|
|
|
More "Straggler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... calm; when the last straggler had marched through to the front and Johnston's junction with Magruder was accomplished. The rosy clouds faded into gray again; and, though the fluttering pulse of Richmond beat a little more steadily, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... that the art of this period (fifth to eighth centuries), was a typical primitive movement. To call the great vital art of the Liang, Chen, Wei, and Tang dynasties a development out of the exquisitely refined and exhausted art of the Han decadence—from which Ku K'ai-chih is a delicate straggler—is to call Romanesque sculpture a development out of Praxiteles. Between the two some thing has happened to refill the stream of art. What had happened in China was the spiritual and emotional revolution that followed the ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... folk to doors and windows to see them pass, the war-cry of the men that fight the flames. Charioteers behind blood-horses bathed in foam; heads helmeted in flashing splendour; eyes all intent upon the track ahead, keen to anticipate the risks of headlong speed and warn the dilatory straggler from its path. Nearer and nearer—in a moment it will pass and take some road unknown to us, to say to fires that even now are climbing up through roof and floor, clasping each timber in a sly embrace fatal as the caress ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age, I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... territories remain altogether uninhabited; the natives invariably dwelling in the depths of the valleys, with a view of securing themselves from the predatory incursions of their enemies, who often lurk along their borders, ready to cut off any imprudent straggler, or make a descent upon the inmates of some sequestered habitation. I several times met with very aged men, who from this cause had never passed the confines of their native vale, some of them having never ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... halts upon the march were made at frequent intervals, and the men soon held that to fall out on the march was a disgrace. Before a month "had passed," he says, "the brigade had learned how to march, and in the Valley with Jackson covered long distances without leaving a straggler behind."* (* ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... of place Rotherwood was! The wide village street seemed empty, with the exception of a black collie lying asleep in the middle of the road, and a patient donkey belonging to a travelling tinker. The clean, sleek country sparrows were enjoying a dust bath, and a long-legged chicken—evidently a straggler from the brood—was pecking fitfully at a cabbage stalk, unmindful of the alarmed clucking ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... himself having recovered his strength in a much greater degree than could have been expected. It was now near eight o'clock in the evening, but still good day-light, and they set forward for the nearest valley, Mr Banks himself undertaking to bring up the rear, and see that no straggler was left behind: This may perhaps be thought a superfluous caution, but it will soon appear to be otherwise. Dr Solander, who had more than once crossed the mountains which divide Sweden from Norway, well knew that extreme ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, And two worms he whose nippers end in red; As it likes me each time, I do: ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... from the six European species, three of which are to be found in Scotland. Of even the American passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratoria), which occur in such numbers in their native country as actually to eclipse, during their migratory flights, the light of day, only a single straggler,—the one whose chance visit has been recorded by Dr. Fleming,—seems to have been ever seen in Britain. And the East has also its own peculiar species, unknown to Europe. The golden-green pigeons and the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... drop off into a deep sleep. The town becomes as silent as the graveyards which have been filled with its victims. Not a sound is heard save the crackling of the flames and the challenges of the sentries to some belated newspaper man or straggler. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... enough how to proceed. I might pass out into the open country north of the town, but if I did so I should probably either die of starvation or get killed as a Japanese straggler. I began to think my best course would be to return to the port, and take my chance of getting away in some small vessel. First of all, however, I resolved to complete my intention of seeing what was going on at the inn, to which I was now quite close. ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... no man's pleasure, unless it pleases him first, he has a way of getting in on his own account. Upon one of the shed doors is an old-fashioned latch, which by jumping he can reach and lift with his paw. Having opened the door, he pushed his poor yellow straggler in and followed himself. She laid down at once on the floor, and Plato began washing her with his rough tongue, while the lookers-on assisted his hospitality by bringing a saucer of milk. While she ate Plato rested, looking as pleased as if he were her mother at her enjoyment. The luncheon ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the heat, though full and high The sun has scorched the autumn sky, And scarce a forest straggler now To shade us spreads a greenwood bough; These fields have seen a hotter day Than e'er was fired by sunny ray, Yet one mile on—yon shattered hedge Crests the soft hill whose long smooth ridge Looks on the field below, And sinks so gently on the dale ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... fairly taken root in English soil. It remains, like the Roman snail and the Portuguese slug, a mere casual straggler about its ancient haunts. But there are other plants which have fairly established their claim to be considered as native-born Britons, though they came to us at first as aliens and colonists from foreign parts. Such, to take a single case, is the history of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the nerves of any but a very fit commander. The flotsam and jetsam of defeat swirled round him as he rode. Yet, with unerring eye, he picked out the few that could influence the rest and set them at work to rally, reform, and return. Inspired by his example many a straggler who had run for miles presently "found himself" again and got back in time to ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... gay voices fell to murmurs. A whispered command was borne along the line even to the last straggler. Laura's voice, low but impressive, said, "Hats off!" and off came those gay bonnets and the rosette-trimmed hats, and along the road the children went in solemn silence, with stately step; for over the hill alongside the road they saw a neat little house whose upper windows overlooked ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... we resumed our journey, the men screaming chorus to scare our unwelcome visitors, whom I several times fancied I heard rustling among the brushwood on the road side, as though they were moving on our flanks in order to cut off any straggler who might drop astern. I never saw bearers go more expeditiously, or in more compact order, every man fearing to be the last in the cavalcade.[1] A sheet would have covered the whole party! The tigers, if they had calculated upon one of our number for their evening ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... regular meals, I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the Tuesday's dinner, without any inconvenience[900]. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there.' EDWARDS. 'Don't you eat supper, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' EDWARDS. 'For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Run tie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yards behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the of the squirrel, whose strange perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat; his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and what a blow he could strike! At the first onset he struck ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... description; the air is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for which no running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under an equatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe betide the straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such-as to forbid an adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The impatient ship waits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining undiscovered, up goes a stake on the beach, with a letter of regret, and a keg of crackers ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... himself by reading. Outside, the "Great Day for Indian Spring" was slowly evaporating in pale mists from the river, and the celebration itself spasmodically taking flight here and there in Roman candles and rockets. An occasional outbreak from revellers in the bar-room below, a stumbling straggler along the planked sidewalk before the hotel, only seemed to intensify the rustic stillness. For the future of Indian Spring was still so remote that Nature insensibly re-invested its boundaries on the slightest relaxation of civic influence, and Mr. ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... taken but three steps into the gloom along the outside jail wall, glancing about to avoid any curious straggler of the crowd already hurrying around the court house towards the jail, when he heard a call. In the advance was a slim well-dressed Mexican, full in the moonlight and very important of bearing. The call was directed not at ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the forest. There was a novelty about the situation that was very attractive to him, and as he walked his solitary round, he actually enjoyed it. It was not to all probable that an enemy, or even a straggler, would disturb the quiet of the scene by attempting to pass the line; but though the guard had been commanded to be vigilant, he had abundant time and ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... which I had taken my part; but I am not so pleased as I would have expected to be. I ask myself whether his rush had really carried him out of that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines—a straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks. And besides, the last word is not said,—probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... he interrupted his playing, now and then, to call them by name. When they were nearly all assembled, he went down swiftly toward the lower valley, and they followed him, panting. At the last crook of the path on the steep hillside a straggler came after him along the cliff. He looked up and saw it outlined against the sky. Then he saw it leap, and slip, and fall beyond the path into ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke
... came the knowledge, I know not how, that he who had stumbled upon me was no less frightened than I, and, clutching Sergeant Corney's leg nervously to attract his attention, I sprang upon the newcomer, believing him to be some Indian straggler whom it was absolutely necessary we should silence in order to save our ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... enjoying the surprising event of being cordially welcomed by the inhabitants of the town. The worst sort of straggler is often astonished at the kindly interest accorded him upon returning to his old home. Old Doctor Hissong greeted him by saying, "Hello, been seeing the world, have you?" When he went up to the Alden home, he found ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... is only an accidental straggler in Greenland. It is very similar to our Blue Heron and is the one which was formerly used to furnish sport for the royalty when falconry was ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... this will occur at a time when, side by side with the high development of a certain number of human souls, another development, that of those who have chosen the path of evil, will parallel it. These straggler-souls will have accumulated in their Karma so much sin, ugliness and evil, that at first they will form a separate community, a perverse and erring section of humanity, keenly opposing what we understand as "good." The "good" humanity will acquire ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... distinct peculiarity that I can perceive. They keep each to their own territory, except on the occasion of a grand "corroborie," when the whole assemble. They are at present on terms of peace nominally. Should a safe opportunity of cutting off a straggler offer, I have no doubt it would be taken advantage of. They are cowardly and treacherous in the extreme. The "Gudang" tribe, claiming the land from Cape York to Fly Point, at the entrance of Albany Pass, is small in numbers, having, I fancy, been seriously thinned ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... with outstretched hands. Thus they made the circuit of the building: but they returned to the spot from which they had set out, without encountering any human being, or finding the least trace of any concealed straggler. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except now and again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder, were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now frequent raids on ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... lighted up my face, and Brennan turning toward me as the last limping straggler disappeared over the ridge, saw it, and ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... stood there this night those eyes were on him. Presently the last straggler had left the deck. It was a clear night, but there was no moon—objects on deck were ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not!" exclaimed Mrs Keswick. "She can't be expected to see what a wretched plight she has got herself into by marrying this straggler from nobody ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... from a high cliff, eating their breakfast beside a small fire, which sent so thin a column of smoke into the air that it was almost dissipated ere it reached the tree-tops. It was hoped that the Indians had been now so far overshot that there was no danger of even a straggler being near them. But they took the precaution to load their two guns with ball, and lean them against a tree within reach of their hands. When the meal was over, Maximus retired from the fire a few paces, and throwing himself at full ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... their empty wigwams and a few acres of maize fields, what the better are you then? You can but travel back again to your own land with a cloud of unseen men lurking behind you, and a scalp-yell for every straggler. You are a soldier yourself, sire. I ask you if such a war is an easy task for a handful of soldiers, with a few censitaires straight from the plough, and a troop of coureurs-de-bois whose hearts are all the time are with ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... deserted save for an occasional straggler making his weary way home after a day spent in ministering to the wants and the pleasures of the strangers who now ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... was without alloy, the colouring splendid, and up the road above us, beyond which rose the hill, a shepherd was leading his flock of sheep, now and then clapping his hands or shouting to a straggler, but as a rule walking quietly on, the whole flock following in a continuous line. Not wishing to be idle, I took out my pencil to indulge in a poetic eulogy. How far I succeeded may be judged from the following lines, which might ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... on the march from the Lech to Ingolstadt, and thence to Munich, from the attacks of the country people, who were excited against them by the priests. Every straggler who fell into their hands was murdered with horrible cruelty, the hands and feet being cut off, and other savage mutilations being performed upon them, in revenge for which the Swedes and Scots shot all the Bavarians who fell into their ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... Then, the Dipper took a lantern which stood on the binnacle, lighted it, and showed it, for half a minute, above the taffrail. His signal must have been instantly answered, for he soon extinguished the light, and moved about the deck, in attentive watchfulness to seize any straggler, who might happen to come on deck. Little fear of that, however, weariness chaining the men to their berths as closely as if they had been bolted down with iron. I now expected to see the fellows fill the yawl ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin"' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three, but that ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... in the announcement that {87} God recognizes those weak and tender impulses which paganism had so rudely overlooked? Take repentance: the man who can do nothing rightly can at least repent of his failures. But for paganism this faculty of repentance was a pure supernumerary, a straggler too late for the fair. Christianity took it, and made it the one power within us which appealed straight to the heart of God. And after the night of the middle ages had so long branded with obloquy even the generous impulses of the flesh, and defined ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... supply. More gray figures came through the dark to gather in a wide, waiting circle all about the fire. Within the limits of their brutish minds lay the knowledge that fires would die down, that strength of man and beast would fail, and that, once a straggler could not go on, patient waiting always made him their prey at last. Felix cocked his gun, took long aim at a pair of green eyes glittering in the dark, but in the end lowered the muzzle without firing. The flash of a rifle ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... solid black, with figures which at the distance blended into one mass, but on the flanks hung stragglers, lawless old bulls or weaklings, and outside there was a fringe of hungry wolves, snapping and snarling, and waiting a chance to drag down some failing straggler. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... in the pound. No matter how penniless the sailor himself might be, he was always worth that sum at the rendezvous. Twenty shillings was the reward paid for information leading to his apprehension as a straggler or a skulker, and it was largely on the strength of such informations, and often under the personal guidance of such detestable informers, that the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... that they really anticipated no possibility of an attack, as the Dijon franc tireurs were the first who appeared upon the scene of action; and the Prussians were, consequently, in entire ignorance of the vicinity of any armed body of the enemy and, at worst, apprehended a stray shot from a straggler from one of the French ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... follow, I carried them out to the letter. I stayed away from the guns and I permitted myself to be killed several times in order to make sure it would take. After that I became a sort of composite camp follower, deserter and straggler. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... the last thing of which that worthy man desired to be reminded—going to bed when he could no longer see for weariness, and rising as soon as he awoke, taking his food when it was brought to him, and being conducted to church by the beadle after the last straggler was safely seated. He even cast covetous eyes upon the two windows, which were absurdly large, as he considered, but compromised matters by removing the shutters and filling up the vacant space with slender works of devotion. It was ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they were all on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward towards the sea; after this I did not see any more flocks, only now and then a straggler. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... given to disembark, the unpaid passengers are made up into small parties and marched through the town to the depots under the escort of the brokers and several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as 'absconded either when landing or at depot' ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... one short eager blast, and angled in between the herd and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches long. He was not alarmed,—but it was a new kind of coyote that faced ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... snow-white gown—if the writers are to be believed in regard to its hue!—when she sat down in the only chair, and dust in her eyes when she flirted her fan. Fortunate was it for Straws that the Muse is a wayward, freakish gipsy; a straggler in attics; a vagrant of the streets; fortunately for him she is not at all the fine lady she has been depicted! Doubtless she has her own reasons for her vagaries; perhaps because it is so easy to soar ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle mass of them down in the shadow of the valley there came a flash ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... perched on one of their broad backs. He flourishes a little stick, and issues his commands like a general. It is one of the quaintest imaginable sights to see this little fellow get off his steed, run after a straggler, and beat him with his stick. The buffalo eyes his master, whom he could abolish with one shake of his head, submissively, and takes the beating, which he probably feels about as much as if a straw ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... but if a herd of animals, or party of men, should be travelling together, the caution of the brute asserts itself, and he will often dog their footsteps for a great distance, in hopes of securing a straggler. Birds are struck down by a single blow of the puma's ready paw, and so quick are his movements that even though a bird has risen on the wing, he can often make one of his wonderful bounds, and with a light, quick stroke, arrest ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... peered over! That was the supreme moment! The wildfowl might arise in countless numbers; in which case we shot as carefully and as quickly as possible, reloading and squatting motionless in the almost certain hope of a long-range shot or so at a straggler as the main body swung back over us. Or, again, our eager eyes were quite likely to rest upon nothing but a family party of ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three.' If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education." But in the case of this ungainly boy there was no necessity ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... on his lonely errand, he carried Henri's bicycle back of the hedge. Then he mounted his own, and coasted down the hill. His object was to seem entirely indifferent, should some German scout or straggler spy him, but plainly the Germans had decided to leave ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... ridges," said Mr. Kincaid. "This fellow's rather a straggler. But there's plenty in the swamps and popples. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... Mexico. It wasn't much regular up and down fighting we had, though we had some toughish battles too, but it were skirmishing here, skirmishing there, keeping one eye always open, for man, woman, and child hated us like pison, and it was little mercy that a straggler might expect if he got caught away from his friends. Their partisans chiefs, half-soldier, half-robber, did us more harm than the regulars, and mercy was never given or asked between them and us. Me and ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... been observed at Boston Road, Brentford, and a local ornithologist writes to say that the bird is probably an accidental straggler from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, [49a] or Persian general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan, [50] incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day less favorable ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... difference; but I am not one of them. And as to regular meals, I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the Tuesday's dinner, without any inconvenience[900]. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there.' EDWARDS. 'Don't you eat supper, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' EDWARDS. 'For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... restraining myself from giving an alarm, came the knowledge, I know not how, that he who had stumbled upon me was no less frightened than I, and, clutching Sergeant Corney's leg nervously to attract his attention, I sprang upon the newcomer, believing him to be some Indian straggler whom it was absolutely necessary we should silence in order to save ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... guests—or, rather, his wife's guests—until that whole brilliant company was packed into the small white room. Someone had thoughtfully closed the shutters of the windows giving on Park Lane, and securely screwed them; so that, when the last straggler had entered, and the door was shut, they ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Sunday watched the flames of Monday sweeping on in terrible impetuosity, knowing that every tongue of light which leaped on high carried with it the competence they had sinned to acquire. And behind all, plunderer, incendiary, and straggler, came the one vague, overlapping, dreadful fear of—the enemy. Would they finish what friends had commenced,—the sack, the desolation, the slaughter of the place? Richmond had cost them half a million of lives, a mountain of blood and wealth, four ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... covered all. There sat they down, and declared their saying each to the other, and to them knightly Nestor of Gerenia began discourse: "O friends, is there then no man that would trust to his own daring spirit, to go among the great-hearted Trojans, if perchance he might take some straggler of the enemy, yea, or hear perchance some rumour among the Trojans, and what things they devise among themselves, whether they are fain to abide there by the ships, away from the city, or will retreat again to the city, now that they have conquered the Achaians? All this might such an one ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... of it lighted up my face, and Brennan turning toward me as the last limping straggler disappeared over the ridge, saw it, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... heaven above, no earth beneath. The interior of a raised biscuit could not have been more densely uniform than the atmosphere. It seemed as if the world had slipped its moorings and drifted off its course into companionless space, leaving me behind, as an ocean steamer sometimes leaves a straggler on an uninhabited shore. I felt like sending forth a call that should give my bearings and bring back a boat to the rescue. I groped my way down the steps, and, following an intuition, sought the station. Ahead ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... faith in the owl, Robert, is beginning to shake too. It may be an Indian belonging to the band that the scout told about, but I still don't think we're in any danger of attack. We're in too small force to try it down here, but they might cut off a straggler." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... case, that of some straggler stopping behind, merely to rest for rest's sake, and hindering you in front and us behind alike from pressing on the march. If he got a blow with the fist from me it saved him a thrust with the lance from the enemy. In fact, the opportunity ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... much, and the cakes of soap which they began to eat could not honestly be said to be an entire success as comestibles. But while we watched them at these hors d'oeuvres to the banquet at which we were expected to take a prominent part, a straggler came up with some reserve supplies; I saw them; tins of dynamite—we carried dynamite for blowing up the snags that obstructed the narrower reaches of the river. We watched the thieves crowd around the bearer of the tins, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... More gray figures came through the dark to gather in a wide, waiting circle all about the fire. Within the limits of their brutish minds lay the knowledge that fires would die down, that strength of man and beast would fail, and that, once a straggler could not go on, patient waiting always made him their prey at last. Felix cocked his gun, took long aim at a pair of green eyes glittering in the dark, but in the end lowered the muzzle without firing. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... deep sleep. The town becomes as silent as the graveyards which have been filled with its victims. Not a sound is heard save the crackling of the flames and the challenges of the sentries to some belated newspaper man or straggler. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the man with questions. He told them that he had killed it the day before, really. It had been prowling for the last week or more about Kernore's bush; probably it was a straggler ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Allegheny Mountains, range after range; now plunging down into a ravine, now ascending a ridge, but always in the deep shadow of the forest. A few of the enemy hovered round them, occasionally killing a straggler who fell behind. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... the two squadrons engaged in an incessant advance for one hour and fifteen minutes averaged less than ten rounds per man. The fine quality of these troops is also shown by the fact that there was not a single straggler, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any soldier to fall out in the advance to assist the wounded or carry back the dead. The fighting on the left flank was equally creditable and was remarkable, and ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... People had left the island; only an occasional late straggler was still seen walking along the road toward the city. Irgens did not ask questions any more; he spoke only when necessary. Aagot tried in vain to start a conversation; she had all she could do to keep her heart ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... had no inclination to refuse her request, and grieved, that he had lost an opportunity of showing his confidence by a voluntary communication. It was, therefore, agreed, that she should leave the valley with them; and that, in the mean time, she should watch, lest any other straggler should, by chance or curiosity, follow ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... had been in his place, he would have followed the fleet across the Indian Ocean, and have picked up a straggler or two, but the sight of the Sceptre and a Dutch man-of-war had been enough for Kidd, and he left the pilgrim fleet alone. Without molesting them further, he made his way eastward, and, on the 29th August, off Sanjan, north of Bombay, he took the ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... traveler, wayfarer, voyager, itinerant, passenger, commuter. tourist, excursionist, explorer, adventurer, mountaineer, hiker, backpacker, Alpine Club; peregrinator^, wanderer, rover, straggler, rambler; bird of passage; gadabout, gadling^; vagrant, scatterling^, landloper^, waifs and estrays^, wastrel, foundling; loafer; tramp, tramper; vagabond, nomad, Bohemian, gypsy, Arab^, Wandering Jew, Hadji, pilgrim, palmer; peripatetic; somnambulist, emigrant, fugitive, refugee; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... palmetto-tree, with an occasional mocking-bird, cardinal grosbeak, prairie warbler, yellow redpoll, myrtle bird, ruby-crowned kinglet, phoebe, and flicker. In short, there were no birds at all, except now and then an accidental straggler of a kind that could be found almost anywhere else in ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... a straggler here, but was not able to get him into our lines by myself, on account of his lying down and refusing to come; so I broke his musket, but not feeling inclined even then to leave him, I knelt down to protect myself a little from the enemy's shot, and waited for some assistance. ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... turned southward and gone jogging leisurely away towards their reservations, until warned of the pursuit by ambitious young braves still hovering about the troops in hope of slicing off the scalp of some straggler. Then, every man for himself, they had apparently scattered over the face of the country, laughing gleefully to think what fun the white chief would have in deciding which trail to follow. The situation on the third ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... desired to be reminded—going to bed when he could no longer see for weariness, and rising as soon as he awoke, taking his food when it was brought to him, and being conducted to church by the beadle after the last straggler was safely seated. He even cast covetous eyes upon the two windows, which were absurdly large, as he considered, but compromised matters by removing the shutters and filling up the vacant space with slender works of devotion. It was one of his conceits that the rising sun ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... flames. Charioteers behind blood-horses bathed in foam; heads helmeted in flashing splendour; eyes all intent upon the track ahead, keen to anticipate the risks of headlong speed and warn the dilatory straggler from its path. Nearer and nearer—in a moment it will pass and take some road unknown to us, to say to fires that even now are climbing up through roof and floor, clasping each timber in a sly embrace fatal as the caress of Death ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... The straggler suddenly began kicking feebly at the prop of the cross with his foot, and then dragged himself off after the column. The cross fell forward with a dull splintering splash into the mud of ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... together, and topped by a sack of buffalo-chips that, at each slow step, rolled first to one hand and then to the other. Yet with all the difficulty of balancing the fuel-sack and preventing its falling to the ground, the straggler did not fail to keep ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... our own trail. Therefore we kept our rifles at hand and our eyes open for a straggler. But none came, though we baited craftily with portions of our deer. All we gained was a rattlesnake, and he seemed a bit out of place so high ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... Chimes stopped. Instantaneous change! The whole swarm fainted! their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted into air. No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped down pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on his feet, but he was dead and gone before he could turn round. Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the tower, remained there, spinning over and over a little longer; but these became at every turn more ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... boy, I pray, that could thy blessed favors slight! Back to the ranks the straggler bring beneath ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... the road up or down. Yet it's not late—the sun's above the bluff still. Where can the people be? And yet the road's covered thick with fresh horse-tracks! Ha! the troops have been here! they have just passed up! But that's no reason why the people are not abroad; and I don't see even a straggler! Now I could have believed there was an alarm of Indians had I not seen these tracks; but I know very well that, were the Apaches on their war-trail, my Comandante and his Whiskerandos would never have ventured so far from ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... as treacherous and difficult as it well could be, and the horseman rode with an address and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle mass of them down in the shadow of the valley there came a flash and a volley of smoke, and almost directly ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... margin of a rapidly running and coffee-colored stream, which three of them had to cross by means of a very shaky plank. Lord Beauregard, Major Stuart, and Macleod remained on this side, keeping a lookout for a straggler, but chiefly concerned with the gradually opening and brightening sky. Then far away they heard a slight tapping on the trees; and almost at the same moment another sound caused the hearts of the two novices ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the commandant's mind, and although the gas-jets continued contumacious (the gas-workers were all called up to the colours) the maire was not molested. It was here that we heard a shameful story (for the truth of which I will not vouch) of a certain straggler from our army, a Highlander, who tarried in amorous dalliance and was betrayed by his enchantress to the Huns, who, having deprived him of everything but his kilt, led him mounted upon a horse in Bacchanalian procession round the town. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Eric walked on by the moonlight. But the exertion had brought on the pain in his knee, and he had to sit down a long time by the road-side to rest. He reached Ayrton at ten o'clock, but even then he could not summon up courage to pass through the town where he was so well known, lest any straggler should recognise him,—and he took a detour in order to get to Fairholm. He did not arrive there till eleven o'clock; and then he could not venture into the grounds, for he saw through the trees of the shrubbery that there was no light in any of the windows, and ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... know the precise time the birds leave us in the fall: they do not go suddenly; their departure is like that of an army of occupation in no hurry to be off; they keep going and going, and we hardly know when the last straggler is gone. Not so their return in the spring: then it is like an army of invasion, and we know the very day when the first scouts appear. It is a memorable event. Indeed, it is always a surprise to me, and one of the compensations of our abrupt and changeable climate, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... I could not get here before the third day. It was the second, after having crossed the first great torrent, that I met some soldiers from Missolonghi. I had let them all pass me, ere I had resolution enough to enquire the news from Missolonghi. I then rode back, and demanded of a straggler the news. I heard nothing more than—Lord Byron is dead,—and I proceeded on in gloomy silence." The writer adds, after detailing the particulars of the poet's illness and death, "Your pardon, Stanhope, that I have thus turned aside from the great cause in which I am embarked. But this is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the sun was shining, and there was a confusion of voices close at hand. He could not catch the drift of conversation; but, as the tongue spoken was Spanish, he lay motionless and listened, expecting each moment to be discovered by some straggler. For several hours his unseen neighbors cooked, ate, smoked cigarettes, laughed, and talked without suspecting his presence within a few yards of them; while he, desperately hungry, cramped, and filled with impatience at ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... trenches came a dozen Belgian soldiers, just relieved after twenty-four hours of what it is difficult to describe otherwise than as hell. Muddied from head to heel, they could hardly drag their feet along, and, glad of any company, I fell in and walked with the last straggler of the little band, while the shrapnel with its long-drawn scream—whew-ew-ew-ew-bang!—broke on either side ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... the stinted shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they all were on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward towards the sea: after this I did not see any more flocks, only now and then a straggler. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... several hours of marching yet ahead of them, they carried their heavy guns as though those guns were toys. Their fair sunburned faces were lined with sweat marks and masked under dust, and doubtless some were desperately weary; but I did not see a straggler. To date I presume I have seen upward of a million of these German soldiers on the march, and I have yet ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... difficult of passage beyond description; the air is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for which no running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under an equatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe betide the straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such-as to forbid an adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The impatient ship waits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining undiscovered, up goes ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... with the great mysteries, the Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr Dombey's empty room, and stir the fire; or to take an airing at the door, and have a little more doleful chat with any straggler whom he knew; or to propitiate, with various small attentions, the head accountant: from whom Mr Perch had expectations of a messengership in a Fire Office, when the affairs of the House should be ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... down for another hour to avoid the chance of their being surprised by any straggler. Then, proceeding to the shore, they launched a small boat. Hawtry stepped the mast and hoisted the sail, and they were soon making their way off the land. The wind was light, and their progress slow. For a time they kept ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... that he had to capture a "tongue"—that is, a man from the enemy column. That morning's attack on the wagons had been made so hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he could tell them nothing definite about the troops ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... said the straggler, as he leant his back against the barn, and his two companions sat down on the ground in the shelter, "I have heard a lot about the Cause, but all I know is that my Lord of Essex sent to call out five-and-twenty men from our parish, and the ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discussed in this place; but they will easily offer themselves to the skilful in maritime affairs. However, as the Manilla ships are the only ones which have ever traversed this vast ocean, except a French straggler or two, which have been afterwards seized on the coast of Mexico; and as, during near two ages, in which this trade has been carried on, the Spaniards have secreted with the utmost care all accounts of their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... He. 'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, And two worms he whose nippers end in red; As it likes me each ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... Kurds shouting now and then, and once, when I climbed a high rock, I caught sight of the glow of their bivouac fires. Imagination conjured up the shrieks of tortured victims, for we had all seen enough of late to know what would happen to any luckless straggler they might have caught and brought to make sport by the fires. But there was no imagination about the calls of Kagig's men, posted above us on invisible dark crags and ledges to guard against surprise. We ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... persistent, is held erect. The thin, rounded, finely notched leaves, measuring barely an inch in length, are clustered in whorls next the ground. Whether one comes upon colonies of this gregarious little plant, or upon a lonely straggler, the "single delight" (moneses), as Dr. Gray called the solitary flower, is one of the joys of a ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... feel here, to be sure! In spite of the huge numbers, which at first sight look a little equivocal, nothing in the least degree reprehensible can happen among these granites; which are, moreover, in a single piece, without the least crack or hole into which the straggler could contrive to crawl. No. The figures and the crosses denote simple blocks of stones, covered with hieroglyphics, and correspond to a chaste catalogue where each Pharaonic inscription may be found translated in the most ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so-called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beside readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three (simple proportion). If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... grass. He tried climbing, but unfortunately selected a tree with branches higher than he could hold out to reach; so he fell back to the ground. Then came the inexorable demands of breakfast, with which no one who has been up since four o'clock will decline to comply. On my return, the straggler was mounted on a post that held a tennis net, three or four feet from the ground. One of the old birds was on the rope close by him, and there I left them. Once more I saw him fall, but I concluded that since he had learned ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... there may be a straggler or two to come in later. Does the Shining One no longer know where his own thunderbolts have struck, that he sends his hired servants to gather up the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... wind in winter blew, Faster than quarrel flies the bow, she flew. A moment was a league in that wild flight From vast to vast of ocean and the night. And now the moon her lanthorn had withdrawn: And now the pale weak heralds of the dawn Lifted the lids of their blear eyes afar: The last belated straggler of a star Went home; and in her season due the morn Brake on a cold and silent sea forlorn— A strange mute sea, where never wave hath stirred, Nor sound of any wandering wind is heard, Nor voice of sailors ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... refreshingly cool upon her hot cheeks, and she smiled into the darkness gratefully. Across the way a row of brownstone houses, implacably boarded up for the summer, presented dull and dimly defined surfaces that reflected nothing, not even the lights of the street, or the shadow of a passing straggler. Nancy turned her face toward the avenue. The nostalgia that was her inheritance from her father, and through him from a long line of ancestors that followed the sea whither it might lead them, was upon ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... His early reports from the front from Dickinson's outlying party, and from Lee himself, were all favorable. Then he heard the firing, and putting the main army in motion, he rode rapidly forward. First he encountered a straggler, who talked of defeat. He could not believe it, and the fellow was pushed aside and silenced. Then came another and another, all with songs of death. Finally, officers and regiments began to come. No one knew why they ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... doth these hot incensed kings. Wer't not my vowes prohibit my desire, To stay the inconvenience of this fight, I would discover where their Daughters are, To shew the error they are shrouded in: But Time hath run a desperate course with mee And desperate let them runne to misery. Here comes a Straggler ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... was drawing to its end, and the very last straggler sat alone at the ward-room table. Presently an officer of the mother-ship, passing through, called to the lingering group ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Indian Spring" was slowly evaporating in pale mists from the river, and the celebration itself spasmodically taking flight here and there in Roman candles and rockets. An occasional outbreak from revellers in the bar-room below, a stumbling straggler along the planked sidewalk before the hotel, only seemed to intensify the rustic stillness. For the future of Indian Spring was still so remote that Nature insensibly re-invested its boundaries on the slightest relaxation of civic influence, and Mr. Ford lifted ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... with something nice, but the last one is whipped for its laziness. And it is said to be very funny to see how the ducks will waddle, and run, and fly over each other's backs, that they may escape the punishment which they know awaits the last straggler. ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... convoy, succeeded in the return voyage; but a single ship, of whatever strength or force, seldom escaped the vigilance of the pirates. They followed such fleets as they judged it unsafe to attack, and a slow sailer or a straggler was inevitably captured. So daring were these robbers, that even before they were enabled to obtain a smaller craft, a crew of fifty-five of them in one of the large canoes sailed into the Southern Ocean, and proceeded along the coast of the continent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... town of Siboney, lighted, bustling with preparation for the wounded in the tents; bustling at the beach with the unloading of rations, the transports moving here and there far out on the moonlighted sea. Down there were straggler, wounded soldier, teamster, mule-packer, refugee Cuban, correspondent, nurse, doctor, surgeon—the flotsam and jetsam of ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... exactly, for it's most agreeable. I pretend about them, and decide what they'll be like. When I see a man that takes my fancy, I add him to the list. Mostly they're clean-shaved, but I saw one the other day with a beard—" She lifted a warning finger to stay Bridgie's cry of protest. "Not a straggler, but a naval one, short and trim; and you wouldn't believe how becoming it was! I decided then to have one with a beard. And they are mostly tall and handsome, and rolling in riches, so that I can buy anything I like, nose included. But one must be poor and sad, because ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... decorated that the damage they did to it was not noticeable. By and by we went on ahead of the cows, then, if one stayed too long or strayed into some inviting side-lane, he would turn and utter a long, soft call, whereupon the straggler would leave her browsing and hasten ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... travellers at home; they had no idea of spoiling it by attacking them, although the numbers were about equal; besides, they had got all the plunder and spoil, and a battle would only endanger the success already obtained. So they lay in cover until the last straggler had disappeared in the direction of Aescendune, and then continued their course, with many a jest at the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... captain turned his face, pale with fright, to the imperturbable Deyoe, and, striking him on the shoulder, said with as much composure as he could muster, "Captain, we have had hard times of it out there, but don't be afraid, don't be afraid." Deyoe, turning his face toward that of the straggler with a look of unruffled coolness and unmitigated contempt, replied, "Well, who the d—is afraid? Oh, yes, I see, you are. Well, you had better get away ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... black, with figures which at the distance blended into one mass, but on the flanks hung stragglers, lawless old bulls or weaklings, and outside there was a fringe of hungry wolves, snapping and snarling, and waiting a chance to drag down some failing straggler. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... evacuation was completed, the army was gotten clear of Nashville, the last straggler driven out, all the stores which could not be carried off, nor distributed to the citizens, burned, and the capitol of Tennessee (although we did not know it then) was abandoned finally to the enemy. Morgan's squadron was the last to leave, as it was required to remain in the extreme rear ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... had to do duty in an adjoining parish, according to custom, and that the schoolmaster would read the prayers and lessons instead. A psalm was sung, portions of Scripture and short prayers were read, another straggler or two joining the little congregation as the service went on. The schoolmaster, who officiated, played the harmonium and sang exceedingly well, finally read a brief exposition on the portion of Scripture read, whereupon after further ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... limbers chipped and bitten, and their own bronze pock-pitted by the flying iron and lead of other fights, and the heroes in saddle and on chests—with faces as war-worn as the wood and metal and brute life under them—cheering as they passed. Six clouds of dust in one was all the limping straggler had seen when he called his glad warning, for a tall hedge lined half the cross-road up which the whirlwind came; but a hundred yards or so short of the main way the whole battery, still shunning the field because of spongy ground, swept into ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... so promptly obeyed that Wilhelm could scarcely believe they had won so easily to the outer air. The house stood alone on the bank of the river at the end of a long garden which extended to the road. Facing the thoroughfare and partly concealing the house from any chance straggler was a low building which Wilhelm remembered was used as a wayside drinking-place, in which wine, mostly of a poor quality, was served to thirsty travellers. The gate to the street appeared deserted, but as the two approached by the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... customers Meg had peculiar prejudices; because, there being no shops in the old village of Saint Ronan's, the said commercial emissaries, for the convenience of their traffic, always took up their abode at the New Inn, or Hotel, in the rising and rival village called Saint Ronan's Well, unless when some straggler, by chance or dire necessity, was compelled to lodge himself at the Auld Town, as the place of Meg's residence began to be generally termed. She had, therefore, no sooner formed the hasty conclusion, that the individual in question belonged to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... eggs still, and squab-young. The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August; it was a straggler. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... until the crowd thinned out, until only an occasional straggler passed by; then he edged nearer the pretty ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... lonely errand, he carried Henri's bicycle back of the hedge. Then he mounted his own, and coasted down the hill. His object was to seem entirely indifferent, should some German scout or straggler spy him, but plainly the Germans had decided to leave the ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... Third is remarkably fond of pies, and a notorious straggler withal. He has just returned to camp after being away for some days, and accounts for his absence by saying that he was in the country looking for pies, when Morgan's men appeared suddenly, shot his horse from ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... root in English soil. It remains, like the Roman snail and the Portuguese slug, a mere casual straggler about its ancient haunts. But there are other plants which have fairly established their claim to be considered as native-born Britons, though they came to us at first as aliens and colonists from foreign parts. ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... his hat and set it on the back of his head, giving him quite a rakish air. His dignity suffered until the wind took the hat again. The party proceeded in silence, halting once to tighten a girth, and another time to wait for a straggler. If the men spoke to one another it was in subdued tones or whispers. Two of the horsemen trotted on a hundred yards in advance, like skirmishers thrown out in front of an attacking force. There was something in all this ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Smallbones and the comfort of a keel-hauling. The long conference on the forecastle had not been unperceived by the hawk's eye of the lieutenant, and as they descended, he walked forward to ascertain if he could not pick up some straggler who, unsupported by his comrades, might be induced by fear to acquaint him with the subject of the discussion. Now, just as Mr Vanslyperken came forward Corporal Van Spitter had removed the canvas from his body, and was about to ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mercy rang through his brain, and it was many weeks before his memory ceased to dwell on the horrid event. The Cowboys rode steadily on their route, as if nothing had occurred; and the body was left swinging in the wind, until chance directed the wandering footsteps of some lonely straggler ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond reading, writing, and ciphering to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher, to the rule of three; but ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... him, "with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three.' If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education." But in the case of this ungainly ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... with the relative merit of each division, and could tell which arm of the service most contributed to the result of any particular battle. They collected information from all sources,—from accounts in newspapers, from army letters, from casual conversation with some maimed straggler fresh from the scene of war. Each boy, as he made his periodical visit to his family, brought back something to the general fund of anecdote. The fire that burned in their young bosoms was fed by tales of daring, and there was a halo round deeds of blood which effectually concealed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... altogether cease to grow. Now, the butterfly differs greatly from the bee in his mode of honey-hunting: he does not bustle about in a business-like manner from one buttercup or dead-nettle to its nearest fellow; but he flits joyously, like a sauntering straggler that he is, from a great patch of color here to another great patch at a distance, whose gleam happens to strike his roving eye by its size and brilliancy. Hence, as that indefatigable observer, Dr. Hermann ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... end of Storr's Lake, and followed on cautiously to Lake Koshkonong, for Atkinson had a most wholesome regard for Black Hawk's prowess. At the lake they found an old blind Sauk who had been left behind. They gave him food, but a straggler coming along later shot him as he was crawling to a spring for water. His bones lay on the ground unburied for years after the country was settled, the skull having been hung on a bush. At the junction of the Bark and Rock ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... empty, with the exception of a black collie lying asleep in the middle of the road, and a patient donkey belonging to a travelling tinker. The clean, sleek country sparrows were enjoying a dust bath, and a long-legged chicken—evidently a straggler from the brood—was pecking fitfully at a cabbage stalk, unmindful of the alarmed ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... secure patronage for disreputable houses. The police regard the latter "as regular," and while no authoritative order is ever given, the patrolman understands that they are protected. On the other hand, "the straggler" is liable to be arrested by any officer who chooses, and she is subjected to a fine upon his unsupported word. In either case the police regard all such women as literally "abandoned," deprived of ordinary rights, obliged to live in specified residences, and liable to have their ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... Gaucho warfare in the River Plate which was common twenty years ago, or that in Venezuela which obtains to-day. Alternately each party carried off the other's horses, drove each other's cattle, or, if they caught a straggler, tied his hands and cut his throat or lanced him, the party who had lost the man protesting he was 'massacred' — a term in use even to-day when the party to which one's self belongs sustains reverse. For the first two years — for wars in South America till twenty years ago were ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... about the time the state came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher 5 beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not 10 know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... was enough—we instantly radiated in all possible directions, so that by the time he had descended through the intricacies of the glen to the field of battle, neither victor nor vanquished was visible, except, perhaps, a straggler or two as they topped the brow of the declivity, looking back over their shoulders, to put themselves out of doubt as to their visibility by the master. They seldom looked in vain, however, for there he usually stood, shaking at us his rod, silently prophetic of its application on the following ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... with the Run tie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yards behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the of the squirrel, whose strange perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat; his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and what a blow he could strike! At the first onset he struck the squirrel square on the end ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... straggler. Second straggler ponders, then suddenly follows First. Enter COLONEL ANDERSON and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... joined the squabble—she even missed the place her basket held, by rights, in the line. Something on the bridge had caught her eye; and, in fact, over the side rails of that structure the head and shoulders of a straggler could be seen advancing slowly, staggering along under the weight of ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... With heads bowed, and limbs moving wearily, guns held at will, they swept by in unbroken column—cavalry, artillery, infantry—scarcely a face lifted to glance toward the house, with here and there a straggler limping to the roadside, or an aide spurring past—just a stream of armed men, who had been plodding on since daylight, footsore, hungry, unseeing, yet ready to die in battle at their commander's word. It was war; ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... voices fell to murmurs. A whispered command was borne along the line even to the last straggler. Laura's voice, low but impressive, said, "Hats off!" and off came those gay bonnets and the rosette-trimmed hats, and along the road the children went in solemn silence, with stately step; for over the hill alongside the road they saw a neat little ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... Crow village, a party of Blackfeet, numbering thirty or forty, came stealing through the Crow country, killing every straggler, and carrying off every horse they could lay their hands on. The Crow warriors immediately started after them and pressed them so closely that they could not escape. The Blackfeet then threw up a semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, and awaited ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... never been a straggler for social honors—they have been mine without the struggling. I was born to a position. It is mine by right of inheritance. There is no strong odor of lately acquired greenbacks about our old and very respectable establishment. We live on a quiet, unfashionable street; we are somewhat ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... in the prairie regions, many of them have been so reduced that extermination seems imminent. The black-bellied plover or beetlehead, which occurred along the Atlantic seaboard in great numbers years ago, is now seen only as a straggler. The golden plover, once exceedingly abundant east of the Great Plains, is now rare. Vast hordes of long-billed dowitchers formerly wintered in Louisiana; now they occur only in infrequent flocks of a half dozen or less. The Eskimo curlew within the last decade has probably ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... their backs the countless graves that hold the youth of France, the men who had known the Marne, the Yser, Champagne, who had known death for nearly two years, night and day, almost constantly. Yet during the fifteen minutes I watched there was not one order, not one straggler; there was a sense of the regularity with which the blood flows through the human arteries in this tide, and it was the blood ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... separate their respective territories remain altogether uninhabited; the natives invariably dwelling in the depths of the valleys, with a view of securing themselves from the predatory incursions of their enemies, who often lurk along their borders, ready to cut off any imprudent straggler, or make a descent upon the inmates of some sequestered habitation. I several times met with very aged men, who from this cause had never passed the confines of their native vale, some of them having never ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... eyes ashore. Everyone aboard would be clustered forward, curiously watchful of that line of soldiers filing across the gangplank and seeking quarters upon deck. The only danger of observation lay in some straggler along the near-by bank. I lowered myself the full length of my arms, dangling there an instant by clinging to the framework; then loosened my grip and dropped silently ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... man, appreciated his resource as he darted into another angle between two other corrals. The darkness favored them, and the rustlers swept by. Arizona only waited long enough for them to get well clear, then his gun rang out again, and Tresler's too. But the game was played out. A straggler sighted them and gave the alarm, and instantly the rest ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... the way he should go, and he will not depart from it when he is old;" and though no mother's voice of warning was heard in that wild region of the earth, and no guardian's hand was there to beckon back the straggler from the paths of rectitude, yet he was not "let alone;" the arm of the Lord was around him, and His voice whispered, in tones that could not be misunderstood, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... General. "I had," says Barnum, "competent agents who could exhibit him without my personal assistance, and I preferred to relinquish a portion of the profits rather than continue to be a travelling showman. I had now been a straggler from home most of the time for thirteen years, and I cannot describe the feelings of gratitude with which I reflected that, having by the most arduous toil and deprivations succeeded in securing a satisfactory competence, I should ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... a voyage to India was a perilous and lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were impeded by the disaster of one. The Union, in which a passage was given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, passengers, the 59th Regiment, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... nibble the attractive grassy tufts, long before the allotted feeding ground was reached. There was, however, little fear of losing them, as each wore a tiny bell round the neck, which, tinkling at every movement, warned the boy of the straggler; a call invariably brought it back, though often by a circuitous route, enabling the animal to keep beyond the reach of the whip, which Stephan lashed about ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... anecdotes will give reality to the picture. George Marshall, a mulatto, was taken up with others as a straggler, and ordered to receive fifty lashes. With each lash the unfortunate man gritted his teeth and turned his head, whether from pain or anger is uncertain. The provost-marshal construed this into a threatening look, and ordered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... elephant, took off his chains and led him from the compound. Immediately six of the marauders trotted far ahead toward the gate they knew to be the least guarded. The sacred elephant, passing through the streets, attended by three men, aroused no suspicions in any straggler who saw. So remote was the walled city, so seemingly impregnable, and so little interfered with that it was only human that its ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... trace of the mysterious signalers had been found. The embers of the half-dozen fires were discovered, but their builders were gone. The search took in miles of territory, but it was unavailing. Not even a straggler was found. The so-called troupe of actors, around whom suspicion centered, had been swallowed by the capacious solitude of the hills. Riders from the frontier posts to the south came in with the report that all was quiet in the threatened district. Dawsbergen was ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... first place, no species of coniferous tree in the Range keeps its members so well together as the sequoia; a mile is, perhaps, the greatest distance of any straggler from the main body, and all of those stragglers that have come under my observation are young, instead of old monumental trees, relics of ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... Dijon franc tireurs were the first who appeared upon the scene of action; and the Prussians were, consequently, in entire ignorance of the vicinity of any armed body of the enemy and, at worst, apprehended a stray shot from a straggler from one of the French ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... above another en amphitheatre, excite the traveller's wonder. Close in its vicinity lay the city of Manresa, the focus of the Catalonian insurrection. The German troops advanced in close column, although surrounded by infuriated multitudes, by whom every straggler was mercilessly butchered. The two regiments, nevertheless, succeeded in making themselves masters of Manresa, where they were instantly shut in, furiously assailed, and threatened with momentary destruction. The Anhalt troops and a French corps, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the door they marched, and down the steps, two by two; Bluff Shipley, who was paired with Nuthin', being the lone straggler in the rear, since his ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... fond of young mocking-birds. These parents are wiser than the crow blackbirds, for not a sound betrays the accident in the family, unless, indeed, the little one is disturbed, when they make noise enough. They keep out of sight, no doubt closely watching the straggler until he gets away from people, for although he has proved that he cannot fly, the young mocker is by no means discouraged; he trusts to his legs, and usually at once starts off on a run "anywhere, anywhere, out (in) the world." When far enough away for them to feel safe in doing so, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... howled, one short eager blast, and angled in between the herd and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches long. He was not alarmed,—but it was a new kind of coyote that faced him now, one that had learned pack hunting under the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... of Hamburg, a German Harizi both in the character of his work and by reason of his position as a straggler of the Meassefim, was a disciple and imitator of Wessely. His Makamat Pene Tebel ("The Face of the World", ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... are made up into small parties and marched through the town to the depots under the escort of the brokers and several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as 'absconded either when landing or at depot' in Singapore, and 101 ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... soul's in town! And darkness reigns where lamps once brightened; Shutters are closed, and blinds drawn down— Untrodden door-steps go unwhitened! The echoes of some straggler's boots Alone are on the pavement ringing While 'prentice boys, who smoke cheroots, Stand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... returning to her abode rather earlier than usual, having succeeded in cutting off a straggler from the peccary herd and killing it before its cries could bring the other numerous members of the band to its rescue. Spurred on by some subtle sense of intuition she had eaten hurriedly and then made for her home where the cub ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... and as the troops got to the ridge they encountered precipitous heights. They were led most gallantly, as American regular officers always lead their men; and the men followed their leaders with the splendid courage always shown by the American regular soldier. There was not a single straggler among them, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any trooper to fall out in order to assist the wounded or carry back the dead, while so cool were they and so perfect their fire discipline, that in the entire engagement the expenditure of ammunition was not over ten rounds per ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... which are to be found in Scotland. Of even the American passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratoria), which occur in such numbers in their native country as actually to eclipse, during their migratory flights, the light of day, only a single straggler,—the one whose chance visit has been recorded by Dr. Fleming,—seems to have been ever seen in Britain. And the East has also its own peculiar species, unknown to Europe. The golden-green pigeons and the great crowned pigeons of the Indian ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... regularly or only as a straggler in Cashmere we do not know; it is always overlooked and passed by as a "Common Crow." Future visitors to Cashmere should try and clear up both the identity of the bird and all particulars ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... myself am withered before I be gathered, and yet not so for that I have stood too long, but rather because the fruit which I bear is so very small. Yet seeing the goodly crop of Mr. Cheke is almost clean carried from thence, and I in a manner alone of that time left a standing straggler, peradventure though my fruit be very small, yet because the ground from whence it sprung was so good, I may yet be thought somewhat fit for seed, when all you the rest are taken up for better store, wherewith ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... bowlers, and to the occasional ringing of bells mingled with a low buzz of merriment inside the house, there were many travellers went by. They came, nearly all of them, from the Manchester side; sometimes three or four in company, and sometimes a lonely straggler. Some of them had poor-looking little bundles in their hands; and, with a few exceptions, their dress, their weary gait, and dispirited looks led me to think that many of them were unemployed factory operatives, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... two boats into the lagoon, to go different ways, in prosecution of the search. Not long after, Captain Clerke's party returned with their lost companion; and my boats having now no object left, I called them back by signal. This poor fellow must have suffered far greater distress than the other straggler, not only as having been lost a longer time, but as we found that he was too squeamish to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... were gathered into a group, pressing close together for company and protection. The boys hurried them toward the stockade, but one cow, driven by terror, broke from the rest and ran toward the woods. Agile Henry, not willing to lose a single straggler, pursued the fugitive, and Paul, wishing to be as zealous, followed. The rest of the cattle, being so near and obeying the force of habit, went on ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... creeks. One the horses could wade, but the other was so deep that they were compelled to swim. On the further bank of the second they stopped a while to rest the horses and to count the men to see that no straggler had dropped away in the darkness. Then they sprang into the saddle again and rode on as before through a country that seemed ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dismal or dreary could not well be imagined, and gradually the loneliness grew very oppressive. Every straggler had fled to shelter, and the usual idlers had deserted ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... for all this there was a reason as simple as casting up the number of shillings in the pound. No matter how penniless the sailor himself might be, he was always worth that sum at the rendezvous. Twenty shillings was the reward paid for information leading to his apprehension as a straggler or a skulker, and it was largely on the strength of such informations, and often under the personal guidance of such detestable informers, that the gang ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... suffered greatly on the march from the Lech to Ingolstadt, and thence to Munich, from the attacks of the country people, who were excited against them by the priests. Every straggler who fell into their hands was murdered with horrible cruelty, the hands and feet being cut off, and other savage mutilations being performed upon them, in revenge for which the Swedes and Scots shot all the Bavarians who fell into their hands, and burned ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... will carry only rifles and some special instruments of attack which I have stored in canvas sacks below. Two men must remain on board. Head in close to those rocks before us. They are out of sight of the shack and there is ice stranded there—a straggler will scarcely tell our craft from it. I have no doubt there are a number of them and that they are hardy ruffians. We must ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com
|
|
|
