least a dozen of them and resistance was useless, even if our companions could have found the courage to fight, we obeyed, and were placed before the brigands in ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... hot about it, and puffed furiously at his cigar for some minutes. The eyes of the other ruffian wandered alternately from Dick Merton to myself. I knew that I was in the presence of a desperate man, that a quiver of my lip might be the signal for him to plunge a weapon into my heart, but I betrayed more self-command than I should have given myself credit for under such trying circumstances. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the morning that they'd had enough of us, and, with a volley of oaths, advised us to be off. Fred, who was in his shirt-sleeves, listened at first with a look of surprise at such cantankerous unreasonableness; but when the ruffian fell to swear and threaten, he burst into one of his contemptuous guffaws, turned his back and began to feed his horse with a corncob. Thus insulted, the digger ran into the hut (as I could see) to get his rifle. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... her mother with a laugh. "After the scene enacted in front of our windows the other day, when one of them had so much trouble, and suffered such awful pommelling from the drunken ruffian he took up, I am quite prepared to admit that policemen are neither ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... popular character. As yet I was not dishonest, but saw dishonesty round me, and it seemed a very pleasant, jolly mode of making money; and now I again fell into contact with the young heir. My college friend was as wild in London as he had been at Cambridge; but the boy-ruffian, though not then twenty years of age, had grown into ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... small and wiry, slouchy of attire, and armed to the teeth, and he bestrode a fine bay horse. He had quick, dancing brown eyes, at once frank and bold, and a coarse, bronzed face. Evidently he was a good-natured ruffian. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... that clergy whose willing slave she had become, that the only method of reclaiming the sinner had been long forgotten, in genuine horror at his sin. "Is it not enough," she went on, sternly, "that you should have become the bully and the ruffian of all the fens?—that Hereward the leaper, Hereward the wrestler, Hereward the thrower of the hammer—sports, after all, only fit for the sons of slaves—should be also Hereward the drunkard, Hereward the common fighter, Hereward the breaker of houses, Hereward ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... his appearance now in one part of the country, now in another, letting it be supposed that he was Brian; thus distracting the attention of those in search of the culprit. He is himself, from what I have heard, fully as determined a ruffian as Brian, and has long ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... for you," kindly, wondering to herself what sort of a ruffian had chosen this creature for a mate and had the burden of her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... and sunk his own sloop—had steered her straight for the Cuban coast, making disposition of what remained of the passengers on the way, and I knew that my great-grandfather had been one of these doomed survivors, and that he had been shot and murdered under orders of the ruffian that now sat before me. All this, as retailed by one who sailed for a season under Hardman to save his skin, is matter of old private history; and of common report was it that the monster buccaneer, after years of successful ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... other American frigates, where the privilege of having theatricals was allowed to the crew. What was their chagrin, then, when, upon making an application to the Captain, in a Peruvian harbour, for permission to present the much-admired drama of "The Ruffian Boy," under the Captain's personal patronage, that dignitary assured them that there were already enough ruffian boys on board, without conjuring up any more from ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... did, and very properly, because I was greatly afraid of a ruffian with a bludgeon and fled accordingly. But I do not fear devils in ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam called to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... admiration, whereas I, being sleepy and fatigued withal, did deme it but paltry stuff, and was the more discomforted in that ye blody bucanier had got his wind again, and did turn his mind to farting with such villain zeal that presently I was like to choke once more. God damn this windy ruffian and all his breed. I wolde that hell ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... am whipped," said Elam, gazing back at his line of foes, and trying to estimate how many warriors there were in the lot. "It's the Cheyennes, and they belong two hundred miles from here. Some ruffian has stolen their back pay, and they are going to have revenge for it. Keep close, there, or I'll down ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... upon the water had for some time been coming down upon them with great rapidity; but, bent on bloody work, they had not observed it. The boat heeled over under the sudden gust; but the ruffian had already lost his footing under Hazel's blow, and, the boom striking him almost at the same moment, he went clean over the gunwale into the sea; he struck it with his ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... death, an we thwart her; and what wi' chiding us one while, and petting us like lambs t' other, she hath made two of the crawlingest slaves ever you saw out of two honest swashbucklers. I be the ironing ruffian, t' other washes." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... his days or to the one who had lorded it for long enough in the establishment of which he was the head must remain a mystery; but certain it was that the Doctor muttered presently to himself, "An overbearing young ruffian! A thoroughly good thrashing; and serve ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Elemental Powers, who are entirely careless how you vote. If you can, by voting or without voting, ascertain those conditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get round the Cape: if you cannot—the ruffian Winds will blow ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... he said, "which go to the building of a great structure. Youth rebels at their use but age and experience recognize their necessity. The anarchist of your halfpenny papers and Police News is not always the bloodthirsty ruffian that you who read them are led to suppose. Very often he is a man who strenuously seeks to see the light. It is not always his fault if the way which is shown him to freedom must cross the ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... figure, bearing in her arms a sleeping child, glides to the tapestried wall, and vanishes through it, into the Chamber of the Crown Prince, a babe of fourteen days. She returns carrying another unconscious infant form, she places it in the hands of the ruffian Sauerbeck, she disappears. The miscreant speeds with the child through a postern into the park, you hear the trample of four horses, and the roll of the carriage on the road. Next day there is silence in the ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... imprison was not yet determined. John was absent; Sarah, seeing the troopers gallop toward the house, poured a prayer over her babe, as it lay asleep in the crib, and fled in terror, hoping that sweet infancy would appeal to their hearts. A ruffian rushed in, and grasping the babe, shouted, "The nurse is not far away." He made it scream, to bring the mother back. She heard its pitiful cry; her heart was breaking, yet she was utterly powerless. She might expose herself, ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... as the war against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at length from his wife and infant family, to fight for his country. He presented himself before ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Surely of nothing else than the crime of having escaped their attack. The thing reminded him of the story of Fimbria and Scaevola. Fimbria, an absolute madman, as was allowed by all who were not mad themselves, got some ruffian to stab Scaevola at the funeral of Marius. He was stabbed but not killed. When Fimbria found that he was likely to live, he indicted him. For what do you indict a man so blameless? asked some one. For what? for not allowing himself to be stabbed to the heart. This is exactly ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... of the exemplary E-rl of Cr-bs. We repel, with scorn and indignation, the dastardly falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought forward to the readers of ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... furious manner. Crowds of women rushing along the Boulevards, singing their barbarous revolutionary songs; some even brandishing knives and carrying pikes, and all frantic against the fete. As I passed down the Rue St Honore, I stopped to listen to the harangue of a half-naked ruffian, who had made a rostrum of the shoulders of two of the porters of the Halle, and, from this moving tribune, harangued the multitude as he went along. Every falsehood, calumny, and abomination that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... most learned, the most wealthy, the most benevolent, the most justly powerful woman, is refused it, as something too precious for her; and yet it is entrusted, freely and hopefully, to any illiterate, drunken, wife-beating ruffian who can contrive to keep a home over his head,' is ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley
... came here, heroic resolutions followed him. He had thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was not without its influence even on these ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... always been found sufficient. The unfortunate officer had, however, been hurled from the high wall, his brains beaten out as with a club, and his gun was missing. Further inquiries showed that one of the cells was empty; it had been occupied by a rather sullen ruffian giving his name as Oscar Rian. He was only temporarily detained for some comparatively trivial assault; but he gave everyone the impression of a man with a black past and a dangerous future. Finally, when daylight had fully revealed the ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... 'sport,' the Badger used to be captured and put into a cage ready to be tormented; at the cruel will of every ruffian who might chose to risk his dog against the sharp teeth of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... white as my shirt and presses a little button on the table. A big husky, made up like a Winter Garden chorus man, runs in and Stupid says, 'Eject this ruffian, Simms! And then you will answer to me for allowing him ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... fact that Gladstone did not succeed in effecting the bodily capture of Jack the Ripper. This simple monarch knew that if a malefactor were the terror of the mountain hamlets, his subjects would expect him personally to take arms and pursue the ruffian; and if he refused to do so, would very probably experiment with another king. And the same primitive conception of a king being kept for some kind of purpose, led them also to expect him to lead in a foreign campaign, and it was with his own hand that he fired ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... their name.' At that I cautiously replied, 'No, my father does not wish it, for my brother gave the offense, and Captain Moray saved his life, as you know. I do not wish it, Monsieur Doltaire, because hanging is a shameful death, and he is a gentle man, not a ruffian. Let him be shot like a gentleman. How will it sound at the Court of France that, on insufficient evidence, as you admit, an English gentleman was hanged for a spy? Would not the King say (for he is a gentleman), Why was not this shown me before the man's death? Is it not a matter upon which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... aside his trusty blade, an' laying bare his knotted arm, approached the dastardly ruffian with many a merry quip and jest, prepared ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... shouted I. "Turn, ruffian, and defend yourself!" But old Jowler, when he saw me, only whistled, looked at his lifeless daughter, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cried, "the man by your side, a cowardly ruffian, a drunken swaggerer, and the companion of the vilest people in the country. We have sought to save her from him, John Penryn; and now, thank God, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... I accompanied a party of ladies to the house of Mr. M——e to sup, and here, for the first time, learned, through an inquiry casually made, that during that slight scuffle a citizen had been killed by the blow of a knife, given by an intemperate ruffian named M'Crew, who had quietly descended the stairs afterwards, accompanied by his brother. These men were from the country, were known disturbers of the peace, and rarely made their appearance ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... are concerned, Jim, I am no ruffian," he said. "To tell the plain truth, I have always liked yer, and I'll act by you as straight as a die in this matter. If you never do anything else, you've saved me from being the husband of that gel, and I'll be thankful to you for it to my dying day. But for the Lord's sake, don't you ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... cause, and with a sufficient force, would have been a consummate partisan commander. He has coolness, daring, persistency, stoic faith and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose unconquerable! He is the farthest possible remove from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman." ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Evil doer — N. evil doer, evil worker; wrongdoer &c 949; mischief-maker, marplot; oppressor, tyrant; destroyer, Vandal; iconoclast^. firebrand, incendiary, fire bug [U.S.], pyromaniac; anarchist, communist^, terrorist. savage, brute, ruffian, barbarian, semibarbarian^, caitiff, desperado; Apache^, hoodlum, hood, plug-ugly [U.S.], Red Skin, tough [U.S.]; Mohawk, Mo-hock, Mo-hawk; bludgeon man, bully, rough, hooligan, larrikin^, dangerous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... people all over the United States to whom the mere mention of the word mountaineer evokes a fantastic picture—a whiskey-soaked ruffian with bloodshot eyes and tobacco-stained beard, wide-brimmed felt cocked over a half-cynical eye, finger on the trigger of a long-barreled squirrel rifle. He is guarding his moonshine still. Or he may be lying in wait behind bush or tree ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... lips. Silent but watchful he eyed the half-breed's face. There was something very familiar about the thin cheeks, high cheek-bones, and about the great hooked nose. He was struggling hard to locate the man. At this moment the third ruffian approached with three horses. The other had been busy fixing a gag in Jake Bond's mouth. Jim Bowley saw the horses come up. And, in the now brilliant moonlight, he beheld and recognized a grand-looking golden chestnut. There was no mistaking that glorious beast. Jim was no ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... large wound across the temple, and attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, with hands clasped and eyes raised to a brigand, who grasps her by the hair ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... Sarsfield. But not only was the light of genius extinguished then, and a heroic spirit lost to earth—as kindly and as noble a heart as was ever warmed by the constant presence of generous emotions was stilled by a ruffian's bullet. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... that, Meg, wouldn't ye—if ye'd seen her grow up like he's done? But grown up or not, Meg"—here she lifted the dog's nose to get a clearer view of his sleepy eyes—"she's my blessed baby and she's comin' home this very day, Meg, darlin'; d'ye hear that, ye little ruffian? And she's not goin' away ag'in, never, never. There'll be nobody drivin' round in a gig lookin' after her—nor nobody else as long as I kin help it. Now git up and come along; I'm that restless I can't sit still," and sliding the dog from her lap, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and imperious nature of the hardy and able ruffian who had now become openly her master should no less openly have shown itself even in the first moments of their inauspicious union is what any bystander of common insight must inevitably have foreseen. Tears, dejection, and passionate expressions of a despair "wishing only for death," bore ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... very easy man, but would work you hard and never allow you any chance night or day; he was a farmer, about fifty, stout, full face, a real country ruffian; member of no church, a great drinker and gambler; will sell a slave as quick as any other slave-holder. He had a great deal of cash, but did not rank high in society. His wife was very severe; hated a colored man to have any comfort in the world. They had eight adult ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... right," said Duane, laughing, "even when you jeer at my gymnastics on skis. Oh, Lord! but I'm hungry. Scott, are you going to take all those sausages and muffins, you bespectacled ruffian! Kathleen, heave ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... unfortunate girl's life—indirectly described by the ruffian who got possession of her in Paris—produce on the mind that sickening sense of the wanton stupidity of the Universe which fills ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... thou lovely gem, Unscath'd by ruffian hand! And from thee many a parent stem Arise ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... our aims are just! Behold, we seek Not merely to preserve for noble wives The virtuous pride of unpolluted lives, To shield our daughters from the ruffian's hand, And leave our sons their heirloom of command, In generous perpetuity of trust; Not only to defend those ancient laws, Which Saxon sturdiness and Norman fire Welded forevermore with freedom's cause, And ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... cheek is truly pale, And colder than the rude and ruffian air That howls into her ear a horrid tale Of storm and wreck, and uttermost despair, Saying, "Leander floats amid the surge, And those are dismal ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... time, as a speaker might at his notes, 'I am just as well qualified as he in every respect; and if it lies between him and me, I will undoubtedly offer myself, and accompany my address with the publication of this precious document which he calls his notice—the composition, in all respects, of a ruffian—and which will inspire every gentleman who reads it with disgust, abhorrence, and contempt. His threat I don't understand. I despise his machinations. I defy him utterly; and the time is coming when, in spite of his manoeuvring, I'll drive him ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... vowed and mortal foe?' 'Warrior, but yester-morn I knew Naught of thy Chieftain, Roderick Dhu, Save as an outlawed desperate man, The chief of a rebellious clan, Who, in the Regent's court and sight, With ruffian dagger stabbed a knight; Yet this alone might from his part Sever each true and ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the men—the greatest ruffian of the lot. 'Black Bill,' he was called. I've got something to tell you about him. I took him down to help me, for I was afraid that I might not make a sure thing of it. Between us we did the job. The water began to rush in through ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... unemployable, because he will not be employed. Thus the practical and popular exponent of Eugenics has his face always turned towards the slums, and instinctively thinks in terms of them. If he talks of segregating some incurably vicious type of the sexual sort, he is thinking of a ruffian who assaults girls in lanes. He is not thinking of a millionaire like White, the victim of Thaw. If he speaks of the hopelessness of feeble-mindedness, he is thinking of some stunted creature gaping ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... you sweep away the outposts (he asked), may not something worse, think you, be the consequence? will not sheer plundering be free to any ruffian who likes?... But may I ask is this judgment the result of personal inspection? have you gone yourself and examined the defences? or how do you know that they are all ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... was disappointing. Only one noble had his head cut off. Few executions were carried into effect, many were on paper. One of the latter, a ruffian steeped in blood, defied the sentence and was banished. Flechier in his amusing and instructive book, Les grands Jours d'Auvergne, has given us a dramatic account of ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... light o'er the deep, Too kind, she wafts a ruffian band; Her blue track lengthens to the bark, And soon on ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... wetting the back fold of the sheet with his tongue, so as to be able to fold back the page of thick stamped paper, "well, if you want to play him a trick, tell him that the master can only see his clients between two and three in the morning; we shall see if he comes, the old ruffian!" ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... as legends tell, When he, the meek One, bowed his head to death E'en on an aspen cross, when some near dell Was visited by men whose every breath That Sufferer gave them. Hastening to the wood— The wood of aspens—they with ruffian power Did hew the fair, pale tree, which trembling stood As if awestruck; and from that fearful hour Aspens have quivered as with conscious dread Of that foul crime which bowed the meek ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... heroic defence of that town, when it was soon afterwards surrounded by the Cavaliers, I cannot describe. For a year the brave garrison held out against all the assaults of some of the bravest of the Cavalier leaders, including Lord Goring and his ruffian crew. ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... her name had already been bandied about from a ruffian's lips. Lee winced at that even as he had winced at the remembrance of having been brutally rough with her himself. But what was past was past; Quinnion had talked and must ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... Springfield. After the sale was over and speechmaking had begun, a fight—a 'general fight' as one of the bystanders relates—ensued, and Lincoln, noticing one of his friends about to succumb to the attack of an infuriated ruffian, interposed to prevent it. He did so most effectually. Hastily descending from the rude platform, he edged his way through the crowd, and seizing the bully by the neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him by means of his great strength and long arms, ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... the suit that hung above. It was that of a stout, broad-shouldered, sturdy-chested man; and we knew at once, as anybody would, who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat, with the large metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth without a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very counterpart of himself, at his side. The vices of the boy had grown with the man, and we fancied his home then—if such a place ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... writing at his desk in the Senate House, two men came up to him. One of these, a Senator and a slaveholder from South Carolina, of the name of Brooks, was armed with a heavy stick. This ruffian attacked Sumner from behind, felled him with a blow, and then beat him as he lay upon the floor, leaving him almost dead. For this grievous offence a small fine was imposed upon Brooks, and the amount was promptly paid by his admiring constituents. The bully then resigned his seat, and was ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... already summer, like some burly ruffian shouldering spring aside with her work half done, held the city in the hollow of a ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... robber, an assassin, Proculejus rushed upon her, seized her arm, and wrested the weapon from her grasp. His tall figure concealed her from me. But when, struggling to escape from the ruffian's clutch, she again turned her face towards the hall, what a transformation had occurred! Her eyes—you know how large they are—were twice their usual size, and blazed with scorn, fury, and hatred for the traitor. The cheering light had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Macdonald at court as an incorrigible rebel, as a ruffian inured to bloodshed and rapine, who would never be obedient to the laws of his country, nor live peaceably under any sovereign. He observed, that he had paid no regard to the proclamation, and proposed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Prince Sinodal, encamping for the night with his suite; the roughness of the way has delayed his coming to Tamara. Near the camp is a chapel, erected in memory of one of his ancestors, who was slain there by a ruffian and the Prince's old servant admonishes him to pray for his soul. To his destruction he postpones it till morning, for during his sleep the Demon brings up his enemies, the Tartars, and the Prince's caravan is robbed and ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... is generally styled—is about a mile distant from St Helen's. Little remains now but the belfry, with its luxuriant covering of dark ivy, still preserving it from destruction. More than half a century ago, some ruffian hand nearly severed the stem from the root, but happily without material injury, the incision being incomplete. The burial-ground, formerly open, is now enclosed by a stone wall; and on the south side is a stone cross with three steps. The whole area has a reputation of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... secret meetings, and much wanton familiarity; the which being discovered by the Earle, to prevent the pursuit thereof, when Generall of the Low Countreys, hee tooke Blunt with him, and theire purposed to have him made away: and for this plot there was a ruffian of Burgundy suborned, who, watching him in one night going to his lodging at the Hage, followed him and struck at his head with a halbert or battle-axe, intending to cleave his head. But the axe glaunced, and withall pared off a great piece of Blunt's skull, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... distracting extravagance that the reader's attention may at times be withdrawn from the all but unqualified ugliness of its ethical tone or tendency. Two of Webster's favorite types, the meditative murderer or philosophic ruffian, and the impulsive impostor who is liable to collapse into the likeness of a passionate penitent, will remind the reader how much better they appear in tragedies which are carried through to their natural tragic end. But here, where the story is admirably opened and the characters ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... gentleman required some kind of protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult would be uttered. In this way much mischief is ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... wasting pest! that rages unconfined, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind. For gold, his sword the hireling ruffian draws; For gold, the hireling judge distorts the laws; Wealth heap'd on wealth, nor truth, nor safety buys; And dangers gather as ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... many cases, not to resist. There is something hid away somewhere in most men's hearts which makes them ashamed of smiting the offered left cheek, and then ashamed of having smitten the right one. 'It is a shame to hit him, since he does not defend himself,' comes into many a ruffian's mind. The safest way to travel in savage countries is to show oneself quite unarmed. He that meets evil with evil is 'overcome of evil'; he that meets it with patient love is likely in most cases to 'overcome evil with good.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... perhaps some of their descendants, straggling weakly among the nettles, and mullein, and other wild stuff, but making all together a pretty good screen, through which I could get a safe side-view of the bottom of the timber gangway. So I took off my hat, for some ruffian fellows like foreign sailors were standing below, throwing out their arms, and making noises in their throats, because not allowed to scream as usual. It was plain enough at once to any one who knew the place, that a ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the struggle. There are times when what should exasperate a people, strikes them with terror. The population of Paris felt that a ruffian had his foot upon his throat. It no longer offered any resistance. That same evening Mathieu (of the Drome) entered the place where the Committee of Resistance was sitting and said to us: 'We are no longer in Paris, we are ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... specimen of the lonin type, and was a most determined ruffian, whose whole life had been ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... word, and I go." My Lord turns to his wife, and asks if she can support the calamity of her brother's absence—laying a grossly insulting emphasis on the word "brother." The Countess preserves her impenetrable composure; nothing in her betrays the deadly hatred with which she regards the titled ruffian who has insulted her. "You are master in this house, my Lord," is all she says. "Do ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... dapper champion of the pen; puffs boldly upon the horn which hangs by the chain; enters the hall resolutely, and challenges the big tyrant sulking within. We defy him to combat, the enormous roaring ruffian! We give him a meeting on the green plain before his castle. Green? No wonder it should be green: it is manured with human bones. After a few graceful wheels and curvets, we take our ground. We stoop over our saddle. 'Tis but to kiss the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The ruffian against whom I was pitted began to draw his breath in gasps. He was a scoundrel not fit to die, less fit to live, unworthy of a gentleman's steel. I presently ran him through with as little compunction and as great a desire to be quit of a dirty job as if he had been a mad dog. He fell, and a little ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... King said, "Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won't eat that ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brutal harshness to the innocent creature I have sworn to protect. She had run in debt, through inexperience, and that unhappy timidity which makes women conceal an error till it ramifies, by concealment, into a fault; and I must storm and rave at her, till she actually fainted away. Brute! Ruffian! Monster! And she, how did she punish me, poor lamb? By soft and tender words—like a lady, as she is. Oh, my sweet Rosa, I wish you could know how you are avenged. Talk of the scourge—the cat! I would ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the milestone at the appointed time, representing the banker in the darkness, and giving the password. He was to be followed by two of his men who would wait in concealment, within hearing of his whistle, if their services were required. "I want to see the ruffian when he is safely handcuffed," Sir Giles explained; "and I have arranged to wait for the police, ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... friend Hamdi," Pasquale continued. "He was the politest old ruffian that ever had a long nose and was pitted ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... you for this!" cried Percy, after the passengers had passed out of hearing. "We'll see if the village will allow a ruffian like you to tend bridge ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... few truly adhere to the purity of thy precepts! How few are sincere in the expression of their adoration!—nay, how limited the number of those who really understand the essence of thy doctrine! The sanguinary ruffian considers himself as zealous in the service of honor, as the high minded and courageous man who has a sword to avenge the wrongs of his country, and a heart to sympathise with the picture of human misery. All are swayed by the magic word, Honor; for even ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... not allow you to assail the President of the United States. You shan't do it!" bellowed the blackguard, shaking his fist at Mr. Garrison. But Mr. Garrison, with that extraordinary serenity of manner which was all his own, parleyed with the ruffian, as if he was no ruffian and had no mob at his back. "You ought not to interrupt us," he remonstrated with gentle dignity. "We go upon the principle of hearing everybody. If you wish to speak, I will keep order, and ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... doubt she thought there was a screw loose in my intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... and Maitland—not one of his supporters-with her. A scandalous divorce was pronounced between him and his wife, and Mary wedded him. The only credible explanation is that she was over-mastered by a passion for the daring ruffian who at least had always stood by her. The lords—accomplices in the murder with the rest—were almost immediately in arms to "rescue" the Queen, who took the field by her husband's side. The opposing forces ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... a low, vulgar, border ruffian, had what even the lowest of his kind generally appear to possess: a lingering sense of respect for a good woman. Until the night of the attack upon her by the hoboes in the railroad yard, he had never dared to presume to the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "is a suit of clothes such as habitues of 'The Pidgin House' rejoice to wear. I, who have studied disguise almost as deeply as the great Willy Clarkson, will transform you into a perfect ruffian. It is important, you understand, that someone should be inside the house of Ah-Fang-Fu, as otherwise by means of some secret exit the man we seek may escape. I believe that he contemplates departing at any moment, and I believe that the visit of Miguel means that what I may term the masters ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... was instantly plain. I had been entrapped for my watch and jewellery—like many another medical man in London has been before me; doctors being always an easy prey for thieves. The ruffian shamming illness sprang from his bed fully dressed, and at the same moment two other blackguards, who had been hidden in the room, flung themselves upon me ere I could ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... goodwill, I hope it will be remembered that these plans never originated with the cruel government of a tyrant king, but were always proposed by gentlemen on the Continental side, who vowed that, rather than remain under the ignominious despotism of the ruffian of Brunswick, the fairest towns of America should burn. I presume that the sages who were for burning down Boston were not actual proprietors in that place, and the New York burners might come from other parts of the country—from ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mademoiselle," replied I, "we suffer fops sometimes very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse. But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that I had too much respect ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... crowd gazed from afar they looked over their property, though Billy moved like one in a dream. Her father was engaged in placating Dusty Rhodes and in explaining their agreement to the rest, and she still felt surprised that she had ever consented to accompany so desperate a ruffian. Yet as he knocked off a chunk of ore and showed her the specks of gold, scattered through it with such prodigal richness, she felt her old sense of security return; for he had never been rough with her. It was only with Old Whiskers, the grasping Blackwater ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... to be laid hold of by a madman, if madman he be," said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, in polite excuse of Tito, "but perhaps he is only a ruffian. We shall hear. I think we must see if we have authority enough to stop this disturbance between our people and your countrymen," he added, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... biggest ruffian of 'em all. He'd brain ye with a peavey if you give him any back talk. I've always thought that Peg knew the devils who killed my man. Oh, I hope the time comes when I get a chance to set Henry on him. Henry'd make toothpicks of that peg-leg. I promise ye that. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... as such, is protected by all the laws of chivalry. Whatsoever his message, it is none of his. He is merely the mouthpiece of him who sent him." Then, turning to the herald, he said, "Tell the false knight, your master, on my part, that he is a foul ruffian, perjured to all the vows of knighthood; that this act of visiting upon a woman the enmity he bears her son, will bring upon him the execration of all men; and that the offer which he makes me is ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... not for a journey of at least a couple of months on foot. A more vicious and unprincipled scoundrel than Mikouline probably never existed, and yet I missed him sorely afterwards, and would give a good deal, notwithstanding all the trouble he gave me, to know that the little ruffian had reached the Kolyma in safety. But this is, I fear, outside the bounds of possibility. We did not leave the next day, for Erktrik, or rather Cape Shelagskoi, proved a Pandora's box of unpleasant surprises, including another ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... Dr. Hofmann when he spoke of Wolfgang. When he spoke to him he certainly said: "What a little ruffian you are! Just you wait till you go to school and they'll soon teach ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... Shepherd's Inn, swore and blasphemed at Ned as the most infernal villain, and traitor, and blackguard, and coward under the sun, and wished Ned was in his grave, and in a worse place, only he would like the confounded ruffian to live, until Frank Clavering had had his revenge ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stands,— Was struck—struck like a dog, by one who wore The badge of Ursini; because, forsooth, He tossed not high his ready cap in air, Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men, And suffer such dishonor? men, and wash not The stain away in blood? Such shames are common. I have known deeper wrongs; I that speak to ye, I had a brother once—a gracious boy, Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope, Of sweet and quiet joy,—there ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... course no warship. The English made what inquiries they could for me, but could find out little or nothing, since all the country about Kilwa was in possession of Arab slave-traders who were supported by a ruffian who called himself ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... accompanied by his two hundred followers—mostly rollicking and arrogant foreign adventurers—who robbed and devastated the land, and thrashed and even mutilated passers-by for fun, people looked forward with great fear to the accession of such a ruffian. A few years of responsibility, and failure, soon changed him into the noblest and most law-abiding of the Plantagenets. It was Wales which gave him his first lesson. He first tried his hand at the reorganisation of the "Middle Country," making it "shire-land," ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... harmless, thrifty, and ever moral pirate, of whom it is impossible to disapprove. Sir Walter's is a mild gentleman, concerning whom one wonders how he ever came to be in such company. Michael Scott's pirate is a bloodthirsty ruffian enough, and yet it is difficult to feel that a person who dressed in such a highly picturesque manner, and who was commonly either a Don or a Scotch gentleman of ancient descent, was quite the real thing. Mr. Stevenson's pirate is nearer what one knows ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... use blinking the fact," she said straight out, "that Francie is no better than she should be. I can't understand it; no Pennycuick that ever I heard of took that line before. She has a dog's life with that ruffian, no doubt; and of course the poor child never had a chance to enjoy the right thing in the right way—though that ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great you can read a pleasanter account of the Emperor's business at Roncaglia about this time than our Italian chroniclers will give you. Carlyle loves a tyrant; and if the tyrant is a ruffian and bully, and especially a German, there are hardly any lengths to which that historian will not go in praise of him. Truly, one would hardly guess, from that picture of Frederick Redbeard at Roncaglia, with the standard set before his tent, inviting ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... spoke in this way it must be in virtue of some agreement with the Christians, and in that case he wished people to believe him. He saw this, too, from his face; hence in one moment, without showing doubt or astonishment, he raised his eyes and exclaimed,—"That was a faith-breaking ruffian! But I warned thee, lord, not to trust him; my teachings bounded from his head as do peas when thrown against a wall. In all Hades there are not torments enough for him. He who cannot be honest must be a rogue; what is more difficult than for a rogue to become honest? But to ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... over-night—Oh, no! it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a deep whisper from the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Christison," he said, "for I served under a man who I think was your father. It was many years ago; but yet I remember his looks and tone of voice, as you remind me of him. He saved my life, and did more than save my life, for he prevented me from becoming a hardened ruffian like many of my companions." On this the old seaman ran on, and gave him many accounts of his father, to which Wenlock listened with deep interest. "Well, sir," said the old man, "whenever you have time to listen to a yarn, ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... cultivate an attitude of indifference in such cases? A ruffian cruelly beats his horse, the poor beast that has rendered him faithful service for many a day, but is feeble now and sinks beneath its load. With curses and the sharp persuasion of the lash, the merciless driver seeks to force ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... war against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at length from his wife and infant family, to fight for his ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... The cynical ruffian was not alarmed in the least. He actually laughed. "You fool, if you dare talk like that on shore about me you will get a knife stuck in your back. Every man, woman, and child in that port is my friend. And who's to prove the lighter wasn't sunk? I ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground. Potter dropped ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... army; Pray, sweat to find him out.— [Exit Captain.] This place I'll keep. Now wounds are wide, and blood is very deep; 'Tis now about the heavy tread of battle; Soldiers drop down as thick as if death mowed them; As scythe-men trim the long-haired ruffian fields, So fast they fall, so ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... or so later the right-hand ruffian, my man, also stirred, so sharply that I thought he had heard something. Apparently, however, he was only haunted by dreams resulting from an evil life, or perhaps by the prescience of its end, for after waving his arm and muttering something in a frightened voice, he too, wearied ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... story that we are about to narrate, and we warn the lover of pleasant books to lay down our volume at the first page. We shall see Cunningham, that burly, red-faced ruffian, the Provost Marshal, wreaking his vengeance upon the defenceless prisoners in his keeping, for the assault made upon him at the outbreak of the war, when he and a companion who had made themselves obnoxious to the republicans ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... you knew not why,— Christ told you to give it, and to Him you gave. That night watch beside the bed of a woman as fallen as yourself,—Christ bade you watch, and you watched by Him. For that drunken ruffian, whom you, a drunken ruffian yourself, leaped into the sea to save, Christ bade you leap, and like St. Christopher of old, you bore, though you knew it not, your Saviour and your God to land." And if they shall ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... carried, but it must be the hall of some Venetian palace. Then, without movement, very slowly and stealthily I had a peep at the men who surrounded me. There was the gondolier, a swart, hard-faced, murderous ruffian, and beside him were three other men, one of them a little, twisted fellow with an air of authority and several keys in his hand, the other two tall young servants in a smart livery. As I listened to their talk ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... swifter than I darted past me with a savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the creature away I had ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... then are you no maiden.—Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: Upon my honour, Myself, my brother, and this grieved count, Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night, Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window; Who hath, indeed, most like a liberal villain, Confess'd the vile encounters they have had A ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... you have been behaving like a young ruffian," said Mr. Davis, who felt that he must make out a strong case to justify him in dismissing Robert ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... returned to King Giglio's camp, and found the young monarch in a disturbed state of mind, smoking cigars in the royal tent. His Majesty's agitation was not appeased by the news that was brought by his ambassador. 'The brutal ruthless ruffian royal wretch!' Giglio exclaimed. 'As England's poesy has well remarked, "The man that lays his hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a patch of purplish bloom spreading itself over the cheek bones which told of constant tavern lounging. A pair of hawk's eyes gleamed from under bushy beetling brows; wide loose lips and a truculent, pugnacious lower jaw completed the picture of a ruffian. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Gibson. They had come to seize both, whether to kill or imprison was not yet determined. John was absent; Sarah, seeing the troopers gallop toward the house, poured a prayer over her babe, as it lay asleep in the crib, and fled in terror, hoping that sweet infancy would appeal to their hearts. A ruffian rushed in, and grasping the babe, shouted, "The nurse is not far away." He made it scream, to bring the mother back. She heard its pitiful cry; her heart was breaking, yet she was utterly powerless. She might expose herself, but she could not help the infant. ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... is already familiar to the readers of "Ragged Dick." He had acquired a prominent position among the down-town boot-blacks by his strength, which he used oftentimes to impose upon boys weaker than himself. He was a young ruffian, indeed, with few redeeming qualities. When Dick was in the same business, he tried on two or three occasions to make him acknowledge his superiority; but it was not in Dick's nature to be subservient to any one whom ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that the destruction of Scio took place. That island, a sort of appanage of the Sultana mother, enjoyed many privileges peculiar to itself. In a population of 130,000 or 140,000, it had no more than 2,000 or 3,000 Turks; indeed, by some accounts, not near as many. The absence of these ruffian masters had in some degree allowed opportunity for the promotion of knowledge, the accumulation of wealth, and the general cultivation of society. Here was the seat of modern Greek literature; here were libraries, printing-presses, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... exclaimed the Dwarf,—"that cool-blooded, hardened, unrelenting ruffian,—that wretch, whose every thought is infected with crimes,—has thewes and sinews, limbs, strength, and activity enough, to compel a nobler animal than himself to carry him to the place where he is ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... more surprise than fear at Pickersgill; Mr Hautaine's dress became him, he was a handsome, fine-looking man, and had nothing of the ruffian in his appearance; unless, like Byron's Corsair, he was half savage, half soft. She could not help thinking that she had met many with less pretensions, as far as appearance went, to the claims of a gentleman, at Almack's, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... found the staff collected, excitedly discussing the news. One of the Vigilance Committee prisoners, a notorious bully and ruffian, detained as a criminal and a witness, had committed suicide in his cell. Fortunately this was all reportorial work, and the services of Mr. Breeze were not required. He hurried ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... must punish the rascal somehow—he owed it to society to punish him; but at present he did not see how, and the first thing was to have the first word with Florimel; he must see her before she saw the ruffian. He rode as hard as he dared to Curzon Street, sent his groom to the stables, telling him he should want the horses again before lunch, had a hot bath, of which he stood in dire need, and some brandy with his breakfast, and ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... are few, and that is well, for the American article answers almost exactly to the vagrant and criminal tribes of India, being a predatory ruffian who knows too much to work. 'Bad place to beg in after dark—on a farm—very—is Vermont. Gypsies pitch their camp by the river in the spring, and cooper horses in the manner of their tribe. They have the gypsy look and some of the old gypsy names, but say ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... the landlord, genially pointing out the black-bearded ruffian, "and the young lawyer feller hez git a jedgment ag'in him. He's got spunk, but I reckon Hump'll t'ar the innards out'n him ef he stands thar ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... grandfather. Then, horror for herself beat upon her spirit. But a memory of her first resolve came to her. From stark necessity, she put her whole reliance on an effort to temporize. She felt that her only recourse in this emergency must lie in deceiving the ruffian who thus beset her. Much as she abhorred him, she had no choice. There was none to whom she could appeal for succor. She must depend absolutely upon her ability to beguile him. She must hide the revulsion inspired by his mere presence. She must arm herself with ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... window—an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward—it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of thoroughly ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... Mr. Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... measures were employed. The Civil Guard, whose duty it was to see to the safety of the country side, had no confidence in the justice of Madrid, whither captured highwaymen were sent for trial; once there, for a few hundred dollars, the most murderous ruffian could prove his babe-like innocence, forthwith return to the scene of his former exploits and begin again. So they hit upon an expedient. The Civil Guards set out for the capital with their prisoner handcuffed between them; but, curiously enough, ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... those of the bold, lion-like scout of former days, he told how he had fainted and fallen on the breast of his master, how he had lain all night on the battle-field among the dead and dying, how he had been stripped and left for dead by the ruffian followers of the camp, and how at last he had been found and rescued by one of the ambulance-wagons of ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... rivers, under forest arches dim as twilight, they hurried on, a pack of hounds yapping in advance, a broken branch, a trampled bush, a hoof-print in the margin of a stream also giving proof that they were on the right path; a herder, who had seen the ruffian pass, likewise testifying to the fact, and giving his service to the company; and so they came to a clearing, where they found the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... unsatisfactory reply Charles gave to the remonstrance—the "Grand Remonstrance of the state of the Church and Kingdom" presented to him at Hampton Court on the 1st December—and his appointment of Colonel Lunsford, a debauched ruffian, as lieutenant of the Tower, in place of Balfour, who was a favourite with the city, increased the exasperation against him, and the mayor was obliged to inform him (26 Dec.) that unless Lunsford was removed he could not answer for the peace of the city. This representation ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... in her more vehement style, wrote of the negroes in the North: "They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race, scorned by the lowest white ruffian in your streets, not tolerated even by the foreign menials in your kitchen. They are free certainly, but they are also degraded, rejected, the offscum and the offscouring of the very dregs of your society.... All ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... his path, Samuel J. Deering lunged at him fiercely with his right arm. Billy, ducking opportunely, saved his indignant parent from tumbling upon the floor by catching him in his arms. Feeling that he had been attacked by a ruffian, Mr. Deering yelled that he ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... Hatteraick is a faithful copy from nature,—it is one of those moral monsters which make us almost ashamed of our kind. Still, amidst the ruffian and murderous brutality of the smuggler, some few feelings of our common nature are thrown in with no less ingenuity than truth. . . . The remainder of the personages are very little above the cast of a common lively novel. . . . The Edinburgh lawyer is perhaps the most original portrait; ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... together might never have been done. It's odd that, as time goes on, there is not even a hint or a suspicion who did it. There's only one boy in the house I'm not sure of, and he is too great a coward to be a ruffian. Well, well, we have the cricket season and the exams, coming on. If only we do as well in them as we've done in the sports, it will not be altogether against us if the mystery remains a mystery a ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... the river. As his horse bent its head to drink, Jack heard a woman scream upon the bridge above him. In a moment he had dismounted, and his heavy boots were resounding on the wooden planks. In the middle of the bridge he came upon a girl struggling in the grasp of a thick-set ruffian, who was dragging her towards the bank further from the town. Grappling with the brutal fellow, Jack released the girl, who ran past him in ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters, still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his guillotine! These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as they went; but can they ever ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... immoderate laughter. "Cadet," said he, "you are, when drunk, the greatest ruffian in Christendom, and the biggest knave when sober. Let the lady sleep in peace, while we drink ourselves blind in her honor. Bring in brandy, valets, and we will not look for day until midnight booms on the old clock ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in change: For now and then, I tell you, poor men range. Sit down a little, I will make you smile. Though I be now like to the snowy Alps, I was as hot as Aetna in my youth; All fire, i' faith, true heart of oak, right steel— A ruffian, lady. Often for my sport I to a lodge of mine did make resort, To view my dear, I said; dear God can tell, It was my keeper's wife whom I lov'd well. My countess (God be with her) was a shrow, As women be, your majesty doth know; And some odd pick-thank put it in her head, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... am unworthy of having such an angel," replied the old man, "but unless you were a cruel and a heartless ruffian, you would not at this moment mention her, or bring the thoughts of her ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... censorious judge of all who did not sympathise with them. The four competing candidates, Crawford, Clay, Calhoun, and Adams, could hardly be paralleled, Clinton being judge, by an equal number of the twelve Caesars of Suetonius. Crawford is 'as hardened a ruffian as Burr'; Calhoun is 'treacherous', and 'a thorough-paced political blackleg.' Adams 'in politics was an apostate, and in private life a pedagogue, and everything but amiable and honest', while his father, the ex-President, was 'a scamp.' Governor Yates is 'perfidious and weak.' Henry ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and then to have him show the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances, will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to his doom" over a cliff ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... others flogged themselves. Such was the character of the frenzied host, which progressed slowly through the streets, while every now and then, when there was an interval in the hubbub, the words "Christianos ad leones" were thundered out by some ruffian voice, and a ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... "You young ruffian!" I exclaimed, "how dare you strike your sister? You deserve a downright good thrashing for such a deed, and—mark you this, boy!—if ever you so much as attempt to do such a thing again and I get to hear of it, I will rope's-end ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the outraged person who seemed fainting, the man recovered himself, and rushing on her champion, aimed a stroke at his head with an immense bludgeon, which the count, catching hold of as it descended, wrenched out of his hand. The horrid oaths of the ruffian and the sobs of his rescued victim collected a mob; and then the villain, fearing worse usage, made off and left Thaddeus to restore the terrified female at ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... of my bridle, you ruffian!" they heard Anne Nesbit cry, and as they looked they saw her bring down her riding crop across the face of a lumberjack who had grasped her pony's bridle and was trying to separate the animal from the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... sunk, destroyed their boats, took from them their life-belts, carried them miles away from any floating wreckage, and then projected them into the sea to drown, this unspeakable monarch approved the awful deed and decorated the ruffian for his ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... you in these important cases—especially if his beard is rather long—an extraordinary ruffian, to whom Jack Sheppard would have been a comparatively innocent boy. You watch curiously the old gentleman sitting in his big arm-chair, with his spectacles in their silver case at his elbow, and his snuffbox in hand, listening attentively to some grievous complaint; ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... the Shepherd, 'he was a brute, a ruffian, a monster. When drunk, how he raged and cursed and swore! Often did she dread that, in his fits of inhuman passion, he would have murdered the baby at her breast; for she had seen him dash their ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... man in English, and passing his arm round her; "in this house you are in that ruffian's power; out of it, safe. Ah, I am ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as the old plutonic fires come to the surface out there in the Rockies, and hint very strongly of the infernal regions, so a kind of satanic element in men and animals—an underlying devilishness—crops out, and we have the border ruffian and the bucking broncho. ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... ragged black beard which grew almost to his eyes, and the brim of his slouch hat, which had once been black, but was now green with age and weather, only the point of his rather characterless nose and his two bright black eyes were visible. But though to all appearances he was a desperate ruffian, capable of robbery and cold-blooded murder, his was a welcome figure in Timber Town. Men turned to look at him as he tramped past in his heavy, mud-stained blucher boots. One man, standing outside The Lucky Digger, asked him if he had "struck ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... was the poem I was cursed for writing! When it came out no word was bad enough for me! I was a blackguard, a ruffian and an atheist! You will live to have as great a contempt for literary critics and the public as I have, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... tell me," Gurdon murmured, "that the lady in question is the daughter of that picturesque-looking old ruffian, ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... he answered, with a satanic grin. She sought to escape by him with the loud cry that Dennis heard, but the ruffian planted his big grimy hand in the delicate frill of her night-robe where it clasped her throat, and with a coarse laugh said: "Not so fast, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... vengeance. This was idle, but I suppose it merely done to cover deeper designs. He returned to sea—was absent two more years, but re-appeared here some three months ago, since when he has been frequently seen about the neighborhood, and is supposed to subsist by poaching. Curly Tom, the ruffian you captured last night, has been much with him. He has again written to the Earl something which has made him furious—so your father told me, who had been there, the good old man, trying to make him forego his pursuit of poor Horace. There will be something terrible, I am sure. God help us, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... once more gone within; there was no one abroad, and if there were, no one probably would take any notice of a burly ruffian brow-beating ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... him on the head with a wee blackthorn," said Fly. "But whist," she added, "I do believe the ould ruffian's lyin' in his grave listenin' ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... and sparkling as those of the children going to Christmas parties. He stole glances at her as if her fresh innocent looks were an absolute treat to him, and when he talked, it was of Robert in his boyhood. 'I remember him at twelve years old, a sturdy young ruffian, with an excellent notion of standing up ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the steel cane with her. In a second the ruffian had vanished, and a big black crow was flying about the room, crying ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... very close to my heart, and I am not going to let him slip from his place. Now for the history of the Ides (13th). It was Caelius's tenth day.[584] Domitius had not obtained a full panel. I am afraid that foul ruffian, Servius Pola, will appear for the prosecution. For our friend Caelius has a dead set made at him by the Clodian gens. There is nothing certain as yet, but I am afraid. On the same day there was a full house ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... he must call at once and give warning; that he must awaken the widow, at whatever cost to her nerves, and offer his protection. It might be that he had checkmated the ruffian and thrown him off his game. Very likely he had. A man with this evidence against him, and minus the pistol with which he had intended to do his infernal work, would—ten to one—be heading away from justice, and for dear life. Still, where so much was mystery, the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... terms, and those terms incorrect. We are amazed to find a writer usually thoughtful, if not accurate, thus indolently adopting the worn-out falsities of our weakest writers on Taste. Does he—can he for an instant suppose that the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candlelight and black shadows for the illustration and re-enforcement of villainy, painted nature—mere nature—exclusive nature, more painfully or heartily ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... grown-up fair maiden And of the other dear girls, in age little more than mere children. Hurried away by raging desire, unfeelingly rush'd they On the trembling band, and on the high-spirited maiden. But she instantly seized the sword from the side of a ruffian, Hew'd him down to the ground; at her feet straight fell he, all bleeding, Then with doughty strokes the maidens she bravely deliver'd. Wounded four more of the robbers; with life, however, escaped they. Then she lock'd ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... Peter sees, while in the shade He stood beside the cottage-door; And Peter Bell, the ruffian wild, Sobs loud, he sobs even like a child, "Oh! God, I can endure no ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... his left hand it raises astonishment; he is a DEAR ME! man, of the same family with Sterne's Simple Traveller, and came from Amiens only yesterday. The fellow behind him, beating his head, curses his own stupidity; and the whiskered ruffian, with his fore-finger on the egg, is in his heart cursing Columbus. As to the two veterans on the other side, they have lived too long to be agitated with trifles: he who wears a cap, exclaims, "Is this all!" and the other, with a bald head, "By St. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... beautiful Duchess!—that beauty in the beast—died. I wanted to read the funeral service over her, but the captain interfered—the brute!—and threatened to throw me into the sea along with the dead bitch, as the unmannerly ruffian persisted in calling my canine friend. I never spoke to him again during the rest of the voyage. Nothing happened worth relating until I got to this place, where I chanced to meet a friend who knew your brother, and I went up with him to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... a desperate, fearless ruffian, he had a pleasant face, keen gray eyes, a light mustache, and a most quiet air and ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... of all Men, and the most exposed to the Malignity or Wantonness of the common Voice, is the Trader. Credit is undone in Whispers. The Tradesman's Wound is received from one who is more private and more cruel than the Ruffian with the Lanthorn and Dagger. The Manner of repeating a Man's Name, As; Mr. Cash, Oh! do you leave your Money at his Shop? Why, do you know Mr. Searoom? He is indeed a general Merchant. I say, I have seen, from the Iteration of a Man's Name, hiding ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to suppose that the one man was a saint and a hero, and the other a fool and a ruffian. No; that sort of thing happens only in books. People in Abbeville were not made on that plan. They were both plain men. But there was a difference in their hearts; and out of that difference grew ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... defence than attack. Altogether, the disordered appearance of the room, the broken bottles, the fumes with which the hot atmosphere teemed, the evident profligacy of the two women, the half-undressed guise of the cavaliers, and the ruffian air and collected ferocity of the assailants, plainly denoted that it was one of those perilous festivals of pleasure in which imprudent gallants were often, in that day, betrayed by treacherous Delilahs ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... five minutes. He was very quiet about it. But he gripped my hands. "I think," he said, "I think we can count on my nomination this time!" [She sighs] And now everything is spoilt, and all through this ruffian who won't let them arrest him! [Another sigh] What's ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... the carriage drive away. And almost 'mediately after the door was unlocked, and a great, big, black-bearded and black-headed beast of a ruffian came in, and ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... old king, as the girl indicated. The withered ruffian stayed motionless: but from his nostrils came slow augmenting jets of vapor, as though he were beginning to breathe in a chill place. This was odd, because the cave ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... is worthy of the cool yet romantic gallantry of the achievement. Kinmont Willie was a ruffian, but he had been unlawfully seized. This was one of many studied insults passed by Elizabeth's officials on Scotland at that time, when the English Government, leagued with the furious pulpiteers of the Kirk, and with Francis Stewart, the wild Earl of Bothwell, was persecuting ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... none may see, But with a soul disturb'd by thee! Wilt thon for ever haunt mankind, And glare upon the darken'd mind! Whene'er thou enterest a breast, Thou robb'st it of its joy and rest; And terrible, and strange to tell, On what that mind delights to dwell. The ruffian's knife with reeking blade, The stranger murder'd in his bed: The howling wind, the raging deep, The sailor's cries, the sinking ship: The awful thunder breaking round: The yauning gulf, the rocking ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable, good old governor—how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... felt her heart sink a little as she saw the round and rather pursy form of her natural protector walk away into the depths of a mirror at the forward end of the car, and so vanish. And in this same mirror she beheld, seated only two sections behind her, the scowling ruffian! ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... getting up annual dinners and celebrating you? No, by no means—by no means. Well, I repeat, those Pilgrims were a hard lot. They took good care of themselves, but they abolished everybody else's ancestors. I am a border-ruffian from the State of Missouri. I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption. In me, you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture; this, gentlemen, is the combination which makes the perfect man. But where are my ancestors? Whom shall I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was only a fancy. And yet—even now, as he turned away, I saw the same cold insolence in his eye. Caramba! Am I mad—mad—that I must keep forever before my eyes, night and day, the image of that dog in every outcast, every ruffian, every wayside bully that I meet? No, no, good Pereo! Softly! this is mere madness, good Pereo," he murmured to himself; "thou wilt have none of it; none, good Pereo. Come, come!" He let his head fall slowly forward on his breast, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... pardon!" he breathlessly exclaimed. "I was just taking the short cut! I had no idea—Here, Mungo, you ruffian!" as the Skye ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the cause of Isabella's flight it had no unworthy motive. If this stranger was accessory to it, she must be satisfied with his fidelity and worth. I observed, did not you, Bianca? that his words were tinctured with an uncommon infusion of piety. It was no ruffian's speech; his phrases were becoming a man of ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... his sad musings at the supper-hour, to arrange his hair, and assume the ordinary dress of gentlemen in the evening; though Philip laughed at the roses adorning his shoes, and his fresh ruff, as needless attentions to an old ruffian like the Chevalier. However, Philip started when he entered the hall, and beheld, not the Chevalier alone, but with him the beautiful lady of the velvet coach, and another stately, extremely handsome dame, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wanted a theme and a hero; both suddenly broke upon my mind; I determined to write a poem on the history of Jack Straw. I was so full of my subject that I was fearful of being anticipated. I wondered that none of the poets of the day, in their researches after ruffian heroes, had ever thought of Jack Straw. I went to work pell-mell, blotted several sheets of paper with choice floating thoughts, and battles, and descriptions, to be ready at a moment's warning. In a few days' time I sketched ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... not so successful with another soldier, who came up soon after, brandishing his sword, and preparing to plunge it into the body of the prostrate commander. It was in vain that the latter endeavored to turn the ruffian from his purpose. He was a convict,—one of those galley-slaves whom Don John had caused to be unchained from the oar, and furnished with arms. He could not believe that any treasure would be worth so much to him as the head of the pasha. Without further ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... packed his body in a box, and sprinkling it with salt, despatched it to a packet bound for New Orleans. Suspicions having been excited, he was seized and tried before Judge Kent. The trial is, perhaps, the most disgraceful upon the records of any country. The ruffian's mistress was produced in court, and examined, in disgusting detail, as to her connection with Colt, and his movements during the days and nights succeeding the murder. The head of the murdered man was bandied to and fro in the court, handed up to the jury, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... vivid light were shining in her face, and she panted like a horse that is going up a steep hill, so that it almost broke one's heart to see it. Meanwhile, however, Monsieur Hamot had seized the ruffian by the throat, and they were rolling on the ground together, amidst a scene of indescribable confusion, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... long life, and to wake a beggar. It was however to small purpose that Keating attempted, in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to uphold the supremacy of the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the bench for the purpose of overawing the judge and countenancing the robbers. One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear. Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders of his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons of higher station than himself, whom he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have the credentials of this reformer before we listen to his accusation. I refuse to be judged by a dissolute ruffian, a divorced man and one accused of embezzling the funds of an investment society. Why did Councillor Quirk leave Goldenvale?" cried Councillor ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... near to the conversation of the others. "No, no, not at all," said one. "He wasn't a ruffian, he wasn't one of those toughs that we all know. We all enlisted together. He was a decent sort, like ourselves, no more, no less—a bit funky, that's all. He was in the front line from the beginning, he was, and I've never seen him ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... extended his hand, which the ruffian clasped; and, maudlin tears succeeding his ferocity, he half-sobbed, half-hiccoughed forth his protestations of civism and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... keeping with the first design, but pointing to another lady with whom he was now at odds. Pope's behavior, we must admit, was not altogether creditable, but it was that of an artist reluctant to throw away good work, not that of a ruffian who stabs a woman he has taken money ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... drama closely, saw that the ruffian was plainly taken off his feet by this. He had not expected—or so it seemed clear—that he would encounter any opposition in carrying out his rascally plan of playing off the safety of a boy and a girl who had never wronged ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... hung above. It was that of a stout, broad-shouldered, sturdy-chested man; and we knew at once, as anybody would, who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat, with the large metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth without a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very counterpart of himself, at his side. The vices of the boy had grown with the man, and we fancied his home then—if such ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... surrendered to one man, when he had defied a crowd, the ruffian afterwards said: "When he came up I looked him in the eye, and I saw shoot. There wasn't shoot in nary other eye in the crowd. I said to myself, it is about time to sing small; and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... time, to cut the monster in two, the two companies charged in flank. Carpenter, striding several steps in advance, his face fairly blazing with excitement, dealt the first blow, stretching on the pavement a powerful ruffian, who was rushing on him with a huge club. For a few minutes nothing was heard but the heavy thud of clubs falling on human skulls, thick and fast as hailstones on windows. The mob, just before so confident and bold, quailed in terror and would have broke and fled at once, but for the mass behind ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... think. Well, there, I won't be hard on you. If you keep quiet now, and are as much better to-morrow as I found you to-day, and you will promise to be very careful, I'll let you get up. Now I must go and see to that other ruffian." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse. But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that I had too much respect for ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... that with all my care and watchfulness you should have been subjected to such a trial. Some ruffian has been trying to extort money from you, I presume, by threatened violence to yourself, Travilla, and me. Where ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... gray eyes; but when I met the furtive glance and saw the white, veined forehead, the arched brows, the tremulous lips, the rounded chin, and the whole face glorified by that wonderful mass of hair, I only know, without weapon or design, she dealt me a wound which I bear to this day. What a ruffian I had been! I was ashamed, and my eyes fell before hers. If a libation of blushes could appease an offended goddess, I was livid evidence of repentance. I felt myself flooded in a sudden heat of shame. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... all Nubians,—black, dirty, and clothed in ragged blankets. Born to no other inheritance but slavery, they seemed wholly unconscious of their degraded state; and continued chattering unconcernedly, and, to all appearance, very happy. As I stood gazing on the novel scene, the ruffian keeper (and never did a vile, debasing occupation stamp its character more indelibly on the physiognomy of man) led one of the black victims forth, to meet the speculating caprices of a haggard old Turkish woman. He proceeded ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... mean by coming at twenty-eight past, eh, you young ruffian? Stay outside the door ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... instead of becoming an example to the old world of good and moral government and civil manners, or, if they like it better, of gentlemanly conduct towards other nations, to set up the character of ruffian, that of word and blow, and the blow first, and thereby give the example of pulling down the little that civilization has gained upon barbarism, her Independence, instead of being an honour and a blessing, would become a curse upon the world ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... rage, scorn, and indignation were concentrated into that moment, and, smarting at the blow, he sprang upon the schoolmaster, wrested the weapon from him, and, pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian until ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... gazed from afar they looked over their property, though Billy moved like one in a dream. Her father was engaged in placating Dusty Rhodes and in explaining their agreement to the rest, and she still felt surprised that she had ever consented to accompany so desperate a ruffian. Yet as he knocked off a chunk of ore and showed her the specks of gold, scattered through it with such prodigal richness, she felt her old sense of security return; for he had never been rough with ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... gentle men. A tall ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footing someone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands; ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... said the landlord, genially pointing out the black-bearded ruffian, "and the young lawyer feller hez git a jedgment ag'in him. He's got spunk, but I reckon Hump'll t'ar the innards out'n him ef he stands ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tiresome repetition of the same images;" and his opinion soon became so generally adopted, that Macpherson wrote him a furious letter of abuse, even threatening him with personal violence; to which Johnson replied "that he would not be deterred from exposing what he thought a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian"—a reply which seems to have silenced Mr. Macpherson (Boswell's "Life of Johnson," ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... him, and that he will compel me under some of his beloved Defence of the Realm Regulations. But the rack could not force me to give away my precious secret. Cherish it and use it. You will not tell, for you love to mystify the ruffian as ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... growing up a thorough young ruffian," the Squire said indignantly, "and one of these mornings I expect to see him brought up before us charged with some serious offense. We had to fine him last week for being drunk and making a disturbance down at Reigate. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... designed an ostrich devouring a nail, with the motto, Spiritus durissima conquit. Mattei wore the device, and ultimately succeeded in assassinating his victim; and 'so much was this noble revenge commended,' that the pope promoted the ruffian to be captain of his guard—the family of the murdered man signing an agreement to cancel all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... some false, some trumped-up accusation. A subscription list, nominally for a charitable purpose, for building a bridge, or repairing a road, is sent to him by a local magistrate, and woe be to him if he does not head it with a handsome sum. A ruffian may threaten to charge him with murder unless he will compromise instantly for Tls. 300; and the rich man generally prefers this course to proving his innocence at a cost of about Tls. 3000. He may be ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... thy destiny, thy all Which thou dost best and dearest call; Then let the darts of envy fall, Let ruffian ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... "Yes; that ruffian struck him with the revolver or something. And I say, Nell, I haven't heard your share in this affair yet. Drake told me that the fellow ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... afterwards surrounded by the Cavaliers, I cannot describe. For a year the brave garrison held out against all the assaults of some of the bravest of the Cavalier leaders, including Lord Goring and his ruffian crew. ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... awake to glory; Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, Behold their tears, and hear their cries! Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate the land, While Peace and Liberty lie bleeding? To arms, to arms, ye brave, Th'avenging sword unsheath; March on, march on, all hearts resolv'd On ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... calamity consisted in condoling with the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum to read the list, and finding himself among the proscribed, cried out, "Woe is me, my Alban farm has informed against me." He had not gone far, before he was dispatched by a ruffian, sent on ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... firearms. Caterna has his hat shot through, and it will be remembered that it is his village bridegroom's hat, the gray beaver, with the long fur. He utters a gigantic maritime oath, something about thunder and portholes, and then, taking a most deliberate aim, quietly shoots stone dead the ruffian who has taken such a liberty with ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... see out of his eyes, and had to be led away amid the jeers of the crowd. This success increased Edgar's ardour to perfect himself in the art. If he could so easily defeat an English lad of seventeen, he felt sure that after another year's teaching he need not fear an attack by the greatest ruffian in Alexandria. His uncle had taken advice on the subject, and, desirous of carrying out his brother's instructions to the fullest, changed his master every six months; so that during the two years and a half ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... but is that any sufficient reason, for getting up annual dinners and celebrating you? No, by no means—by no means. Well, I repeat, those Pilgrims were a hard lot. They took good care of themselves, but they abolished everybody else's ancestors. I am a border-ruffian from the State of Missouri. I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption. In me, you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture; this, gentlemen, is the combination which makes the perfect man. But where are my ancestors? Whom shall I celebrate? Where shall I find ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... connected with the war of the Revolution,—the noble declaration of independence, for truly noble it was: no dark compact of a crew of ruffian conspirators, but a generous bond that their aggrieved country should be freed, given by a band of citizen gentlemen, husbands, fathers, and brothers, to the fulfilment of the which they pledged unto each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour; and having ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... small boy should see them. He could have had no genuine longings for a life of piracy, for he saw that the pirate, instead of being a gorgeously-dressed and nobly-chivalrous hero, was only a brutal ruffian travelling on the road to Execution Dock. Tin soldiers could have brought him no happiness, for he knew that they were only lifeless bits of tin, as incapable of fighting as the army of Monaco. It gave him no pleasure to be dressed ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... He was a selfish and conceited satrap, incapable of enlightened thought or beneficent action, who knew no other way to magnify his own importance than by suffocating the rights and insulting the self-respect of others. He had a protege in Argall, a disorderly ruffian who was made deputy-governor of the colony in 1617. His administration was that of a freebooter; but the feeble and dwindling colony had neither power nor spirit to do more than send a complaint to London. Lord Delaware had in the meantime sailed for Virginia, but died on the trip; Argall ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an onslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon the demoralized "pageant." And then—oh, pangs! oh, woman!—she slapped at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor; and turning, flung her arms round the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... the wicked reign, Instead of help will find his bane. The Doves had oft escaped the Kite, By their celerity of flight; The ruffian then to coz'nage stoop'd, And thus the tim'rous race he duped: "Why do you lead a life of fear, Rather than my proposals hear? Elect me for your king, and I Will all your race indemnify." They foolishly the Kite believed, Who having now the pow'r received, Began upon the Doves to prey, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... old story[14] that Coke ordered her to be executed in the yellow ruff she had made the fashion and so proudly worn in Court. What did happen, according to Sir Simonds d'Ewes, was that the hangman, a coarse ruffian with a distorted sense of humour, dressed himself in bands and cuffs of yellow colour, but no one heeded his ribaldry; only in after days none of either sex used the yellow starch, and the fashion grew generally to ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Joseph!" The fellow blushed up to the eyes, and said, Oui, son nom etoit Joseph aussi bien que le mien, "Yes, he was called Joseph, as I am." I did not think proper to prosecute the inquiry; but did not much relish the nature of Joseph's connexions. The truth is, he had very much the looks of a ruffian; though, I must own, his behaviour was ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... worthy of the cool yet romantic gallantry of the achievement. Kinmont Willie was a ruffian, but he had been unlawfully seized. This was one of many studied insults passed by Elizabeth's officials on Scotland at that time, when the English Government, leagued with the furious pulpiteers of the Kirk, and with Francis Stewart, the wild Earl of Bothwell, was persecuting ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... was a fair specimen of that class, known in more modern parlance as a "Border Ruffian." Such as are at this time endeavoring, by their swaggering and bullying, to cast on the fair fields of Kansas the deep curse of Slavery—a curse which, like the poison of the deadly Upas, blights all within its influence: the colored and the white ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... mosquito is a gentlemanly pirate. He carries his weapon openly, and gives notice of an attack. He respects the decencies of life, and does not strike below the belt, or creep down the back of your neck. But the black fly is at the bottom of the moral scale. He is an unmitigated ruffian, the plug-ugly of the woods. He looks like a tiny, immature house-fly, with white legs as if he must be innocent. But, in fact, he crawls like a serpent and bites like a dog. No portion of the human ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... of the past there are tones of the reader's voice that still linger in my ears! I seem to hear once more the agonized quick utterance of poor Nancy, as she pleads for life, and the dread stillness after the ruffian's cruel blows have fallen on her upturned face. Again comes back to me the break in Bob Cratchit's voice, as he speaks of the death of Tiny Tim. As of old I listen to poor little Chops, the dwarf, declaring, very piteously, that his "fashionable ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... her; she shrieked in frantic terror; Harold sprung at the throat of the foremost; another advanced, Harold left his present prey and attacked the new assailant. The brave dog did wonders, but the odds were fearful; and the men had bludgeons, were enraged, and had already wounded him. One ruffian had grasped the arm of Sybil, another had clenched her garments, when an officer covered with dust and gore, sabre in hand, jumped from the terrace, and hurried to the rescue. He cut down one man, thrust away another, and placing ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... mean to tell me," Gurdon murmured, "that the lady in question is the daughter of that picturesque-looking old ruffian, Mark Fenwick?" ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... Max sprang upon the stone and dealt the swart ruffian a blow such as no man may survive. Max's great battle-axe crushed the Black Eider's helmet as if it were an egg-shell, and the captain of our foes fell backward, hanging by his stirrups. One of our squires shot one of the robbers, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, "We'll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond)." And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. "Ah, rogue!" he proceeded, "you can roar now, marauder; you were silent enough when you devoted my brains ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... On the pillion of the burgher's thickset Flemish horse, which was peacefully cropping at the grass, sat a middle-aged female, who seemed to be stricken dumb with terror, while a few paces away a second ruffian and a tall, bony woman were engaged in dragging a girl from the back of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... every function of his body working like a clock. Photograph his head and come upon it suddenly in a collection of others, and you would have said: "A big country bumpkin who ploughs all day and milks the cows at night." He might be the bloodthirsty ruffian, the human wild beast, the Warden had described, but he certainly did not look it. I would like to have had just such a man on any one of my gangs with old Captain Joe over him. He would have fought the sea with the best of them and made the work of the surf-men ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... are common both to dogs and men; and that with both a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens all. "But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, "the greatest sinner may return." I have been cheered to see symptoms of effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope the period of STURM UND DRANG ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tyrant of his days or to the one who had lorded it for long enough in the establishment of which he was the head must remain a mystery; but certain it was that the Doctor muttered presently to himself, "An overbearing young ruffian! A thoroughly good thrashing; ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... ceux qui etaient impliques dans cette affaire. The brothers Desbouleaux were drowned by night in the Canale Orfano, pour ne point ebruiter l'affaire; and the instructions sent to the Admiral who was to drown Pierre were to fulfil his commission avec le moins de bruit possible. Accordingly that ruffian, and forty-five of his accomplices, were drowned at once sans bruit. Interrogatoire des Accuses, translated by Daru, vol. viii. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... in the back drawing-room, watched her ways. She was kind to Miss Bramble. She was kind to that old ruffian Partridge whose neck he would willingly have wrung. She was kind, good Heavens! yes, she was kind to Soper. When the commercial gentleman approached her with his infernal box of bon-bons, she took one. He could have murdered Soper. He was profoundly depressed by the spectacle of Lucia's ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... rough, hard-living gambler was displaying himself a man of considerable education. It was curious. All the years of their friendship had passed without him discovering that his gambling friend was anything but an illiterate ruffian of the West, with nothing but a great courage, a powerful personality and a moderately honest heart ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... a reconnoissance through the keyhole. He looked, and saw one ruffian stirring the fire under the tar kettle, another displaying a rope, and two others alternately drinking from a bottle. He started back, as the thundering on the panel was repeated, and the same voice roared out, "You kin be takin' off them clo'es ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... closely, saw that the ruffian was plainly taken off his feet by this. He had not expected—or so it seemed clear—that he would encounter any opposition in carrying out his rascally plan of playing off the safety of a boy ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... income; and next to not incurring a debt, the greatest degradation would have been voluntarily to pay one." And yet was there great pretension to honor, but a man of honor of those days would in our time be considered a ruffian certainly, and probably a blackleg or a swindler. "It was a favorite boast of his (the first Lord Norbury) that he began life with fifty pounds, and a pair of hair-trigger pistols." "They served his purpose well.... The luck of the hair-triggers triumphed, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... "You invaluable ruffian," I said, "now you listen to me. I live in that big stone building, and I'll give you a thousand dollars to take me behind the Graham Glacier. Think it over and call on me when you are in a pleasanter frame of mind. If you don't ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... enabled under the shelter of its protection, to perambulate in safety every part of Paris, and its suburbs, although badly lighted, at that hour of the night, which in England, seldom fails to expose the unwary wanderer to the pistol of the prowling ruffian. An enlightened friend of mine, very shrewdly observed, that the english police seems to direct its powers, and consideration more to the apprehension of the robber, than to the prevention of the robbery. In no country ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... in viewing only the more sombre side of the picture?" returned his friend. "In your anxiety to anticipate evil, Charles, you have overlooked one important fact. Ponteac distinctly stated that his ruffian friend was still lying deprived of consciousness and speech within his tent, and yet two days had elapsed since the encounter was said to have taken place. Surely we have every reason then to infer they were beyond all reach of pursuit, even admitting, what is by ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... forgot about Maurice, said Mr Dedalus. Here, Maurice! Come here, you thick-headed ruffian! Do you know I'm going to send you to a college where they'll teach you to spell c.a.t. cat. And I'll buy you a nice little penny handkerchief to keep your nose dry. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... asks if she can support the calamity of her brother's absence—laying a grossly insulting emphasis on the word "brother." The Countess preserves her impenetrable composure; nothing in her betrays the deadly hatred with which she regards the titled ruffian who has insulted her. "You are master in this house, my Lord," is all she says. "Do as ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... with scorn and indignation, the dastardly falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought forward to the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stories you hear of this man, I hope," he said to his wife and sister, one morning; "he is some inhuman ruffian, who is disgracing, by his cruelty, the cause which he has joined, for the sake of plunder ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... red man saw me, an' his face grew blue on his big, fat neck. "Fwhat d'you want here?" sez he. "Standin'-room an' no more," sez I, "onless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an' that's manners, ye rafflin' ruffian," for I was not goin' to have the Service throd upon. "Out of this," sez he. "I'm in charge av this section av construction."—"I'm in charge av mesilf," sez I, "an' it's like I will stay a while. D'ye raffle much in these parts?"—"Fwhat's ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... divide cleave CLEVELAND City of Cleveland two twice (the heavy shell) mollusk unfamiliar word dictionary Johnson's JOHNSON son bad son (thievish bay) dishonest boy (back) Mac McKINLEY kill Czolgosz (zees) seize ruffian rough rider rouse ROOSEVELT size heavy ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... of this ruffian did not affect the value of the evidence which he had volunteered. Langholm was glad to remember that he had volunteered it; the creature was well served for his spite and his cupidity; and the man of peace and letters, whose temperament shrank from contention of any kind, could ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... Late that month Harry walked with him to Pappsville where a crowd had assembled to attend a public sale. When the auctioneer had finished Abe made his first stump speech. A drunken man tried to divert attention to himself by sundry interruptions. Harry asked him to be quiet, whereupon the ruffian and a friend pitched upon the boy and began to handle him roughly. Abe jumped down, rushed into the crowd, seized the chief offender and raising him off his feet flung him into the air. He hit the ground in a heap some four yards from where Abe stood. The latter ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... responsible for the hut to whom I could appeal, yet a glance within showed me an opening in the floor, covered as a rule by boards, which were now removed. There was a man in the hole, deep down and beyond it, in a tunnel, a man whose figure I could only just discern—a ruffian who was attempting to dig his way from the hut out beyond the wire entanglements. It was then, seeing there was no one here to support me, that I fired ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... murdered, Irish detectives made no effort to discover the wrong-doer; and that when the culprit was discovered the Irish law officers hesitated to prosecute; suppose that when a prosecution took place the Attorney-General showed that his heart was not in the matter, and that the jury acquitted a ruffian clearly guilty of murder, is it not as clear as day that smuggling would flourish and no customs be collected? In the same way the Irish Ministry might by mere apathy, by the very easy process of doing nothing, nullify the effect of judgments delivered by the Exchequer judges, and the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... officer and a brigand. The officer has a large wound across the temple, and attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, with hands clasped and eyes raised to a brigand, who grasps her by the hair ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... the same throbbing impulse, off he went, and within an hour presented his petition to Mr. Turnbull, who received him in his usual kind way, which caused the redoubtable ruffian to melt into tears, and volubly to confess all his murderous intentions towards the man he now believed to be the only agency on earth that ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... from his sleeve, the ruffian plunged it deeply into the poor creature's flesh. Nance winced, but she set her teeth hardly, and repressed the cry that must otherwise have ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... secret passages connecting them with other buildings, and are used for purposes of crime, or they have hiding places known only to the initiated, where the offender against the law may hide from the police, or where a ruffian may conceal or imprison his victim, without fear of detection. Rum, gin, whisky, and other liquors of the vilest kind, are used in profusion here. Some of these wretches never leave their dens, but remain in them ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... "Yes, and the ruffian may open on you again at any moment," warned Jack, keeping an anxious glance turned in the direction whence came the disturbing voice ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... the girls and many others. An attack on a servant with a knife is punished by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... effected with very bad grace by my host. The Baluch saddle consists simply of two sharp pieces of wood bound together by leathern thongs, and the exchange was by no means a welcome one so far as I was concerned. Had it cut me in two, however, I would have borne it, if only to punish this boorish ruffian for his insolence of yesterday. Malak's chief failing was evidently vanity, and he was very reluctant, even for an hour, to cede the place of honour to ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... gentle, trusting creatures of their treasure, or do any thing to strip them of their native robe of virtue? Curst be the impious hand that would dare to violate the unblemished form of Chastity! Thou wretch! thou ruffian! forbear; nor venture to provoke heaven's fiercest vengeance." I know not any comment that can be made seriously on this curious passage, and I could produce many similar ones; and some, so very sentimental, that I have heard rational men use the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Palmestrie, wherby to conueie to chast eares, som fond or filthie taulke: And if som Smithfeild Ruffian take vp, som strange going: som new mowing with the mouth: som wrinchyng with the shoulder, som braue prouerbe: som fresh new othe, that is not stale, but will rin round in the mouth: som new disguised garment, ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... to an end and separate me at once from the society of my brother (I'm afraid I cared much more about losing him than for the Turnours' loss of their Aigle) I was impelled to run down in my nightgown and mules to do battle single-handed with the ruffian; but suddenly, before I had quite decided, out went the light in the blue-curtained glass cage. In another instant the car door opened, and Jack Dane ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... corner, resumed his seat, and lighted a cob pipe. The son had leaned on his gun during the colloquy. Now he put it aside and lay down upon the floor to sleep. The awakened children slept. Maggie sat and smoked. My father, Joseph, and 'Tino talked in low tones. All at once the old ruffian took his pipe from his mouth and turned ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... remembrance of my sufferings when I was arrested. Not that I went to prison. In fact, I do not believe there was anything like a jail nearer than Iowa City or Dubuque; but Jim told me that he understood that I was a terrible ruffian and would have to be looked after very closely. He made me help him about the blacksmith shop, and I learned so much about blacksmithing that I finally set up a nice little forge on the farm and did a good deal of my own ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Let us have the credentials of this reformer before we listen to his accusation. I refuse to be judged by a dissolute ruffian, a divorced man and one accused of embezzling the funds of an investment society. Why did Councillor Quirk leave Goldenvale?" cried ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... King Giglio's camp, and found the young monarch in a disturbed state of mind, smoking cigars in the royal tent. His Majesty's agitation was not appeased by the news that was brought by his ambassador. "The brutal, ruthless ruffian royal wretch!" Giglio exclaimed. "As England's poesy has well remarked, 'The man that lays his hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is a ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... about that, boy," comforted Buck, noting his troubled face. "The fact that Madero had his men along the line shows that he anticipated our game—like the shrewd ruffian he is. It stands to reason he couldn't have his precious squadron, or column, or whatever he calls it, in two places at once, so I guess we'll be ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... followers—mostly rollicking and arrogant foreign adventurers—who robbed and devastated the land, and thrashed and even mutilated passers-by for fun, people looked forward with great fear to the accession of such a ruffian. A few years of responsibility, and failure, soon changed him into the noblest and most law-abiding of the Plantagenets. It was Wales which gave him his first lesson. He first tried his hand at the reorganisation of the "Middle Country," making it ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you love: else you might come to love both alike; or even the weaknesses ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... into bands numbering from five to twenty-five, each led by a bold, unscrupulous, energetic scoundrel. We now called them "Raiders," and the most prominent and best known of the bands were called by the names of their ruffian leaders, as "Mosby's Raiders," "Curtis's Raiders," "Delaney's Raiders," "Sarsfield's Raiders," "Collins's ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... lodges of the octroi, the pair of them facing each other at the Barriere de l'Etoile?) and among them a passionate lady in tears over the news, fresh that morning, of the assault on Sumner by the South Carolina ruffian of the House. The wounded Senator, injured in health, had come to Europe later on to recuperate, and he offered me my first view, to the best of my belief, not only of a "statesman," but of any person whomsoever concerned in political life. I distinguish ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... champion, James, Duke of Monmouth. In the West, which had answered the Duke's summons to revolt, there was established now a horrible reign of terror reflecting the bigoted, pitiless, vindictive nature of the King. Faversham had left Colonel Percy Kirke in command at Bridgwater, a ruthless ruffian, who at one time had commanded the Tangier garrison, and whose men were full worthy of their commander. Kirke's Lambs they were called, in an irony provoked by the emblem of the Paschal Lamb on the flag of this, the First Tangier Regiment, originally levied ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... wore a cuirass! What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian wished ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... from her bower, by murd'rous ruffian hands, Before the frowning king fair Inez stands; Her tears of artless innocence, her air So mild, so lovely, and her face so fair, Mov'd the stern monarch; when, with eager zeal, Her fierce destroyers urg'd the public weal; Dread rage again the tyrant's ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... dinner, Balmy? Bread 'n' treacle?" asked the young ruffian; then for the edification of his chums he snatched the boy's dinner bag and emptied its contents on ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... the evening, when it became his turn to speak. When Beecher arose he said: "When I came to this hall to-night I saw an old, crippled woman wending her way across the crowded street on crutches. When she had reached about midway, a burly ruffian came along and knocked the crutches out from under her, and she fell splash into the mud." Turning to Ingersoll, he said, "What do you think of that, Colonel?" "The villain!" replied Ingersoll. Beecher, pointing to Ingersoll, said: "Thou art the man! Suffering, heart- ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill's, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... century; but it was a very odd compliment to Queen Henrietta Maria to presume that these words must refer to her—something like Hugo's sarcasm that, when the Parisian police overhear any one use the terms "ruffian" and "scoundrel," they say, "You must be speaking of the Emperor." The Histrio-Mastix was, in fact, so big and so complex a thicket of confusion, that it had been licensed without examination by the licenser, who perhaps trusted that the world would have as little inclination to peruse it as ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... represented (Clennam called to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... answer, "He is my wedded husband." "'Tis well," cried he: "in very sooth it behoveth me to release him from the bitter pangs of jealousy and the sight of thee enfolded in another's fond embrace." Whereat the ruffian raised aloft the ill-fated Prince, bound foot and hand, and cast him into the sea, while I shrieked aloud and implored his mercy, but all in vain. Seeing the Prince struggling and drowning in the waves I cried out and screamed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... wife will trust you, although you take a strange woman into your tent, and you allow yourself to doubt her because her cousin gives her some flowers! Is that wise or just? I believe you are jealous of the broad-shouldered ruffian that some spiteful Wight laid in the nest of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... quickly. She knew the big ruffian's methods, and with good reason feared for her old friend, should he even ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... us altogether, Although I could not choose but fancy thee Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether Thou shouldst be seen in such a company Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps. But yet I may not, chide: fall to thy books, Fall to immediately without complaint— There they are lying, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... but if you have any sort of suspicion that one of three or four men might be likely to have a grudge against you, they may enable you to pick out the fellow who attempted my life. Of course I may be mistaken altogether and the fellow may have been only an ordinary street ruffian. Personally it won't make much difference to me, for I am pretty handy with my fists, but as I know you have had no practice that way, I recommend you always to carry a pistol when you go out ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... transcends All precedents, believe it, a flesh'd ruffian, That hath so often taken the Strappado, That 'tis to him but as a lofty trick Is to a tumbler: he hath perused too All Dungeons in Portu[g]al, thrice seven years Rowed in the Galleys for three several ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... truth, for weeks thereafter, Nan never saw a rough-looking man approach the house on the outskirts of Pine Camp, without fearing that here was coming a ruffian bent on ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... operating in the wilds of that state. Once they were safe in Mexico the cattle would be sold to old Pasquale for a fraction of their real value, the money received in exchange for them having been wrung by that old ruffian from some prisoner he had put to the torture to give up ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the contemplation even of a possibility of tarnish—such things are sufficient to poison the tranquillity, and, unless met by prompt vindication, to ruin the character of a public man; but in America, it is thought necessary to have recourse to other weapons. The strongest epithets of a ruffian ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... asked, "put his sovereign to death?" To which Mencius replied that any one who did violence to man's natural charity of heart, or failed altogether in his duty towards his neighbour, was nothing more than an unprincipled ruffian; and he insinuated that it had been such a ruffian, in fact, not an emperor in the true sense of the term, who had perished in the case they were discussing. Another and most important point to be remembered in any attempt to discover the real secret ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... a little bewildered between the dark night and the strange road, and, seeing the light in the church, I had just ridden up to inquire my way, when to my astonishment I saw you within, before the altar, struggling in the grasp of that ruffian. And you know the rest! And now let us ride on quickly, for I have a strong presentiment that Major Warfield is suffering the tortures of a lost soul through anxiety upon ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... fiction. It was the harder upon him that he knew himself no coward. He must punish the rascal somehow—he owed it to society to punish him; but at present he did not see how, and the first thing was to have the first word with Florimel; he must see her before she saw the ruffian. He rode as hard as he dared to Curzon Street, sent his groom to the stables, telling him he should want the horses again before lunch, had a hot bath, of which he stood in dire need, and some brandy with his breakfast, and then, all unfit for ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of his trombone; and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and to hang him, even if he were in their power, though that would ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... not an impossible character; whether Goethe's utterly undignified Mephistopheles is not the true ideal of an utterly evil spirit. Ungodliness, as we see it manifested in human beings, may be repulsive, as in the mere ruffian, whose mouth is filled with cursing, and his feet swift to shed blood. It may, again, be pitiable, as in those human butterflies, who live only to enjoy, or to minister to, what they call luxury and fashion. And it may be again—when it calmly and deliberately ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... not wonder if she were alone," said the old woman; "the ruffian father is always out; the drudging mother goes about this time to the town. They will neither stay at home, I wot, to grieve for him they let too often into that door, nor to comfort her he has left desolate. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the door a crack of a rifle was heard and the ruffian fell dead in his tracks. A yell of astonishment and ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... and weasel face bespoke him; he had come to know him as an insatiate gambler, the pitiful sort of gambler who is too much of a drunkard to be more than his opponent's dupe at cards. He had found him to be a brawler and very much of a ruffian. But though he did not close his eyes to these things they did not matter to him. For gratitude and a sense of loyalty were two of the strong silver threads that went to make up the mesh of Buck Thornton's nature, and it was enough to him that little ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... remarked to the O.C. and Kilbride: "I'm glad to be able to report a decided improvement in that man Hardy's condition. His pulse is stronger, his appetite is increasing and—he's beginning to grouse. That old ruffian of a farrier-corporal, McCullough, was right, begad!—he knew the man better than I did. As a general rule I'm inclined to be rather sceptical of such drastic experiments, but in ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... life and death to him to prevent your report from being sent to headquarters, and to have you removed altogether. This done, the facts might not leak out. It would be supposed, at Madrid, that you had been stabbed by some street ruffian. And, although another officer might be sent down to report, it is by no means likely that he would go so rigorously into matters as you did, but would be contented merely to count barrels and bales, without troubling to investigate ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... All the little ruffian bears hooted and shouted "ha-ha!" to see the beggar fall upon his face. There was one, however, who did not even smile. He was the youngest cub. His fur coat was not as black and glossy as those his elders wore. The hair was dry and dingy. It ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... assertiveness. And there's that ruffian who came down the river. What's he doing on the same ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... threats of personal violence to deter me from the regular performance of my judicial duties at the times and places fixed by law. As a judge of the highest court of the country, I should be ashamed to look any man in the face if I allowed a ruffian, by threats against my person, to keep me from holding the regular courts in ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... her spirit. But a memory of her first resolve came to her. From stark necessity, she put her whole reliance on an effort to temporize. She felt that her only recourse in this emergency must lie in deceiving the ruffian who thus beset her. Much as she abhorred him, she had no choice. There was none to whom she could appeal for succor. She must depend absolutely upon her ability to beguile him. She must hide the revulsion inspired by his mere presence. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... grace; Nor lost in time nor circumscribed by place. Happier his lot, who, many sorrows' pass'd, Long labouring gains his natal shore at last; Than who, too speedy, hastes to end his life By some stern ruffian, or adulterous wife. Death only is the lot which none can miss, And all is possible to Heaven but this. The best, the dearest favourite of the sky, Must taste that cup, for man is ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... man; and we knew at once, as anybody would, who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat, with the large metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth without a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very counterpart of himself, at his side. The vices of the boy had grown with the man, and we fancied his home then—if such a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in an Arizona town, Van had trounced a ruffian once in Queenie's protection—simply because of her gender and entirely without reference to her character or her future attitude towards himself. In her way she personified a sort of adoration and gratitude, which could neither be slain nor escaped ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... this affair of Lord Lufton's was ended, but it now appeared to Mark that it was not quite ended. "Tell Lufton, you know," said Sowerby, "that every bit of paper with his name has been taken up, except what that ruffian Tozer has. Tozer may have one bill, I believe,—something that was not given up when it was renewed. But I'll make my lawyer Gumption get that up. It may cost ten pounds or twenty pounds, not more. You'll remember that when you see ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... murder and other crimes in certain savage and disturbed countries, amongst which were specified New Zealand, Otaheite, and Honduras. Two others, in 1823 and 1828, gave the Australian courts jurisdiction over Whites in New Zealand. One White ruffian was actually arrested in New Zealand, taken back to Sydney, and executed. But this act of vigour did not come till the end of 1837. Then the crime punished was not one of the atrocities which for thirty years had made New Zealand a by-word. The criminal, Edward Doyle, paid the extreme penalty ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... determined. John was absent; Sarah, seeing the troopers gallop toward the house, poured a prayer over her babe, as it lay asleep in the crib, and fled in terror, hoping that sweet infancy would appeal to their hearts. A ruffian rushed in, and grasping the babe, shouted, "The nurse is not far away." He made it scream, to bring the mother back. She heard its pitiful cry; her heart was breaking, yet she was utterly powerless. She might expose herself, but she could not ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... a murderer asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... proceeded and were met by the village Fathers. Dr. S. was well known here and they had recognised him coming down. Five dear old boys they were, who kissed Dr. S. most affectionately, one unshaven old ruffian including me in his salute. I do not appreciate the Montenegrin custom of kissing among men; it is not pleasant. An empty hut was immediately put at our disposal. It was the most primitive and tumble-down habitation that ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... did kill that man for touching the ark to save it from falling, what do you think of him—as a God? I can tell you what you would think of him as a man. You would think he was a ruffian and a murderer—that is what you would think of ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... Upset me not a little, and I answered peremptorily;—"Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Queen and Maitland—not one of his supporters-with her. A scandalous divorce was pronounced between him and his wife, and Mary wedded him. The only credible explanation is that she was over-mastered by a passion for the daring ruffian who at least had always stood by her. The lords—accomplices in the murder with the rest—were almost immediately in arms to "rescue" the Queen, who took the field by her husband's side. The opposing forces met at Carberry Hill; Bothwell, seeing the contest to be ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Bushranger be regarded as the legitimate representative of the traditionary highwayman who levied toll at Highgate, or stopped the post-boy and captured the mailbags in Epping Forest. The real, living bushranger is, however, more of a ruffian and less of a hero than our ideal highwayman; for time, like distance, softens down the harsh and the coarse, and gives ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... victory to be as fruitless as it was brilliant. The ruffian troops, by whom it was gained, became immediately self-disbanded; threw off all authority; hastened to possess themselves of Antwerp; and threatened to proceed to the most horrible extremities if their pay was longer withheld. The citizens succeeded ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... way she had abandoned this very arm and hand to the white-haired ruffian. It rendered me gloomy and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... so the ruffian nearest him, with a hiss of rage, drew a knife, with which he made a wicked slash at Hal. Hal did not see the movement, being closely pressed elsewhere, but Chester, with a sudden cry, leaped forward and seized the hand holding the knife, just ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... objects more clearly, I perceived that there were two men standing on either side of him, with pistols in their hands; and it instantly occurred to me that they were there to act the part of executioners, and to blow his brains out, at the command of the ruffian I saw sitting as judge in this lawless court. We recognised each other at the same moment; and if I could judge by the expression of his countenance, he had more compassion for me than fear for himself. He made no attempt to speak to me, but instantly resumed ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... you; but it is certain that he will scheme night and day for vengeance. When the report gets abroad of his cock-and-bull story, and the true history of the loss of his teeth, he will not be able to show his face in public for some time; but he will be none the less dangerous. Through that notorious ruffian, Captain Copper, he can dispose of half the cutthroats about the town, and I should advise you not to go out after dark until you have put the seas between you and him, and even then you had better be cautious for ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... steel cane with her. In a second the ruffian had vanished, and a big black crow was flying about the room, crying ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... struggle. There are times when what should exasperate a people, strikes them with terror. The population of Paris felt that a ruffian had his foot upon his throat. It no longer offered any resistance. That same evening Mathieu (of the Drome) entered the place where the Committee of Resistance was sitting and said to us: 'We are no longer in Paris, we are no longer ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Sidney, turning extremely red, perhaps with anger. "Marshal, see this ruffian off the premises—and look here, just send for that rascally astrologer, will you? I'll make ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... poured— A sight by all abhorred! The grieving housewives eye it; heaped and blent, Earth's boons are spoiled and spent, And waste to nothingness; and O alas, Young maids, forlorn ye pass— Fresh horror at your hearts—beneath the power Of those who crop the flower! Ye own the ruffian ravisher for lord, And night brings rites abhorred! Woe, woe for you! upon your grief and pain There comes a fouler stain. [Enter, on one side, THE SPY; on the other, ETEOCLES ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... order. If there is a military mutiny in Egypt, or a Jehad in the Soudan, it is still Great Britain who has to set it right. And all to an accompaniment of curses such as the policeman gets when he seizes a ruffian among his pals. We get hard knocks and no thanks, and why should we do it? Let Europe do ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "thou art an inexorable ruffian, Troisboules; but I will give thee all I am worth." And here he produced a billet of five hundred francs. "Look," said he, "this money is all I own; it is the payment of two years' lodging. To raise it, I have toiled for many months; and, failing, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a large-limbed, formidable-looking ruffian on the summit, pointing his musket towards them; 'none passes here who does not bring a stone to raise our barricade for the rights of the Red Republic, and cry, La liberte, l'egalite, et la, fraternite, let it fit his perfidious tongue ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he has so persistently and cruelly persecuted, and then to have him show the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances, will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to his doom" over a ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... spades to write about. This was not the true Brann at all. The man was clean-minded in his conversation. He thought cleanly. He lived cleanly as a gentleman should, though he did not leave off sack. He was not a brawling, boisterous ruffian, reveling in the slums. He was essentially a family man and a student who "scorned delights and lived laborious days." His regard for the purity of women amounted almost to a monomania, and he lived up to his own ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... A ruffian band Rush in and savagely demand, With brutal voice and oath profane, The startled boy for ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... his horn, and his coat of mail hide. Then came the Hyena, whose cries authors say, } Oft lead the fond traveller out of his way, } Whom quickly he seizes and renders his prey. } The Wolf hasten'd hither, that Ruffian so bold, Who kills the poor sheep, when ...
— The Elephant's Ball, and Grand Fete Champetre • W. B.
... Soon, however, we found a rabble about us, who began to jerk our garments. I then turned and spoke to them, and they instantly rushed upon us like tigers. They seized Dr. Lobdell's hat, threw it into the air, and began to beat him. One ruffian seized me by the throat. By main strength I loosed his grasp, and was moving off, when two men tried to wrest my cane from me, but did not succeed. We retreated as last as possible, but when we got out of the reach of their hands, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... "Some ruffian who got in at Amiens, and who has had to be taught manners. I told him not to smoke here, and he wanted to intrude himself upon you, which I prevented, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious backhander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... surly Winter passes off Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... the most part actuated apparently by no other motive than a monstrously innate thirst for notoriety—and the victims, for the most part, too, have been the innocent and the defenceless. What is the end of this to be? If the police cannot cope with this blood-mad ruffian, is New York to sit idly by and submit to another reign of terror instituted and carried on under the nose of authority by this inhuman jackal? If so, we are committing a crime against ourselves, we ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Jason smiled. By this time I had grown accustomed to the darkness, the face and figure of the man in the bed had become discernible. Power, I remember thinking, chooses odd houses for itself. Here was no overbearing, full-blooded ward ruffian brimming with vitality, but a thin, sallow little man in a cotton night-shirt, with iron-grey hair and a wiry moustache; he might have been an overworked clerk behind a dry-goods counter; and yet somehow, now that I had talked to him, I realized that he never could have been. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of rage, scorn, and indignation were concentrated into that moment, and, smarting at the blow, he sprang upon the schoolmaster, wrested the weapon from him, and, pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian until he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... he sat writing at his desk in the Senate House, two men came up to him. One of these, a Senator and a slaveholder from South Carolina, of the name of Brooks, was armed with a heavy stick. This ruffian attacked Sumner from behind, felled him with a blow, and then beat him as he lay upon the floor, leaving him almost dead. For this grievous offence a small fine was imposed upon Brooks, and the amount was promptly paid by his admiring constituents. The ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... man, I think I know you. Aren't you the chap that torn my coat sometime ago? Answer me, sir," giving me a vigorous shake on the shoulder. "You are the very d——n young ruffian that did it, and I am going to give you such a thrashing ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat. "There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles—a builder— who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where those ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... such insolence?" sputtered Mr. Downes. "You see, Mary, what this young ruffian has done to poor Paul? Stand still, will you?" he added, jerking Paul around as he tried to untie the cod line. Paul began to snivel; I reckon his father pulled the line so tight that ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... outraged by this, or even by the slightest insult to that clergy whose willing slave she had become, that the only method of reclaiming the sinner had been long forgotten, in genuine horror at his sin. "Is it not enough," she went on, sternly, "that you should have become the bully and the ruffian of all the fens?—that Hereward the leaper, Hereward the wrestler, Hereward the thrower of the hammer—sports, after all, only fit for the sons of slaves—should be also Hereward the drunkard, Hereward the common fighter, Hereward the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... seat; and paying no attention to Ray, went alternately jerking and kicking up the row, while Dandy, startled, amazed, tortured, and high-strung, backed and plunged and tugged at the bit. A mother who sees her child abused by some ruffian of a big boy knows what Ray suffered from that scene. Only to such, and to the trooper who loves the horse who has borne him through charge after charge, who has been his comrade on campaign after campaign, shared wounds and danger and hunger and thirst ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... reasoned and well expressed. I wish, indeed, that the ingenious authour had not thought it necessary to introduce any instance of 'a man eminently virtuous;' as he would then have avoided mentioning such a ruffian as Brutus under that description. Mr. Belsham discovers in his Essays so much reading and thinking, and good composition, that I regret his not having been fortunate enough to be educated a member of our excellent national establishment. Had he not been nursed in nonconformity, he probably ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Samson. That skilful pugilist bent his knees, slided his shoulders back, and, avoiding the clutch, raised, and threw his trunk forward, with the blow studied well, and planted his knuckles in the white man's eyes. The tall ruffian went down as from a ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the night. The brave little fellow, it seemed, from the story told by the doctor, had been cruelly cut down by the wretch I had killed, in revenge for the child having resented with a blow an attempted insult to his mother made by the ruffian after all the crew and male passengers of the Indiaman had been secured. I am not ashamed to say that on hearing this I regretted having slain the villain, I felt that death by the sword was too good for him, hanging in chains being more ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... apartments like a palace, all covered with gold and ivory, which the king kept as a pleasure-yacht for his own use. Exasperated against Gonzalez for his treachery, the king ordered the nephew of that lawless ruffian, who was in his power as a hostage, to be be impaled. But Gonzalez, being a person utterly devoid of honour, cared not at whose cost he advanced his own interests; yet the guilt of so many villanies began to prey upon his conscience, and he became apprehensive of some heavy punishment ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... love with the girl, and I believe she is with me. I ought to have nipped my feelings in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand, who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. To what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be respected?" and I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this train of thought, until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my escort, with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence had been the cause of much anxiety, and my fate ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... made Nikolai rush upon him, and Veyergang, with a cry of "You cowardly ruffian!" returned the blow with his walking-stick right across Nikolai's face, so ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... they commenced hewing off a part of it with their tomahawks, and when a passage was thus opened, one of them attempted to enter through it. The heroic Mrs. Merril, in the midst of her screaming and affrighted children, and her groaning suffering husband, seized an axe, gave the ruffian a fatal blow, and [301] instantly drew him into the house. Supposing that their end was now nearly attained, the others pressed forward to gain admittance through the same aperture. Four of them were in like manner despatched by Mrs. Merril, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... steward was seeking a resting-place for his weary head, Dock Vincent walked down to the Point to ascertain whether or not he had killed his victim. He was gone, and the ruffian went home again. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... Gibson," said the landlord, genially pointing out the black-bearded ruffian, "and the young lawyer feller hez git a jedgment ag'in him. He's got spunk, but I reckon Hump'll t'ar the innards out'n him ef he stands thar ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Frenchman, how she had been treated. "Il n'y a pas de mal, mon ami," replied Madame de Fontanges. This was a jesuitical sort of answer, and Monsieur de Fontanges required further particulars. "Elle avoit temporisee" with the ruffian, with the faint hope of that assistance which had so opportunely and unexpectedly arrived. Monsieur de Fontanges was satisfied with his wife's explanation; and such being the case, what passed between Jackson and Madame ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said, "Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won't eat that ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be thought that Eliphalet was without other interests. He was likewise too shrewd to be dragged into political discussions at the boarding-house table. He listened imperturbably to the outbursts against the Border Ruffian, and smiled when Mr. Abner Reed, in an angry passion, asked him to declare whether or not he was a friend of the Divine Institution. After a while they forgot about him (all save Miss Crane), which was what Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... contentment springing from a thorough delivery of the fist upon the prominent features of an assailant that yields to it perforce. Even when you receive such perfect blows you are half satisfied. Feeling conqueror, my wrath was soothed; I bent to have a look at my ruffian, and ask him what cause of complaint gipsies camping on Durstan could find against Riversley. A sharp stroke on the side of my neck sent me across his body. He bit viciously. In pain and desperation I flew at another of the tawny devils. They multiplied. I took to my heels; but this ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... amidst the army; Pray, sweat to find him out.— [Exit Captain.] This place I'll keep. Now wounds are wide, and blood is very deep; 'Tis now about the heavy tread of battle; Soldiers drop down as thick as if death mowed them; As scythe-men trim the long-haired ruffian fields, So fast they fall, so fast to fate ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... at that moment; but, as the third fellow caught him by the wrist, the young man wrenched his head on one side, and heaved himself up, so that he partially dislodged the ruffian who held him down. At the same time he swung the sabre round, driving the third back, and striking the principal adversary so sharp a blow that he slipped aside, and Capel leaped to ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... composed after his marriage in the summer and autumn of 1815, appeared in the following year. The former is founded on the siege of the city, when the Turks took it from Menotti; but our attention is concentrated on Alp the renegade, another sketch from the same protoplastic ruffian, who leads on the Turks, is in love with the daughter of the governor of the city, tries to save her, but dies. The poem is frequently vigorous, but it ends badly. Parisina, though unequal, is on the whole a poem of a higher order than the others of the period. The ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... passengers of their valuables. In this work, Black Harry took the lead; but Mr. Robert Dawson, an Eastern banker, who happened to have quite a sum on his person, objected, and snatched the mask from the young ruffian's face. Before the eyes of Miss Lona Dawson, who was traveling with her father, Black Harry deliberately shot the banker down, and then relieved him of his watch, diamond pin, and pocketbook, having first re-covered his face with ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... 'What a ruffian!'—(puff)—observed Mr. Waffles, taking his cigar from his mouth as he sat on the bench, dressed as a racket-player, looking on at the game, 'he shalln't ride roughshod ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... advent and fragments of his story spread so quickly through the barracks that mess after mess swarmed down from the upper moors and out into the roadway to see Bobby. Private McLean stood in the door, smoking a cutty pipe, and grinning with pride in the merry little ruffian of a terrier, who met the friendly advances of the soldiers more than half-way. Bobby's guardian would have liked very well to have sat before the canteen in the sun and gossiped about his small charge. However, in the ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... interspersed with ringing reminiscences of the heroic early history of Kansas. Mrs. S. N. Wood, who in the Border Ruffian days went through the enemy's lines and at great personal peril brought into beleaguered Lawrence the ammunition which enabled it to defend itself, came to the platform to add her good word for equal suffrage. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... pages afford useful hints not lightly to be disregarded. During some portion of Johnson's married life he had lodgings, first at Greenwich, afterwards at Hampstead. But he did not always go home o' nights; sometimes preferring to roam the streets with that vulgar ruffian Savage, who was certainly no fit company for him. He once actually quarreled with Tetty, who, despite her ridiculous name, was a very sensible woman with a very sharp tongue, and for a season, like stars, they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the ruffian, cynically. "I've got to get to Cologne some time to-day, and there seems no other way of doing ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... his sister. The lad picked up a revolver from where it had fallen as its owner retreated and fired point blank at Mike. The ruffian crumpled up and went down in a heap, as Rosemary herself, unable to stand the strain longer, ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... love. Esther, in fact, kept her eyes fixed on her good-looking English lover, firmly keeping down the shudder of loathing which went right through her when she saw those awful men coming nigh her. There was one especially whom she abominated worse than the others, a bandy-legged ruffian, who regarded her with a leer that caused her an almost physical nausea. He did not take part in the perquisition, but sat down in the centre of the room and sprawled over the table with the air of ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... whom were also Barbillon and the two murderers arrested at the tapisfranc at the comencement of this story), was Nicholas Martial, the son and brother of the women for whom the scaffold was erected close at hand. Dragged into this act of inhuman insensibility by one of his companions, a formidable ruffian, this wretch dared, with the aid of his disguise, to yield himself to the last joys of the carnival. The woman with whom he danced was dressed as a sutler, with a leathern cap rather the worse for wear, the ribbons ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... by the villainy of a native, orders all to be put to the sword, and at last enters the Cloister, raging with the thirst of blood, and panting for destruction; he meets Cartesmunda, whose beauty stops his ruffian violence, and melts him, as it were, into a human creature. The language of this play is as modern, and the verses as musical as those of Rowe; fire and elevation run through it, and there are many strokes ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... blood, why doe ye seeke us? I have knowne the day you have wayted like a suppliant And those knees bended as I past. Is there no reverence Belonging to me left now, that like a Ruffian Rudely ye force my lodgings? No punishment Due to a ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... at the gate with the orange rosette on his coat and the stick in his right hand. He was just in time, for yells of "Psalm-singing old hypocrite!" were already in the air, and the fence was being stormed. George administered to the foremost ruffian a blow on the shoulder which felled him on the path outside, and then, standing on the low brick wall on which the railings rested, showed his rosette, brandished his club, and made some kind of inarticulate expostulation, which, happily for him and Mr. Broad, was received with cheers. Whether ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... help him at his need as he dealt forth punishment to that man, if he caught him within his grasp. Those who had hitherto known Morton in the island, could not recognise the man as he came forth on that day, thirsty after blood, and desirous to thrust himself into personal conflict with the wild ruffian who had injured him. The meek Presbyterian minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of peace, and living in accordance with his own doctrines. The world had been very quiet for him, and he had walked quietly in his appointed path. But ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... Marston," said he, taking my hand. "As the ruffian in the school fable says, 'Hodie tibi, cras nihi'—twelve hours will probably make ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Emperor Barbarossa laid out for all Italy. In Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great you can read a pleasanter account of the Emperor's business at Roncaglia about this time than our Italian chroniclers will give you. Carlyle loves a tyrant; and if the tyrant is a ruffian and bully, and especially a German, there are hardly any lengths to which that historian will not go in praise of him. Truly, one would hardly guess, from that picture of Frederick Redbeard at Roncaglia, with the standard set before his tent, inviting ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... thoughts were in my mind, the cringing, foul-mouthed, brutal, contemptible ruffian who had caused all this misery stood within two paces of me! I could have reached out my hand, and, with half an effort, have crushed him, and—I did not do it! Some invisible Power held my arm, for murder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... sane attitude of the watching Gus suffered a sudden change when, as the ascending ruffian fairly stumbled upon the other figure crouching on the hillside, a scream, unmistakably that of a female in dire distress, came to the ears of the witness. He could dimly see the two struggling together, the dark figure with the white. The next instant, forgetting ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... much over-night—Oh, no! it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a deep whisper from the further end ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... never before handled a pick and shovel), I hear a rattling noise among the brush. My faithful dog, Bonaparte, would not keep under my control. "What's up?" "Your licence, mate." was the peremptory question from a six-foot fellow in blue shirt, thick boots, the face of a ruffian armed with a carbine and fixed bayonet. The old "all right" being exchanged, I lost sight of that specimen of colonial brutedom and his similars, called, as I then learned, "traps" and "troopers." I left off work, and was unable to do a stroke more ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you love: else you might come to love both alike; or even the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... "Insolent ruffian!" muttered Tharon this day, frowning above her daddy's pipes on the desk top. "He's goin' t' get one run for his money from now till one of us is whipped. It may be me, but I'll leave my mark ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... impressively, in the darkness amidships: "You don't deserve a kindness. I've been drying them for you, and now you complain about the holes—and you swear, too! Right in front of me! If I hadn't been a Christian—which you ain't, you young ruffian—I would give you a clout on the head.... Go away!" Men in couples or threes stood pensive or moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of a homeward passage was sinking into the dull peace of resumed routine. Aft, on the high poop, Mr. Baker walked shuffling and grunted ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... mean to say that you disbelieve this gentleman, who, at the risk of his life, arrested this ruffian and ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... greasy, swaggering ruffian, but he only swore, and reiterated his threats. Then I told him to be gone for an insolent savage, and that if I found him prowling about the Fort again, I should send my men to take charge of him. Thereat his squaws began to jeer, and cut capers; and squatting ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... to bed, and left this great question to be settled among their generals. But unfortunately their generals were not of a turn of mind to agree on anything; and after spending nine days in angry discussion, concluded with calling one another such names as-"robber," "ruffian," "coward." In fact each general had such a longing for the crown, and fancied himself possessed of such a rare talent for governing, that neither coaxing nor beseeching could have brought them to an agreement on this matter of the crown. And this was to be regretted, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... to-morrow. I suppose there will be a notice in The Study and some of the other papers. I hope somebody will make it an opportunity to have a hit at that ruffian Fadge. By-the-by, it doesn't much matter now how you speak of Fadge; but I was a trifle anxious when I heard your story ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... speech at Pappsville, Illinois, when a candidate for the Legislature the first time. A free-for-all fight began soon after the opening of the meeting, and Lincoln, noticing one of his friends about to succumb to the energetic attack of an infuriated ruffian, edged his way through the crowd, and, seizing the bully by the neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him, by means of his strength and long arms, as one witness stoutly insists, "twelve feet away." Returning to the stand, ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... suppressed by the lash, or, if necessary, by the gallows. His sentences, I am told, were not more severe than those of other judges: though mention is made of one case in early days in which he was thought to be too hard upon a ruffian who, on coming out of gaol, had robbed a little child of a sixpence. But his mode of passing sentence showed that his hatred of brutality included hatred of brutes. He did not affect to be reluctant to do his duty. He did not explain that he was acting for the real good of the prisoner, or apologise ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... were genuine, that he felt. There was nothing playful or mocking in her tone at the moment. She saw him as he was, a reckless, vengeful young ruffian, and ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... groping in the dark, without a single clew. All I know is that Coombs is a big ruffian, but too cowardly to commit murder. The Creole might, and I would n't trust Sallie with a knife on a dark night, but, in my judgment, there are others involved ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... in the shed. The red man saw me, an' his face grew blue on his big, fat neck. "Fwhat d'you want here?" sez he. "Standin'-room an' no more," sez I, "onless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an' that's manners, ye rafflin' ruffian," for I was not goin' to have the Service throd upon. "Out of this," sez he. "I'm in charge av this section av construction."—"I'm in charge av mesilf," sez I, "an' it's like I will stay a while. D'ye ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... she were alone," said the old woman; "the ruffian father is always out; the drudging mother goes about this time to the town. They will neither stay at home, I wot, to grieve for him they let too often into that door, nor to comfort her he has left desolate. But it matters little whether they be in or ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... had now dawned, the date set for the free dinner (at Trimalchio's,) but battered as we were, flight seemed more to our taste than quiet, so (we hastened to our inn and, as our wounds turned out to be trifling, we dressed them with vinegar and oil, and went to bed. The ruffian whom we had done for, was still lying upon the ground and we feared detection.) Affairs were at this pass, and we were framing melancholy excuses with which to evade the coming revel, when a slave of Agamemnon's burst in upon our trembling conclave and said, "Don't you know with whom ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... The Opening of Kansas Territory. Andrew H, Reeder Appointed Governor. Atchison's Propaganda. The Missouri Blue Lodges. The Emigrant Aid Company. The Town of Lawrence Founded. Governor Reeder's Independent Action. The First Border Ruffian ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... ancient pattern. He was a big fellow with a swarthy face and bad eyes, and his ears were adorned with gold rings. Mr. Darling did not relish the fellow's looks, and so passed him without halting, alert, with his right hand on the butt of a pistol in his pocket. This picturesque ruffian was heading northward. After passing Mr. Darling he turned and glanced back several times, his interest doubtless attracted by the respectability of the other's appearance and the bulging saddle-bags. ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... her, by all saints I swear," Quoth Porphyro: "O may I ne'er find grace When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer, If one of her soft ringlets I displace, Or look with ruffian passion in her face: Good Angela, believe me by these tears; 150 Or I will, even in a moment's space, Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears, And beard them, though they be more fang'd than wolves ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... rooad as fast as he could, an abaat twenty yards thro' th' corner, he seed a regular offal lukkin feller strugglin wi a young lady under a gas pooast.—As sooin as th' ruffian seed Sydney commin, he bolted ovver a wall, in a way at showed at it worn't th' furst time at he'd takken to his heels to ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... to what I say, a fright. Why! Do you suppose I would advise a crime? Good God! the very idea fills me with horror, and I fancy I can see before my eyes blood and fire! Nothing of the sort, senora. A fright—nothing but a fright, which will make that ruffian understand that we are well protected. He goes alone to the Casino, senora, entirely alone; and there he meets his valiant friends, those of the sabre and the helmet. Imagine that he gets the fright ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... himself so boldly, Hi stepped out into the open space, raised his revolver and fired three shots into the air, the signal of recall for Lieutenant Wingate. Then, gathering Grace in his arms, he started for the camp in long strides, raging silently at the ruffian who had tried to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... that her father complained of "too much spring-time!" The whole place, including his own bedroom, was a young damsel's boudoir, he said, so that nowhere could he smoke a cigar without feeling like a ruffian. However, he was smoking when George arrived, and he encouraged George to join him in the pastime, but the caller, whose air was both tense and preoccupied, declined with ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... be an umbrella, against the attacks of a tall, strapping fellow, in a rough frieze coat, who was endeavouring to wrest his weapon from him. A still more formidable adversary was, however, approaching in the shape of a second ruffian, who had armed himself with a thick stake out of the hedge, and was creeping cautiously up behind the shorter man, with 231the evident intention of knocking him on the head. I instantly determined to frustrate his benevolent design, nor was there much time to lose, if I wished my assistance ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... cried the prostrate ruffian, who had lost a tooth and bled freely at the nose. The other two prepared to pile, when the schoolmaster faced one of them, and kept him off. It is hard to say how matters would have gone, had not a tornado entered the bar room in ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... and one morning Gon lay before the house door, basking in the sun. He looked lazily at the world stretched out before him, and saw in the distance a big ruffian of a cat teasing and ill-treating quite a little one. He jumped up, full of rage, and chased away the big cat, and then he turned to comfort the little one, when his heart nearly burst with joy to find that it was Koma. At first Koma did not know him again, he had grown so large ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Oriental heresies of the Middle Ages in Europe, I would place that of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, who is generally regarded by readers as simply 'a horrid creature,' who chased 'that darling Rebecca' out of the window to the verge of the parapet; or at best as a knightly ruffian, who, like most ruffianly sinners, quieted conscience by stifling it with doubt. Very different, however, did the Templar appear to Scott himself, who, notwithstanding the poetic justice meted to the knight, evidently sympathized in secret more warmly with him than with any ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... am ever at the mercy of that ruffian," he thought, "I wouldn't give much for my chance of keeping ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... screw loose in my intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... presses fiendishly on an intimate discovery in the nature of his friends, both because it gives him a new and delightful feeling of power over them, and also because he has not learned charity from a sense of his deficiencies, the brave ruffian having none. He is always coming back to probe the raw place, and Barbie boys were always coming back to "do a gunk" and "play a chaw" on young Gourlay by boasting their knowledge of the world, winking at each other the while to observe his grinning anger. They were ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... hard at him. He too had been a fighting man, but it was not his reputation for gameness that restrained the ruffian. Wadley was a notch too high for him. He could kill another bad-man or some drunken loafer and get away with it. But he had seen the sentiment of the country when his brother had wounded the cattleman. It would not do to go too ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... in the collected courage of a brave man more impressive than any menace; and courage is a thing which acts upon all natures, however vile. Strongly moved by the calm audacity of the magistrate the ruffian, who had seized the knife with menacing vivacity, now set it down upon the table, and with a faltering voice said, "Vous tes un brave, citoyen!" then after a pause, "I am a lost man—it's all up with me; but you shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... at hearing this remark. To his mind it seemed to imply that the mysterious dweller of the strange cabin on Catamount Island must be an escaped convict, a desperate ruffian, who might take a notion to murder them all in ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... her eyes, and for a moment the face that looked up into the ruffian's was almost beautiful in its expression of entire devotion ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... I'm a small man—a little G.P. in an obscure Highland village in rather shabby tweed knickerbockers and Inverness cape (yes, the same ones—still no new clothes! What would be the use in wasting money on adorning an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him. The point was not what I was wanting to know about. I was wanting, very much, to have a 'bit crack' with him, as they call it here. Lassie, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... longer doubtful. Clement, who by his pennywise parsimony had left himself defenceless, made a feeble and wholly vain attempt to put the city in a state of defence. The corrupt and cowardly citizens could not have opposed any valid resistance to the ruffian hordes who were slowly but surely, like an advancing conflagration, coming upon them, even if they had been willing to do their best. But the trembling Pope's appeal to them to defend the walls fell on the ears of as sorely trembling men, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Pompey, on the other hand, was nearly as warmly engaged in favor of Hypsaeus and Scipio, though in the turn which affairs took he seems to have been willing enough to accept the office himself when it came in his way. Milo and Clodius had often fought in the streets of Rome, each ruffian attended by a band of armed combatants, so that in audacity, as Asconius says, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... him to the earth with a single blow, tore the dagger from his hand, and sprang to his feet again just in time to strike his new weapon full into the third pursuer's face. The man put his hand to his head, and recoiled against a fellow-ruffian, who was close on his heels. Philammon, flushed with victory, took advantage of the confusion, and before the worthy pair could recover, dealt them half a dozen blows which, luckily for them, came from an unpractised hand, or the young monk might have had more ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... through the dark and bawl back, "All's well here too"; and all night long the two sentries bawl back and forward to each other through the dark. Sometimes, too, though strictest orders are issued against such ruffian warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by rat-tat-too of Lewiston, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Stygian stream, at the point where the missing boat had been moored. "Think of it, gentlemen, Elizabeth of England, Calpurnia of Rome, Ophelia of Denmark, and every precious jewel in our social diadem gone, vanished completely; and with whom? Kidd, of all men in the universe! Kidd, the pirate, the ruffian—" ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... woman; in a while it mounted to her knees, then to her waist, then to her chin, then to her lips; and when she was almost stifled by the rising waves, and the bubbling groan of her last agony was reaching her fellow-martyr farther up the beach, one heartless ruffian stepped up to Margaret Wilson, and, with a fiendish grin and mocking laugh, asked her, 'What think you of your friend now?' And what was the calm and noble reply? 'What do I see but Christ, in one of his members, wrestling there? Think you that we are the sufferers? No. It ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... as he was passing along the street an audacious newsboy came up to him and gave him a push, while another sneeringly asked him for his card. Seizing the latter by the shoulder he fairly kicked the astonished ruffian half across the square. "There," said he, "is my card, keep it and when you want work come to me, present that card, and I will give you work." This ended all further molestation ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... of the cool yet romantic gallantry of the achievement. Kinmont Willie was a ruffian, but he had been unlawfully seized. This was one of many studied insults passed by Elizabeth's officials on Scotland at that time, when the English Government, leagued with the furious pulpiteers of the Kirk, and with Francis Stewart, the wild Earl ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... as, the swaying of a reed in the wind. Sway used transitively especially applies to motions of grace or dignity; brandish denotes a threatening or hostile motion; a monarch sways the scepter; the ruffian brandishes a club. To reel or totter always implies liability to fall; reeling is more violent than swaying, tottering more irregular; a drunken man reels; we speak of the tottering step of age or infancy. An extended mass which seems to lack solidity or ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... women. Some stagger. All blaspheme. Men with rings in their ears instead of their nose; and blotches of breast-pin. Pictures on the wall cut out of the Police Gazette. A slush of beer on floor and counter. A pistol falls out of a ruffian's pocket. By the gas-light a knife flashes. Low songs. They banter, and jeer, and howl, and vomit. An awful goal, to which hundreds of people better than you ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... smashed and extinguished the lantern in Pica's hand without hurting him; the second took effect, and the Captain staggered against the wall, but instead of falling, sat down suddenly on the wet ground with his back against the masonry. The ruffian was gone and Pica had dashed after him in a fruitless pursuit, for the breaking of the lantern in his hand had checked the orderly as he was about to spring at the miscreant, who thus gained a sufficient start ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... girls and many others. An attack on a servant with a knife is punished by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and the injured ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... A gang of desperate desperados, headed by the ruffianly ruffian whom they call The Baron, will be here to-night. I shall be hiding under the counter. Ten men and two dachshunds surround the house. If you betray me your licence will not be worth ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... deeply one so generally beloved as Edward O'Connor was a thorough ruffian. His answer to Edward's query sprang not from love of O'Grady, nor abhorrence of taking human life, but from the opportunity of retort which the occasion offered upon one who had once checked him in an act ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... frontier, in the early days, a weakling staked out an agricultural or mining claim. A ruffian appears, who is a sure shot, jumps the claim and drives the other out. It was the rule of the strong arm, and it was evident on the frontier all ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... breath, and in tones that were woefully unlike to those of the bold, lion-like scout of former days, he told how he had fainted and fallen on the breast of his master, how he had lain all night on the battle-field among the dead and dying, how he had been stripped and left for dead by the ruffian followers of the camp, and how at last he had been found and rescued by one of the ambulance-wagons of ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... the distinct hearing of what he said, had been discussing with heat the alarming confirmation of their fears in respect to Holkerstein, or listening to the impassioned narrative of a woman, who had already seen one of her sons butchered by this ruffian's people under the walls of the city, and was now anticipating the same fate for her last surviving son and daughter, in case they should happen to be amongst the party now expected from Vienna. She had just recited the tragical circumstances of her ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... who I believe would have ravished me, had there not been with him a grave old gentleman, who repressed him: but when he gets out of the sight of his tutor, I'll warrant you he'll spare no woman he meets, young or old."' 'No, sir,' I replied, 'she'll say, "There was a terrible ruffian who would have forced me, had it not been for a civil decent young man who, I take it, was an angel sent from heaven to ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... visitors, in a foreign language of which Hiram understood nothing. Neither of the two strangers spoke a word to Hiram: the little man shot him a sharp look out of the corners of his eyes and the burly ruffian scowled blackly at him, but beyond that neither vouchsafed him ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... legends tell, When he, the meek One, bowed his head to death E'en on an aspen cross, when some near dell Was visited by men whose every breath That Sufferer gave them. Hastening to the wood— The wood of aspens—they with ruffian power Did hew the fair, pale tree, which trembling stood As if awestruck; and from that fearful hour Aspens have quivered as with conscious dread Of that foul crime which bowed ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... philosopher nor a politician, and she had never speculated on the question as to how near of kin virtue and vice may be. She had never considered how narrow a space it is that very often divides the hero from the criminal, the patriot from the assassin, the gentleman from the ruffian, the Christian saint from the red-handed savage. Her heart was hot with wrath and her tongue was ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... cuirass! What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian wished ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... the equally sanguinary royal governor of Chili, Sanchez, carrying on a most horrid and cruel war of extermination against the republican inhabitants of the southern part of Chili. Into the hands of this murderous ruffian and his ragamuffin gang the Swan was delivered; but the villany of her piratical crew was soon to receive its just punishment. Benavidas, who suspected them of having kept back no trifling part of the plunder, with very little privacy and no formality, shot them all but Longford, whom, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... him, and meanwhile here is something to please you." Norvin handed the old ruffian a gold coin, greatly to his delight. "They have been gone two months and you have ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Jeanne's ruffian Protestant general, tore through this Catholic valley in 1569, with his devastating mercenaries. It recovered heart, flowered afresh, and was swept again by enemies from a neighboring province. Often a winter storm will expose bedrock throughout precious roods of sloping harvest-land, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... embrace: it was the last act he had to record before entering the spirit world. Hilda drew from her bosom one of the daggers which Jean had noticed on the tower walls, whose blade, still sharp and keen, might have been forged by a Damascus smith; it struck deep to the heart of the ruffian, who fell lifeless into the waves. Jean had now freed the craft, but the respite was short: before she had made much progress she was again captured. The pirates, furious at the death of their comrade, made a determined onslaught. Jean, fighting desperately, received ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... light of a neighboring lamp shone down upon the savage face, and a smothered yell came from the shorter ruffian: ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... an assassin, Proculejus rushed upon her, seized her arm, and wrested the weapon from her grasp. His tall figure concealed her from me. But when, struggling to escape from the ruffian's clutch, she again turned her face towards the hall, what a transformation had occurred! Her eyes—you know how large they are—were twice their usual size, and blazed with scorn, fury, and hatred for the traitor. The cheering light had become ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a man of base estate and condition." {2b} The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has been traced to a date behind the Norman Conquest, but of Knox's ancestors nothing is known. He himself, in 1562, when he "ruled the roast" in Scotland, told the ruffian Earl of Bothwell, "my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, and my father, have served your Lordship's predecessors, and some of them have died under their standards; and this" (namely goodwill to the house of the feudal superior) "is a part of the obligation of our Scottish kindness." ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... superiority Upset me not a little, and I answered peremptorily;—"Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... than comic oddities, but they were to myself so far a definite irritant that I devised, though I never showed them to him, a series of pictures called "The Radical's Progress," in which the hero began as a potboy in a public house, and ended as an overdressed ruffian, waving a tall silk hat and throwing rotten eggs at Conservative voters from a cart. A taste of Mr. Philpot's equalitarian sentiments was given to us one day at luncheon, the occasion being his wife's commendation of a celebrated Sussex bootmaker who had just called for orders. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... household affairs, and a lively widow-vole flirted so outrageously with bachelor Kweek that, having at last fallen a victim to her persistent attentions, he was never happy save in her company. Unfortunately a big ruffian mouse also succumbed to the widow's wiles, and Kweek found himself awkwardly placed. He fought long and stubbornly against his rival, but, unequally matched and sorely scratched and bitten, was at last forced to rustle ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... criminals; the public headsman was entrusted with the duty, and for a "nose medicine," or bribe of two bus (about three shillings), would substitute the weapon of a private individual for that of his Lord. Dogs and beggars, lying helpless by the roadside, not unfrequently serve to test a ruffian's sword; but the executioner earns many a fee from those who wish to see how their blades will ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... high on that!" exclaimed one of the two men who had approached, a low-browed, bestial ruffian. "Half a' thousan' 's more'n I could pan out in a fortnight, no matter how good luck I had. Parson he is a fool, but we, hain't no right to grumble 'bout it, seein' ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... asked of his host. "Why, I told you," said Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "They have got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers and police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's my daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and preaching to me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at the Court. I trust ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to do would be to apply to the police, have the ruffian run to earth and arrested, no matter what his position. The worst of it is, though, I'm not anxious to have the eye of the Spanish police turned upon me, and there are those who count on ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... an easy position when you sleep, if you have any choice between angels and gorgons. At midnight, seizing a chair, I ran into the next room, resolving to kill, at the first stroke, the ruffian who was murdering a member of my household. But there was no ruffian. The sweet girl had, during the day, been reading of St. Bartholomew's massacre, and was now lying on her back, dreaming it all ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... light of Christ, that also will convince of or make known sin; For by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). If thou dost call even nature itself, the light of Christ; That also doth shew, that sins are a shame, even those sins which some leap over (1Cor 11:14), and ruffian-like they will wear long hair, which nature itself forbiddeth, and is commended for the same by the apostle. The Spirit of Christ also will convince of sin. That, because these several things will convince ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all the refinements of cultivated life and all the associations of years of happiness sent out upon the wide world wanderers and houseless, while their hearth, sacred by every tie that binds us to our kindred, was to be desecrated by the ruthless and savage hands of a ruffian soldiery. I thought of them,—perhaps at that very hour their thoughts were clinging round the old walls, remembering each well-beloved spot, while they took their lonely path through mountain and through valley,—and felt ashamed and abashed at my own ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... who from time to time seeks to take some mean advantage of a heroine in distress, on which occasions said heroine (of Adelphi Drama) will request him to "unhand her," or to "stand aside and let her pass;" whereupon the dastardly ruffian retaliates with a diabolical sneer of fiendish malice, his eyes ablaze with passion, as, making his melodramatic exit at the O.P. wing, he growls, "Aha! a day will come!" or "She must and shall be mine!" or, if not making his exit, but remaining in centre of stage to assist in forming a picture, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... Greene's jolly companions at this fatal banquet. After Greene's death Harvey replied to some reflections made upon him by Greene, and called him in accordance with the amenities of the times, "a wilde head, ful of mad braine and a thousand crotchets; a scholler, a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a gamester, a lover, a souldier, a trauailer, a merchant, a broker, an artificer, a botcher, a pettifogger, a player, a coosener, a rayler, a beggar, an omnium-gatherum, a gay-nothing, a stoare-house of bald and baggage stuffe, unworth ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
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