"Roving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half a poor rustic's crop for his fee, he was ready enough to toss him sixpence for drink money; and if he made the tenants of the lands allotted to his office leave their tobacco uncared for whilst they rowed him on his innumerable roving expeditions up creeks and rivers, he at least lightened their labors with most side-splitting tales, and with bottle songs learned in a ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... left Cyrus for more than a day or two; he had a vague idea that it was not creditable to go to the other world, and be able to give so little account of this one. Now, at least, he should be able to look his seafaring grandfather and his roving uncle in the face, if so be he should happen to meet ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... was at hand, they tacked out to sea, laying their account to make an attempt upon our ships in Plymouth next morning. In the mean time, while thus deceived in the land, they were discovered by captain Fleming, a pirate or freebooter who had been roving at sea, and who knowing them to be the Spanish fleet, repaired in all haste to Plymouth, and gave notice to our fleet then, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... reasons her inability to be with him, and the fact that she was so entirely his. Because he would not let himself hope this time he was not disappointed, or at least so he told himself, when he found only Dexter Allison with Caleb, the next afternoon near six. And on a sudden thought his eyes went roving around the room then, looking for Archibald Wickersham; but Miss Sarah gave him no time ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... seemed to regard Virginia as a harmless idiot with good intentions, but with positive genius for meddling in other people's affairs. Being the only daughter of the Senior Warden, and the leading lady from a social standpoint, she considered that she had a roving commission to set people right at a moment's notice; and there were comparatively few people in Durford on whom she had not experimented in one way or another. She organized a Browning club to keep the factory girls out of the streets evenings, a mothers' ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... camp was struck and packed; the oxen, rested and invigorated by roving over and cropping the rich grasses that grew in luxuriance along the banks of the river by which they had encamped, moved with a brisk step along their shady track, while the voices of the drivers sounded musically, reverberating through the stillness of the forest. Towards ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... piece of land, over which they could have a good view, as they thought from this vantage point they might see some signs to guide them. But from the eminence they only viewed an endless rolling prairie with here and there a clump of trees. They saw bands of roving cattle and a few horses—their own stock or that of some neighbor, and Billee decided that nothing could be gained by going any farther ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... a navy had returned unpaid, and sore with defeat. The town was scoured by mutinous seamen and soldiers, roving even into the palace of the sovereign. Soldiers without pay form a society without laws. A band of captains rushed into the duke's apartment as he sat at dinner; and when reminded by the duke of a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... harvest, develop new treasures. Great interests are introduced. The gold of field, orchard, and harvest falls into the hands of the industrious farmers. These are the men whose only weapons are scythe and sickle. They are the real Fathers of the Pacific. Roving over the interior, the miners leave a land as nearly ruined as human effort can render it. In the wake of these nugget-hunters, future years bring those who make the abandoned hills lovely with ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... of one of those roving and adventurous spirits which is never happy in repose, and when he was informed by John Crossman, an old comrade, of the discovery of a rich placer which he had made during his march as a United States soldier across the territory ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... in one of the summer houses caught my roving eye, and quite aimlessly I passed the door. A chit of a child crouched upon the floor, and leaned forward on the benches, weeping as though each sob were like to burst her little heart. I grant it was no affair of mine, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... meekness that surprised him, but when he reached the other door she had already emptied her bucket and her roving eye was seeking new fields ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... you say 'Well, sir?' I have not done. You are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses—in a harsh, bitter frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life—corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... south coast of England, especially in the neighbourhood of the old Cinque ports, a race of men who were always ready for some piratical or semi-piratical sea exploit. It was in their blood to undertake and long for such enterprises, and it only wanted but the opportunity to send them roving the seas as privateers, or running goods illegally from one coast to another. And it is not true that time has altogether stifled that old spirit. When a liner to-day has the misfortune to lose her way in a fog and pile up on rock or ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... sharply, but her eye was roving. He became suspicious. She might be simple, and then again she mightn't. ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... prosperous in his worldly affairs as his patriotism and honesty deserved, and things at the old "Homestead" looked rather gloomy. Poverty is a fearful darkener of child-life, and while its shadow rarely fell on Willard, who was always at school or roving the woods and fields with his uncle Henry, to his sisters and brothers it frequently presented its dark face and whispered ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Greeks who had sought new homes far from their native land. Many Arabians came from the deserts on swift horses, in roving bands in search of plunder. They wore brightly-colored dresses, and flashing swords and lances, carrying terror wherever they went. Egyptian travelers came with camels loaded with spices and balm. The bazaars were crowded with merchandise from India, Persia and Arabia. Long caravans from Damascus ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... fate Lead the thoughts of young Grisha To dwell on the whole Of mysterious Russia— 380 The fate of her people. For long he was roving About on the bank, Feeling hot and excited, His brain overflowing With new and ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... comfortable than perhaps she had ever been in her life. But it was only her illness that made her capable of prizing such comfort. In health, the heather on a hill-side was far more to her taste than bed and blankets. She had a wild, roving, savage nature, and the wind was dearer to her than house-walls. She had come of ancestors—and it was a poor little atom of truth that a soul bred like this woman could have been born capable of entertaining. But she too was eternal—and surely not to be fixed for ever in a bewilderment ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... was suddenly confident; determined. "We'll stop there to break the news. Then we'll be wedded, you and I, according to the custom of your people. Our honeymoon—years of it—will be spent in the Nomad, roving the universe. Mado'll agree, I know. Wanderers of the heavens we'll be, Ora. But we'll have each other; and when we've—you've—had enough of it, I'll be ready to settle down. Anywhere ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... stumping over Several verdant fields of clover! Subject of unnumbered knockings! Tattered' coat and ragged stockings, Slouching hat and roving eye, Tell of SETTLED vagrancy! Wretched wanderer, can it be The poor laws have leaguered thee? Hear'st thou, in thy thorny den, Tramp of rural policemen, Inly fancying, in thy rear Coats of blue and buttons clear, While to meet thee, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... agree. So the little band of Delawares continued rambling until they reached the Choctaw Nation, where they again tried to make terms with the Chief of the tribe. Evidently no agreement was reached between that Chief and Wahpanucka, for the Delawares continued their roving until they reached the Chickasaw Nation, where ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... stopped short on the word. Silence reigned in the big, bright room except for the occasional rustle of Clarence's newspaper. His wife sat idle, her eyes roving indifferently from the gayly papered walls to the gayly flowered hangings, the great bowl of daffodils on the bookcase, the portrait of Carol that, youthful and self-conscious, looked down from the mantel. On the desk a later photograph of Carol, in a silver frame, was duly flanked by one ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... never had a home, or at least I cannot remember it. We have always led a roving life, here to-day and gone to-morrow. It must be sweet to ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the next morning they were away again over the prairie. Ned was sure that he would meet roving Texans or Mexicans before noon, but he saw neither. He surmised that the news of Santa Anna's great force had sent all the Texans eastward, but the loneliness and desolation nevertheless ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... metal, but underneath it all we are little two-legged animals, struggling with the rest to live and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the springtime we can read our own romances in the making—the first faint stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous discovery of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, coquetry, despair, contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, bitterness, victory, and death. Our comedies, our tragedies, are being played upon each blade of grass. In fur and feather ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... the circus has a crowd like this?" gasped Sergeant Hupner, his astonished gaze roving over the densely ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... learn by experience, for very frequently she has suffered from her own prevarications. It might, however, be argued that to Inez the thought of a possible hum-drum future in which there was no adventure, no roving, and no playing the part of a successful personality, was a worse choice than that of lying, which might and, indeed, often did serve the purpose of making friends with people, who otherwise would ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... the British Legation in Peking, of large tracts being under poppy cultivation in Shensi, a province where lawlessness is rampant, and where the unfortunate residents are harassed, plundered and murdered by large roving bands of Tufei, the Chinese equivalent for robbers or thieves. The reports come from missionaries and foreign travellers and naturally they could ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... fixing her roving attention upon Margaret, who returned her gaze easily, "I see far, far away, through a vista of crowded seats, a huge platform adorned with distinguished figures. A pretty woman stunningly gowned is introducing to a breathlessly expectant audience a tall, striking person. The plaudits ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... discovered what he named Van Diemen's land, now Tasmania, and New Zealand. He it was who called the whole, believing it to be one, New Holland, after the land of his birth. Next we have Dampier, an English buccaneer—though the name sounds very like Dutch; it was probably by chance only that he and his roving crew visited these shores. Then came Wilhelm Vlaming with three ships. God save the mark to call such things ships. How the men performed the feats they did, wandering over vast and unknown oceans, visiting unknown coasts with iron-bound shores, beset with sunken reefs, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... mossy couch to sing A Spanish roundelay, And see my sweet companions Around commingling gay,— A roving band, light-hearted, In frolicsome array,— Who 'neath the screening parasols Dance down the merry day. But more than all enchanting At night, it is to me, To sit, where winds are sighing, Lone, musing by the sea; And, on its surface gazing, To mark the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... This roving crew is called "Starlight Tom's Gang," from the name of its chieftain, a notorious poacher. I have heard repeatedly of the misdeeds of this "minion of the moon;" for every midnight depredation that takes place in park, or fold, or farm-yard, ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... comparatively successful daimi[o]s. Though he had heard of the unsettled state of the country because of the long-continued intestine strife, he evidently expected to find the capital a splendid city. Despite the armed bands of roving robbers and soldiers, he reached Ki[o]to safely, only to find streets covered with ruins, rubbish and unburied corpses, and a general situation of wretchedness. He was unable to obtain audience of either the Sh[o]gun or the Mikado. Even in those parts of ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... In earlier times the Gauls had been stronger than the Germans, and not only could they protect their own frontier, but they had formed settlements beyond the Rhine. These relations were being changed. The Gauls, as they grew in wealth, declined in vigor. The Germans, still roving and migratory, were throwing covetous eyes out of their forests on the fields and vineyards of their neighbors, and enormous numbers of them were crossing the Rhine and Danube, looking for new homes. How feeble a barrier either the Alps or the Gauls themselves ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... All in one moment, and so near the brink; But Fate withstands, and, to oppose th' attempt, Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on In confused march forlorn, th' adventurous bands, With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast, Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... witness unconfirmed: on him baptized Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30 The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son. That heard the Adversary, who, roving still About the world, at that assembly famed Would not be last, and, with the voice divine Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom Such high attest was given a while surveyed With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage, Flies to his place, nor rests, but ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... him leading a life of roving adventure, becoming tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds of people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits are described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the book that his habits are neither vulgar nor ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... my dear friend, is full of Notable things; and being better employed, therefore, I do not expect letters from you. I am constantly roving about to see what I have never seen before, and shall never see again. In the great cities, I go to see what travellers think alone worthy of being seen; but I make a job of it, and generally gulp ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... men and women, faithful to their vows, Breathing the passion of Gethsemane. I see the Saviour in Jerusalem; I see the godless traders scourged; I see Their wares strewn on the temple floor, their doves Set free to wander on the roving winds; I see Iscariot kiss the Nazarene; I see the hate of Herod, and I hear The multitude half-sob, half-wail, "The Cross!" Then up the Way of Tears to Golgotha, Crowned with the thorn, and then, last bitter scene, The mortal death ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... singing of songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the maidens—maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages on large estates—that he would stand for hours wondering which of them was the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving eyes, the gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with his hands clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or retired backwards towards a wall with a row of other young fellows, and then, with ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sometimes were the most distasteful to them and from which they suffered to repletion. Just as the romance of adventure sang its siren song in their ears and whispered vague messages of strange lands and lusty deeds, so the delicious mysteries of home enticed 'Frisco Kid's roving fancies, and his brightest day-dreams were of the thing's he knew not—brothers, sisters, a father's ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... put?" he complained. "Why don't you stake out your own ground and stay put in it? You cut in on every guy's territory. There ain't any privacy any more since you hit the road. What you got? A roving commission?" ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... sinking German submarines; British Admiralty informs shipping interests that a new mine field has been laid in the North Sea; Germans report a French ammunition ship sunk at Ostend; Japanese report that the schooner Aysha, manned by part of the crew of the Emden, is still roving the Indian Ocean; there is despair in Constantinople as Dardanelles bombardment continues; Russian Black Sea fleet is steaming toward the Bosporus; allied ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... for military purposes, running between the presidio itself and the town of San Antonio de Bejar. Though again partially overgrown, it is sufficiently clear to permit the passage of wheeled vehicles, having been kept open by roving wild horses, with occasionally some that are tamed and ridden—by ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... upon him. They got into all the paddocks they shouldn't have been in. They scattered themselves over the run promiscuously. They visited the cultivation paddock and the vegetable-garden at their own sweet will. And then they took to roving. In a body they visited the neighbouring stations, and played havoc with the ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... still another Germanic people began to spread over northern Gaul. They were the Franks, who had long held lands on both sides of the lower Rhine. The Franks, unlike the other Germans, were not of a roving disposition. They contented themselves with a gradual advance into Roman territory. It was not until near the close of the fifth century that they overthrew the Roman power in northern Gaul and began to form the Frankish kingdom, out of which modern ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... for if the female Gypsy admitted the gorgio to the privilege of the Rom, the race of the Rommany would quickly disappear. How well this injunction has been observed needs scarcely be said; for the Rommany have been roving about England for three centuries at least, and are still to be distinguished from the gorgios in feature and complexion, which assuredly would not have been the case if the juwas had not been faithful to the Roms. The ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Treatise on Cotton Spinning; giving the Dimensions and Speed of Machinery, Draught and Twist Calculations, etc.; with notices of recent Improvements: together with Rules and Examples for making changes in the sizes and numbers of Roving and Yarn. Compiled from the papers of the late ROBERT H. BAIRD. ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... he quarrelled with the Chancellor. He was making some more than usually roving excursion from the straight path. The Chamber murmured and cried: "Confine yourself to the question." The ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Valparaiso, ought we not? Very well. In that case, it will be easy for me to despatch from there a reassuring cable message to my Australian friends, following it up with a letter of explanation, and all will be well. Moreover, though you would perhaps never suspect it, I am of a decidedly roving and adventurous disposition, and I shall not at all object to visiting Valparaiso; you need, therefore, worry yourself no further upon that feature of the matter. But, of course, if you ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the case with the first home of my grandfather, and his seven sons could turn their hands to any trade, and do pretty good work. If the men's clothes were not made by a member of the household, they were made in the house by a sewing girl, or a roving tailor, and the boots and shoes were made by cobblers of the same itinerant stripe. Many of the productions of the farm were unsaleable, owing to the want of large towns for a market. Trade, such as then existed, was carried on mostly by a system of barter. The refuse apples ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... his eyes again took in the silent Charlie in their roving glance. At that instant the poker game broke up, and the men ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... When I saw them roving about in the high grass, seeking in vain to find their way to their mother's presence, and hearing their calls for help, and her answering cry of distress, I could but think of the dear children who forget their mother's counsel, ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... spotted and satiny maple wood was, however, "out of fashion" when the roving shipmasters began to bring in logs of Santo Domingo mahogany in the holds of their far-wandering barks, and the cabinetmakers to cut beautiful shapes of sideboards, and curving legs and backs of chairs, as well as the ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... over such speeches from such lips. It would have touched another to note what an irresistible fascination the bars had for the wings, despite all pain; but Lucius Brady's interest in Stingaree was exclusively intellectual. His heart never ached for a roving spirit in confinement; it did not occur to him to suppress a detail of his own days in Sydney, down to the attractions of an Italian restaurant he had discovered near the jail, the flavor of the Chianti and so forth. On the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... of James III., even this court was disintegrated, and Prince Charles led a roving life under the title of Earl of Albany. In his wanderings he met Louise Marie, the daughter of a German prince, Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg. She was only nineteen years of age when she first felt the fascination that he still possessed; but it was an unhappy ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... many of his countrymen went away to sea for a few years and saved money, the wise ones bringing it home and investing it in a plot of land; "but," he added, "they do not all succeed, for many of them have become so accustomed to a roving life, and know so little of farming, that they cannot manage to make it pay. I have worked very hard myself, and am getting along all right;" and, looking at his surroundings, we certainly thought he must be doing ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... song, but hardly could have even dreamed that he should live to see it realised. His early travels in that country had left a lasting impression on his mind; and whenever, as I have before remarked, his fancy for a roving life returned, it was to the regions about the "blue Olympus" he always fondly looked back. Since his adoption of Italy as a home, this propensity had in a great degree subsided. In addition to the sedatory effects of his new domestic r, there had, at this time, grown upon him a degree ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... reluctance that even the rule that thorns do not produce grapes is proved by exceptions. The third person at their table was a handsome young man, with glossy black hair, a high-coloured, florid face, and a roving black eye. Sir Tancred's gaze rested on him with a malicious satisfaction; he knew all about Mr. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Bill Jones were hungry a hasty meal was prepared for them, during the eating of which they told of their experiences since landing from the airship. They had been on a farm until fired with a desire to go roving once more. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... psychology finds many and cogent reasons to confirm this view if only a proper environment could be provided. The child revels in savagery; and if its tribal, predatory, hunting, fishing, fighting, roving, idle, playing proclivities could be indulged in the country and under conditions that now, alas! seem hopelessly ideal, they could conceivably be so organized and directed as to be far more truly humanistic and liberal than all that the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... in a very gentlemanly Catholic priest. I was told that he was a roving missionary. He led a charmed life, for he went to visit the wildest tribes, and was everywhere respected. I conversed with him in French. After a while he spread his blanket, lay down on the floor and slept till morning, when he read his ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... leading his infant son; a grandmother, with more than a mother's care, watching the steps of her little grandson. Then followed a widow; then a young woman, who had been snatched from the jaws of infamy; after them came a once roving spirit, now meek and settled; then, a once notorious chief; and the last I reflected upon was a man walking with solemn gait, yet hope fixed in his look. When a heathen he was a murderer: he had murdered his ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... as a crow and as prying as a magpie and I venture to say thee is a roving scamp. But I may as well talk to thee ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... The roving Englishman (he said) is the salt of English land.... Only those who go out of this civilised country, to see the rough work on the frontiers and in the far lands, properly understand what our men are like and can do.... They cannot manage a steam-engine, but they can drive restive and ill-trained ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... for us to sit back and do nothing," agreed Mr. Merkel. "There aren't any too many men available to help out the sheriff. We've got to do our share. Get ready boys!" and he looked at his son and nephews, his glance also roving over his own aggregation of cowboys, most of whom were now gathered in front of the main ranch building of ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... little luck when they needed it most. A roving taxi swooped down upon them, hailed them for fares. They flew the rest of the way in. Their luck held. A city policeman, noting their stumbling walk as they lurched into a cheap hotel, did not trouble them for their passes. ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... a moment, Robert turned and looked at the gay cavalier whom he knew to be his cousin Marian, in masquerade, and whom he loved. Then he decided he would go and live a gay and roving life in the forest till he could return and marry his cousin as ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... smoke and turned it golden, so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one could tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships. ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... turkey was of a roving disposition. She had never appreciated her luxurious country quarters in Edgewood, and was seemingly anxious to return to the modest back yard in her native city. At any rate, she was in the habit of straying far from home, and the habit was growing upon her to ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refuse the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... directing him to advance to Piketon, and drive the rebels from that place, which he did, and later from Pound Gap. This freed Eastern Kentucky of rebel troops, and relieved the Union men of that section of the depredations that had been committed on them by the roving bands of the enemy. The services of Garfield's command were recognized by Buell, and the thanks of the Commanding General extended to Garfield and his troops. Shortly after this Garfield received his commission as Brigadier-General ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... these attentions without a word of thanks, without a sign of gratitude. He appeared to be numbed, paralyzed, by the nervous shock he had undergone, and yet he was not paralyzed, for his eyes were intensely alive. They were wild, baleful; his roving glance was like poison to ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... with joy, a dainty miss who looked to be fourteen but was said to be twelve, curtsied to Flanders, who bowed low, his roving eye unwilling to relax its interest in the flushed face of the governess. Then came Frederick, a sturdy youngster; Marie Louise, a solemn-eyed ten-year-old; Wilberforce, Reginald, Henrietta, Guinevere, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... roving years, How sweet it is to come Back to the dwelling-place of youth, Our first and dearest home; To turn away our wearied eyes From proud ambition's towers, And wander in those summer fields, The scenes ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... thought Africa was a sandy desert place where lions were roving about, and where Mungo Park went travelling to Timbuctoo and ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... sleights that subtle women know, Hourly she used, to catch some lover new. None kenned the bent of her unsteadfast bow, For with the time her thoughts her looks renew, From some she cast her modest eyes below, At some her gazing glances roving flew, And while she thus pursued her wanton sport, She spurred the slow, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... not a shadow but the passing of a shadow that caught his roving eye and as he stripped off his wind-goggles and looked again he felt by instinct for his six-shooter. But it was not on his hip. He had taken his pick instead, and for the first time he felt a thrill of fear—not fear for his life nor of anything tangible, but that old, ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... years had passed by since the old Towncrier first visited the Huntingdon home. He was not the Towncrier then, but a seafaring man who had sailed many times around the globe, and had his fill of adventure. Tired at last of such a roving life, he had found anchorage to his liking in this quaint old fishing town at the tip end of Cape Cod. Georgina's grandfather, George Justin Huntingdon, a judge and a writer of dry law books, had been one of the first to open his ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... duties in Paris in 1848 had enabled him to know the whole body of the political and municipal police. He warned us that he had seen suspicious figures roving about the neighborhood. We were in the Rue Richelieu, almost opposite the Theatre Francais, one of the points where passers-by are most numerous, and in consequence one of the points most carefully watched. The goings and comings of the Representatives ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... laws should protect marriage and other domestic ties, forbidding the separation of families, and stated that some of the slaveholding States had already adopted partial legislation for the removal of these evils. But the necessities of life and the roving spirit of the white people produced an infinitely greater amount of separation in families than ever happened to the colored race. "The injustice and despotism of England toward Ireland has produced more separation ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... occupied by Oriana and her two companions. The latter seemed fully occupied—the one in pointing out, and the other in observing the route of the travelers. But the eye of Henrich was not unobservant of the beauties of the prospect; and that of Coubitant was restlessly roving to and fro with quick and furtive glances, that seemed to indicate some secret purpose, and to be watching for the moment ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain, but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at the wounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eye caught sight of Virginia's form. With a roar ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... but he did not speak, and the two went on more slowly, their glances roving here and there along the trail edge, looking for footprints. Once the dog Jack swung off the trail into the brush, and Swan followed him while Lone stopped and awaited the result. Swan came back presently, with ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... capable of roaring like a mad bull, and, it is said, uncommonly like his father. We all send our kind love to you, and father, and Tom. By the way, where is Tom? You did not mention him in your last. I fear he is one of these roving fellows whom the Scotch very appropriately style ne'er-do-weels. A bad lot they are. Humph! you're one of 'em, Mister Sam, if ever there was, an' my only hope of ye is that you've got some ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... disease, known as the "milk-sick" created such havoc in Indiana in 1829, the father of Abraham Lincoln, who was of a roving disposition, sought and found a new home in Illinois, locating near the town of Decatur, in Macon county, on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon river. A short time thereafter Abraham Lincoln came of age, and having done his duty to his father, began ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... and the establishment there of a Christian kingdom, pilgrims flocked to the holy places. Soon, however, piteous stories reached Jerusalem of the cruel spoliation and murder of unarmed pilgrims, on their journey from the coast, by hordes of roving lightly-armed Bedouins, against whom the heavily-armed Franks were powerless. The evil was growing well-nigh intolerable when, in 1118, two young French nobles, Hugh of Payens and Godfrey of St. Omer, with other seven youths of highest birth, bound themselves into a lay community, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... gaze wandered over her aunt's shoulder and composedly scanned every detail of the kitchen, traveling from ceiling to floor, examining the spotless shelves, the primly arranged pots and pans, the gleaming tin dipper above the sink. Then the roving eyes came back to the older woman and settled with unconcealed curiosity upon her lined ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... for the purpose of a nominal connection with a profession which might aid his patrons in promoting him at court, Bacon was sent in June, 1576, to France in the train of the British Ambassador, Sir Amyas Paulet; and for nearly three years followed the roving embassy around the great cities of that kingdom. The massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place four years before, and the boy's recorded observations on the troubled society of France and of Europe show remarkable insight into the character of princes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the grocer, her eyes roving critically over the hall as she did so. The buttercups, in a great bowl on the table, were already dropping their varnished yellow leaves; Annie must brush those ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... package by express, the carrier takes the order, which soon brings to him the postal express wagon. A package sent him is delivered in his room. At any post-office he may subscribe for any Swiss publication or for any of a list of several thousand of the world's leading periodicals. When roving in the higher Alps, in regions where the roads are but bridle paths, the tourist may find in the most unpretending hotel a telegraph office. If he follows the wagon roads, he may send his hand baggage ahead by the stage coach and ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... was roving in the dim oil-lit streets of the tenebrous city, striving for the clairvoyance of love. Arrest by the sbirri was certain; other dangers threatened. Brawls and bravos abounded. True, this city of Rome was safer than many another ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Here, in the course of a few days, the Connecticut companies, marching from Stonington, and the Plymouth companies were united with them. As the troops were assembling, several small parties had skirmishes with roving bands of Indians, in which a few were slain on both sides. A few settlers had reared their huts along the western shores of the bay, but the Indians, aware of the approach of their enemies, had burned their houses, and the inhabitants were ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... every playhouse bill Style the divine, the matchless, what you will, For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... heart: For, ah! it poisons like a scorpion's dart; Prompting the ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme, The stern resolve, unmoved by pity's smart, The troublous day, and long distressful dream. Return, my roving Muse, resume ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... was thought to be, and it mattered so little, since it made no discrimination against him, that he had accepted it without question. It did not matter now, except as it bore on the question as to where he should start his feet. It was a long time for him to have stayed in one place, and the roving memories, stirred within him now, took root, doubtless, in the restless spirit that had led his unknown ancestor into those ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... his roving life, had evidently scant sympathy with athletics. He may have been growing old and indolent when he speaks of the game as a "task of stupid drudgery" and opines that instead of a sport it might "with propriety ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... muscular, with a not unkindly face, which, however, showed but too plainly the marks of habitual dissipation. A rigger by occupation, a sailor and pilot at need, a skilful fisherman, and ready shot, with a roving experience, which had given him a smattering of half a score of the more common handicrafts, Hughie was an invaluable comrade on such a quest, and as such had been hired by his young employer. It may be added, that a more plausible liar never mixed ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... been anything else. He was stoop-shouldered and bow-legged from much riding; a wiry little man, all muscle, with a square head, a hard face partly black from scrubby beard and red from sun, and a bright, roving, cruel eye. His shirt was open at the neck, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... short, but it seemed to them very long, and with eyes roving from bush to bush, they went on till they were close to the first patch of trees, the rest looking more scattered as they drew nearer, when all at once there was a hideous cry, which paralysed them for the moment, and Tim stood with his gun half ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... or luxury, of money's illimitable power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had been—upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired. He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the Gauls in the winter of B.C. 54-53; but he spoilt the reputation thus gained by the mistake committed in the autumn of B.C. 53, which cost the loss of a considerable number of troops, and all but allowed the roving Germans to storm his camp. He remained another year in Gaul, but did nothing to retrieve this mistake. In military affairs fortune rarely forgives. In politics he seems to have contented himself generally with saying ditto to his brother. And this continued to be the case up to Pharsalia. After ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Simone the physician, having been induced by Bruno and Buffalmacco to repair to a certain place by night, there to be made a member of a company, that goeth a-roving, is cast by Buffalmacco into a trench full of ordure ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Softly! Imbecile, may the devil take you! What are you afraid of? Say? A lantern and a mirror. That's all! Softly with those oars, miserable wretch! They incline the mirror at will and light the sea to find out if any folks like us are roving over it. They're on the watch for smugglers. We're out of reach; they're too far away, now. Don't be afraid, boy, we're safe! ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... a band of Assiniboins of four hundred and fifty men, and called the Big Devils, wander on the heads of Milk, Porcupine, and Martha's rivers; while still farther to the north are seen two bands of the same nation, one of five hundred and the other of two hundred, roving on the Saskaskawan. Those Assiniboins are recognised by a similarity of language, and by tradition as descendents or seceders from the Sioux; though often at war are still acknowledged as relations. The Sioux themselves, though scattered, meet annually on the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... a mighty engine loomed out from the gathering darkness—a fiery-headed monster—and with its long train of coaches crawled serpent-like around the rocky height, then vanished as it came. The clouds which had been roving indolently across the western horizon suddenly formed in line and moved steadily—a solid battalion—upward towards the zenith, while from the east another phalanx, black and threatening, advanced with ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... danger, and Obed thought it the best plan to keep them in ignorance, unless actual danger should arise. For his own part, he had meant what he said. He was aware that there was danger; he knew that the country was in an unsettled and lawless condition, and that roving bands of robbers were scouring the papal territories. From the very consciousness that he had of this danger, he had decided in favor of stopping. He believed the road to be more dangerous than the inn. If there was to be any attack of brigands, he ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... fettering its own feet, and thus disabling itself from bettering its own condition. The impotence resulting from the inability to employ its own faculties for its own improvement, is the principle upon which the roving Tartar denies himself a permanent habitation, because to him the wandering shepherd is the best part of the population; upon which the American savage refuses to till the ground, because to him the hunter of the woods is the best part of the population. ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... plain, extending to Palmyra on the east, and to the Orontes on the west. With the exception of a few mud-built villages along the east and near the city, there is no settled population between Hums and Palmyra. The wild roving Bedawin sweep the vast plains in every direction, and only a few years ago, the great gates of Hums were frequently closed at midday to prevent the incursion of these rough robbers of the desert. On the west of the city are beautiful gardens and orchards of cherry, walnut, apricot, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the Star were easily made. I had a sort of roving commission, anyhow, since my close association with Kennedy. Moreover, the possibility of turning up something good in the islands, which were much in the news at the time, rather appealed to the managing editor. If Kennedy could arrange his affairs, I felt that the ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... Turkish garrison. Before this fortress could be reduced, a relieving army of seven thousand Turks, with hosts of fanatical volunteers, landed on the island. The Samians fled; the miserable population of Chios was given up to massacre. For week after week the soldiery and the roving hordes of Ottomans slew, pillaged, and sold into slavery at their pleasure. In parts of the island where the inhabitants took refuge in the monasteries, they were slaughtered by thousands together; others, tempted back to their homes by the promulgation of an amnesty, perished family by family. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... again. 'And a very good new departure in journalism, too! A roving commission! Have you ever ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... 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 Mueller, has noticed, all Alpine or hill-top flowers have very large and conspicuous blossoms, generally grouped together in big clusters ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... last hill of corn, a fat fishing-worm wriggled under his very eyes, and the growing man lapsed swiftly into the boy again. He gave another quick dig, the earth gave up two more squirming treasures, and with a joyful gasp he stood straight again—his eyes roving as though to search all creation for help against the temptation that now was his. His mother had her face uplifted toward the top of the spur; and following her gaze, he saw a tall mountaineer slouching down the path. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... Jephtha, a natural son, banished from home, chief of a band of roving marauders, mighty captain and ninth judge of Israel, might have fitted out many an opera text, irrespective of the pathetic story of the sacrifice of his daughter in obedience to a vow, though this episode springs ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... A roving war-party stumbled upon one of Boone's companions and killed him, and the others then left Boone and journeyed home; but his brother came out to join him, and the two spent the winter together. Self-reliant, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... house; the wine that stood on the dinner-table every night; the casual statement from the old man that he meant to retire from the school at the end of the present session. Was there ever a teacher who could live like this after a dozen years' roving work? And the probability was that Surface had never worked at all until, returning to his own city, he had needed a position as ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... And now her eye, roving round the room, fixed itself with the drunkard's divine unerring instinct upon Denis. What a nice, modest, gentlemanly-looking ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... It remained for those who came in actual contact with him to learn the force beneath the forbidding exterior,—the relentless bull-dog energy that had made him dictator of the great ranch, and kept subordinate the restless, roving, dissolute men-of-fortune he employed,—the deliberate and impartial judgment which had made his word as near law as it was possible for any mandate to be among the motley inhabitants within a radius of fifty miles. Had Rankin ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... change her mind when the first flush of anger was over. But, to my great chagrin, she persisted in her refusal of everything, and changing her name, fled from Paris into the provinces; where she was said to have joined a roving band of comedians. Soon after that I was sent by my sovereign on several foreign missions that kept me long away from France, and I lost all trace of her and you. In vain were all my efforts to find you both, until at last I heard that ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... In one case at least, however, she forgot this precaution; and the consequence was that the wife of a certain small furniture-broker began to fume on recognition of some in her presence. While she was drinking her second cup of tea her eyes kept roving. As she set it down, she caught sight of Long Tim, but a fortnight out of prison, rose at once, made her way out fanning herself vigorously, and hurried home boiling over with wrath—severely scalding her poor husband who had staid from his burial-club that ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... While roving, bird-like, here and there, Amid her flow'rets dear, She culled a nosegay, rich and rare, A mother's heart ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... think Mademoiselle Lannes will incur much danger," said Weber. "It's true, roving bands of Uhlans or hussars sometimes pass in our rear, but it's likely that she and other French girls going to the front ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... glad to settle down anyhow," his father responded. "The old French spirit of roving and adventure has had its day with you, and now you will begin ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... immediately that we had been discovered by another roving party of the brigands, and that they had gone to get a reinforcement to overpower us, but upon a closer examination of the track, I came at once to the solution of the mystery. I remarked that on the print left ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... several hundred loaded camels, accompanied by the Arabs who let them to the merchants for the transportation of their merchandise to Fez, Marocco, etc., and at a very low rate. During their routes they were often exposed to the attacks of the roving Arabs of Sahara who generally commit their depredations as they approach the confines of the desert."[8] The wind sometimes rolls up the sand like great billows of the ocean, and caravans are often buried under the pile, and then the wind, shifting, scatters in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and child—except a boy who fled into the woods—and took their scalps. Then she scuttled all the canoes but one, and taking the scalps with her as proof of her revenge, she put the nurse and the boy into the canoe and paddled down the river. She escaped all roving bands and won her way home again to find her husband and sons safe and well, and to show the scalps—the blood payment for her murdered child. Such were the stories told and retold in every colonial township, round every fire; such were the stories brought home by the sailors ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... the boy-and-girl days, her playmate, too,—he had wanted to marry her for years, ever since Vick's freshman year when he had made them a visit at the Farm. He had grown very heavy since then,—time which he had spent roving about in odd corners of the earth. As he stood there, his head bent mockingly before the two, Isabelle felt herself Queen once more, the—American woman who, having surveyed all, and dominated all within the compass of her little world, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... with stalwart sinews through the flesh, Nor easily seized by either heat or cold, Or alien food or any ail or irk. And whilst so many lustrums of the sun Rolled on across the sky, men led a life After the roving habit of wild beasts. Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs, And none knew then to work the fields with iron, Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam, Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees The boughs of yester-year. ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... Camberwell days. The families of Joseph Arnould and Alfred Domett both lived at Camberwell. These two young men were bred to the legal profession, and the former, afterwards Sir Joseph Arnould, became a judge in Bombay. But the father of Alfred Domett had been one of Nelson's captains, and the roving sailor spirit was apparent in his son; for he had scarcely been called to the Bar when he started for New Zealand on the instance of a cousin who had preceded him, but who was drowned in the course of ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... persons who survived that event; and of the families which were immediately descended from them. After having mentioned their residence in the region of Ararat, and their migration from it, I shall give an account of the roving of the Cuthites, and of their coming to the plains of Shinar, from whence they were at last expelled. To this are added observations upon the histories of Chaldea and Egypt; also of Hellas, and Ionia; and of every ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... her search, but it was not an easily rewarded one, and for an hour after her arrival she found no violets. She walked conscientiously over the whole stretch of meadow, her eyes roving discontentedly; there was never a blue dot in the groomed expanse; but at last, as she came near the borders of an old grove of trees, left untouched by the municipal landscapers, the little flowers appeared, and she began to gather them. She picked them carefully, loosening the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... sweep. "Even the most modest of released husbands get inflated. Of course if there are children there are complications, but a woman generally attends to complications. Haven't you ever noticed the way a first-year widower walks? In his own eyes he's a target, and those eyes are always roving to see who is looking his way. He's right, for a good many women look. Men have a large capacity for loving, and many of them ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... been directed, praying that the horseman had been warned; but shortly she heard again the rustle of stiff branches, and out into the opening rode a Mexican. He was astride a wiry gray pony, and in the strong twilight Alaire could see his every feature—the swarthy cheeks, the roving eyes beneath the black felt hat. A carbine lay across his saddle-horn, a riata was coiled beside his leg, a cartridge-belt circled his waist. There was something familiar about the fellow, but at the moment Alaire could ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... of invention, and the language he makes use of must be in a great measure his own work; this makes the number of languages equal to that of the individuals who are to speak them; and this multiplicity of languages is further increased by their roving and vagabond kind of life, which allows no idiom time enough to acquire any consistency; for to say that the mother would have dictated to the child the words he must employ to ask her this thing and that, may well enough explain in what manner languages, already formed, are taught, ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... himself. The horse whinneyed because he inhaled the faint odor of his kind. He drew down on the rein and settled into a swinging trot, which to Maurice's surprise was faster and easier than the canter. They covered a mile this way, when Maurice's roving eye discovered moving shadows, perhaps half a mile ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath |
