"Short shrift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... got hands on me, it would be a short shrift and a lang tow for Alan! But I have the King of France's commission in my pocket, which would aye ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rally round them. And you, my son, the pride of the village, what better use could you make of your strength than to devote it to helping to relieve your country of this insupportable yoke? It is treasonable and dangerous counsel—counsel which might lead to a short shrift and a bloody death—but, as the Lord liveth, if you were child of mine I should ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... full of plans for little reforms and improvements, in part the result of training in the newest ways and methods, in part the outcome of her own ideas and fancies. Reforms in the kitchen region, if those deaf old ears could have been induced to give them even a hearing, would have met with short shrift and scornful rejection, and the kitchen region spread over the zone of dairy and market business and half the work of the household. Emma, with the latest science of dead-poultry dressing at her finger-tips, sat by, an unheeded watcher, while old Martha trussed the chickens for ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... thing to ripen in. When I am a very old and very respectable citizen with white hair and bland manners and a gold watch, I shall hear three crows cawing in my heart, as I heard them this morning: I vote for old age and eighty years of retrospect. Yet, after all, I dare say, a short shrift and a nice green grave are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unqualified terms. A week later he was admonished to conform to the views of the President in his official conduct. At this point the State Department became informed of what had taken place, and the acting Governor had short shrift. On December 11 Cass wrote to J.W. Denver, Esq.: "You have already been informed that Mr. Stanton has been removed from the office of Secretary of the Territory of Kansas and that you have been appointed ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... the Indians more so, for they must have realized that they would be given short shrift if any harm now came to Rosemary and Floyd. The soldiers and cowboys would not hesitate to take swift and sure vengeance. So the Indians must fight to the bitter end, selling their lives as dearly ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... in the atmosphere of warm and loving support engendered in the group, and with the stirring of compassion within them, they began to see each other in a new light. We are inclined to the view, after hearing such testimonies, that in deploying our therapeutic armament we have given short shrift to the power of love not only to cast out fear, but also to ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... wineshop where Dry-towners were made welcome. A golden nonhuman child murmured something as she pattered by me in the street, and I stopped, gripped by a spasm of stagefright. Had the dialect of Shainsa grown rusty on my tongue? Spies were given short shrift on Wolf, and a mile from the spaceport, I might as well have been on one of those moons. There were no spaceport shockers at my back now. And someone might remember the tale of an Earthman with a scarred face who had ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... of the Valley, content. He meant her to be so always. The man who had instilled into her young mind a discontent with her environment, a longing for the "flesh-pots" of the world as he had styled it once, would have had short shrift at Last's. He would have received his time and ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... since Northampton was not the man to give except in the expectation of plenty, would plant the unwary Rochester on the hearth of his own and Overbury's enemies. With Rochester in the Howard camp there would be short shrift for Thomas Overbury. There would be, though Rochester in his infatuation seemed blind to the fact, as short a shrift as the Howards could contrive for the ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... "You will be wise to keep within doors until you leave Dorchester for good. There are many who know Gilbert Crosby, and once in the hands of Jeffreys you would have short shrift." ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... Manuel was giving orders. Some advanced the opinion that the cursed Inglez, the spy who came from Jamaica to see whom he could get for a hanging without a priest, was down there, too. So that was it! O'Brien knew how to stir their hate. I should get a short shrift. "He was a fiend, the Inglez: look how many of us he has killed!" they cried; and Manuel would have loved to cut my flesh, in small pieces, off my bones—only, alas! I was now beyond his vengeance, he feared. However, somebody ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... studio impressed him favourably; he laid down his little bag, rubbed his hands together, and produced a smile of satisfaction; but it was such a smile as a totally ruined man would perhaps force on his lips, or a man condemned to a short shrift by his doctor. I begged him to make himself at home and said that I would go at once and hunt up the woman of the house who would make him up a bed on the big couch there. He hardly listened to what I said. What were all those ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... suppose you are wishing me dead, and yourself free to run away from your daily tasks in this quiet house, to listen to the lying tongue of some soft-spoken scoundrel, as foolish women will; but the longer I live the better for you, till your mother's debt is paid, or my executors will give her a short shrift and scant time." ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Hornigold from being as bad at heart as his brother, which is saying a great deal, and because he was younger, more reckless, less prudent, than he of riper years, he had incautiously put himself in the power of Morgan and had been hanged with short shrift. Benjamin, standing upon the outskirts of the crowd jesting and roaring around the foot of the gibbet, with a grief and rage in his heart at his impotency, presently found himself hating his old captain with a fierceness proportioned to his devotion in ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... have no plan," he shouted at the Earthman. "We have followed you blindly so far, and here we are off the traffic lanes. Our only hope of being picked up now is one of space patrol ships. And short shrift ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... the eyes of the women showed us that they had no friends among the neighbors, and revealed to us the smouldering fires of hate that the French people have for the brutal invader. I fancy the dastardly pair were glad of our protection for all their looks of defiance. They knew that a spy would meet short shrift at the hands of these French women whose untamed spirit was the same as that of the Margots of the Parisian gutters ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... was doubtless one of those old campaigners whom nothing can surprise, who find something to laugh at in the last contortions of a comrade, and will bury a friend or rifle his body gayly; challenging bullets with indifference; making short shrift for themselves or others; and fraternizing, as a usual thing, with the devil. After looking very attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie as he entered the den, my companion curled his lip with that expression ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... to have been used by a band of pirates as the first national sand bank, and, as these rascals were caught and swung off with short shrift, they do say that the plunder is still to be had—by the man who finds it. But the hotel-keepers and three-card-monte men are not waiting for ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... determined to make an enemy of me, Darrin, I shall do my best to see to it that you have short shrift in the service." ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... Jeanne insisted upon going to see whether the old woman wanted anything. As you might suppose, she was sent back to the parlour with short shrift, but not so harshly as I ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... to speedy death. I saw him in February for the last time, not long before the end. He told me, as he always did, that he did not feel amiss, but that his doctors all unanimously condemned him to a short shrift; that his friend Sir Frederick Treves was putting him under a new treatment, from which he hoped to derive some benefit; but that, whatever happened, he should go on writing as if nothing were wrong until the end came. That did not long tarry. In the evening of Thursday, February 23rd, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... drive the top part of their rods deep into the water, so as to rake the bottom, and then bring the hook out with a jerk. Every now and then ... one of the persecuted fishes ... is hauled out with short shrift."—Daily News.] ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... truth a delightful bundle of paradox. Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband. But the snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily. She spoke her mind with the utmost freedom on every possible occasion, and as she had plenty of brains and considerable shrewdness her remarks ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... believe that no such shameless swindles as were then perpetrated could possibly continue for a week under existing conditions. A Press which makes us familiar with all sorts of grievances, and an inquiring Parliamentarian or two, would provide a short shrift and a long rope for the perpetrator of any such bare-faced robbery as I suffered under when I first joined the Fourth Royal Irish Dragoon Guards. The motive of my enlistment had no remotest connection with the bounty offered. I joined the Army simply out of that green-sickness ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... cried the horse. "Take the briar whip and the stone and the jug of water and the flask of ointment. Then mount my back and ride. If the Troll Master finds us here when he returns, it will be short shrift for both ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... introductory farce to the grim tragedy which followed. When Monmouth's hopes of sovereignty were rudely shattered by the melee at Sedgemoor the town was handed over for pacification to the tender mercies of Kirke and the brutal justice of Jeffreys. The rebels got short shrift from both. Kirke, without preliminary inquiry, swung the culprits from the sign-board of his lodgings, and Jeffreys' law was notorious for its despatch. So numerous were the executions that Bishop Ken complained to the king that "the whole diocese ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... to be transported, who should be found on French territory, should be put to death within twenty-four hours!' As in many cases the question of the crime of emigration was to be decided by persons actually enjoying the property of the alleged emigrant, this short shrift was a most effectual 'warranty ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... avoided intimate discussion of these cases, but many suggestions of the unalterableness of the full-fledged tendencies among the insane are found in the European literature cited by us. Even discussion of the outcome of the border-line cases, such as we have given examples of, needs but short shrift. Everyone knows the extreme difficulties of dealing with constitutional inferiors; marked cases are socially fit only for proper colonization. The epileptic, in default of cure of his disease, is ever going to be prone to many peculiar mental states which may involve ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... reign are falling from me full of life, full of colour to the end. Shall I win this wonderful woman? Am I mad to hope it? If I lose, it is a short shrift and a long rope at the end of a ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... is on my heels. They've raised the whole of Penrith over the affair, and if I'm taken, soul of my body, 'twill be a short shrift they'll give me. The King will serve me as poor Wrycraft was served two days ago at Kendal. Mother of Mercy!" he broke off, as his ear caught the clatter of feet and the murmur of voices from without. "Have you a hole ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... at him many and many a time. Indeed, he had used it as the text for that paraphrase of the Revelation of which we spoke a moment ago. And he knew its notes—well he knew them— knew that they were from republican Geneva, and that kingly pretensions had short shrift with them. James told the conference that these notes were "very partial, untrue, seditious, savoring too much of traitorous and dangerous conceits," supporting his opinion by two instances which seemed disrespectful to royalty. One of these instances was the note on ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... life of Luther in his hand—a waver, a tremor—and the fagots would soon crackle: for the man who pleads guilty and refuses pardon there is short shrift. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... manners and a quiet, deferential air that did not seem to know what it came to buy or cared what it purchased so long as it could engage Mavis in a few moments' conversation. She soon got to know this type at a glance, and gave it short shrift. Others at "Dawes'" were not so coy. Many of the customers she got to know by sight, owing to their repeated visits. One of these she disliked from the first; later experience of her only intensified this ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... its plan, is as transparent as in its burden. It has an austere simplicity in the telling that fits the directness of the thing told. Dreiser, as if to clear decks, throws over all the immemorial baggage of the novelist, making short shrift of "heart interest," conventional "sympathy," and even what ordinarily passes for romance. In "Sister Carrie," as I have pointed out, there is still a sweet dish for the sentimentalists; if they ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Here he was again well received by his brother, who entertained the guests kindly for several days. Meanwhile, a small party of Americans were brought into Ebenezer as captives, over whom hung the danger of "short shrift and sudden cord". They were on their way to Savannah for trial. They had taken arms with the British, as hundreds more had done, when the country was deemed reconquered; but, on the approach of the American army, had rejoined their countrymen, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... a farce. Stimulated by the French Revolution, John Mitchel wrote rabid sedition, but received short shrift at the hands of the Government, who arrested him, sentenced him to fourteen years' transportation, and almost from the dock he was taken manacled in a police van, escorted by cavalry, and put on board a steamer, which at once ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... short shrift for Peter of Colfax that night had not John and Guy and another of his henchmen rushed into ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... been long in suit To be installed abbot of your house, And in your favour many friends have stirr'd. Now is the hour that you shall be preferr'd Upon condition—and the matter small. Short shrift to make, good honest confessor, I love a fair nun, now in Dunmow Abbey: The abbess loves you, and you pleasure her; Now, if between you two this pretty lady Could be persuaded to affect a king, Your suit ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... some men do. He pitied rather than blamed the wretched females who frequented the miners' camps. More sinned against than sinning, was his humane judgment of these unhappy outcasts, and when he could, he helped them. Many a besotted creature had him to thank when the end came and short shrift little better then that accorded a dead dog awaited her—that at least she got a decent burial. The boys knew his attitude on the woman question, and it was a tribute to the regard in which they held him that, in his hearing at least, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... serious work, he was there even ahead of Jerry. On account of foot-and-mouth disease and of hog-cholera, strange dogs were taboo on the Kennan ranch. It did not take Michael long to learn this, and stray dogs got short shrift from him. With never a warning bark nor growl, in deadly silence, he rushed them, slashed and bit them, rolled them over and over in the dust, and drove them from the place. It was like nigger-chasing, a service to perform for the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... armed with long-swords and daggers, but no firearms were in evidence, else it had been short shrift for the gruesome ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The prisoners, huddled together in the Manchester prisons, with chains round their limbs, might not be the liberators of Colonel Kelly—the slayers of Brett might not be amongst them; but they were Irishmen, at any rate, and so they would answer the purpose. Short shrift was the cry. The ordinary forms of law, the maxims of the Constitution, the rules of judicial procedure, the proprieties of social order and civilization, might be outraged and discarded, but speedy vengeance should, at all hazards, be obtained: the hangman ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... know why we refuse to do it, if it is something we will not do. Ethelred the Unready died helpless a thousand years ago. The unready are still with us, but the strenuous century will grant them but short shrift. ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... short shrift for the helpless folks on a fishing vessel when struck by a liner. The keen prow cuts right through planking and stout oak frame, and the dissevered portions of the hull are tossed to starboard and to port, to sink before the white foam has faded from the wake of the destroying ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... in their appearance only, but there can be no change in appearance without some slight corresponding organic modification. In practice there is usually compromise in these matters. The universe, if it does not give an organism short shrift and eat it at once, will commonly abate something of its claim; it gets tricked out of an additional moiety by the organism; the organism really does pay something by way of changed habits; this results in variation, in virtue of which the accounts are cooked, cobbled, and passed ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Conchita, composed our travelling party. I knew we dared not take the route usually travelled. We should be followed by hostile pursuers and forced back, perhaps slain upon the spot. I at least would have had a short shrift. Knowing this, we made direct for the mountains, with whose passes I was familiar, having traversed them in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... necks of the three men, who at the end of the allotted time were given short shrift and were soon hanging between heaven and earth. While their bodies were swaying in the breeze, Slade's wife suddenly appeared mounted on a fine horse, with a cocked pistol in each hand, determined to attempt a rescue. On observing that it ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... "It will be a short shrift and a long rope for that Evan when I catch him," he said. "He comes here every year, and I suppose that the goods I have had from him at times have been plunder. I would that you had ended him last night. Now he has got away ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... recollections of friends made, and, alas! lost so soon; of the merry evening in a country house, of which the hospitable host, in his capacity of justice of the peace, gave us short shrift in the choice between the county gaol and his hospitality. Unless we consented to sleep beneath his roof and eat his salt, he vowed he would commit us for vagabonds without visible means of support. We chose the humiliation of a good dinner and a sheeted bed. The same ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... commented the other, chuckling with amusement. "If he gets the notion in his head that we are legion he won't be so apt to blaze away at us, knowing it would mean a short shrift for him. He may prefer to play the poor French peasant part, and try to pull the wool over ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... had been taken out of the mouths of the men. If they did give the alarm there would be none to hear them, save perhaps a French peasant passing that way, and at his hands they would meet short shrift. ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... look at the headman, and his confirmation of my unspoken thought was, "Yes; he's too quiet." Yet it was a long while before I could get him up sufficiently for recognition beyond doubt; that accomplished, it was short shrift. He was lifted into the boat by the tail, the triangles came out easily under the knife, and off went a well-mended fish of about 13 lb. That is to say, I call him a fish; the boatmen decline to render even this nominal ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... icy calm the Colonel retorted, "If you summon your bodyguard, Maharajah, you are a dead man. That would be rebellion; and with rebels we make short shrift." ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... danger o' that," remarked George, with a significant nod, which Maurice took to mean that if caught those black criminals might meet with a short shrift. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... was immediately held. The hapless pilot at first denied all knowledge of the letter, but at length compelled to confess his guilt, with a short shrift he was next morning hanged ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... red in the fury of the moment. With their winnings gone, their festivity cut short, their credit exhausted, and their self-control, never very strong, further weakened by the frolic of the night before, there would have been a short shrift for any of the four men had they been captured. But four mounted men, with their wits about them, and with several hours' start, were more than a match for a mob of men without organization, or even a knowledge as to the direction in which the others had gone. A few moments' thought ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... not to play with savages; for those brutes of Hungarians, not understanding his words, and thinking that he had uttered something terrible, such as a threat that he would rob their King of his life and throne, wished to give him short shrift and crucify him by mob-law. But the good Bishop drew him out of all embarrassment, and, appraising the merit of the excellent master at its true value, and putting a good complexion on the affair, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... their mirth. I wondered that Pemaou had not told them, but I reflected that there is a mutual distrust among Indians that takes the place of reticence, and that that had saved me. I had escaped for the moment, but the ice was thin. I should be given short shrift once my ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the neighbouring provinces, and would almost certainly be recognized, by Catholics from the same neighbourhood. Of course you understand that, if suspicion should fall upon you of being a messenger from this place, you will have but a short shrift." ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... Water was not too plentiful in the city, and the native water-carriers had grown lazy; thirst racked the prisoners one and all. They had been shut in for the better part of two weeks, and wondered why they had not been brought to trial. They had expected a short shrift and a speedy execution. Usually these expectations would have been realized, but the governor would not be bothered with any extra work whilst the heat spell lasted, and he had been warned that ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... recognized that his life at large would not be safe so long as Shorty and Doble were ranging the hills. Both of them were "bad men," in the usual Western acceptance of the term, and an accomplice who betrayed them would meet short shrift ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... that the Germans in France never found any reason to lay the country waste, for they were never faced with a universal guerilla warfare as we have been, but they gave the franc-tireur, or the man who was found cutting the wire of the line, very short shrift; whereas we have never put to death a single bona-fide Boer for this offence. Possibly it was not that the Germans were too severe, but that we were too lax. In any case, it is evident that there was nothing offensive in the statement, and those who have been ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle |
