"Gaoler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scarce! I should think you'd be glad to get out of that!" exclaimed the gaoler, as he brought up another livid prisoner, from out whose eyes came the anxiety which he would not allow any other feature ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... from our contemporary history. Look at the massacres of September! The historians most in vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler's books, cannot make the whole amount to one thousand. Even this number is very large; but, for my part, I thank the author of this recent publication for having reduced the number of assassinations in September to less than a tenth part of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... ready, Sir," replied the Marechale, with the composure of utter despair, "All is as it should be. The murderer of the husband is well fitted to be the gaoler of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... no danger," he observed, with a smile, to his friend Sir Thomas Pope, shaking his water-bottle as he spoke, "but that this man may live longer if it please the king." Finding in the craziness of the scaffold a good pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself, as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... mound which is the old Castle of Cambridge. Access to it, as perhaps you know, lies through the precincts of the County Prison. An iron railing encloses the mound, having a small gate, for the key of which a notice-board advised me to ring the prison bell. I rang. A very courteous gaoler answered the bell and opened the gate, which stands just against his wicket. I thanked him, but could not forbear asking 'Why do they keep this gate closed?' 'I don't know, sir,' he answered, 'but I suppose if they didn't the children might get ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... have been necessary for the whole of England to have been under a misapprehension; for James then to have sent his earnest entreaties to Louis XIV. to be so good as to serve as his constable and gaoler. Then Louis XIV. having done King James this little favour, would not have failed to have the same consideration for King William and for Queen Anne, with whom he was at war; and he would carefully have preserved in these two monarchs' ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... that she had said she took the money and the bag from Mrs Duncomb, and that she had begged him to keep it secret. "My dear,'' said this virtuous gaoler, "I would not secrete the money ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... foreman delivers in the verdict—'Guilty!' A shriek bursts from a female in the gallery; the prisoner casts one look at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded; and is immediately hurried from the dock by the gaoler. The clerk directs one of the officers of the Court to 'take the woman out,' and fresh business is proceeded with, as if nothing ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 1802, described it as a shocking place, the establishment consisting of one day room, two underground dungeons (in which sometimes half-a-dozen persons had to sleep), and six or seven night-rooms, some of them constructed out of the Gaoler's stables. The prisoners were allowed 4d. per day for bread and cheese, which they had to buy from the keeper, who, having a beer license, allowed outsiders to drink with his lodgers. This, and the fact that there ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... to him he had not slept five minutes when he was rudely awakened by some one pulling at his leg. It was his gaoler. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... face and throat and wrists, yet all to no purpose, so that fear grew to agony. How if she die thus? (thinks I) Why then I can die likewise. But again, how if she wake, and finding the ship gone, despise me and, in place of her lover, look on me as her gaoler? For a long while I crouched there, my head bowed on my fists, since well I knew that England might shelter me nevermore. And yet to part with her that was ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... prepared, Mr. Tyrrel proceeded, through the means of the gaoler (for the experience he already had of personal discussion did not incline him to repeat his visits), to play upon the fears of his prisoner. This woman, sometimes under the pretence of friendship, and sometimes with open malice, informed Emily, from time to ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... very well that Hubert was trying to save his prisoner, separated Arthur from his kind gaoler, and had him imprisoned in the strong castle of Rouen, which is washed on one side by the ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... intercession was made for him by a Courtier hight Ta'il al-Wasf,[FN267] whereupon the King commanded him to jail, whither he was taken forthright. But as Ibn Ibrahim was being locked up, he said to the gaoler, "Say me, canst thou bring for me a pen-case and paper and pen?" and the other assented, fetching for him whatso he wanted. So he wrote to Prince ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... his enemies said he did (righteously taking it as I think now), ever caused less blood to be shed. As for women-conspirators, he kept spies on the least dangerous, and locked up the others. Lady Castlewood had the best rooms in Hexton Castle, and the gaoler's garden to walk in; and though she repeatedly desired to be led out to execution, like Mary Queen of Scots, there never was any thought of taking her painted old head off, or any desire to do aught but keep her person ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dawned fair over St. Paul's Cathedral. Sophie in her little cell rose early and turned her fichu. "Why do you do that?" asked the gaoler. "Because I am going to meet my end," Sophie gently replied. The man staggered dumbly away, fighting down the lump which would ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... protected from even such discomfort as the dislike of his prisoners may cause to a gaoler by the hypnotism of the convention that the natural relation between husband and wife and parent and child is one of intense affection, and that to feel any other sentiment towards a member of one's family is to be a monster. Under the influence of the emotion thus manufactured ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... long, and severe journey, he arrived, exhausted with fatigue, and agitation of mind; without refreshment, this excellent man flew to the gates of the prison, which contained his mother, and presented the discharge to the gaoler, who drily, with a brutal grin, informed him, that a trick had been played off upon him, that he had just received a counter order, which he held in his hand, and refused ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... N. keeper, custodian, custos [Lat.], ranger, warder, jailer, gaoler, turnkey, castellan^, guard; watchdog, watchman; Charley; chokidar^, durwan^, hayward^; sentry, sentinel; watch and ward; concierge, coast guard, guarda costa [Sp.], game keeper. escort, bodyguard. protector, governor, duenna [Sp.]; guardian; governess &c (teacher) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... by the gaoler and his assistant. On his wrists there were manacles, joined with each other by a strong chain which was highly polished by constant use. He was bare-headed, of course, and he seemed perfectly cool and self-possessed. Immediately after him, two men entered bringing his ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... looked for opportunities to join the enemy. Perhaps in time the nobles would have been resigned to losing, if not all, at any rate a portion of their privileges; and the Catholic clergy would have moderated their strong views against the gaoler of Pius VII., the champion of liberal and emancipated France, the master of Dandolo, who wanted to reduce the number of bishoprics, oblige candidates for the priesthood to learn certain lay subjects and regulate the funds in the possession of the Orders, with the purpose of assisting ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... you please,' said the gaoler politely, and stood back to let the children pass. 'Turn to the left and ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... pleasant prison house Where love was gaoler and delights its bars, But far removed from sight—the King bade build A massive wall, and in the wall a gate With brazen folding-doors, which but to roll Back on their hinges asked a hundred arms; Also the noise of that prodigious gate ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... the measure in which we do so shall we have joy. In some of those inhuman prisons where they go in for solitary confinement, there is a little hole somewhere in the wall—the prisoner does not know where—at which at any moment in the four-and-twenty hours the eye of the gaoler may be, and they say that the thought of that unseen eye, glaring in upon the felons, drives some of them half mad. The thought that poor Hagar found to be her only comfort in the wilderness—and so christened the well after it—'Thou God seest me,' must be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... single generation. It is idle to think of subduing a people who make so many sacrifices, and who are undaunted still; it is vain to think of crushing a spirit which survives so much persecution. The executioner and the gaoler, the gibbet, the block, and the dungeon, have done their work in the crusade against Irish Nationality, and we know what the result is to-day. The words of the last political convict whose name appears in these pages are as uncompromising and as bold as those of the first of his predecessors; ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... at his post and convicted of wilful negligence, said to the gaoler who was about to lock him up, "I always supposed that the safety of a railroad depended on the soundness of its sleepers?" "So it does," replied the gaoler, "but such sleepers are never safe unless they are ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... The gaoler soon afterward brought in a light, and asked Rust if he wanted any thing; and on being answered in the negative, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... at that moment his editor was probably telegraphing to him all over London and instituting a search for his person all over his club, suddenly the bolts of his prison-chamber were withdrawn and his gaoler, the blood-thirsty tyrant Red Tape, allowed the genial artist to return to the bosom of his wife and family—not, however, without leaving a hostage behind him. The sketch—the guilty sketch—the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... the streets after nine o'clock the previous night; they were in all cases, except where their owners paid the fine, sentenced to receive from ten to twenty lashes, which were administered at once by the city gaoler, in a yard at the rear of a building, near which officers were in attendance for the purpose. I must mention, in explanation, that one of the laws passed directly after the insurrection, was to prohibit negroes, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... to the miser, who is no more than their miserable gaoler; prejudicial to the debauchee, for whom they only procure infirmities; injurious to the voluptuary, to whom they only bring disgust—whom they oppress with satiety; can in the hands of the honest man produce unnumbered means of augmenting the sum of his happiness; but before ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler with them, and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands. The two convicts were handcuffed together, and had irons on their legs,—irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the dress that I likewise knew well. Their keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried a thick-knobbed bludgeon ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... escorting Bradstreet, Danforth, Richards, Cooke, Addington, and others of the old Magistrates, who proceeded together to the Council-Chamber. Meantime, Secretary Randolph, Counsellor Bullivant, Sheriff Sherlock, and "many more" of the Governor's party, were apprehended and put in gaol. The gaoler was added to their company, and his function was intrusted to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... gaolers received no salary, and that they lived on what they could make out of the prisoners. As a result it often happened that those who had been acquitted at their trial were kept in prison long afterwards, because they were unable to pay the fees which the gaoler demanded. ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... have thee and I'll hold thee. If I spare Thy damned life, and do not dash thee down, And trample on thee, fiend, it is because Thou art the gaoler of a pearl of price I cannot gain without thee. Now, where is she? ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... of being hanged? I tell you, Giovanni, I am come hither, at the earliest peep of day, to set you free and help you to fly. See! I have donned a gaoler's habit; the prison door stands open. ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... GAOLER'S COACH. A hurdle: traitors being usually conveyed from the gaol, to the place of execution, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... windows might be seen. The dark passage had many windings, and was lighted by an occasional lamp. The air was cold and damp. The openings high up in the wall, through which glimmered a pale daylight, became rarer, until at length it was as dark as the tomb. The new arrival was received by the gaoler, a man with bristly grey hair, a prominent forehead, and pronounced features which incessant ill-humour had twisted into a lasting grimace. Who would not be ill-humoured indeed, were he forced to ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... gaoler Honour brought her the letter which she received from the gamekeeper. Sophia read it very attentively twice or thrice over, and then threw herself upon the bed, and burst into a flood of tears. Mrs Honour expressed ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... to their father. The Doctor might have hastened at once to Willie, but he judged it wiser to allow the good impression that had been formed to take root. He therefore sent him up the Bible, by Anna, and begged him to read the answer of Paul to the gaoler at Philippi. Anna showed him other texts of Scripture—"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy"; and then pointed out warnings against those who wrong and oppress ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... twice as much debauchery as there would be without them. For those infamous women are forced upon doubling their work and industry, to answer double charges, of paying the justice, and supporting themselves. Like thieves who escape the gallows, and are let out to steal, in order to discharge the gaoler's fees. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... street. He would come up to him and cry out, "Herr Baron, Herr Baron!" and wave his hat. His solicitude for Eberhard's health resembled that of a gaoler. One evening Eberhard went to bed with a fever. Herr Carovius ran to the physician, and then spent the whole night by the bedside of the patient, despite his entreaties to be left alone. "Would it not be well for me to write to your ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... hand, Made up by youth, fame, and an army tailor— That great enchanter, at whose rod's command Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler, Seeing how Art can make her work more grand (When she don't pin men's limbs in like a gaoler),— Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He Seems Love turn'd a lieutenant ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... or two circumstances which, within the last month, have been brought to my recollection in the following rather extraordinary way. A lady, travelling from London to Bath, in her road to Ilchester, accompanied by the gaoler of that place, was questioned by a fellow passenger, a gentleman, how far they were travelling westward? The gaoler, naturally enough wishing to disguise his name and occupation, answered, "I am going to Bath, sir; and that lady is going on to Ilchester." The word Ilchester ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... opening stood the form of my gaoler, and beside him was one of the cousins of my charge, Miss Canbee. It was the tall brunette cousin—not the slight blonde one. I was saved! ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... any of your correspondents inform me who was the "streict laced" gaoler of the records, alluded to in the following passage in the Collection of Chancellors of England, by Francis Thynne, inserted in Holinshed ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... Elizabeth, before he had been consecrated, and died there in 1559. Fuller, in his Church History of Britain, remarks: "I take the Marshalsea to be, in those times, the best for the usage of prisoners, but O the misery of God's poor saints in Newgate, under Alexander the gaoler! More cruel than his namesake the coppersmith was to St. Paul; in Lollard's Tower, the Clink, and Bonner's Coal-house, a place which minded them of the manner of their death, first kept amongst coals before they ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... very cold, and being without a fire, his sufferings were great, until his ferocious gaoler, finding him quite stiffened, brought up a brazier of coals, which saved his prisoner's life, while it filled the room with smoke, which could only escape by the crevices in walls and roof, for to open a window would have been as bad as to dispense with the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... were not as entirely superseded by the Netherland, as by the Spanish system, was rather a difference of form than of fact. We have seen that the secular officers of justice were at the command of the inquisitors. Sheriff, gaoler, judge, and hangman, were all required, under the most terrible penalties, to do their bidding. The reader knows what the edicts were. He knows also the instructions to the corps of papal inquisitors, delivered by Charles and Philip: He knows that Philip, both in person ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Vpon Good-fryday they met, according to solemne appoyntment, solemnized this great festiuall day according to their former order, with great cheare, merry company, and much conference. In the end, in this great assemblie it was decreed that M. Covell, [he was the gaoler of Lancaster Castle,] by reason of his Office, shall be slaine before the next Assises, the Castle at Lancaster to be blown up," &c., &c. This witches' convention, so historically famous, we unquestionably owe to the "painful justice" whose scent after witches and plots entitled him ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... of the lines that pain had written on this man's face; she recognized nothing of the very majesty of grief in the hopeless eyes. He was only her gaoler, her enemy. ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... and he even cured the wild animals of their complaints, as Tintoretto also shows us. Being at last healed by heaven, he travelled to Lombardy, where he was taken as a spy and imprisoned for five years, and in prison he died, after being revealed as a saint to his gaoler. His dying prayer was that all Christians who prayed to him in the name of Jesus might be delivered from pestilence. Shortly after Rocco's death an angel descended to earth with a table written ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... in that state which makes it most difficult; and, therefore, the humanity of a gaoler certainly deserves this publick attestation; and the man, whose heart has not been hardened by such an employment, may be justly proposed as a pattern of benevolence. If an inscription was once engraved, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... window and we stood together beneath the stars—free! Another moment and we were down at the water side and into a boat which was fastened there. We loosed it and rowed with all our speed up the river. He had killed the gaoler and gotten away, bringing with him a musket and an axe. All that night we rowed, and when morning broke we were well-nigh past the settlements, for we had been far up river to begin with. That day we hid in the reeds, but when night came we sped up the stream. We came to the falls of the far ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... disfavour. The king now commanded his son to mount one of the spare elephants in the royal train, so that he rode next his father, to the great joy and applause of the multitude, who were now filled with new hopes; and on this occasion, the king gave him 1000 rupees to throw among the people; his gaoler, Asaph Khan, and all the ministers, being ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... day he had lain prostrate on the bed in his cell, in a state of feebleness pitiful to behold, unable to speak or move, and hardly able to breathe. "One morning," he writes, "while gasping for breath, I besought the gaoler to let me have more air, by throwing up the window. 'You are no gentleman,' said he; 'you gave that letter[14] out of the window, and I will come presently to nail it down.' Happily a friend soon after called upon ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... country, less fortunate men who have really become mentally afflicted, but are not recognised as insane, are kept chained to the walls of the Marstan—half hospital, half prison—that is attached to the most great mosques. I have been assured that they suffer considerably at the hands of most gaoler-doctors, whose medicine is almost invariably the stick, but I have not been able to verify the story, which is quite opposed to Moorish tradition. The mad visitor to the fandak did not disturb the conversation with the keeper and ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... said HYMEN, taking Some loose nooses of Law's making. "Pooh!" the nymphs cried. "Who can trust 'em? We have changed your queer old custom. Who'll buy your love-knots? Who'll buy your love-knots? Women they bind not, nor tie men. You're a helpless gaoler, HYMEN! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... was an ugly twist to his mouth, a livid tinge in his complexion, but nevertheless he slept. Wingate rose to his feet and watched. Phipps seemed keyed up to suffering. Dredlinton showed no sign. Their gaoler strolled up to ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not be converted, the prisons were kept full. They were kept there without the usual allowance of straw, and almost without food. In winter they had no fire, and at night no lamp. Though ill, they had no doctors. Besides the gaoler, their only visitors were priests and monks, entreating them to make abjuration. Of course many died in prison—feeble women, and aged and infirm men. In the society of obscene criminals, with whom many were imprisoned, ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... my complexion. They cast me, then a young and nursing mother, Into a dungeon of their prison house. There was no bed, no fire, no ray of light, 210 No touch, no sound of comfort! The black air, It was a toil to breathe it! I have seen The gaoler's lamp, the moment that he enter'd, How the flame sunk at once down to the socket. O miserable, by that lamp to see 215 My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread Brought daily: for the little wretch was sickly— My rage had dry'd away its natural food! In darkness I remain'd, counting ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... thought, we said nothing. The situation was romantic, and not without some attraction, even in those curious circumstances. Here we were, prisoners, first-class prisoners, if you will, but still prisoners, and there was our gaoler; he and ourselves sat round a tea-table, munching toast, nibbling cakes and dainties, sipping fragrant tea, as if we had been in any lady's drawing-room. I think it speaks well for all of us that we realized the situation and made ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... condemned to suffer the last penalty, and left, as the custom then was, for long months in the gaol in Buenos Ayres, amused himself by composing the story of the Bien-te-veo, and thinking well of it he made a present of the manuscript to the gaoler in acknowledgment of some kindness he had received from that person. The condemned man had no money and no friends to interest themselves on his behalf; but it was not the custom at that time to execute a criminal as soon as he was condemned. The prison authorities preferred ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... knowledge in a pothouse, purchased a stout file, a scarlet cap and a lute. Ambrogio Bracciolini, head-gaoler at the fortress—so the gossips told Demetrios—had been a jongleur in youth, and minstrels were always welcome guests at ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... liberty. Towards the end of August, shortly after the return of our ill-fated messenger, we wrote again and sent another man: by this time we had abundant proof that Samuel,—formerly our introducer, now our gaoler,—was completely in our interests; and by his good arrangements the messenger started without any one knowing of it, and managed to reach Massowah ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... in that state which makes it most difficult; and therefore the humanity of a gaoler certainly deserves this public attestation; and the man whose heart has not been hardened by such an employment may be justly proposed as a pattern of benevolence. If an inscription was once engraved "to the honest toll-gatherer," ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... moment staggered, but their surprise gave place to their cruelty, when they considered how long they had tortured thousands for doubting points to which they themselves had never for a moment given credence. I was remanded to my dungeon; and the gaoler, who had never before witnessed such boldness in the hall of justice, and was impressed with the conviction that I was supported as I had affirmed, treated me with kindness, affording me comforts, which, had it been known, would have cost ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... to tell the footboy to let Mrs Lambert know she was too tired to come into the parlour, she fell prone upon the floor, and remembered nothing till she found herself on the couch in the parlour, the twilight deepening, and Madam Lambert sitting by her like a gaoler, with a glass of brandy on the little table, which she ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... so much as had come to pass. I had loved where the King loved, and my youth, though it raised its head again, still reeled under the blow; I knew what the King hid—aye, it might be more than one thing that he hid; my knowledge landed me where I lay now, in close confinement with a gaoler at my door. For my own choice, I would crave the Vicar's pardon, would compound with destiny, and, taking the proportion of fate's gifts already dealt to me in lieu of all, would go in peace to humbler doings, beneath the dignity of dark prophecy, but more fit to give a man quiet days ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... voice, then, my dear mother," said her son, "for at least half an hour, if that will not tire you. I have a long story to tell you. In the first place, you know that I was taken to prison; three months I spent in the Conciergerie, expecting every day to be ordered out to the guillotine. The gaoler's son, a boy about my own age, who was sometimes employed to bring me food, seemed to look upon me with compassion; I had several opportunities of obliging him: his father often gave him long returns of the names of the prisoners, and various accounts, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... convicted sinner. Now, some of you are enlightened, convinced, and so wretched that you cannot sleep. You do repent. You are the very people, then, to whom this text comes—Believe. You are just in the condition of the gaoler. ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... wall,' she said laughing. 'The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost seventeen: I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser: less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing. He's a pretty ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Robertson, the leader of the rioters, and seen him trying to persuade Effie Deans to escape and to save himself from the gallows, being a well-known thief and prison-breaker, gave information, hoping, as he candidly said, to obtain the post of gaoler himself. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... an almighty gaoler. The reverend gentlemen took a prison view of everything. He had a habit, as I learned, of asking new comers what was their sentence, and informing them that it ought to have been twice as long. In his opinion, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... well known was an expert locksmith, had made false keys that opened all the doors; at last these reports (that went the round of all the clubs) transformed every patriot on that night into the king's gaoler. We read with surprise in the journal of Camille Desmoulins of the 20th of June, 1791:—"The evening passed most tranquilly at Paris; I returned at eleven o'clock from the Jacobins' Club with Danton and several other patriots; we only met a single patrole all the way. Paris appeared to me that ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony; Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips, And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... meadow. Lifford is very clean and very pretty. The gaol is the most striking building, and I wandered through its deserted corridors, desolate as those of Monaghan. There were some strange marks in the principal square; a number of parallel lines which puzzled me. I turned to the gaoler who had just ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Bluestone did not like it at all. Circumstances had made her a gaoler, but by nature she was very ill constituted for that office. The harshness of it was detestable to her, and then there was no reason whatever why she should sacrifice her domestic comfort for the Lovels. The thing had grown upon ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... recollect some room or other in the gaol, Mackaye with both my hands in his; and the rough kindly voice of the gaoler congratulating me on ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the wind in the summer trees is as 'a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains;' when the body is no longer a mediator between the soul and the world, but the prison-house of a lying gaoler and torturer—how can I but rejoice to hear that the tormented captive has at length forced ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous incident to enliven it—a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the castle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick: the historian ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... resist her impulse to visit the mother. She entered the gaol-porch, lifted the knocker, and asked the gaoler for admission. For some reason or other she was refused; but she returned, repeated her request, and this time she was admitted. The culprit mother shortly stood before her. When Sarah Martin told the motive of her visit, the criminal burst ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace with their hats on; and, if his own narrative may be trusted, the Chief Justice of England was altogether unable to answer this argument except by crying out, "Take him away, gaoler." [28] Fox insisted much on the not less weighty argument that the Turks never show their bare heads to their superiors; and he asked, with great animation, whether those who bore the noble name of Christians ought not to surpass Turks in virtue. [29] Bowing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as it is, and since there is nothing unnatural or unbecoming on my side, and your Highness takes it in good part, I begin to believe we may have a capital time together, sir - a capital time. For a gaoler is only ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Annie, though loath to leave him, and in terror of what was implied in the threats he uttered against the master and might be involved in the execution of them, obeyed him and walked leisurely home, avoiding the quarters in which there was a chance of meeting her gaoler. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... They felt various creatures crawling over them; but they knew that they must bear such annoyances patiently. Their eyes in a short time closed, and they went fast asleep. They were aroused at early dawn by the shouts and cries of hundreds of voices. The Zulu gaoler no longer stopped up the doorway by his black body. They concluded that he was not afraid they would attempt to escape during daylight, as they ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... with Wolsey when the latter was a young man, for he had the misfortune to put the future great prelate in the stocks! The family became pronounced Protestants and one of the grandsons of Amyas was gaoler of Mary Queen of Scots. These beruffed and torpedoe-bearded Elizabethans are in Hinton Church, a fine and dignified building that, like many other Somerset churches, is more imposing ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... that one hundred blows are at times inflicted so lightly as to leave scarcely a mark behind, though the recipient howls loudly all the time. Those criminals who have money can always manage to square the gaoler; and the gaoler has acquired a certain knack in laying on, the upshot being great cry and little wool, very satisfactory to the culprit. Even were we to accept the cruellest estimate in regard to punishment by the bamboo, it would only go to show that ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... to his maudlin defence. It rapidly was dawning upon her that these men had secured her lover's release on bail at half-past ten o'clock, an hour and a half before she had given her bribe of nine thousand crowns to the gaoler. That being the case, it was becoming clear to her that the wretch deliberately had taken the money, knowing that Brock was not in the prison, and with the plain design to rob her of the amount. It was a transaction in which he could be perfectly ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... refused to conform, he was to be transported; and if he came back without license he would be hanged. Bunyan merely answered, 'If I were out of prison to-day, I would preach, the Gospel again to-morrow.' More might have followed, but the gaoler led ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... all intents and purposes in custody, and he examined his gaoler at first wrathfully, then curiously, struck with his rather strange figure and appearance. Baume, as the Chief had called him, was a short, thick-set man with a great shock head sunk in low between a pair of enormous shoulders, betokening great physical strength; he stood ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... afternoon, the governor, attended by Peerat, his wives, and a crowd of natives, walked up to the gaol to release little Dal-bean. The father and the governor alone entered the prison, and when the gaoler was told to hand Peerat the whip, the latter took it, and said, "Yes, yes, I will strike him; let not another beat him." The door of the cell was then opened, and the little boy was led out: his father ran up to him, caught him in his arms, and ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... proper when I tell you to be seated,' returned King Richard. So Gunther sat down and wiped his head, Richard finished his beer; and then they went to sleep on the floor. Early in the morning the prisoner woke up his gaoler. ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... his closed hand towards the sky, and from his fist dangled a rope. A cry like the growling of a pack of wolves went up as the mob saw the rope, and they clamoured at the gates of the gaol. "Lynch him! Gaoler, give up the keys!" ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... appeal in Cassation, on which his principal hopes were founded, Peytel spoke little of his petition to the King. The notion of transportation was that which he seemed to cherish most. However, he made several inquiries from the gaoler of the prison, when he saw him at meal-time, with regard to the place of execution, the usual hour, and other details on the subject. From that period, the words 'Champ de Foire' (the fair-field, where the execution was to be held), were frequently ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so that he suffered fewer hardships in the prison, than he had been accustomed to undergo the greatest part of his life. Virtue is undoubtedly most laudable in that state which makes it most difficult; and therefore the humanity of the gaoler certainly ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint. Chain cables and stout ropes keep her bound to stone posts at the edge of a paved shore, and a berthing-master, with brass buttons on his coat, walks about like a weather-beaten and ruddy gaoler, casting jealous, watchful glances upon the moorings that fetter a ship lying passive and still and safe, as if lost in deep regrets of her days of liberty ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... church, opposite to the monument, but it was stolen during the tumults caused by the Huguenots, and was broken into two pieces, in which state De Bourgueville saw it a few years afterwards, in the hands of a Calvinist, one Peter Hode, the gaoler at Caen, who used it in the double capacity of a table and a door. The worthy magistrate states, that he kept the picture, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... not fuddle himself." In the year 506 the ruler of Ts'in is described as being a heavy drinker. In 489 a Ts'i councillor is described as being drunk. A few years later the ruler of Ts'i and his wife are seen drinking together on the verandah, and some prisoners escape owing to the gaoler having been ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... she lay with her eyes closed, unable either to move or speak. When she got better, the Lion Fairy told her that if she liked she could build herself a cabin, as she would have to spend her life in that place. At these words the queen burst into tears, and implored her gaoler to put her to death rather than condemn her to such a life; but the Lion Fairy only laughed, and counselled her to try to make herself pleasant, as many worse ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... beleaguered friends. "Is it not too bad of him that he will pretend not to understand French?" said an old lady to me. "He looks like a fiend," said another lady, looking up at the good-natured face of the stolid military gaoler. The contrast between the shrieking, gesticulating, excited French, and the calm, cool, indifferent air of the German, was a curious one. It was typical of that between the two races. Having reached Paris, I consigned poor old long ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... careering wildly through the poor girl's brain—the girl thrown inward upon herself. At length, the sting of her imagination forced her to start up impatiently. What was this? A weight of iron on her legs—a weight stated afterwards, by the gaoler of Salem prison, to have been 'not more than eight pounds.' It was well for Lois it was a tangible ill, bringing her back from the wild illimitable desert in which her imagination was wandering. She took hold of the iron, and saw her torn stocking,—her bruised ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... each of them a snuff-box, and, in addition, a string of white beads to the coy maiden. They were attended by an old woman and two little female slaves, and, during their stay, made very merry; but he feared much that their gaiety soon fled on returning to the close custody of their old gaoler. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... bread. Leonore, the unhappy prisoner's wife, has discovered his place of confinement, and, in the hope of rescuing him, disguises herself in male attire and hires herself as servant to Rocco, the head gaoler, under the name of Fidelio. In this condition she has to endure the advances of Marcelline, the daughter of Rocco, who neglects her lover Jaquino for the sake of the attractive new-comer. Before Leonore has had time to mature her plans, news comes to ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... you guest-room beside her, but you have warned me of her designs, and my father argues that we must not anger the French King in any fashion. Had he demanded my prisoners I might even have lost this dear revenge, but now I shall give orders to their gaoler that he waste no good money on their nourishment. In less than a week's time their career and ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... mari, and the peace of Loch Leven and the island hermitage would have been the sweeter for the din outside. A woman, a Queen, a Stuart, could not attain, and perhaps ought not to have attained, this epicureanism. Mary Stuart had her chance, and missed it; perhaps, after all, her shrewish female gaoler made ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... seemed to me to be the most wretched phase of human existence,—that phase of living in which the liver can trust no one, and be trusted by none; in which the heart is ever quailing at the policeman's hat, and the eye ever shrinking from the policeman's gaze. The convict does trust his gaoler, at any rate his master gaoler, and in so doing is not all wretched. It is Bill Sikes before conviction that I have ever pitied. Any man can endure to be hanged; but how can any man have taken that Bill Sikes' walk and have lived ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... present. Gray's house, although the Spencers disliked him, was one at which the parties always met as much as is possible at all in Ireland. When Gray came out of gaol after his imprisonment he gave a small dinner, at which were present the Judge who had sentenced him, the gaoler who had had him in custody, and the prosecuting counsel. The most interesting man at Gray's was Fottrell, the man whose memoirs ought to be interesting, for he had acted as intermediary between the Castle (that is, Hamilton) and Parnell at the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... as if this were a problem he would give up. It was beyond him, he said, to even guess at what Andrius was after, or what was going to happen. And nothing did happen until, as the three prisoners sat at dinner with their polite gaoler, the Pike came to a sudden stop and hung gently on a quiet sea. Andrius looked up ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... after came a war and uproar in the land, and the King had to take up arms against another king who wished to take the kingdom from him. So when the lad heard that, he begged the gaoler to go to the King and ask for a coat of mail and a sword, and for leave to go to the war. All the rest laughed when the gaoler told his errand, and begged the King to let him have an old worn-out suit, that they might have the fun ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... Continent in those days—had the special weakness of all bureaucracies; namely, that want of moral force which compels them to fall back at last on physical force, and transforms the ruler into a bully, and the soldier into a policeman and a gaoler. A Government of parvenus, uncertain of its own position, will be continually trying to assert itself to itself, by vexatious intermeddling and intruding pretensions; and then, when it meets with ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... them—for the only—the last time. For in the great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working itself out to the ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suffer now; for besides the humiliation of being chained to criminals, they were otherwise severely dealt with. The food set before them was of the coarsest, with a scarcity of it; and more than once the gaoler, whose duty it was to look after them, made mockery of their irksome situation, jesting on the grotesque companionship of the dwarf and giant. As the gaol-governor had shown, on his first having them conveyed to their cells, signs of a special hostility, so did their ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... an order, he said, "You will present those to the gaoler when you desire to visit your friend. I may say that I very much admire the strong affection which you have shown towards one who is under such a serious charge as that made against the prisoner, John Scarlett. I wish ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... heavy step of the swordsmith approaching, and laying her finger on her lips, she sprang back hastily from the window, and when her gaoler entered, was busy, apparently, in arranging ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... only be instructed orally; they were difficult of reduction to anything like attention, obedience, or decent behaviour; their benighted ignorance in reference to the Deity, or to any social duty (how could they guess at any social duty, being so discarded by all social teachers but the gaoler and the hangman!) was terrible to see. Yet, even here, and among these, something had been done already. The Ragged School was of recent date and very poor; but he had inculcated some association with the name of the Almighty, which was ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... with food, we all wakened up, and Gib asked very peaceably to be released. The gaoler laughed at his predicament, and inquired the tale of it; and when he heard the truth, called for a vote as to what he should do. I was satisfied, from the look of Muckle John, that his dangerous fit was over, so I gave my voice for release. Gib shook himself like a great dog, and fell to his ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... hapless and forlorn, Unseen the sun rose on the morrow morn, Nor knew she aught about the death of night Until her gaoler's torches filled with light The dreary place, blinding her unused eyes, And she their voices heard that bade her rise; She did their bidding, yet grown faint and pale She shrank away and strove her arms to veil In her gown's bosom, and to hide from them ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... up against the wall, was valorously holding out against his former gaoler, who was trying to recapture him. At length, the Arabs, finding it impossible to break their way through so large a body of disciplined troops, fell back, and their ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... going to have their heads chopped off next morning, danced and flirted, and sat at entertainments, just as if there was no such thing in the world as the public prosecutor and the tumbril, and the gaoler going about with a bit of chalk to mark each door where were the condemned for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... class despises him much less than it does many a yet unpunished functionary. His old friends of the nobility and of the Sacred College often shake him by the hand. I have known Cardinal Tosti, at once his gaoler and his friend, let him have the use ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... hoping to lead in person; their successors embezzled the contributions sent for this purpose from all parts of Christendom, and degraded the indulgences granted in return for them into a private commercial speculation. Innocent VIII consented to be gaoler to the fugitive Prince Djem, for a salary paid by the prisoner's brother Bajazet II, and Alexander VI supported the steps taken by Lodovico il Moro in Constantinople to further a Turkish assault upon Venice (1498), whereupon the latter threatened him with a Council. It is clear that the notorious ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... past caring so much. If you've come here, Babe, to take me away, it's no use. I may as well tell you now. This is prison. And you must escape, yourself, before the gaoler comes back, or it will be a life-sentence for ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... were alone. Even now I could not keep back a smile. Although I had been thrust into the cell, together with four armed soldiers, and the door had been bolted and barred, I turned at the sound of a slight click. The head gaoler, who had ushered us in and had locked the door upon us, according to the regulations of the prison, had opened the peep-hole to satisfy himself ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... assured him, not only of the health, but also of the custody of his prisoners, seemed satisfactory to the gaoler. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... the dungeon bringing him his scanty meal. A lamp hangs suspended from the roof, in the centre of the dungeon, and the artist has made a very happy hit in throwing the whole glare of the lamp on the countenance of Galileo, who is seated reading a book, while the gaoler monk is left completely in the shade. On seeing this I exclaimed: Veramente, Signor Granet, e ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... listened to the tales of escaped prisoners, and he knew that no words could exaggerate this frozen Hell in which flourished vices unnamable, where men rotted alive, and women strangled themselves with their own hair, or cut their throats with a scrap of glass to escape the brutalities of a gaoler or Cossack guard. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... rude gaoler, but anyone would have marvelled what had brought this beautiful, aristocratic woman, in the grey light of dawn, out on the highway to meet the hapless man loaded ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... up in a convent, or perhaps in a prison, or absolutely forced to marry some suitor whom her parents should find for her. But those comfortable days were past. In a prison Lady Frances was detained now; but it was a prison of which the Marchioness was forced to make herself the gaoler, and in which her darlings were made to be fellow-prisoners with their wicked sister. She herself was anxious to get back to Trafford and the comforts of her own home. The beauties of Koenigsgraaf were not lovely to her in her present frame of ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... faces he saw by the gaoler's torch were not those he expected. The King, I say, looked towards them, and his hands trembled, and the moisture on them glistened. They were dark, and one of them was concealed by a ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... eyes and a countenance so gloomy as to augment my fears a hundredfold; since it suggested all those vague and formidable pains which M. de Rambouillet had hinted might await me in a prison. I thought nothing more probable than the entrance after them of a gaoler laden with gyves and handcuffs; and saluting M. Francois with a face which, do what I would, fashioned itself upon his, I had scarce composure sufficient to place the poor accommodation of ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... attitude of gaoler and took him by the shoulder. "Don't be a fool!" he said again, but he said it gently. "I mean what I say. It's a way I've got. This isn't the time for explanations, but I'm out to help you. Even you will admit that you're pretty badly ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell |
