"Ostler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being a favorite one with Jesuits and their emissaries. She of course denied that any gipsy had been there; and though there were some who thought they had seen such a man come in, none had seen him go out again. On which Amyas took occasion to ask, what had become of the suspicious Popish ostler whom he had seen at the Mariners' Rest three years before; and discovered, to his surprise, that the said ostler had vanished from the very day of Don Guzman's departure from Bideford. There was evidently a mystery somewhere: but nothing could be proved; the landlady was dismissed ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... have journeyed north for two days on his road to Horncastle, nor would Ardrey have taken coach to Stafford en route for a lion fight at Warwick, which had taken place several days before. Mr. Platitude's reappearance is extremely artificial, and the ostler's tales of Abershaw and Co. are obviously reminiscences of Borrow's 'Celebrated Trials.' But the Horncastle story is weaker still. The 'Lord'-Lieutenant, so free and young,' is pilloried, because eighteen ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... shabby and seedy in his appearance; lodging, too, the ostler told me, over that horrible candle and cheese shop, the smell of which is insufferable twenty yards off—no gentleman could endure it; he must be a traveller or artist, or something of ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... know a gentleman of the name of Tom, who officiates in the capacity of ostler. We have enjoyed a long acquaintance with him—we mean an acquaintance a long way off—i.e. from the window of our dormitory, which overlooks A—s—n's stables. We believe we are the first of our family, for some years, who has not kept a horse; and we derive a melancholy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked Where Tim, the ostler, listened; his face was white and peaked; His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay, But he loved the landlord's daughter; The landlord's red-lipped daughter, Dumb as a dog he listened, and he ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... Priscilla Fritzing had urged pushing on without a stop, and Priscilla made no objection. This is how it came about that the ostler attached to the Ullerton Arms found himself driving to Symford in the middle of the night. He could not recollect ever having done such a thing before, and the memory of it would be quite unlikely to do anything but remain fixed in his mind ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the steed was brought, in all the exuberance of (literally) animal spirits, he felt that he was about to be another Mazeppa, and perform feats on the back of a wild horse; and he could not help saying to the ostler, "He ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... symmetry of bone," which was to be driven by Mr. Pickwick, and Mr. Winkle's riding animal, another immense horse "apparently a near relative of the animal in the chaise." "He don't shy, does he?" The ostler guaranteed him quiet—"a hinfant in arms might drive him"—"He wouldn't shy if he met a whole waggon-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off." A far more original illustration than anything used by the Wellers, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... King are walking across the bowling-green, we will see what has taken place outside the inn. Tom's presentiments of danger were not, it appeared, without foundation. Scarcely had the ostler brought forth our two highwaymen's steeds, when a post-chaise, escorted by two or three horsemen, drove furiously up to the door. The sole occupant of the carriage was a lady, whose slight and pretty figure was all that could be distinguished, her face being closely veiled. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that concealed all of the upper part of his face, except a dark quick eye of uncommon fire; and a shawl handkerchief, which was equally useful in concealing the lower part of the countenance. On descending from the coach, the German with some difficulty made the ostler understand that he wanted a post-chaise in a quarter of an hour; and then, without entering the house, he and his friend strolled to the arbour. While the maid- servant was covering the table with bread, butter, tea, eggs, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The ostler of the inn at which we put up, understanding I was bound for London, advised me to take my passage in a collier which would be both cheap and expeditious and withal much easier than to walk upwards ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... hers, I wat. Ye wad hae thocht she had been gaein' to The Bothie; but gin she had been that, there wad hae been a cairriage to meet her,' said Crookit Caumill, the ostler. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... of life in which they were placed—at any rate, a great shaking among the dry bones. One summer morning an awe fell on the parish as it ran from one to another that the guard of the Yarmouth and London Royal Mail had left word with the ostler at the Spread Eagle that George the Fourth was dead; then a certain dull sound as of cannon firing afar off had been wafted across the German Ocean, and had given rise to mysterious speculations on the subject of Continental ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... open; and round its courtyard runs an open balcony, and from the court grows up a fig-tree poking ripe fruit against a bedroom window. Oleanders in tubs and red salvias in pots, and kitchen herbs in boxes, flourish on the pavement, where the ostler comes to wash his carriages, and where the barber shaves the poodle of the house. Visitors to the Albergo del Pozzo are invariably asked if they have seen the Museo; and when they answer in the negative, they are conducted with some ceremony to a large room on ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... endearing. He watched her with a hard attention that was his kind of tenderness, as she sat humped schoolgirlishly in her shapeless blue overall, averting her face from the light but attempting a proud pose, and keeping her grief between her teeth as an ostler chews ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... about seventeen, dressed like an ostler, with leather cords and gaiters. He lay upon his back, his knees drawn up, a terrible cut upon his head. He was insensible, but alive. A glance at his wound told me that it had not ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more by instinct than aim, I wandered into the stable-yard of one of the principal inns, where I was brought nearer to my senses by hearing the ostler sing out sharply, "Hullo, my man, what is your business?" I told him I was a friendless boy in search of some employment by which I might get a livelihood, as I was very hungry and had no money, or something to that effect; to which he replied that ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... by our office, to apply it to that thirtieth boy in question, and see the result. Had you but kept that thirtieth boy—been patient with his sickly virtues, cultivated them, hoed round them, why what a glorious guerdon would have been yours, when at last you should have had a St. Augustine for an ostler." ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... an inn; the horses were changed; the flight was resumed. Wogan had not moved during this delay, neither had Misset nor O'Toole come to the door. But an ostler had flashed a lantern into the berlin, and for a second the light had fallen upon Wogan's face and open eyes. Clementina, however, did not cease; she sang on until the lights had been left behind and the darkness was about them. Then ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... was Thomas Holcroft, the inseparable friend and ally of William Godwin. Holcroft's vivid and masterful personality stands out indeed as the most attractive among the abler members of the circle. The son of a boot-maker, he had earned his bread as cobbler, ostler, village schoolmaster, strolling player and reporter. His insatiable passion for knowledge had given him a mastery of French and German. He went in 1783 to Paris as correspondent of the Morning Herald, on the modest salary of a ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... had not returned, and Sadie sat in the office at the hotel, making futile efforts to fix her attention on a newspaper. The guests had gone to bed and the building was very quiet, but she had kept the ostler up. He might be needed and she could ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... out first. Two minutes later appeared the ostler and chambermaid, who were man and wife. The inn, as has been stated, was a quaint old building, and as inflammable as a bee-hive; it overhung the base at the level of the first floor, and again overhung at the eaves, which were finished with heavy oak barge-boards; every atom in its substance, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Mehetabel obeyed the summons. There was a bright flush of pleasure in her cheek as she mounted to her place in the little cart, assisted by Joe Filmer, the ostler at the Ship, and folded her shawl about the living morsel that was all the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... joyous sun rose over the white cliffs Of Devon, sparkled through the poplar-tops, And broke the death-like slumber of the Hall. The keeper fetched their breakfast to the hounds; The smart, young ostler whistled in the stalls; The pretty housemaid tripped from room to room; And grave and grand behind his master's chair, But wroth within to have the partridge spoil, The senile butler waited for his lord. But neither ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... see what you have to expect, if you try your trade with me," thought Edward, "I am very glad that you have been spying." Having replaced his pistols, Edward paid his reckoning, and went to the stable desiring the ostler to saddle his horse and fix on his saddle-bags. As soon as this was done he mounted and rode off. Before he was well clear of the town the highwaymen cantered past him on three well-bred active horses. ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... actually passing down Cheapside on his way to the Tower. When at last Anthony came to the thoroughfare the crowd was as dense as for a royal progress. He checked his horse at the door of an inn-yard, and asked an ostler that stood there ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... himself so brisk and handy that the roomy chaise stood at the door in a surprisingly short time, with a smiling little ostler at Duke's head ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... he worthy of it, the handsome jewel—and wouldn't he look the gintleman, every inch of him?" and Sally expatiated greatly on it in the kitchen, and drank both their healths in an extra pot of tea, and Kate grinned her delight, and Jack the ostler, who took care of Martin's horse, boasted loudly of it in the street, declaring that "it was a good thing enough for Anty Lynch, with all her money, to get a husband at all out of the Kellys, for the divil a know any one knowed in the counthry where the Lynchs ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... servant is that servant of Captain Jones; but then they all are. Valet, cook, porter, boots, chambermaid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coal-heaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... yard long, and six inches in circumference. The blacks frequently extract the teeth of these reptiles, even those of the most venomous species, a process which renders them harmless. In the evening we returned to Freetown. The black ostler, who is generally a Krooman, performs in this country a double duty, for he not only attends the horse in the stable, but accompanies him on his journey, keeping pace with the animal at whatever rate his master pleases to ride. This would be a very good punishment for some of our ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... Yealmpton, where the coachman and guard usually had their last drain before arriving at their destination, being a cold night, they kindly sent Mrs. Cox a drop of something warm. The servant-girl who brought out the glass, not being able to reach the lady, the ostler very imprudently left the horses' heads to do the polite. The animals hearing some one getting on the coach, doubtless concluded that it was the coachman; at the same time finding themselves free, ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... hour, Boots-Mercury beheld my recreant relative emerge, and from this point followed him—always with extreme caution—back to the Black Swan. Here he hung about the yard, favoured by his close acquaintance with the ostler, until eight o'clock in the evening, no event of the smallest importance occurring during all those hours. But at eight there arrived a young woman, with a packet from Miss Judson to Mr. Hawkehurst. The packet was small, and was sealed with red ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... itself was given, in the first edition, from the recitation of a gentleman, who professed to have forgotten some verses. These have, in the present edition, been partly restored, from a copy obtained by the recitation of an ostler in Carlisle, which has also furnished some ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... in 1859, that it had been built eighty years before by a then well-known character in those parts, one Stevens, father-in-law of Henslow the Cambridge professor of botany. Stevens, who could only with much difficulty manage to write his name, had begun life as ostler at an inn; had become husband to the landlord's widow; then a brewer; and finally, as he subscribed himself on one occasion, "mare" of Rochester. Afterwards the house was inhabited by Mr. Lynn (from some of the members of whose family Dickens made his purchase); and, before the Rev. Mr. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... do you, and fancy that fifteen miles, up and down, in a trifle under two hours, has earned you a spell, a bit of a feed, and something of a washing? And you are right. Take charge, Mr. Blackfellow-ostler, and while you do your duty let me amuse myself with my notebook. After all, memory is even-handed. It keeps us in remembrance of many things we would fain never think of more; but it performs similar service for others that are pleasant to ponder over. Out of the saddle bag I have taken ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... pound: if you doubt it I'll count it to you after supper; but be sure you lay it where I may have it at a minute's warning; for my affairs are a little dubious at present; perhaps I may be gone in half an hour, perhaps I may be your guest till the best part of that be spent; and pray order your ostler to keep my horses always saddled. But one thing above the rest I must beg, that you would let this fellow have none of your Anno Domini, as you call it; for he's the most insufferable sot—Here, sirrah, light me to ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... on the list, and as it was well known that he was an ostler at a little auberge in the middle of the square, a corporal and a couple of soldiers was despatched to the house of entertainment to capture him; and the trio soon found that they would not have far to search, for Peter was standing at the gate of the inn yard, and with him three or four ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... been carrying on betwixt them was a joint ejaculation, "Lord guide us, an this weather last, what will come o' the lambs!" The hint was sufficient for my Landlord, who, advancing to take the horse of the principal person, and holding him by the reins as he dismounted, while his ostler rendered the same service to the attendant, welcomed the stranger to Gandercleugh, and, in the same breath, enquired, "What news ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... was not of the same nature, but it made as great an impression on the King's mind. It was a duel I had with Coutenau, captain of a company of the King's Light-horse, brave, but wild, who, riding post from Paris as I was going there, made the ostler take off my saddle and put on his. Upon my telling him I had hired the horse, he gave me a swinging box on the ear, which fetched blood. I instantly drew my sword, and so did he. While making our first thrusts ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... threw down a Napoleon on the table and desired me to take that for what he had himself taken, and to give the servants something out of it; he meant the whole of the servants, for when he got into the chaise the ostler asked him for something, and he said he had ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... and a woman who was alone in the kitchen came up to him and whispered, "The boys (the rebels) are hid in the potato furrows beyond." He was rather startled at this intelligence, but took no notice. He found an ostler who lent him a wheel, which they managed to put on, and we drove off without being stopped by any of the boys. A little farther on I saw something very odd on the side of the road before us. "What is that?"—"Look to the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... on the morning of October 3rd, Modestine was pronounced unfit for travel. She would need at least two days' repose, according to the ostler; but I was now eager to reach Alais for my letters; and, being in a civilized country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell my lady friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon. Our yesterday's march, with the testimony of the driver who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre, spread ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Eglan. (to the ostler) Well, Dick, what sort of a stud, hey? any thing rum, a ginger or a miller, three legs or five, got by Whirlwind out of Skyscraper? Come, fig out ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... my clothes on the right side. I felt a slight sting, but did not mind, and by wrenching myself half round I tore the sabre from his hand. Then I closed, and held him, in spite of his struggles and frothing curses, until the landlord and ostler burst in ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... creed; Shook by a dream, he next for truth receives What frenzy teaches, and what fear believes; And this will place him in the power of one Whom we must seek, because we cannot shun." Wisp had been ostler at a busy inn, Where he beheld and grew in dread of sin; Then to a Baptists' meeting found his way, Became a convert, and was taught to pray; Then preach'd; and, being earnest and sincere, Brought other sinners to religious fear: Together ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... chap," said the ostler, "I'll run and see where he's going," and he followed the stranger, who had awakened a curiosity in every one except Tom. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed, when the ostler rushed into the room, ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... The ostler took charge of the nags, and the landlord conducted them to a room above-stairs, which he placed at mademoiselle's disposal. That done, Garnache left Rabecque on guard, and proceeded to make the necessary arrangements for the journey that ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... said the ostler, who was harnessing the animal. "You'll find he ain't such a screw as you think. You'll need to keep a steady hand on him all the way, pertikler on the road home, or he'll screw you ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the application; and the wheelbarrow after a little delay came forth. The trunk was bestowed on it by the united efforts of the Irishman and the ostler. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... her head!" cried he to the ostler, and with a snap, a crack, and a jingle, away we went ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the afternoon of my arrival at Hanbury Court. Her ladyship had sent to meet me at the nearest post-town at which the mail- coach stopped. There was an old groom inquiring for me, the ostler said, if my name was Dawson—from Hanbury Court, he believed. I felt it rather formidable; and first began to understand what was meant by going among strangers, when I lost sight of the guard to whom my mother had intrusted ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... no more an inn but an hotel, the archway was blocked up with two hand-trucks piled with trunks and portmanteaus, the property of commercial gentlemen and just about to be conveyed to the station. What with the ostler and the 'boots' and the errand-boys, all hanging about for their fees, it was a push to enter; and the waiters within seemed to equally occupy the passage, fetching the dust-coats and walking-sticks and flourishing coat-brushes. Seeing a door marked 'Coffee-room,' I ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Egmont highway. There I was to leave my bottle-basket, asking (or, rather, handing over a written request) for it to be filled with bottles of the very best gin. After paying for this, I was to direct it to be sent aboard the schooner by the ostler (who was waiting at the door with a horse) the last of those ordered by the captain. I was then to walk the horse along the Egmont road, till I saw or heard an open carriage coming behind. Then I was ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... ease in his inn, and took his sip of punch so comfortably, that I, for my part, thought he never would be gone. I was out in the stables and looking at the horses, and talking to the ostler who was rubbing his nags down. I dare say I had a peep into the kitchen, and at the pigeons in the inn-yard, and at all things which were to be seen at "The Bell," while my two companions were still ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... everybody, and wait for nobody. The master of the house introduced the newly arrived guest as Michael Kis, Esq., lord of the manor of Nadudvar, who, "like a jolly good fellow," had come disguised as an ostler to the Whitsun Kingship competition, and there acquitted ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... was to see these forty nobles tearing off their clothes and littering the deck with velvets and satins, whilst the squire of each, as busy as an ostler before a race, stooped and pulled and strained and riveted, fastening the bassinets, the legpieces, the front and the back plates, until the silken courtier had become the man of steel. When their work ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not last long! About noon the landlord, Greenfield, rapped at my door and told me that the Blue Cliffs carriage had come, and that the ostler was watering the horses while the coachman was taking a glass of beer at ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... his horse he took off his hat with a sweeping bow. Then he set out at a gallop and did not draw rein until he reached the "Red Cow" at Hammersmith. Apparently he was well-known, for in response to his shout an ostler ran from the yard and at his imperious order took his horse to the stables. Then the highwayman ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... into the stable, which was a duty that devolved on the guests at this little change-house, from its mistress having no ostler, she entered the only apartment which the house afforded, and demanded some refreshment. "Sit down at the end of that table," said the old woman, "for the best I have to give you is there already; ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... little conversation he asked me what I intended to do, and I told him frankly that I did not know; whereupon he observed that, provided I had no objection, he had little doubt that I could be accommodated for some time at his inn. "Our upper ostler," said he, "died about a week ago; he was a clever fellow, and, besides his trade, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... O'Donoghue's family-tree, root, stem, and branch—except that most lovely off-shoot I mean to transplant (you will forgive this heat of blood; it was clearing for action so to speak)—I ran out and overtook the ostler whom I had seen putting the finishing touch to the lashing of boxes behind! 'Gloucester!' says he. The word was worth the guinea it cost me, a hundred times over.—In less than an hour I was in the saddle, ready for pursuit, cantering boot to boot with my man—a trusty fellow who ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... drove through Clavering, the ostler standing whistling under the archway of the Clavering Arms winked to the postilion ominously, as much as to say all was over. The gardener's wife came and opened the lodge-gates and let the travellers through with a silent shake of the head. All the blinds were down ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... which Mrs Greenow might be able to give him. He waited, on this occasion, for the coming of no market-day; indeed, the journey into the city was altogether special, and he was desirous that she should know that such was the case. He drove at a great pace into the inn-yard, threw his reins to the ostler, took just one glass of cherry-brandy at the bar, and then marched off across the market-place to the Close, with ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... and she looked up every now and then in the midst of her feast, with a mild wonder. Away she and I bowled down the sleeping village, all overrun with sunshine, the dumb idiot man and the birds alone up, for the ostler was off to his straw. There was the S. Q. N. and her small panting friend, who had lost the cat, but had got what philosophers say is better—the chase. "Nous ne cherchons jamais les choses, mais la recherche des choses," says Pascal. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... likely. Thanky, ma'am. I'll look up the concern and try my chance. Would you call it too great a come-down to have father an 'ostler after being first rider in the 'Great Golden Menagerie, Circus, and Colosseum,' hey Ben?" asked Mr. Brown, quoting the well-remembered show-bill ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... intellect. I do not believe your habitual customers have their ideas more enlarged than one of your coach-horses. They KNOWS the road, like the English postilion, and they know nothing besides. They date, like the carriers at Gadshill, from the death of Robin Ostler; [See Act II. Scene 1 of the First Part of Shakespeare's Henry IV.] the succession of guards forms a dynasty in their eyes; coachmen are their ministers of state; and an upset is to them a greater incident than ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr. Mountjoy should have troubled himself to write the letter at all. "If he knows the young lady who is staying at the doctor's house," she said, "why doesn't he call on Miss Henley?" She handed the letter back to her daughter. "There! let the ostler take it; he's got ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... stood to the place would be ascertained. "He MUST be known," I continued to repeat to myself; "the first eye that falls on him, will recognize him instantly." We reached the inn; we alighted. The landlord and the ostler came to the coach door, and received us with extreme civility, and the former assisted the idiot in his eager endeavour to reach the ground—I watched the action, expecting him to start, to speak, to claim ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... wood of Pitmurkie, that is a' fou of black firs, as they say.—I ken the wood, but the firs may be black or white for what I can tell.—At the entry of the wood there is a wild common, and on the edge of the common, a little lonely change-house, that was keepit then by an ostler-wife, they suld hae caa'd her Tibbie Faw, and there puir Steenie cried for a mutchkin of brandy, for he had had no refreshment the haill day. Tibbie was earnest wi' him to take a bite of meat, but he couldna ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... one Squire Mountmeadow, an important personage in his way, the terror of poachers, and somewhat of an oracle on the bench, as it was said that he could take a deposition without the assistance of his clerk. Although, in spite of the ostler's lanterns, it was very dark, it was impossible ever to be unaware of the arrival of Squire Mountmeadow; for he was one of those great men who take care to remind the world of their dignity by the attention which they require ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... the girl is kin, if a man have eyes in his head." And he would have argued the point longer with Jeanne, but he had no time left, for the riders had already turned into the courtyard, and were giving their horses in charge to the white-headed ostler Benoit. Benoit had served in the Golden Pear for a quarter of a century. He had served Victor Dubois's father in Normandy, had come with his young master to America, and was nominally his servant still. But if things had gone by their right names at the Golden Pear, old Benoit would not have ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... widow had been committed to gaol on the testimony of her neighbors that she was "lewde, malitious, and hurtful to the people." An ostler, after he had refused to give her relief, had suffered a pain. So far as the account goes, this was the sum of the evidence against the woman. Unhappily she waited not on the order of her trial but made voluble confession and implicated five others, three of whom were ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... d'Or,'" said Aylward, as they pulled up their horses at a whitewashed straggling hostel. "What ho there!" he continued, beating upon the door with the hilt of his sword. "Tapster, ostler, varlet, hark hither, and a wannion on your lazy limbs! Ha! Michel, as red in the nose as ever! Three jacks of the wine of the country, Michel—for the air bites shrewdly. I pray you, Alleyne, to take note of this door, for I have a tale ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... happenings at Kirkcudbright had given them so wholesome a fear of his speech and presence as to cause them to misdoubt their own wit, which is saying a deal of Scotchmen. But when the bargain had been struck and John Paul gone with the 'ostler to see to his chests, mine host thought it a pity not to have a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... assassinate your successor, the lady Mathilde's brother; and, in consequence, will be hanged. In the love of the lady he will be succeeded by a gardener, who will be replaced by a monk, who will give way to an ostler, who will be deposed by a Jew pedler, who shall, finally, yield to a noble earl, the future husband of the fair Mathilde. So that, you see, instead of having one poor soul a-frying, we may now look forward to a goodly harvest ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to Dorothea. Her brothers had dismounted and handed their horses over to the ostler who waited by the porch daily to lead them to the ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... moment, pert) you are Warden here. It is your duty, even your privilege, to GUARD. Is it not? Well, I grant you the adage that it is useless to bolt the stable door when the horse has been stolen. But what shall be said of the ostler who doesn't know—won't even 'inquire' whether—the horse HAS ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... all our luggage, will you, ostler?' says one of them to the groom, 'and whatever you do ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... himself to the little memorandum book in which he kept the records of these interesting duties, and entered a claim against his employer for a conveyance to Nuncombe Putney and back, including driver and ostler; and then he wrote his letter. After that he had a hot supper, with three glasses of brandy and water, and went to bed with a thorough conviction that he had earned ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the "tired jade" the last three miles back, in order to get it home before midnight; also to prevent the annoying necessity of pulling up in a street adjacent to the livery-stables, to cut off the frayed end of the whip thong, that the ostler may not detect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... hopes. In response to our united appeals a dishevelled head of red hair cautiously looked down from a half-opened window, and our story had to be told again. Well, this time we were let in and allowed to sit down, whilst the ostler's wife was being roused as well as the servant, for we were told that the tourists' season, being already over, the inn was no longer in trim for customers. This was bad news, for the good effects of the luncheon had passed off, and as soon as we could ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... other robbed me of my little savings as soon as I reached London, and I had to make shift to pay my fare down here. It is a long story to tell how I found you out. I went to the old place first, and they sent me on here. I had a drop of beer and a crust at the Three Loaves, and old Giles, the ostler, knew me and told me a long ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Colonsay," she said, "ye ha'e no less nor made up yer min' to pass yer days in yer ain stable, neither better nor waur than an ostler at the Lossie Airms, an' that efter a' 'at I ha'e borne an' dune to mak a gentleman o' ye, bairdin' yer father here like a verra lion in 's den, an' garrin' him confess the thing again' ilka hair upon the stiff neck o' ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... musical entertainment at Burley's hall, to raise funds for the purchase of new uniforms for the "fire laddies," at which Mrs. Butts has consented to sing "When the Robins Nest Again," and Miss Mertie Stout will recite "'Ostler Jo," a selection which never fails to offend the best people everywhere. Twenty-five cents ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... last six well under twenty minutes," said he. "We've time in hand now, and a little water at the Red Lion will do them no harm. Red four-in-hand passed, ostler?" ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... musquitoes, but having no one attraction to call for the halt of a minute. By half-past seven I had reached my quarters for the night; saw my horse well taken care of under the superintendence of a good-humoured Irish boy, who was ostler, and, as he informed me, deputy waiter, besides having a "power of other things to be doin';" next, partook of a comfortable supper, and, after a short walk about the village, to bed; my purpose being to reach Bordenton next morning ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... old captain's farm was about four miles from the large and flourishing town of Z——, and here the captain spent most of his time. Riding in on "Bonny Doon," in the morning, and hitching her to the sign-post, the poor beast would stand there—unless taken in by the ostler or others—until midnight, while the captain swigged whiskey, and smoked his pipe in the tavern. Yet "Bonny Doon's" affection for her old master did not flag; she waited patiently until he came—her mane and long tail would then switch about, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... where, in the 'parlour' of a public house, the ceremony was performed. Mr. Hone's correspondent sends a copy of the old initiation song, which varies considerably from our version, supplied to us in 1851 by a very old man (an ostler) at Highgate. The reciter said that the COPY OF VERSES was not often used now, as there was no landlord who could sing, and gentlemen preferred the speech. He said, moreover, 'that the verses were not always alike—some said one way, and some another— some made ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... the brush to begin polishing the buttons, now in a neat row, when a couple of hands were passed round him—one taking his jacket and button-stick, the other the brush, which was briskly applied, accompanied by a loud, hissing noise, such as an ostler makes, to blow away the ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... was there at the inn, sure 'nuff, an' the ostler was waiting up, but the man what come'd wi' the trap was disappeared. We on'y found 'en at two in the morning, sleeping dead drunk in the manger, an' then he an' the ostler began fighting on account ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... past year the old seaman had been severely tried. Misfortune had followed upon misfortune; until the hardy veteran looked like the spectre of his former self. His only daughter, a pretty girl of eighteen, was engaged to marry the ostler at the Crown Inn, a fine-looking young man, who had lately come from London. He saw Nancy Jarvis, became enamoured of the fisherman's daughter, told his tale of love, and was accepted. The old man was rather averse to the match; for, in his eyes, no man was ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... a wide berth. It would be no joke to have old Murdock topple over on to you. I left them 'wug-an-tooreying,' and went out to look after the trap, which was ordered to be at the door at half-past ten. I found Murdock's ostler very drunk, but sober compared with that rascally help whom we had been fools enough to take with us. They had got the trap out and the horses in, but that old rascal Satan was standing so quiet that I suspected something wrong. Sure enough, when I came ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... ostler who had helped in the cleaning of the car overnight was standing near the open doors of the coach-house. He might not have heard the words, but he certainly saw the respectful action. His eyes grew round, and his lips pursed to give vent to ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... began, with a glance at the hotel ostler, who was standing near cleaning a bit in industrious and sarcastic silence, "it is a fact, no doubt, that I mentioned here this morning that this young mare was of the Government hackney stock. But, according as I understand from this poor man that owns her, he ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the town, he rode into the yard of the Morven Arms, and having found a sleepy ostler, gave up his mare: he would be better without her at the castle!—whither he was setting out to walk when ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... a few shillings in money which were given me at Richmond, and after travelling nearly twenty-four hours from the time I crossed the line, I ventured to call at a tavern, and buy a dinner. On reaching Carlisle, I enquired of the ostler in a stable if he knew of any one who wished to hire a house servant or coachman. He said he did not. Some more colored people came in, and taking me aside told me that they knew that I was from Virginia, by my pronunciation ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... entered—entered with the air of a man who lived there, Daniel Granger thought. And he had said that he was staying with a bachelor friend. Mr. Granger rode slowly past the principal part of the hotel to an archway at the end—an archway leading to livery stables, where the ostler was lounging. He stopped opposite this archway, and beckoned ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "That shall be the last of your taunts, old man." He turned to the ostler: "Bill, give Black Dick his oats at sunrise; and in ten days at furthest I'll pay every shilling this house and farm do owe. Now, Master White, you'll put in hand a new sign-board for this inn; a fresh 'Packhorse,' and paint him jet black, with one white hoof (instead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... good sinful Innkeeper, will that corruption, thine Ostler, look well to my gelding. Hay, ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... landing-place outside the door, just now, I should be disposed to say that the dog had retreated growling beneath some article of furniture, and was keeping the professors at bay. This conjecture is confirmed by the testimony of the ostler, who, after peeping through the keyhole, assures me that he distinctly saw Professor Nogo on his knees, holding forth a small bottle of prussic acid, to which the animal, who was crouched beneath an arm-chair, obstinately declined to smell. You cannot imagine the feverish ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... his hands upon the table began to whisper in Welsh to his professional adviser. Not wishing to hear any of their conversation I finished my breakfast as soon as possible and left the room. Going into the inn-yard I had a great deal of learned discourse with an old ostler about the glanders in horses. From the inn-yard I went to my own private room and made some dottings in my note-book, and then went down again to the parlour, which I found unoccupied. After sitting some time before the fire I got up, and strolling ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... manly; he had humour, but no moral purpose at all. The natural result was that Fielding and his set looked on Richardson as a grave, dull, respectable old prig; Richardson on Fielding as a low rake, who wrote like a man who had been an ostler born in a stable, or a runner in a sponging-house. "The virtues of Fielding's heroes," the vain old printer used to say to his feminine clique, "are the vices of a ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of Factory Scraps, preserved at the Goldsmiths' Library in London, contains a copy of the Factory Bill of 1833, with some pencil notes in Ostler's handwriting which run: ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide- eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on. The coachman had already replied, "Yes, he'd take her through it,"—meaning ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... nigh washed out o' the buggy, besides losin' my way and gettin' inter ditches and puddles, and I hed to stop at Staples' Half-Way House and put up for the night. In the mornin' I riz up early and goes into the stable yard, and the first thing I sees was the 'ostler. 'I hope ye giv' my hoss a good scrub down,' I sez, 'as I told ye, for his color is that delicate the smallest spot shows. It's a very rare color for a hoss.' 'I was hopin' it might be,' sez he. I was a little ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... be alone; but the bare, roomy house seemed lonely after her father and his party had set out. She wandered to the kitchen where the two old women-servants were preparing, with the aid of a turnspit, the early supper; there she learned that only old Simon, the lame ostler, was left in the stables, which stood on either side of the courtyard. This was not re-assuring news: the more as Madeline knew her father might not return for another hour. She went thence to the long eating-room on the first floor, which ran the full depth ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... not foure by the day, Ile be hang'd. Charles waine is ouer the new Chimney, and yet our horse not packt. What Ostler? Ost. Anon, anon ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... after a week's sojourn or so at the Ipswich Inn, made a mutual discovery. This was, that not only were the landlady of the Inn, her son and the ostler all of English origin and descent, but that the entire village appeared to be populated by people of English extraction. The butcher was a Englishman, the blacksmith was a Cockney answering to the name of 'Enry Ide, the cobbler was from South ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... clattered into the hamlet of Mirepoix, and drew up before an inn flaunting the sign of a peacock—as if in irony of its humbleness, for it was no better than a wayside tavern. Neither stable-boy nor ostler was here, and the unclean, overgrown urchin to whom I entrusted my horse could not say whether indeed Pere Abdon the landlord would be able to find me a room to sleep in. I thirsted, however; and so I determined ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... of the ostler's darkening countenance decided Pitman. 'All right,' he said desperately, 'you drive. I'll tell you ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the ostler, "give this horse half a feed of corn, then some water, then the other half feed; but give him nothing until you have cooled him down. Do these things, and I present you with one peseta. Omit any of them, and I give you nothing at all. Is that ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... startings, snortings, and tossings of the head, it thus befell that to every step the diminutive groom marched on terra firma, he took one in mid-air, at which times, swinging pendulum-like, he poured forth a stream of invective that the most experienced ostler, guard, or coachman might well have envied, and all in a voice so gruff, so hoarse and guttural, despite his tender years, as filled the listening rustics with much apparent awe ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... of the stables connected with the mails. This whole corporation was constantly bribed, rebribed, and often surrebribed; a mail-coach yard was like the hustings in a contested election; and a horse-keeper, ostler, or helper, was held by the philosophical at that time to be the most ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... post-office and telephone services will also bring intelligent ingredients to these suburban nuclei, these restorations of the old villages and country towns. And the sons of the cottager within the affected area will develop into the skilled vegetable or flower gardeners, the skilled ostler—with some veterinary science—and so forth, for whom also there will evidently be work and a living. And dotted at every convenient position along the new roads, availing themselves no doubt whenever possible ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... he's getting on.' 'I explained,' the Commander tells us, 'that Australia was a big country, and asked him if he had any idea of the name of the place his son had gone to. He had not.' As soon as Commander Gambier arrived at Newcastle, in New South Wales, he met an exceptionally ragged ostler. As the ostler handed him his horse, Mr. Gambier felt an irresistible though inexplicable conviction that this was the old cabman's son. He felt absolutely sure of ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... fellow's name was Humphry Clinker. That he had been a love begotten babe, brought up in the work-house, and put out apprentice by the parish to a country black-smith, who died before the boy's time was out: that he had for some time worked under his ostler, as a helper and extra postilion, till he was taken ill of the ague, which disabled him from getting his bread: that, having sold or pawned every thing he had in the world for his cure and subsistence, he became so miserable and shabby, that he disgraced ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... second-hand 'tis ten to one thou wert A Jew's possession, got in honest barter; Next, John the ostler's; last of all, past doubt A vagrant's hat; the equitable purchase Of an ill-sung song. Till quite worn out With rain, and wind, and sleet, and other 'ills Thy race is heir to,' the beggar cast thee From his plebeian pate—and here ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... broad High Street we dismounted in front of the Blue Boar inn, and handed our tired horses over to the ostler, to whom Saxon, in a loud voice, and with many rough military oaths, gave strict injunctions as to their treatment. He then clanked into the inn parlour, and throwing himself into one chair with his feet upon another, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strength of whose head had been a boast in the village for many years. On the third occasion the indignant shoemaker was interrupted in the middle of an impassioned harangue on free speech and bundled into the road by the ostler. After this ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... post, but I found men with coaches who did as well, and I agreed with one of them to take me to Trevisa in an hour and a quarter. The horses were put in in three minutes, and with the idea that Father Balbi was behind me I turned round to say "Get up," but he was not there. I told an ostler to go and look for him, with the intention of reprimanding him sharply, even if he had gone for a necessary occasion, for we had no time to waste, not even thus. The man came back saying he could not find' him, to my great rage and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of a place that would just suit you," the ostler at the Greyhound at Streatham said to him, on the occasion of his third visit there; "but it is let; my old mother is the gentleman's housekeeper. He took the place through me, for he rode up just as you have done, ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was polishing a curb-chain with sand; the lantern at his feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... introduction, waved us in and across her threshold. As for Major Favraud, he had turned to leave us on the door-sill, to see to the comfort and safety of his horses; not liking, perhaps, the appearance of the superannuated ostler, who lounged near the stable of the inn, if such might be called this rustic retreat without ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... ostler explained that the animals belonged to two gentlemen now reposing at the "Bugle:" one young with gold hair, the other old with grizzled locks; both in red coats; both in jack-boots; putting the house into a bustle, and calling for the best. He then discoursed to some of his own companions ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a singular quality,—that of personal remembrance; and even at the distance of years he would recall a man to memory, even had the former acquaintance been but casual. Passing through the inn yard, his quick eye detected in the ostler a quondam stable-boy. To avoid the consequences attendant on a fair riot which had ended, "ut mos est," in homicide, the ex-groom had fled the country, and, as it was reported and believed, sought an asylum in the "land of the free" beyond the Atlantic, which, privileged like ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... business so well that had I pulled on one rein with all my strength I believe it would have merely annoyed, without convincing, him. He took me into the yard without a mistake, and I gave up the reins to the ostler, thanking ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on this occasion was Mr Ostler, a manufacturer of glass beads and other toys of the same substance, from Birmingham. Several of the articles made by him were placed upon the table, for the inspection of the Committee of the House of Commons, which held its meetings in one of ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... speake: And now when all the Muses out of their Approved modesty silent appeare, This Play of Fletchers braves the envious light As wonder of our eares once, now our sight. Three and fourfold blest Poet, who the Lives Of Poets, and of Theaters survives! A Groome, or Ostler of some wit may bring His Pegasus to the Castalian spring; Boast he a race o're the Pharsalian plaine, Or happy Tempe valley dares maintaine: Brag at one leape upon the double Cliffe (Were it as high as monstrous ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... he should further seek an interview, which, though, now in his power, was so sedulously shunned by the other party, he decided in the negative; and contenting himself with writing upon a slip of paper the hasty words,—"You are known by the villagers,—be upon your guard,"—he gave it to the ostler, with instructions to deliver it instantly to the owner of the horse he pointed out, and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as he was, a vague consciousness of the truth, connected as it was with his earlier observation, flashed across the old man's mind, and when, in answer to his loud hallooing, a factotum, on whom devolved all the numerous offices of the inn, from waiter down to ostler, made his appearance, Sampson added to his loudly expressed demand for Silvertail's corn, a whispered injunction to return with a light. During the absence of the man he commenced trolling a verse of "Old King Cole," a favorite ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... visored caps, were shouldering favoured 'ostlers from the different noblemen's stables; and there was a liberal sprinkling of the characters who attended the cock mains in Drury Lane and at Newmarket. At the moment of my arrival the head 'ostler was rubbing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... advantage of costing nothing but 63 cents for the pony, and 12 cents for turnpikes. Not that we had the temerity to drive through London. We always left the pony two miles before we reached town, with strict orders to the civil ostler to whose care we confided him to great care of him, and be sure and give him a "good feed." We then proceeded on our way in a cab, which cost us no more than we should have paid for ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience, augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities; then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head which the head ostler at the castle had given him that ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... to be sold there on the nineteenth day of June (as I very well remember, from what happened afterwards); and when he came back he asked if he might speak with me privately. When I had him alone in my room he told me he had news from a Catholic ostler at the Four Swans, with whom he had spoken, that a party had been asking after ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... where Trevis the Pharisee was expected; and I had scarce got into my room, before the victorious mob of his enemy, who had routed his advanced guard, broke open the gates of our inn, and almost murdered the ostler-and then carried him off to prison for being murdered. The cathedral is pretty, and has several tombs, and clusters of light pillars of Derbyshire marble, lately cleaned. Gothicism and the restoration of that architecture, and not of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... to suit me," I said half aloud, and was proceeding to dismount, when I caught sight of a man staring hard in my direction from the window of the opposite house, and while I was talking to the ostler the stranger had run down and clapped me on the back in the heartiest manner. He looked rather like a soldier of fortune who had fallen on evil times. His finery was distinctly faded, but he carried a good sword, ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... determined to know all about it in the morning. "I was pretty sure at the first sight, said he, that thee wert Jack Meadowcroft; but still I was not quite certain till I heard thee chattering with the folks at breakfast: so being ostler, I called thee out to the stable to speak to thee in private: for I'll tell thee what Jack, I will not betray thee." Hodgkinson then told him that though he loved music and acting, and should be glad to be a good player (at which ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... horse by an ostler and two local sots from the tap-room, his valise was strapped none too securely before him, and with a farewell, which was meant to be gracious but was only foolish, he tittuped into the rain. He was as drunk as an owl, though he did not know it. All afternoon he ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... manner, he made this proposal to me: "John, I have a brother living in Risterstown, four miles off, who keeps a tavern; I think you had better go and live with him, till we see what will turn up. He wants an ostler." I at once assented to this. "Well," said he, "take something to eat, and I ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... memory very extraordinary. The waiter laughed me to scorn, with that quiet insolence which a well-fed waiter feels for a customer who pays twenty shillings a week for his board and lodging. The packet had been given to a very respectable messenger, the waiter made no doubt. As to whether it was the ostler, or one of the boys, or the Boots, or a young woman in the kitchen who went on errands sometimes, the waiter wouldn't take upon himself to swear, being a man who would perish rather than inadvertently perjure himself. As to my packet having been tampered with, that was ridiculous. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... but I wish you would just step across the yard, and see if that stupid ostler has rubbed them dry, as I told him. You understand those things, I know, Hurst—the fellows won't humbug you very easily; as to Hawthorne, I wouldn't trust him to see to any thing of the sort. Flora here knows more about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there you are! Now, my ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... animal in silence, and sucked a straw which he had in his mouth reflectively. Tim looked anxiously up into his face. Would he take a fancy to him? The landlord had now drawn near, and also an inquisitive ostler. The old chestnut-seller ceased to rock herself to and fro, and turned her head towards the group, so that the dog, so lonely a few minutes ago, had suddenly become a centre of interest. He seemed to wonder at this, but he scarcely moved his eyes, with a mute appeal in them, from his first ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the stables to see to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant twitches of feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring men idling around, Dick endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact that there was any sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a tranter's desire to carry a passenger home. He presently entered the inn and opened the door ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... days used to set off from the George, Mr. Foker flung the coffee-room window open, and called the guards and coachmen by their Christian names, too, asking about their respective families, and imitating with great liveliness and accuracy the tooting of the horns as Jem the ostler whipped the horses' cloths off, and the carriages drove ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said the ostler admiringly. "Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates. With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... letters that were worked in nails on the top of Sir John's trunk; the letters were P. O'M. Our hero, whose eyes were at least as quick as the Scotchman's, was alarmed lest this should lead to a second detection. He called instantly, with his usual presence of mind, to the ostler, and desired him to uncord that trunk, as it was not to go with him; raising his voice loud enough for all the yard to hear, he added—"It is not mine at all; it belongs to my friend, Mr. O'Mooney: let it be sent after me, at leisure, by the waggon, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... mental flash we linked the Crinoline with the powder puffs on Wenus. Approaching it more nearly, we heard a hissing noise within, such as is made by an ostler, or Mr. Daimler ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... it was old Alec Jewler, the ostler at the Tor Cross posting-house—had told me that here and there along the coast, but most of all in Cornwall, near Falmouth, there had once been arsenic mines, now long since worked out. Their shafts, he said, could be followed here and there ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... the outward appearance of the premises we did not expect the best accommodation, we thought anything better than being exposed longer to the fury of the storm, so giving our horse and waggon to the charge of the ostler, we entered Mr. Orton's tavern, and demanded to be shown into a private room, which request we found it was out of the power of mine host to comply with, seeing he had only one apartment, which answered the treble purpose ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... bitter terms of the surrounding population, who, he said, were all Carlists and friends of the friars. I paid little attention to his discourse, for I was looking at a Maragato lad of about fourteen who served in the house as a kind of ostler. I asked the master if we were still in the land of the Maragatos, but he told me that we had left it behind nearly a league, and that the lad was an orphan, and was serving until he could rake up a sufficient capital to become ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... But, alas for justice, "I—the victor—had a black eye, while he—the vanquished—had none, so that I got into disgrace and he did not." A dozen years later he ran across this lad in Sydney, acting as an ostler, a transported convict who had, moreover, undergone more than ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... found myself once more at the gate of the Boulogne Camp. There was no sign of my companions, but a tall man, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons like a small country farmer, was tightening the girth of a magnificent black horse, whilst a little further on a slim young ostler was waiting by the roadside, holding the bridles of two others. It was only when I recognised one of the pair as the horse which I had ridden on my first coming to camp that I answered the smile upon the keen handsome face of ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle |
