"False alarm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... find when it grew light that there had never been an Englishman near! The whole thing from beginning to end was only another false alarm, and all ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... is the main charge brought against us? Like Robison and Barruel, we are accused of raising a false alarm, of creating a bogey, or of being the victims of an obsession. Up to a point this is comprehensible. Whilst on the Continent the importance of secret societies is taken as a matter of course and the libraries of foreign capitals teem with books on the question, people in this country really ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... rarely to be met with in an Arab harem. She had the most unshaken and firmest trust in God. When I was about five years old, I remember a fire breaking out in the stables close by, one night while my father was at his city residence. A false alarm spread over the house that we, too, were in imminent danger; upon which the good woman hastened to take me on her arm, and her big kuran (we pronounce the word thus) on the other, and hurried into the open air. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... enriched by the pillage. They had even entered into a solemn compact, and whoever revealed the secret was to be visited by instant death. Their purpose was to seize Champlain in an unguarded moment and strangle him, or to shoot him in the confusion of a false alarm to be raised in the night by themselves. But before the plan was fully ripe for execution, a barque unexpectedly arrived from Tadoussac with an instalment of utensils and provisions for the colony. One of the men, Antoine Natel, who had entered ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... awakened by Gringalet barking. I jumped up simultaneously with my companions, who were also alarmed by a rustling among the dry leaves. Silence was soon restored, and I fancied, although the dog continued to growl, that it was a false alarm; so I was about to lie down again, when Sumichrast's hand touched me on the shoulder. An enormous serpent was gliding ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... scientific gentleman walked out into the garden, Mr. Pickwick had run down the lane as fast as he could, to convey a false alarm that somebody was coming that way; occasionally drawing back the slide of the dark lantern to keep himself from the ditch. The alarm was no sooner given, than Mr. Winkle scrambled back over the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... were changed, a watch was kept to forestall any attack on the part of the Germans, but none came. Save for the occasional clash of a night patrol, or the false alarm of some one on listening post, there was little action during the hours preceding the ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... tavern into a state of great excitement. Giles Sheridan stopped short in his discourse, and the inmates of the house rushed in great agitation into the street. The alarm spread rapidly, and people began to run in every direction but the right one. One declared it a false alarm. That it was set on foot to afford recreation for the mischievous, another was quite sure. A third was ready to swear he saw the incendiary run down "the lane." People ran in opposite directions, crying fire. People, wayward ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... general shriek of "Fire!" Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room, and out at the open window. I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd, I made my way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes, until we had turned ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... go round, he offered to supply us, but as I had my double-barrelled pistols I did not deprive him of his weapons. I made the ladies go to bed, and, sitting at their door, tried to sleep as well as I could, a pistol in each hand. But at every instant the noise of a false alarm sounded through the town, and when day dawned my only consolation was that no one else in Orgon had slept any ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Washington was at Morristown. Now, there were only four guards at the headquarters,—two at the front of the house, and two at the back. But the most careful preparations were made in case the enemy should show itself, and now and then a false alarm showed the perfection of the discipline which ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... moment by the false alarm of a twisting seam, soon returned to her guns. With a skill Annabel was forced to admire, she veiled ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... he said shortly, as the officer's story ended. "We shall have to examine into this, of course, but will probably discover the whole affair a false alarm. There is, at present, no necessity for alarming any others. Sergeant, kindly explain to me why Miss McDonald should have come to you in ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... this time. Perhaps Laurence has written that she is ill, or a little indisposed. Madame Courtois, who is the best woman in the world, gets excited about nothing; she probably wanted to send her husband for Laurence at once. You'll see that it's some false alarm." ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... equivocal reputation was ever seen in Madame Schontz's salon, namely Couture, who had more than once made his brother speculators howl; but Couture had been one of Madame Schontz's earliest friends, and she alone remained faithful to him. The false alarm of 1840 swept away the last vestige of this stock-gambler's credit; Aurelie, seeing his run of ill-luck, made Rochefide play, as we have seen, in the other direction. Thankful to find a place for himself at Aurelie's table, Couture, to whom Finot, the cleverest or, if you choose, the luckiest ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the three policemen climbing into a cable car and calmly taking a seat. It was an outrageous sell on all of them, but it could not be helped, and there was no law by which they could sue the policemen for a false alarm. They had the right to run to catch a car if they wanted to. The family went on more deliberately now for they had no breath to spare and there was but little to be said. Uncle felt that Chicago was very much of a mockery anyhow. ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... were carried out to the letter and no mistake ever made. On several occasions, even before we had our first quarters completed, a report would come occasionally that the enemy was approaching or quartered near our front, and out we would go to meet them, but invariably it proved to be a false alarm or the enemy had retired. Once in December the enemy made a demonstration to our right, and we were called out at night to support the line where the attack was made. After a few rounds of shelling and a few bullets flying over our heads (no harm being done), at daylight we returned ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... master. Then the hideous monster vanished; and the man, aroused from his sleep, saw nothing, although the evil smell still lingered in the sultry atmosphere. He lay down again once more, thinking that for once his steed had given a false alarm. Again the grisly dragon drew nigh, and again the courser notified its rider, and again the man could make out nothing in the darkness of the night; and again he was wellnigh stifled by the foul emanation that trailed in the wake ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... as you see them in the little dots. The Spaniards were absolutely hidden not over 25 per cent of the men saw one of them for two hours— I ran out with the company on the right of the dotted line, marked "our position." I thought it was a false alarm and none of us believed there were any Spaniards this side of Santiago. The ground was covered with high grass and cactus and vines so that you could not see twenty feet ahead, the men had to beat the vines with their carbines to get through them. We had not run fifty yards ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... of the globe to a higher antiquity than is assigned to it by the writings of Moses, undermines our faith in the inspiration of the Bible, and in all the animating prospects of the immortality which it unfolds. This is a false alarm. The writings of Moses do not fix ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... with the expectation that they would fall in with its requirements without hesitation or protest. For some days there seemed to be real danger that this would actually happen. It turned out to be a false alarm; the faculty of the foremost of American universities were guilty of no such supineness. The project was ignominiously shelved, with some sort of explanation that the springing of it on the professors was due to an error or misunderstanding. ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... wheeled, unlimbered as if they broke in halves. Then rattled and thundered the waggons, men gathered round the guns like the groups round a patient in an operation. And the first gun barked death. And then after all it was a false alarm. At the first shell you could see through glasses mounted men scurrying up the slopes of the big opposite hill; by the third they were gone. And then, as our guns still thudded—thud came the answer. Only where? Away, away on the right, from the green kopje over the brown one where still ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and- twenty for whom ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... to turn over the leaves of a photographic album. 'Now is my time,' Dolores thought, 'and this is the woman to talk to and to trust myself to. If she laughs at me, then I shall feel pretty sure that mine was all a false alarm.' So she sat beside Mrs. Sarrasin, who looked up at ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... they were all in bed the same night, fatigued and tired with their exertions, as ye may suppose, a drummer's boy called out in his sleep—'here they are—they're coming'—they all jumped up and set off in their shirts, and got two miles out of town before they discovered it was a false alarm." ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... this false alarm, breakfasted merrily. If they ate a good deal, they talked more. Their confidence was greater after than before ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... the rigiment misses your tricks, though they did bother us a bit. Three times were we turned out at night, under arms, when we were at Athlone, once on a wet night too, and stood there for two hours till the colonel found out it was a false alarm, and there was me and Mr. Ryan, and two or three others as was in the secret, nigh choking ourselves with laughter, to hear the men cursing and swearing at being called out of bed. That was a ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... were thieves on the top of our house, endeavouring to set it on fire. Our ladders being ready, I and others went up immediately, but found nobody, yet all the houses of our neighbours were peopled on the top like ours on similar alarms. This was judged to be a false alarm, risen on purpose to see whether any one would be found in readiness. At this very time there was a house set on fire, a good way from our house, but the fire was soon quenched. The night before, three houses were set a-fire in different parts of the town, but the fires were all extinguished ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... probably saved the girls, for as Philip fell, the orchestra struck up "Yankee Doodle" in the liveliest manner. The familiar tune caught the ear of the mass, which paused in wonder, and gave the conductor's voice a chance to be heard—"It's a false alarm!" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the circumstances which she had related to Sir Oswald; the false alarm about her husband, the drive to Yarborough Tower, and the night of agony spent within the ruins; but, to her horror, she perceived that this man also disbelieved her. The story seemed wild and improbable, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... got away," was the answer. "I met one of the circus men in the village this morning. He stayed behind to settle up some bills, and he said not a single animal got away. It was all a false alarm; no truth in it." ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... the French Army in Algeria, there is a rule that any sentry who fires at night must produce a corpse, or be able to show by blood marks that he hit the person fired at. If he can do neither, he is punished for giving a false alarm. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the King in person was continually to be seen in the middle of them. By night beacons blazed on every hill-top throughout the island; and the high resolution of the citizen-soldiery was attested, on numberless occasions of false alarm, by the alacrity with which they marched on the points of supposed danger.[47] There never was a time in which the national enthusiasm was more ardent and concentrated; and the return of Pitt to the prime-ministry (March, 1804) was considered ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... put down on paper—how we rode hour after hour, often with insufficient food; how we watched at night, sometimes springing to arms at a false alarm, and more than once having to fight desperately to beat off a surprise attack; but it was a stiff business for those ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... reads his articles, moist brow and clenched hand. Impromtoo. The last line first-rate. When may I hope to see the Deacon? I pine for the Deacon, for proofs of the Pavilion—O and for a categorical confession from you that the second edition of the Donkey was a false alarm, which I conclude from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... however, it was no false alarm. When Old Jeff was roused out of his accustomed jog by Calico's nervous snorts he looked up to see such a spectacle as he had never beheld in all his goings and comings up and down the Bangor road. Looming out of the mist was a six-horse team hitched ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... little hunting-party rode rich with purple heather, illuminated here and there with a bright yellow spike or star, and the rapid motion of her brisk palfrey animated the Queen. She began to hope that Humfrey had after all brought a false alarm, and that either he had been mistaken or that Langston was deceiving the Council itself, and though Sir Amias Paulett's close proximity held her silent, those who knew her best saw that her indomitably buoyant spirits were rising, and she hummed to herself the refrain of a gay French ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the correct thing for every soldier who passed the sty to assure himself that the animal was still there. One day two officers, coming off duty, galloped up to the hotel and shouted excitedly, 'Mrs. Seacole! Quick, quick, the pig's gone!' It was not a false alarm; the pig had been stolen. As, however, the nest in the sty was warm, it was evident that the pig had only recently been taken, and a party of officers started in pursuit of the thieves, shouting laughingly as they rode off, 'Stole away! Hark away!' The thieves, two ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... false alarm. Mounted police charged down the dark thoroughfare swinging their swords as they rode at the scurrying men and women who raced for shelter. Big Ivan dragged Anna into a doorway, and toward their hiding place ran a young boy who, like themselves, had no connection with the group and who merely ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... like you to explain to me, as I have no doubt you very easily can." Thump, thump, thump, went Ernest's heart against his ribs; but his father's manner was so much nicer than usual that he began to think it might be after all only another false alarm. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... a false alarm, and until we have the certainty of attack we must not light up the camp to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... the same under tone, and with great self-possession: "I can yet save you. And see!" he added, as the figures drew back, and the lights disappeared; "it's a false alarm. They have retired. However, not a moment is to be lost. Give me ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... intense vigil, and a hundred times the waiting man saw movements and heard sounds which set him ready to give the final signal which was to complete the carefully laid plans of his chief. But, in each case, he was spared the false alarm to which tricks of imagination ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... frantic signs to me to rise to my feet. Like Kingslake before the Turkish pasha, I felt that the honor of my race and my own haughty dignity were better served by insisting on social equality even to a colonel, and stuck doggedly to the adobe brick. The rumor proved a false alarm anyway. No doubt the great man had turned over ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... giving commands firmly, and ready to assume responsibility wherever he happened to be. "Take what men you have," said he to the constable St. Poi, who was at his side, "and go in this direction; if they are really coming upon us, they will pass that way." It was discovered to be a false alarm. Two days afterwards there was a more serious affair. The inhabitants of a canton which was close to the city, and was called Franchemont, resolved to make a desperate effort, and go and fall suddenly upon the very spot where the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... return. At length they succeeded in carrying one of the hedges; and would have overpowered the little band which was opposed to them, had not the country people, who mortally hated the Irish, given a false alarm that more of the Prince's troops were coming up. Sarsfield recalled his men and fell back; and Campbell proceeded on his march ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... machine-gun fire. He dropped to the ground, listening; wondering in a panic how this fight could have started so far back when he had not even come in touch with the rear French lines. In five minutes all was still again. Either the scrimmage hinged on a false alarm, or a rush had been made for the possession of some slight point, or—but why guess! Anyhow, it had been short; but, as a barking dog when the night is still will awaken other dogs far across the country-side, so did this brief fusillade draw intermittent ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... the shore of this sea full twenty-three days before we could come to any resolution about what it was; at the end of which, early one morning, one of our seamen cried out, "Land!" and it was no false alarm, for we saw plainly the tops of some hills at a very great distance, on the further side of the water, due west; but though this satisfied us that it was not the ocean, but an inland sea or lake, yet we saw no land to the northward, that is to say, no end ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... the brushwood. Our cavalier instantly seized his gun, and causing his horse to make two or three lofty bounds, held it in one hand, the muzzle pointed in the direction indicated, but the heads did not again make their appearance, and it was probably but a false alarm. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Edenton lady. Edenton was a sort of neutral ground, at which the Federal officers and Confederate officers often met. On August 31, the day was clear and cool. Nothing took place of any note except a false alarm that the ram was coming down the river, causing some excitement aboard the ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... brush-wood to be fastened about the horns of some oxen, and fire being set to the faggots, had the cattle driven up the mountains in the night, in order to make the enemy believe he was about to decamp. But this was only a false alarm, for he himself very well knew what his scheme was. When Theopompus the Spartan, by changing clothes with his wife, made his escape out of prison, the deception was not imposed upon himself, but upon his guards. Thus, when an orator speaks ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... efforts to clear the boat. The night had passed away—it was about ten o'clock on the morning of the 28th; the baling had progressed without interruption; a little more exertion, and the boat would have been cleared, when again was heard the cry of—'The sharks! the sharks!' But this was no false alarm; the boat a second time capsized, and the unhappy men were literally cast amongst a shoal ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... who had waited for the girl to ride once more to his side, "is the Monte Cristo mine—the worst false alarm that ever disfigured ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... with wives and mothers, and all the rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by accident, and the beacon on that height had not ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... Fortune, the slaves. Then there were fancied dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen—since you cannot keep men ignorant without making them unreasonable also—that on the ensuing Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that every black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them"; this being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to be on its way from Hayti. Others were led to suppose that Congress had ended the Missouri Compromise discussion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... The False Alarm and The Journey to the Hebrides. Gibbon described him as 'That honest and liberal bookseller.' Stewart's Life of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... use crossing your bridges till you come to them," said Jack, "and anyhow, that letter may be only a false alarm. I've heard they get these financial panics in Wall Street just like kids get the measles, and they get over them ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... evening they began to feel that they might perhaps be near the dreaded Parle Pas rapids, and they approached each bend with care, sometimes going ashore for a prospecting trip which proved to be made only on a false alarm. They had, however, now begun to learn the "feel of the water," as the voyageurs called it. Rob, who was ahead, at length noted the glassy look of the river, and called back to Moise that he believed there were ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... never climb up there," I said. "Anyway, this is no false alarm. I saw him as plain ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... link in the opposite draw head, and then dropped the pin. Those two cars came together like the crack of doom, and I shut my eyes and jumped back, imagining that I had been crushed to death, in fact, I could feel that my right hand was mashed to a pulp. But it was a false alarm; it wasn't. I had made the coupling without a scratch to myself, and it wasn't long before I became bolder, and jumped on and off of the foot-boards and brake-beams like any other lunatic. That all four of us were not killed ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... I. "I might have known it was a false alarm. Spotty Cahill! Say, do you want to know what I'd advise you ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... make him prisoner, or take his scalp. At times they approach the walls or palisades with the most audacious daring, and attempt to fire them, or beat down the gate. They practice, with the utmost adroitness, the stratagem of a false alarm on one side when the real assault is intended for the other. With untiring perseverance, when their stock of provisions is exhausted, they set forth to hunt, as on common occasions, resuming their station near the besieged place as soon as they ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... watching the disappearing food, then he sat down. Then he lay at full length; but no one took the slightest notice, for the blacks were selfishly busy, and we were keeping up the punishment for the false alarm to which our follower had ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... their horses. It would soon become a question whether to resist a landing or to retire. In any event the men were ready and provided with emergency rations. But no firing sounded. Signals were exchanged between the vessel and the shore. It was a false alarm. The new-comer was H. M. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... raised a false alarm as the first gleam of firelight penetrated the dark mass of foliage above them ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... had a tremendous quarrel, and that, rather than live beside them, I had sold them my place. This set flowing towards me for days a stream of people, like a line of ants passing to and from the scene of a terrific false alarm. I had nothing to do but sit perfectly still and let each ant, as it ran up, touch me with its antennae, get the counter-sign, and turn back to the village ant-hill. Not all, however. Some remained to hear me ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... position at once, and began to look very smiling and altogether at ease.—False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,—"loaned," as the inland folks say when they mean ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Jafel Waled Sakertaf. This morning we pursued our way, cautiously sending scouts before. But as the wady opened, the place proved to be desolate, and we advanced joyously, with the confidence that this time at least we had been disturbed by a false alarm. Still, as we descended towards the well we could not now and then refrain from casting our glances about into the gorges of the mountains, to discover whether or not, after all, our enemies were lying in ambush there. Not a living ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... he said, "and I don't want to raise a false alarm. Besides, the outposts have given no notice; and hark! I ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... remembered, drove the American merchantman from the Atlantic; and likewise Japan may capture the carrying business of the Pacific. It must be obvious that the nation controlling the transportation of the Far East will seek to control its trade: and it is sounding no false alarm to cite facts and conditions showing that the awakening lands of Eastern Asia have more in store for energetic Japan than for the United States, now fattening inordinately on home trade—when overproduction comes, as it surely will, it then may be found difficult to supplant another people in the ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... direction, and I will set my two fellows to work at once to cast bullets, while we go round and consider the best means for fortifying the house. It is as well to be prepared, although I believe that, after all, it will prove a false alarm." ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... told her friend was by a parent ask'd, 'Fed you the swine?'—Good heaven! how I am task'd! - What! can you smile? Ah! smile not at the grief That woos your pity and demands relief." "Trifles, my love: you take a false alarm; Think, I beseech you, better of the Farm: Duties in every state demand your care, And light are those that will require it there. Fix on the Youth a favouring eye, and these, To him pertaining, or as his, will please." ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... is, if the creature that scared him up was one of his own kind—i.e., this was a false alarm—then at once, by showing his national colors, the mistake is made right. On the other hand, if it be a Coyote, Fox, or Dog, they see at once, this is a Jack-rabbit, and know that it would be waste of time for them to pursue him. They say in effect, "This is a Jack-rabbit, ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... never strong, and his illnesses were always a greater anxiety than those of other people, so that his mother came to the immediate decision of going to Eton that same afternoon and remaining there, unless she found that it had been a false alarm. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proved a false alarm. It was tapped and probed and mirrored, and she was assured that she need feel no anxiety. So in the elation of a visit to the dentist over, she emerged into the street. There was a willing but unable motor there that puffed and snorted, and did not do anything. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... Soito, growing Accommodations for Man and Beast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False Alarm. Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces. Return towards the North. Quarters near Castello de Vide. Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant; Food scarce. Advance of the French ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... embellish his other productions. He might, and did, think wrongly on these subjects, but he never wrote what he did not believe to be true, and, therefore, must be acquitted of all charges of servility or dishonesty. The False Alarm was published in 1770, and "intended," says Mr. Boswell, "to justify the conduct of the ministry, and their majority in the house of commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom, that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to exclusion, and thus having declared colonel Lutterel ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... forecastle and roused the men, warning them to muster as quietly as possible. Half an hour passed without the slightest sound being heard. Then the men fidgeted and whispered together, and were evidently of opinion that they had been turned out on a false alarm. ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... to trace the progress of this passion, or recount how often Darnford and Maria were obliged to part in the midst of an interesting conversation. Jemima ever watched on the tip-toe of fear, and frequently separated them on a false alarm, when they would have given worlds to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... him a Four-Flush and a False Alarm, alleging that a true analysis of his Mentality would be just about as profitable as dissecting ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... he cocked his ear; And dropp'd his brushy tail with fear. 'Bless us! the hunters are abroad— What's all that clatter on the road?' 80 'Hold,' says the dog, 'we're safe from harm; 'Twas nothing but a false alarm. At yonder town, 'tis market day; Some farmer's wife is on the way; 'Tis so, (I know her pyebald mare) Dame Dobbins, with her poultry ware.' Reynard grew huff. Says he, 'This sneer From you I little thought to hear. Your meaning in your looks I see; Pray, what's Dame Dobbins, friend, to me? 90 ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... scarcely been in the water five minutes, when some voice in-board cried out, "A shark! a shark!" In an instant every one of the swimmers came tumbling up the ship's sides, half mad with fright, the gallant black among the rest. It was a false alarm. We felt angry with ourselves for being frightened, angry with those who had frightened us, and furious with those who had laughed at us. In another moment we were all again in the water, the black and myself swimming some distance from the ship. For two ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... our talk was soldier shop talk, which you will not care to hear. Twice we were interrupted by an outburst of firing, and the captain hurried out to ascertain the reason. Some false alarm had started the rifles speaking from both sides. A fusillade for two or three minutes and the firing died ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... had kept 'em guessin' all day and then, in the last quarter of an hour of tradin', had gone bumpin' the bumps from twenty-eight down to almost nothin' at all. I didn't stop to read the whole thing; but I read enough to find out that Blitzen had gone soarin' on a false alarm, and that when the facts was give out right the balloon had took fire. And there was ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... satisfied that the startling tidings was no false alarm, and, putting spurs to his charger, he dashed away to Winchester. His arrival reassured the terrified inhabitants and they bravely rallied to defend their homes. Everything was put upon a war basis as soon as possible. A few days passed, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... Trinquier, sometime Director of Periodical Festivities to the Municipality of Dieppe, was marched down into East Looe, to the wonder and delight of the inhabitants, who had just recovered from the shock of Gunner Spettigew's false alarm, and were in a condition to be pleased with trifles. As the Company tramped along the street, Captain Pond pointed out the Town Hall ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he said, as he laid them on the floor, and looked around for the hammer and nails, "I'm going to build a pen for your monkey right up here in one corner, so that we sha'n't be called up again in the night by a false alarm of burglars. Besides, it's almost time for school to begin again, an' I'm 'most too old to commence chasing monkeys around the country in case he gets out while ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... want to get busy; there's sure to be kickers in every coal-camp." And deep within, Hal drew a sigh of relief. It was a false alarm! ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... their tents and fired off their guns in their company grounds. Others, supposing the enemy near, became excited and discharged theirs also. The tents were struck, Loomis' First Michigan Battery manned, and we awaited the attack, but none was made. It was a false alarm. Some sentinel probably halted a stump and fired, thus rousing a thousand men from their warm beds. This is the first ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... for his suspicion, but why should Henry Ware sound a false alarm? The words "perhaps to cover up something else" returned to her mind, but she dismissed ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... while the tide of war rolled back, but with far less uproar. Either it had been a false alarm, or the enemy had retreated on finding themselves discovered, and quiet was restored to the village. The white hunters continuing to be fearful of ranging this dangerous neighborhood, fresh provisions began to be scarce in the camp. As a substitute, therefore, for venison and buffalo meat, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the story we agreed on, that you thought there was someone by the gate in the lane again, and so called me to go down with you to investigate, not thinking it worth while to rouse up the Captain on what might be a false alarm." ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... "A false alarm, Smithson," said the lieutenant, with a forced laugh, as he dabbed his forehead. "I caught a glimpse of them lower down; I thought it was the major and the doctor. How absurd it all seemed. You don't think those two fellows ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... eclipse. This happened 775 B. C.; and it furnishes the starting-point for a reliable chronology. For her amusement the king caused the signal-fires to be lighted. She laughed heartily to see the great barons rush to the rescue and find it was a false alarm; but she did not smile when, not long after this, the capital was attacked by a real foe, the father of her injured rival. The signal-fires were again lighted; but the barons, having once been deceived by the cry of "Wolf," took care not to expose themselves ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... right in the guess she had made regarding Miss Davis, who did not say a word to anyone about the trick that had been played on her. She was too thankful to know that she had suffered from a false alarm, that her beloved brother was safe under the protection of the uncle who had promised to befriend him, and that her dear mother was spared the terrible anxiety that had seemed to have overtaken her; she was much too glad thinking of ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... "False alarm," he said as he pulled on his mask. "It was so thin that I couldn't get a sample so I tested it by breathing. There isn't a trace of cough in that fog. ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... have supper in one of the parks, and of course Hella comes with us. I am frightfully excited to know what Dora will write. I forgot to write in my diary the other day that I asked Viktor if he was really going to New York. He said he had no idea of doing anything of the kind, that had only been a false alarm on the part of the Old Man. That's what he calls his father. I don't think it's very nice of him, a little vulgar, and perhaps that is why Father can't stand him. In fact Father does not like any officers very much, except Hella's father, but then he's ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... morning the doctor was questioned with intense anxiety; "Was she going?—was she drooping?—had yesterday's horrid doubts raised only a false alarm?" It was utterly beyond Barry's power to make any attempt at concealment, even of the most shallow kind. "Well, doctor, is she dying yet?" was ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... right by treaty to march in upon her, I myself offered to establish a truce in order that she might bury her dead. I did not know who had been killed, but it looked as if there were losses of some kind. But it was a false alarm. The dead must have turned up only missing, and she was as lively as a cricket at luncheon, and went out in a boat with that tailor's model—sixteen dollars and forty-eight cents for the entire suit ready-made; or ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... instructions, promised to obtain for him a release in full of all claims from Madame Laguerre, who by this time was terrified at the Revolution. Gaubertin's father, the attorney-general of the department, henceforth protected the timid woman. This provincial Fouquier-Tinville raised a false alarm of danger in the mind of the opera-divinity on the ground of her former relations to the aristocracy, so as to give his son the equally false credit of saving her life; on the strength of which Gaubertin the younger obtained ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... service took place in the principal church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's birthday; and the foreign missions received a hint to go, it being understood that the Emperor proposed to be present in person. This, however, proved to be a false alarm. The service began at 10 A.M., and we went at 11.30 A.M. and stayed till noon; it was still going on at that time, and we understood that they were only in the middle of it. Even half an hour of this was something of an ordeal, seeing that the church was overheated (as ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... telling how soon those fellows may be out from Verde, and when they come we want to know it. The Indians have their sentries out, so they evidently expect them. Watch them like a hawk, but don't give any false alarm or make any noise. Let me sleep until it begins to get light, then call me. Now, can you ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... Roger. Our duty is to watch, and not to fight. You must lift up your voice, and shout as loud as you can, and then we must run to the gate. There we can make a fight, till the rest join us. But, whatever you do, do not shout until I tell you. A false alarm would raise the whole garrison; and, if naught came of it, would make ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... Washington, the "Old Lady" and he had "a small battle every day." Once Washington was summoned by an express to her bedside "to bid, as I was prepared to expect, the last adieu to an honored parent," but it was a false alarm. Her health was so bad, however, that just before he started to New York to be inaugurated he rode to Fredericksburg, "and took a final leave of my mother, never expecting to see her more," ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... illness was a false alarm, but Katy is going. The city is filling up, and many "best families" must re-open their town-houses in time for the school terms. She looks as happy at the prospect of a return to area-gossip and Sunday flirtation ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... the investigator was a false alarm. If corned beef was poison, as he said, there wouldn't be a working man alive in America. But millions have eaten corned beef all their lives and have thrived on it. Things are never one tenth so bad as the agitators say. They merely take the heart out of men ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... doctor had been called to a person in child-birth, but that he promised to set out for Fleurieres immediately. In another half hour he arrived, and as soon as he had examined the marquis he said that we had had a false alarm. The poor gentleman was very low, but he was still living. I watched my lady and her son when he said this, to see if they looked at each other, and I am obliged to admit that they didn't. The doctor said there was no reason he should die; he had been going on so well. And then ...
— The American • Henry James
... it is a real conspiracy, though who are those concerned in it I know not. Lionel and I are not likely to raise a false alarm about nothing, as you will say yourself when you hear the story I have to tell ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... was not to be found, Dick was reproved for giving a false alarm; and they all jumped over the stones of the old wall, and ran up the hill towards the walnut-grove, where woodchucks were sure to be as ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... on an appearance of the greatest embarrassment and emotion. After some delay, and much pretended confusion, he at length confessed that the seizure of her father was all a stratagem; a mere false alarm, to procure him the present opportunity of having access to her, and endeavouring to mitigate that obduracy, and conquer that repugnance, which he declared had almost driven him ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... frequency of its exhibition, and the omission of those intervals and breathing-places, at which the mind should be permitted to recover from its perturbation or astonishment: but, where it has been summoned upon a false alarm, and disturbed in the orderly course of its attention, by an impotent attempt at elevation, the consequences are still more disastrous. There is nothing so ridiculous (at least for a poet) as to fail in great attempts. If the reader foresaw the failure, he may receive some degree ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... or maybe just on a trip," said Childress. "After all, she's a terrestrial tourist. If this is all a false alarm, how am I going to explain suspending operation of ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... have men on their backs; I also hear such a noise of their bridles, that I am afraid that some enemies are coming upon us to encompass us round. However, let somebody go to look about, and make report of what reality there is in the present state of things; and may what I have said prove a false alarm." And when he had said this, some of them went out to spy out what was the matter; and they came again immediately, and said to him, that "neither hast thou been mistaken in telling us what our enemies were doing, nor ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... from the restraints of conventionality. FERNANDE, who is too lachrymose to be a cheerful feature, is wisely placed on guard at the outer door. The company proceed to play at faro, the bank being the loser. There is a false alarm of police, and the game is suddenly stopped. The Banker, being naturally indignant, attempts to relieve his mind by punching FERNANDE's head. Heroic interference by POMMEROL, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... from the West Indies. The transport, in which his division of the regiment had embarked had been separated from her convoy by a gale of wind in the night, and it was apprehended that she had been taken by the enemy. Godfrey's family hoped for a moment that this might be a false alarm; but after enduring the misery of reading contradictory paragraphs and contests of the newspaper writers with each other for several successive days, it was at last too clearly established and confirmed, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... district was thoroughly alarmed. A regiment had been stationed there—the Fourteenth Kentucky—but had hastily retreated to the mouth of the river during the night of the 19th, under the impression that Marshall was advancing with his forces to drive them into the Ohio. It was a false alarm, but the Union citizens were very much alarmed, and were preparing with their families to cross the river for safety. With the appearance of Garfield's regiment a ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... her heart beating a little faster. "What three people know, three hundred are likely to know sooner or later. It may be a false alarm, but father is in a fury about something. He must not be told the news until he is in ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... danger which the plan itself supposes to be serious cannot possibly escape it. For it is in the nature of all defensive measures to be sharp and vigorous under the impressions of the first alarm, and to relax by degrees, until at length the danger, by not operating instantly, comes to appear as a false alarm,—so much so, that the next menacing appearance will look less formidable, and will be less provided against. But to those who are on the offensive it is not necessary to be always alert. Possibly it is more their interest not to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... exclaimed, "Ah! nous sommes perdus!(16) they are carrying us back to our own country!" The duke started up; he had the same opinion, but thought opposition vain; he charged him to keep silent and quiet; and after about another league, they found this, at least, a false alarm, owing merely to a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... for the concealed that the warrior who manifested these fearful signs of distrust was young, and had still a reputation to acquire. He knew the importance of discretion and modesty in one of his years, and most of all did he dread the ridicule and contempt that would certainly follow a false alarm. Without recalling any of his companions, therefore, he turned on his own footsteps; and, while the others continued to descend the river, he cautiously approached the bushes, on which his looks were still fastened, as by a charm. Some of the leaves which were exposed to the sun had drooped ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... months, and we made good times of it. We often went after wood, and occasionally we knocked over a deer. We had a target out on the lake, and this we practised on, making ourselves rather expert cannoneers. Now and then they rowsed us out on a false alarm, but I know of no serious attempt's being made by the ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... not sleep much. They tried to, but every now and then one of them would awaken and, sitting up on his cot, would listen intently. He thought he had heard someone approaching through the bushes, but each time it was a false alarm. The fire was kept going brightly, in the hope Frank might happen to see it ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... had heard was a false alarm. The crushed child was at play again before its mother's door. It had been startled by a galoping team, had screamed, and instantly there had been a great hubbub and crowd. But ten minutes later the little widow, the hat in her hand, entered the domicile of its maker and astonished ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... means hearty in the cause. Having some suspicion of Vaca de Castro, the former governor, whom he had lately allowed to be a prisoner at large on parole not to leave the city, and believing that he had some secret intelligence with his former friends and dependents, the viceroy ordered a false alarm one day about noon, reporting that Gonzalo was near at hand; and when the troops were all assembled in the great square, he sent his brother-in-law, Diego Alvarez de Cueto to arrest Vaca de Castro. At the same time he arrested Don Pedro de Cabrera, Hernan Mexia de Gusman, Lorenco de Aldana, Melchior ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... his ragged jacket and mended it, dropped a tear in an impossible hole, and a ha'penny in the one good pocket. And by and by the pale laddie slept there among the bright graves, in the sun. After another false alarm from the gate she asked her gude-mon, as she ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... march, the Camarineans joined his forces, and the country people in the territory of Syracuse rose and joined him in a large body. The Leontines and Campanians, who, with Timocrates, guarded the Epipolae, receiving a false alarm which was spread on purpose by Dion, as if he intended to attack their cities first, left Timocrates, and hastened off to carry succor to their own homes. News of which being brought to Dion, where he lay near Macrae, he raised ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... he heard a step on the back-stair. Tom was watching the back-door through the side window, with eyes glazing with the intensity of his stare. Anthony Turnbull, holding his breath, listened at the room door. It was a false alarm. ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... and do the whole of you run back to us here if the cry comes from the front, if from either flank hurry to that spot, and we shall do the same from here; but be careful not to rouse the camp by a false alarm, for if you do, instead of gaining credit we shall become the jest ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... Murray stared, and wondered at the unwonted energy and boldness with which I urged the request, and thought there was no occasion to hurry; but finally gave me leave: stating, however, that there was 'no need to be in such agitation about the matter—it might prove a false alarm after all; and if not—why, it was only in the common course of nature: we must all die some time; and I was not to suppose myself the only afflicted person in the world;' and concluding with saying I might have the phaeton to take me to O-. ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... it's a false alarm," said he. "Maybe I'd ha' done well to bide where I was; but now I've come so far, I'll break my ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner. All at once we heard a lonesome sound; and my heart began to play pit-pat—my skin grew all rough, like a pouked chicken—and I felt as if I did not know what was the matter with me. It was only a false alarm, however, being the warning of the clock; and, in a minute or two thereafter, the bell struck ten. Oh, but it was a lonesome and dreary sound! Every chap went through my breast like the dunt ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir |
