"Straggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not missed until this morning. About ten o'clock his body was found by a gardener. It was lying by a shed in the grounds. He was shot in the head, through the left eye. Death must have been instantaneous. The body was not robbed, but there were marks on the wrists which pointed to a straggle having taken place. Dr Stock, of Marlstone, was at once sent for, and will conduct the post-mortem examination. The police from Bishopsbridge, who were soon on the spot, are reticent, but it is believed ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... the same day McClellan and other generals straggled about the country, visiting cities hundreds of miles distant from the camp. And such generals complain of straggling! Make the army fight! inspire with confidence the soldier—then he will not straggle. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... which astronomers still allow to straggle over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy, but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science. When ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... with muddy water. This well-timed supply was divided among the fainting people: a quantity was poured over the face and down the throat of each; and at a late hour, "ghastly, haggard, and exhausted, like men who had escaped from the jaws of death, the whole had contrived to straggle into a camp, which, but for the foresight and firmness of the son of Ali Abi,(who had sent the water,) few individuals would have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... of the gorge, to show that the Goorkhas were in position. A red light from the infantry at left and right answered it, and the cavalry burnt a white flare. Afghans in winter are late sleepers, and it was not till full day that the Gulla Kutta Mullah's men began to straggle from their huts, rubbing their eyes. They saw men in green, and red, and brown uniforms, leaning on their arms, neatly arranged all round the crater of the village of Bersund, in a cordon that not even a wolf could have broken. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... are not likely to meet any one on your way, not even a tramp. Presently the hills open, and you come to the prettiest village on the whole coast. The green common slopes down to the sea, and great woods rustle and look glad all round the margin of the luxuriant grass-land. Along the cliff straggle a few stone houses, and the square tower with its sinister arrow-holes dominates the row. There is smooth water inshore; but half a mile or so out eastward there runs a low range of rocks. One night a terrible storm ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... "Plenty of men would volunteer, but, much as every one is suffering—the ladies almost as bad as your wounded, Morton—I dare not send them, for they would never get back with their loads. Many of the brave fellows would straggle back, of course, but instead of bringing ice, Doctor, they would be bearing their ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... roam, range, patrol, pace up and down, traverse; scour the country, traverse the country; peragrate|; circumambulate, perambulate; nomadize[obs3], wander, ramble, stroll, saunter, hover, go one's rounds, straggle; gad, gad about; expatiate. walk, march, step, tread, pace, plod, wend, go by shank's mare; promenade; trudge, tramp; stalk, stride, straddle, strut, foot it, hoof it, stump, bundle, bowl along, toddle; paddle; tread a path. take horse, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to the regular routine; the fresh men were all drawn up now, armed, the order given, and the relieved tramped into the guard-room and soon began to straggle out again, eager to troop over to a kind of buttery-hatch by the great kitchen, where a mug of milk and a hunch of bread for a refresher would be waiting for distribution, by Lady ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... rebels succeeded in getting away. If we had cut off their retreat we might have had some hard fighting. There is nothing nastier than tackling a rat in a corner. It is a much simpler business to cut up flying men. All beaten troops straggle and desert. Irregulars, operating in their own country, simply melt away after a defeat. They sneak off home, hide their arms in hay stacks, and pretend they never left their ploughs. I know their ways, and, by God, I'll track them. I'll ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... its immense abbey the town of Villeneuve has built itself a rough faubourg; the fragments with which the soil was covered having been, I suppose, a quarry of material. There are no streets; the small, shabby houses, almost hovels, straggle at random over the uneven ground. The only im- portant feature is a convent of cloistered nuns, who have a large garden (always within the walls) behind their house, and whose doleful establishment you look down into, or down at simply, from ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Rueda and Bennyventy.'—We made the rear-guard, under General Paget; and drove the French every time; and all the infantry did was to sit about in wine-shops till we whipped 'em out, an' steal an' straggle an' play the tomfool in general. And when it came to a stand-up fight at Corunna, 'twas we that had to stay seasick aboard the transports, an' watch the infantry in the thick o' the caper. Very well they behaved, too—specially ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... every nobler portion of the town The curling billows roll their restless tide: In parties now they straggle up and down, As armies, unopposed, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Equal? They ain't my equal, none of 'em, man to man. All men are born free an' equal, says the Constitution an' by-laws of this country of ours. Granted. But they don't stay that way long. They're all lined up to toe the mark on the start, but watch 'em straggle afore they've run a tenth of ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... manufacturing city of England has not a striking effect upon the visitor as he approaches it. It is scattered over a broad surface upon a gently undulating plain, and its suburbs straggle out into the country villages, which it is steadily absorbing in its rapid growth; the Irwell passes in a winding course through the city, receiving a couple of tributaries; this river divides Manchester from Salford, but a dozen bridges unite them. No city in England has had such rapid growth ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the two fellows hand and foot, till they heard farther. In the next place, seeing the savages were all come on shore, and that they had bent their course directly that way, they opened the fences where the milch cows were kept, and drove them all out; leaving their goats to straggle in the woods, whither they pleased, that the savages might think they were all bred wild; but the rogue who came with them was too cunning for that, and gave them an account of it all, for they went ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... when I returned, and everything undisturbed. They must have entered noiselessly, and carried her off without a straggle," replied Sir Norman, with a ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... repair. The machete and lasso are no match for their well-supplied men-of-war. I shall locate myself so far in the interior that the accursed Gringos cannot reach me with their ships or their boats. The trappers who straggle over the deserts from Texas our horsemen will lasso. They will bring them in ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... who came too late in the season it was quite impassable, the trails and rivers were stopped by snow and ice, and numbers had to endure a long and miserable winter in the primitive coast settlements or straggle back to civilization. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... you must be content with London for the centre of your wealth and fame; we have no relish for you. Wit must describe its proper circumference, and not go beyond it, lest (like little boys, when they straggle out of their own parish), it may wander to places where it is not known, and be lost. Since it is so, you must excuse me that I am forced at a visit to sit silent, and only lay up what excellent things pass at ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... pages, measuring 9 and 3/4 by 8 in., were 64, and numbered throughout; but a bare third of them were written on, and these in an unformed hand which yet was eloquent of much. A paragraph would start with every letter drawn as carefully as in a child's copy-book; would gradually straggle and let its words fall about, as though fainting by the way; and so would tail into incoherence, to be picked up—next day, no doubt—by a new effort, which, after marching for half a dozen lines, in its turn collapsed. There were lacunae, too, when the shaking hand had achieved but a few ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... officer wrenches from him; another is struggling under a folded tent, the end of which catches on a post and nearly precipitates him into the water. Black Nubian sailors in white and blue jumpers are wrestling with an endless series of mail-bags; third-class passengers, lost under piles of bedding, straggle into a great barge alongside. In the midst of it all one sailor detaches himself a little from the rest and drops down on his knees on the quay, prostrating himself and bowing with his forehead to the ground; he rises again, stands ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... near it, not even a fetid tannery or a squalid tavern, such as are commonly seen outside small towns. In front of this house is a garden down to the river, where the box shrubs, formerly clipped close to edge the walks, now straggle at their own will. A few willows, rooted in the stream, have grown up quickly like an enclosing fence, and half hide the house. The wild plants we call weeds have clothed the bank with their beautiful luxuriance. The fruit-trees, neglected for these ten years past, ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... region where the "newtakes" straggle up Cosdon's eastern flank and mark a struggle between man and the giant beacon, Chris Blanchard rested a while upon the grass by the highway. Tim, wrapped in a shawl, slept soundly beside his mother, and she sat with her ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... meanwhile been rigged, and in this he was carried back to the village from which they had set out. Kettle led the retreat in front of the hammock bearers. He left his force of soldiers and carriers to follow, or straggle, or desert, as they pleased. The occupation of ivory raiding had completely passed from his mind; he had forgotten his schemes of wholesale conversion; he had nothing but Clay's welfare ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... bread that has been good-naturedly handed to them by their captors, for they have been starving for the past three days or so, no food having reached them on account of the terrific bombardment. An aid-post is hastily placed in a huge shell-hole close by, and the wounded straggle back; those who are but slightly hit and can walk help each other along, while the others are carried on stretchers. Here, a man, ghastly wounded, minus one leg and with the other almost severed, lies on a stretcher, calmly ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... fields to the front, thus compelling their foes to advance over open ground exposed to a deadly fire. The early superiority of the attacking army wore gradually away, and while it continued to gain ground its dead and wounded were numerous and close behind it, causing, doubtless, many to straggle or stop to care for their comrades. It has been charged that much disorganization arose from the pillage of the Union captured camps. The divisions of Hurlburt and W. H. L. Wallace were soon, with the reserve artillery, actively engaged, and, save for a brief ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... her other hand on his, as if beseeching him to forgo his irony, which hurt her. They sat silent for some time. The sheep broke their cluster, and began to straggle back to the upper ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... retreat. The kings soon recognised that this retreat was unassailable; their plan of a night attack had failed; but they did not lose the hope that they held the Romans at their mercy. The fight had become a blockade; they would coop the Romans within their narrow limits, or force them to straggle on their way under a renewal of the same merciless assault. To have withstood the legions and occupied their ground, was itself a triumph for Gaetulians and Moors. They spread their long lines round either hill and lighted a great ring of watchfires; but ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... variegated omnium-gatherum was never assembled. They had already begun to straggle in when I arrived. There were long-haired and spectacled doctrinaires from New England, spliced by short-haired and stumpy emissaries from New York—mostly friends of Horace Greeley, as it turned out. There were brisk Westerners from Chicago and St. Louis. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... chateau, and used as a sort of summer resort by Warsaw people, was nothing but blackened chimneys and heaps of brick. The Russians had burned everything, and the inhabitants, who had fled into the pines, were just now beginning to straggle back. Some had set up little stands in front of their burned houses and were trying to sell apples, plums, pears, about the only marketable thing left; some were cleaning brick and trying to rebuild, some contented themselves with roofing over their cellars. And while we were observing ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... novelists, like Sir Walter Scott, show themselves to be singularly obtuse to the advantage of placing emphatic material in an emphatic position. Scott is almost always careless of his chapter endings: he allows the sections of his narrative to drift and straggle, instead of rounding them to an emphatic close. But more artistic novelists, like Victor Hugo for example, never fail to take advantage of the terminal position. Consider the close of Book XI, Chapter II, of "Notre Dame de Paris." The gypsy-girl, Esmeralda, has been ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... hope, that prudence could not then approve, That clung to Nature with a truant's love, O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45 Her files of road-elms, high above my head In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze; Or where her pathways straggle as they please By lonely farms and secret villages. But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50 Toy with the sun and glitter ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... fact, we learned later that all the servants were out except the nursery governess. There were two small children. There was a servants' ball somewhere, and, with the exception of the butler, it was after two before they commenced to straggle in. Except two plain-clothes men from the central office, a physician who was with Elinor in her room, and the governess, there was no one else in the house but the children, asleep in ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her an' her folks but I reckon ye'll have yer hands full to-day," he remarked. "Ye don't need no scout on that kind o' reconnoiterin'. You go on ahead an' git through with yer smackin an' bym-by I'll straggle in." ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... you are devising means of subsistence for the widows and orphans of the men who will straggle out to be slaughtered to-night,' said Luciano; 'you have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... often difficult to tell what the architecture is, or what is house and what is vegetation; for all angles, and lattices, and balustrades, and verandahs are hidden by jessamine or passion-flowers, or the gorgeous flame-like Bougainvillea. Many of the dwellings straggle over the ground without an upper story, and have very deep verandahs, through which I caught glimpses of cool, shady rooms, with matted floors. Some look as if they had been transported from the old-fashioned ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... dared not straggle. Every man who left the ranks or lagged behind was killed. The Arabs were seldom seen, but they lay concealed behind every inequality of the ground, every clump of bushes. Occasionally, when there ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... place where Suffa Culli and Jung Perchad stand to take up passengers, and looks out keenly for cats. That is Charley. He is all right when you know him, is Charley, and I have it on the best authority that there are no flies on him. A rat on the straggle has been known to turn up in this aviary and run the gauntlet of all the cages—till he reached Charley; nothing alive and eatable ever got past him. I have all the esteem and friendship for Charley that any eagle has a right to expect; but I can't admit the least impressiveness ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... being one rich orchard of red-dotted cherry-trees: purchasable for a mere fraction, but not to be feloniously abstracted. Through Altenburg, Zwickau, Oederon, and Chemnitz; up steep hill paths, and by the side of unpronounceable villages, until, on the morning of the fourth day, we straggle into Freiberg. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... want that transport to deceive him. He would never dream of it being unprotected. He cannot be in any strength; besides, I shall want every mounted man I have got for my scheme. The transport, ox and mule, must take its chance. But see that it doesn't straggle. The mule can keep up with us as long as possible, but it must keep together. Likewise the ox-transport, taking its own time, must keep closed up. I assure you the only object of these people on this journey will be to get away. Two blocks of moving waggons will mystify them, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... is as important as its localities, and it is hard to follow the course of the struggle if the narrative loses itself in the different threads of the various corps engaged. For all were fighting at the same time, and the only generalizations possible are that the straggle tended to concentrate from both wings towards the apex at Ypres and to culminate in the combat of the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the crooked trail along which straggle the cabins, I saw something white in a tree at the far end. Supposing it to be a White-rabbit in a snare, I went near and found, to my surprise, first that it was a dead house-cat, a rare species here; second, under it, eyeing it and me alternately, was a hungry-looking Lynx. I had a camera, ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 12th, the British and the Germans alternating in its possession. Victory at this point finally lay with the British, who on July 12 gained possession of the whole locality, together with the Trones wood, which had also been the scene of a bloody straggle. By this time some 30,000 German prisoners had been taken by the Allies during the offensive, while the losses in killed and wounded on both sides, in the absence of official reports, could only ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... three singers generally preceded the bier; the howlers (who are paid for their vocal labours) followed after, and last of all came such of the dead man’s friends and relations as could keep up with such a rapid procession; these, especially the women, would get terribly blown, and would straggle back into the rear; many were fairly “beaten off.” I never observed any appearance of mourning in the mourners: the pace was too severe for ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... recruits from the farms and villages began to straggle into the camp. They were armed with rifles, ordinary shotguns and antique "blunderbusses;" swords, staves and aged lances. All were willing to die in the service of the little Prince; all they needed was a determined, capable leader to rally them from ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sarcasm hidden within the present. Combs— the foreign ladies need them! We Chinese like the locks most smoothly brushed and made to glisten and shine with the scented elm, but they, the foreign ladies, allow them to straggle in rude disorder around their long, grave faces, which are ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... abroad upon miles of moorland, hedgeless, dotted with peat-ricks, inhabited only by flocks of grey geese and a declining breed of ponies, the chartered vagrants of Woon Down. Two miles and more to the north, and just under the rim of the horizon, straggle the cottages of a few tin-streamers, with their backs to the wind. These look down across an arable country, into which the women descend to work at seed-time and harvest, and whence, returning, they bring some news of the world. But Woon Gate lies ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... time the militia began to straggle in; the regular officers had long been busy getting their own troops, artillery, and military stores in readiness. The regulars felt the utmost disappointment at the appearance of the militia. They numbered but few of the trained Indian fighters ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... eyes—eyes I afterward saw filled with intense but never brilliant light. A low, gentle voice inquired the road and distance marched that day. "Keazletown road, six and twenty miles." "You seem to have no stragglers." "Never allow straggling." "You must teach my people; they straggle badly." A bow in reply. Just then my creoles started their band and a waltz. After a contemplative suck at a lemon, "Thoughtless fellows for serious work" came forth. I expressed a hope that the work would not be less well done because of the ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... up tenderly and examined it with care. "My, my!" he murmured. "You poor little soldier. If I hadn't looked around that time I expect you'd been willing to walk all the way to Richmond on a foot that would make a whole regiment straggle. Just see where you've cut it—right under the second little piggie. We'll have to tie it right up and keep the bothersome old dust from getting in. By morning you'll ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... rise again with swift, glancing movement, shrilling that peculiar cry all the while. Like clouds of drifting fog they swept by, and in such myriads that, even after the Maluka began to time them, full fifteen minutes passed before they began to straggle out, and twenty before the last few stragglers were gone. Then, as we turned up stream to look after them, we found that there the dense cloud was rising and fanning out over the tree tops. The evening drink accomplished, it was time to ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... o'clock, and two hours behind schedule, when a very limp and rumpled Lilly followed the weary straggle of weary passengers through the pale fog of the New Jersey station to the waiting ferry. She found a place at the very bow, and, standing there beside her bags, hat off to the sudden kiss of fresh air, her prostrated ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... A strong provost guard, under Major Steele of the 3d Kentucky, had been organized to prevent the two practices most prejudicial to discipline and efficiency—straggling and pillage. There were very good reasons, independent of the provost guard, why the men should not straggle far from the line of march; but the well-filled stores and gaudy shop-windows of the Indiana and Ohio towns seemed to stimulate, in men accustomed to impoverished and unpretentious Dixie, the propensity to appropriate beyond limit ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the world. Well,—if you march along one of these streets, you must ride as I rode, when I came up to you. You must not let your knights go first, and your men-at-arms straggle after in a tail a mile long, like a scratch pack of hounds, all sizes but except each others'. You must keep your footmen on the high street, and make your knights ride in two bodies, right and left, upon the wold, to protect ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... that convict cut. Besides, it isn't becoming. And if you're going to be an American violinist you'll have to look it—with a foreign finish." He let his hair grow. Fanny watched with interest for the appearance of the unruly lock which had been wont to straggle over his white forehead in his schoolboy days. The new and well-cut American clothes effected surprisingly little change. Fanny, surveying ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... They began to straggle in, the men wanted, before the partners had finished their breakfast on the following morning. Some of them were real miners, and others were nondescripts, bearing out The Lily's statement that good men were scarce, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... about forty in number, straggle in from the dining-room by twos and threes, chatting in low tones. The men and women with few exceptions separate into two groups, the women congregating in the left right angle of chairs, the men sitting or standing in the right right angle. In appearance, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... village of Bennecourt, whose yellow houses straggle along the river bank for about a couple of thousand yards. All the villagers were in the fields; they only met three cows, led by a little girl. He, with an outstretched arm, told her all about the locality; seemed ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... copra on their lands; women bound for the bush to gather flowers against the evening toilet; and, twice a day, the toddy-cutters, each with his knife and shell. In the first grey of the morning, and again late in the afternoon, these would straggle past about their tree-top business, strike off here and there into the bush, and vanish from the face of the earth. At about the same hour, if the tide be low in the lagoon, you are likely to be bound yourself across the island for a bath, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any time of the year, in 48-sized pots filled with rather firm soil; and as the seedlings straggle through and show two pairs of leaves, pot them off singly, and give the shelter of a close pit or frame until they become established. They must not be allowed to suffer for lack of water, but there is no necessity to give them manure water at any stage of growth. An occasional re-potting is the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... surely attracted Band after band of the enemy passed, laden in the most extraordinary degree with the spoil of war. They had only a rough sort of discipline in their retirement: the captains or chieftains marched together, leaving the companies to straggle as they might, for was not the country deserted by every living body but themselves? In van of them they drove several hundreds of black and red cattle, and with the aid of some rough ponies, that ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... other boys began to straggle down and cluster round the fire, and Paul withdrew from the aggrieved Tipping, and looked drearily out of the window on the hard road and bare black ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... more than two weeks before General Custer and his famished troopers began to straggle in. During that period of anxious waiting we lived almost exclusively on wild turkey, and longed for nature's meat—the buffalo; but there were none of the shaggy beasts at that time in the vicinity, so we had to content ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... There was a straggle, and a long one, in the proud heart of Mr Austin before he could consent to this act of justice. Mary had pointed out the propriety of it early in the morning, and it was not until late in the evening, after having remained in silence and with his eyes ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... it is to fill the heart of man to the full with affectionate satisfaction, should straggle down a hillside toward a lake and a white road where the sun shines hotly. Some of its branches should trail over an old, lichened and weather-stained stone wall, dropping their fruit into the highway for thirsty pedestrians. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... tired of All for Love, when I heard a footstep in the passage outside. I thought that I would ask the passenger, whoever it might be, for how much longer the squire would keep me waiting. I was anxious about getting back to the army. It was dangerous to straggle too far from the Duke's camps when unbeaten armies followed on both his wings. So I went to the door to learn my fate at once. To my great surprise I found that I could not open it. It was locked on the outside. The great heavy iron lock had been turned upon me. I was ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... were great individual resources when alone,—a sort of Indian wiliness and subtlety of resource. Their gregariousness and love of drill made them more easy to keep in hand than white American troops, who rather like to straggle or go in little squads, looking out for themselves, without being bothered with officers. The blacks ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... matters, such as one always dreads to bring before a promiscuous public, lest one cast pearls before swine. And yet unless devotional books be written, especially by those who have as yet no church, how are we to aid one another in the uphill straggle to maintain some elements of a heavenly life? Can anything be more heartless, or more like the sneering devil they talk of, than Mr. Harrington? And here one who professes himself a religions man, and who deliberately, after ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... "One, with the address written in the clear, bold hand of a gentleman, and one, the straggle ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... week. The average number has been about 40. It has been placed as low as 20, and has risen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain 250 words; and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went. In the bargains I have made with publishers I have,—not, of course, with their knowledge, but in my own mind,—undertaken always to supply them with so many words, and I have never put a book out of ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... straggle in with trout or game. The camp-keeper lays aside his mending or his repairing or his note-book, and stirs up the cooking-fire. The smell of broiling and frying and boiling arises in the air. By the dancing flame of the campfire you eat your third dinner for the day—in the mountains all meals ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... Dam broke out laughing at Kitty's mimicry. I wish the child wouldn't let her hair straggle in front of her ears and look ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... for different reasons. In her soul she had always regarded him as "real cunning," and had even, when she passed to bring up the dish of apples from the cellar, or a mug of cider, longed to touch the queer lock that would straggle down from his sparsely covered poll in absurd travesty of a ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... good hour and a half, and at the end of that time they would begin to straggle out again, flushed and using toothpicks as they strolled to the tables under the trees, where the exhausted waiters would presently bring them breakfast-cups of coffee and cakes. They lingered about an hour over this, ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... delightful chaperon. She was just as ready as anyone in her train to stop in front of shop windows, to straggle slowly down the middle of the street, or to thrust her hand into Richard's bag of peanuts whenever he passed it around. Cracking shells and munching the nuts, they strolled along with a sense of freedom which thrilled Georgina to the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... marching at attention, order your men to march at ease and to light cigarettes and eat bananas. Then, having fixed bayonets, give the order: Across the road—straggle! ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... They do not come forth to the world as Apollos, nor shine at all, keeping what light they may have for inward purposes. Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates. Social meetings are periods of penance to them, and any appearance ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... has its crowd of camp followers, who straggle and scatter. We are like a comet, bright at the head but tailing away into mere gas behind. However, every man may speak for himself, and I do not feel that your charge comes home to me. I am only bigoted against bigotry, and that I hold to be as legitimate as violence to the violent. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded themselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called "places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... doesn't care—some one'll have to keep him moving. I usually carry a little rubber sling shot in my pocket, and when Nigger gets too lazy and begins to straggle off I turn around and peck him one with a pebble. Then you ought to see him get into his place and promise to ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... to straggle in, bringing with them a sadly drenched and battered lot of gunmen. Not one but looked as though he had been through the wars. An inventory of wounds showed a sprained ankle, a broken shoulder blade, a cut head, and various other minor wounds. Nearly every member of Doble's army was exceedingly ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Schwerin at Neustadt, half-way to Jagerndorf; whither they proceeded next day. "What news have you of the Enemy?" was Friedrich's first question. Schwerin has no news whatever; only that the Enemy is far off, hanging in long thin straggle from Olmutz westward. "I have a spy out," said Schwerin; "but he has not returned yet,"—nor ever will, he might have added. If diligent readers will now take to their Map, and attend day by day, an invincible Predecessor ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... cries of sheep, cows, mules, and roosters, and snatches of songs, enlivened the march. If something interposed, or a halt was ordered, the men would throw themselves in the dust, wipe their foreheads, drink from their canteens, gossip, grin, and shout confusedly, and some sought opportunities to straggle off, so that the regiments were materially decimated before they reached the field. The leading officers maintained a dignity and a reserve, and reined their horses together in places, to confer. At one ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... de Lamotte?" inquired a particularly dirty woman, whose cap, stuck on the side of her, head, allowed locks of grey hair to straggle from under it. "Ah! ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which the East Lyn and the West Lyn foam down to the little beach, and the prodigal flowering of bushes and shrubs. Follow the East Lyn up to Watersmeet, which is about two miles from Lynmouth through one of the most beautiful wooded gorges in England. Past the hotels you go, and a little straggle of small modern houses, past the untidy little patch which would be the suburb of a larger community, with upturned boats and washing drying in the sun, and within five minutes a turn of the road hides Lynmouth and the sea from your backward look, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... received its peculiar impress: the delicately blown breath of the first cold. The stubbles straggle wanly sunwards, and the falling leaves rustle to the earth, with a sound as ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... much bravado, and anticipation of early victory; and as money is still plentiful, the public-houses do a great trade. But as the stern reality of the struggle becomes felt, a gloom falls over the place. The men hang about listlessly, and from time to time straggle down to the committee-room, to hear the last news from the other places to which the strike extends, and to try to gather a little confidence therefrom. At first things always look well. Meetings are held ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... the long, steady stroke of the practised oarsman, Stafford sent the boat along like an arrow, and presently he drove it up to the spot where the dog strove in its death straggle. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... summer, when the sharper lines of nature are softened by the haze, some came to us from across the mountains to make up for the deserters. From time to time a little group would straggle to the gates of the station, weary and footsore, but overjoyed at the sight of white faces again: the fathers walking ahead with watchful eyes, the women and older children driving the horses, and the babies slung to the pack in hickory withes. Nay, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... British, who had some women and children with them, and who still kept a good deal of rum in their canteens, began to stir much earlier than had been arranged. The French escort had not arrived when the British column began to straggle out on the road to Fort Edward. When the march began the scattered column was two or three times as long as it ought to have been. Meanwhile a savage enemy was on the alert. Before daylight the Abnakis ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... of a spieler. Raucous-voiced, red- faced, greasy, he stands outside his gaudy tent, dilating on the wonders within. One or two, perhaps, straggle in. But the crowd, made wary by bitter experience of the sham and cheap fraud behind the tawdry canvas flap, stops a moment, laughs, and passes on. Then Temptation, in a panic, seeing his audience drifting away, summons from inside the tent his bespangled and bewitching partner, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... hour passed. The bit of wreck that was jammed between the rocks went to pieces and came ashore. Ben's mate came with it, but no Noll. The men began to straggle homeward, weary and worn with the night's vigil, till only Dirk and Hark Darby were left to keep the stricken master of the stone house company. Oh, such a weary waiting it was!—the ceaseless pouring of ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... ranks," Sir John said; "remember that any who straggle may be attacked by a score of these wild men, and slain before others can come to their help. Ride forward in perfect silence, till we are ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... one, and the patient zeal and talent of the other. I am, therefore, content, and with regard to that I have nothing to say. But I have a word to say, which no advocate, however anxious and devoted he may be, can utter for me. I say, whatever part I may have taken in the straggle for my country's independence, whatever part I may have acted in my short career, I stand before you, my lords, with a free heart and a light conscience, to abide the issue of your sentence. And now, my lords, this is, perhaps, the fittest time to put ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... budding, and the green showed itself on them, like a thin gauze veil. These hedges are not all so well kept and trimmed as I expected to find them. Some, it is true, are cut very carefully; these are generally hedges to ornamental grounds; but many of those which separate the fields straggle and sprawl, and have some high bushes and some low ones, and, in short, are no more like a hedge than many rows of bushes that we have at home. But such as they are, they are the only dividing lines of the fields, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Seven Years' War. Crippled and impoverished as she was at its close, France could do nothing to break the world-power which was rising in front of her; but in the very moment of her defeat, the foresight of Choiseul had seen in a future straggle between England and her Colonies a chance of ruining the great fabric which Pitt's triumphs had built up. Nor was Pitt blind to the steady resolve of France to renew the fight. In every attempt which he had made to construct a Ministry he had laid down as the corner-stone ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... they paraded and at 5 the battle began. For nine hours the Austrians hurled themselves against the iron ring, until early in the afternoon, when, broken and battered, the remains of the twenty thousand began to straggle back to the town. Exhausted and disheartened, the garrison was ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... voice once more, "supposing some of the military should straggle along? There might be one who has seen you before. Alas! I despair! You will not hide yourself; you will stay here ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... wholly old is the Erbistock Ferry, which one might mistake for a rope-ferry on the Mosel. The cottage looks like the dilapidated lodge of an old monastery, and here, at least, is no trimness. Two walls with a flight of steps in each enclose a grass terrace between them, and trees and bushes straggle to the edge of the river, hardly keeping clear of the swinging rope. Coracles are sometimes used for ferrying—also punts. Bangor is a familiar name to students of church history, and to those who are not, the startling tale of the massacre of twelve hundred British monks by the Saxon and heathen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... marvel of neatness. The trim brown paths were swept clean of every leaf or fallen petal, each of the little square beds had its border of big white quahog clamshells, and not even a sweet-pea vine would have dared to straggle from its appointed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... more I think fit to add; That it may be convenient once in four, or five, or six years, to cut off the strings and roots which straggle into the borders, with a very sharp spade, that they may not prejudice the flowers, and what else ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... manner. We get our styles from the Chicago men who step off of its platforms and tarry with us. We send our brides off on it with an entire change of bill at each performance. We get our peeps into wonderland and romance and comedy from the theatrical troupes which straggle out of its cars and rush to the baggage car to make sure that no varlet has attached their trunks since the last stop. It is the magic carpet which carries our youth forth into the great world to wonder and learn and prevail. And now and then it is the kindly beast of burden ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... to the generals that they were very badly quartered in a place where there was no harbour and no city, having to obtain all their provisions from Sestos, and, when the ships were once hauled up on shore, allowing the men to leave them unguarded and straggle where they pleased, although they were in the presence of a fleet which was trained to act in silence and good order at the command of ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... put cheer into this army many a time when it needed it most. Taylor, their commander, is a West Pointer and he's got them into wonderful trim. They're well clothed and well shod. They never straggle and they're just about the best marchers we have. They'll soon be rated high among ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... enmity of Austria, which had massed troops on the Wallachian frontier, remained on the defensive, but in October Omar Pasha assumed the aggressive, sending a small force across the Danube at Vidin, and it was thought that the straggle between the contending forces would take place in 'Lesser Wallachia.' Omar Pasha, however, either intended this as a feint, or changed his plan, for he soon afterwards occupied strong positions on the Danube at Turtukai and Oltenitza, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Grande Isle. Between these two long land gates is a broad, deep channel which serves as entrance to the bay. On the western side lies a host of smaller islands, the passes between them made by the bayous which straggle down through the land. Northward the bay stretches sixteen miles inland, and then breaks up into a medley of bayous and small lakes, cutting far into the land, and yielding an easy passage to the level of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... a little dozing through a comfortable sermon, then friends and crops and politics in the twilight dells of an old churchyard, then home, and dinner, and wide porches—Ah, that was the way, that was the way. Close up, there! Don't straggle, men, don't straggle! ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... considering his advantages. He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... streets and staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas opening at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be selected for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing themselves in country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open post-road with a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green fields, and on a bit of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its brown dependencies; lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away a wrack of tumbling ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... expressions, the grandeur of its imagery, and the variety of its characters. No other work represents, in more true and vivid colors, the nobility and misery of humanity, the laws of necessity and Providence, and the trials to which the good are subjected for their moral improvement. Here the great straggle between evil and good appears in its true light, and human virtue heroically submits itself to the ordeal of misfortune. Here we learn that the evil and good of this life are by no means the measure of morality, and here we witness the final ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... toil, proved useless under the fire that galled the artillerymen. The weak, undisciplined, and bewildered army was hemmed in on every side, and the men were shot down as they huddled together or tried to straggle away, till half their number was left upon the field. Of course none of the wounded were spared. The Americans were tomahawked and scalped where they fell; one of the savages told afterwards that he plied his hatchet until he could hardly lift his arm. All the Ohio tribes shared in ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... laboured under its disadvantages ever since those days. The town has been pinched between the steep hills, and forced to straggle back for miles along the harbour inlet. On the southern side of the basin the slope has beaten the builder, and on the dominant green hill, through the grass of which thrusts grey and red-brown masses of the sharp-angled rock stratum, there are ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... and round we run through an eternity of lives and deaths. Surfeited with the unqualified pleasures of heaven, we "straggle down to this terrene nativity:" When, amid the sour exposures and cruel storms of the world, we have renewed our appetite for the divine ambrosia of peace and sweetness, we forsake the body and ascend to heaven; this constant recurrence illustrating the great ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... bold to present Gismund to your sights, and unto yours only, for therefore have I conjured her, by the love that hath been these twenty-four years betwixt us, that she wax not so proud of her fresh painting, to straggle in her plumes abroad, but to contain herself within the walls of your house; so am I sure she shall be safe from the tragedian tyrants of our time, who are not ashamed to affirm that there can no amorous poem savour of any sharpness of wit, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... and ignorant in the extreme; and yet such is his opinion of himself. I cannot help thinking, as I look at him, that I have seen civilised men almost as well contented with themselves with as little cause. We do not find any of our men inclined to straggle, after what they have seen. We hurry down to the beach. The boat has been left hauled off at some distance, under charge of three men, well armed. They pull in when they see us, and say that they ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... extinguo, stand, squench, quench, stint; foras, forth; species, spice; recito, read; adjuvo, aid; [Greek: aion], aevum, ay, age, ever; floccus, lock; excerpo, scrape, scrabble, scrawl; extravagus, stray, straggle; collectum, clot, clutch; colligo, coil: recolligo, recoil; severo, swear; stridulus, shrill; procurator, proxy; pulso, to push; calamus, a quill; impetere, to impeach; augeo, auxi, wax; and vanesco, vanui, wane; syllabare, to spell; ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... more breath in words, but gave herself strictly to the business of the moment, prolonging the straggle far beyond the patience of the sheriff and his men. But ultimately numbers prevailed, and, although she resisted to the last moment, giving no quarter and asking none, she was finally landed outside and the door locked ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... hen amid her brood, Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part And straggle from her presence, still a brood, And she herself from the maternal bond Still undischarged; yet doth she little more 250 Than move with them in tenderness and love, A centre to the circle which they make; And now and then, alike from need of theirs And call of her own natural appetites, She scratches, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... walked down to Lumley to post his letters. And he looked at Lumley. And he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It was a long straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a pale-grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty place. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... linen hangs upon an hedge," says Sir Roger, "they are sure to have it; if the hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey; our geese cannot live in peace for them; if a man prosecutes them with severity, his hen-roost is sure to pay for it: they generally straggle into these parts about this time of the year; and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for husbands, that we do not expect to have any business done as it should be whilst they are in the country. ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... noble pack of hounds in a compact body, the rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet frocks, light, hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long, heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dared to straggle from the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink at the hares and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Hetman! Damnation! Who do you think you are! Who do you think I am!" burst out the Red officer in a fury. "Get out of my way!——" He pushed the peasants right and left and strode away toward the convent. His soldiers began to straggle after him. One of them winked at the wood-cutters with his tongue in his cheek, and slung the rifle he carried over his right shoulder en bandouliere, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... ballast[1] change and rechange, and here let the novelty be my excuse, if my pen straggle[2] a little. And although my eyes were somewhat confused, and my mind bewildered, those could not flee away so covertly but that I clearly distinguished Puccio Sciancato, and he it was who alone, of the three companions that had first come, was not changed; the other[3] ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... to a reddish brown tinge that surrounded the typical eye-spot of all the Attacus group for almost three-fourths of its circumference. The bottom of the eye was blackish blue, shading abruptly to pale blue at the top. The straggle M of white was in its place at the extreme tip, on the usual rose madder field. From there a broad clay-coloured band edged the wing and joined the dark colour in escallops. Through the middle of it in an irregular ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... yielding. It had evidently been stopped on the far side and now advanced nowhere, showed no longer a malign yellow crest, but only rolling sullenly heavenward a diminishing cloud of smoke. The fire-fighters began to straggle back across the burned tract towards the road, their eyeballs gleaming white in ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... falling. Now we can only see white things clearly—the new parts of houses, the walls, the high road, joined to the other one by footpaths which straggle through the dark fields, the big white stones, tranquil as sheep, and the horse-pond, whose gleam amid the far obscurity imitates whiteness in unexpected fashion. Then we can only see light things—the stains of faces and hands, those faces which see ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... generous sons and daughters of Kentucky and Tennessee, conferring the boon of freedom on the African race, within their borders. Missouri and Maryland will soon follow their example; nor will North Carolina and Virginia long lag behind; South Carolina will straggle long and hard, but she must ultimately yield; and the soft zephyr of freedom will then fan the fair fields of Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas; Louisiana will feel its refreshing influence; and the Lone Star, (Texas), cannot long stand alone, in her opposition, to ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... from the North and opened a grocery store at Jefferson Corners. It is a little store and there aren't many houses near it—just the railroad station and a big shed or two. Beyond the sheds a few cabins straggle along the road, and then begin the great plantations, which really aren't plantations any more, because nobody around here raises much of anything in these days. They just sit and sigh over the things that are different ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... ambition, and in any country but England she would have been a conspirator, and in old times might have risen to be a queen; but as it was, she was only a proud, discontented woman. She knew, too, that it was all she could be—all that her sex allowed her to be—yet did she not the less straggle and toil on. The fate of her father still haunted her; her promise and his death-bed still rose oft and solemnly before leer; the humiliations she had known in her early condition—the homage that had attended her later career—still cherished in her haughty soul ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the dull clothes of the Edinburgh folk and swelled them out into fantastic shapes like cloaks carried by grandees, were as nothing to her because the hurricane tore the short ends of her hair from under her hat and made them straggle on her forehead. "I doubt if I'll be able to appreciate Keats if this goes on," she meditated gloomily. And the people that went by, instead of being as usual mere provocation for her silent laughter, had to-day somehow got power over her and tormented ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... deliberation I made choice of Mr. Smith and Corporal Coles, in the courage, disinterestedness, and self-possession of both of whom I placed great confidence. I directed Mr. Walker to see certain little alterations made in the boats before the men were allowed to straggle; these I knew would occupy them for some time and leave me therefore during this interval free to think and act according to circumstances. I now called Mr. Smith and Corporal Coles to accompany me, and told Coles to bring a spade ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Al-Mutanabbi, and, wrapping themselves in their rugs, fell asleep. But in the morning they were rudely jostled from their dreams by a spurt from the hose of the sailors washing the deck. Complaining not, they straggle down to their bunks to change their clothes. And Khalid, as he is doing this, implores Shakib not to mention to him any more that New-World paradise. "For I have dreamt last night," he continues, "that, in the multicoloured ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... to suffer their men to straggle as we may expect a sudden attack, when one is made. The Genl desires all the officers to lodge in camp, as in the critical situation of affairs, much depends ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... of the cold long. By degrees the sun makes itself felt, and we discard first one wrap and then another, till by ten o'clock even light overcoats are not required. And now it is time to "off-saddle" and breakfast. The carriers straggle in more or less in the order they left, but they gladly "dump" down their loads, and before many minutes the fire is burning and the breakfast frizzling. After breakfast comes the midday rest of two or three hours, beguiled ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... I had formerly known something of a Highland army, the first thing I did was to advise the Prince to endeavour to get proper people for provisors and commissaries, for otherwise there would be no keeping the men together, and they would straggle through the whole country upon their marches if it was left to themselves to find provisions; which, beside the inconveniency of irregular marches, and much time lost, great abuses would be committed, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... refuse on religions grounds to have close contact with the Christians." It was necessary, in his opinion, to resort to legal repression in order to counteract "the intellectual superiority of the Jews," which enables them to emerge victorious in the straggle ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... had not reached it when the position was taken, and to persevere in the attempt to retake it would have led to certain disaster. The only just criticism to which the regiment is open is that, having just come off blockhouse duty, they were much out of condition, which caused the men to straggle and the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'em, man to man. All men are born free an' equal, says the Constitution an' by-laws of this country of ours. Granted. But they don't stay that way long. They're all lined up to toe the mark on the start, but watch 'em straggle afore they've run a tenth ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... the loveseat when my consciousness started to straggle back. Her hands were soothing my brow. That isn't where it had hurt. She had struck back, only twice as hard as I had managed. Fool around with somebody who had a good grip on my nervous system, would I? I was lucky to ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... strong a party of men march into their country; and probably gave them a better opinion of fire-arms than they had before. For I believe they had but an indifferent, or rather contemptible, idea of muskets in general, having never seen any fired but at birds, &c. by such of our people as used to straggle about the country, the most of them but indifferent marksmen, losing generally two shots out of three, their pieces often, missing fire, and being slow in charging. Of all this they had taken great notice, and concluded, as well they might, that fire-arms were not so terrible things as ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... and being obliged to go for them as far as Botany Bay, the convicts were ordered to avail themselves of the protection they might find by going in company with an armed party; an never, upon any account, to straggle from the soldiers, or go to Botany Bay without them, on pain of severe punishment. Notwithstanding this order and precaution, however, a convict, who had been looked upon as a good man (no complaint having been made of him since his landing, either for dishonesty ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins |
