"Stealer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found in Aesop, Avianus, and Abstemius. [25] Old Dindenaut.—Vide Rabelais, Pantagruel, Book IV. chap. viii.—Translator. The character in Rabelais is a sheep-stealer as well as a sheep-dealer. [26] According to Philip de Commines, the Emperor Frederic III. of Germany used a story conveying the substance of this fable, with its moral of Never sell your bear-skin till the beast is ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... The woman wore Satan on her forehead in the shape of a horned head-dress: on the feet of the bachelor and the page he was visible in the tapering scorpion-like tips of their shoes. Under the mask of animals they represented the lowest side of brute nature. The famous child stealer, Retz, here took his first flight in villany. The great feudal ladies, unbridled Jezebels, with less sense of shame in them than the men, scorned all disguise whatever; displayed themselves with face uncovered. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the trip hither has profited either master or man, I warrant. La Barre does not sell New France to every adventurer. Monsieur de la Salle found different reception in Quebec than when Frontenac ruled this colony. Where went the fur-stealer?" ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... necessity of civilization, and it is interesting to study the myths as to the origin of fire, and possibly even more interesting to compare the Greek and Japanese stories. As we know, old-time popular etymology makes Prometheus the fore-thinker and brother of Epimetheus the after-thinker. He is the stealer of the fire from heaven, in order to make men share the secret of the gods. Comparative philology tells us, however, that the Sanskrit Pramantha is a stick that produces fire. The "Kojiki" does indeed ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... had arisen from a belief that Acorn was about to marry his sister. He acknowledged that he knew that Burrows had been a convicted thief, and that Acorn had been punished for horse stealing. When he was asked how it had come to pass that he was desirous of seeing his sister married to a horse-stealer, he declined to answer, and, looking round the Court, said that he hoped there was no man there who would be coward enough to say anything against his sister. They who heard him declared that there was more of a threat than a request expressed ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... should she be burdened with such a responsibility, at this late day, when the touch of time had well-nigh healed these old sores? Surely, God had put his curse not alone upon the slave, but upon the stealer of men! With other good people she had thanked Him that slavery was no more, and that those who once had borne its burden upon their consciences could stand erect and feel that they themselves were free. The weed had been cut down, but its roots remained, deeply ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "No use—I'm incorr'ible. I'm like Dan-ny-Clae, the sheep-stealer, when he came to die. 'I'm going to eternal judgment—what'll I do?' says Dan. 'Give back all you've stolen,' says the parzon. 'I'll chance it first,' says the ould rascal. It's the other fellow that's for stealing this time; but I'll chance it, Philip. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... well by night—through my two eyes! Are we not one? How often must I repeat it that you and I are one! One! One! O Loskiel—stealer of hearts, if you could only know how often on my knees I am before you—how truly I adore, how humbly, scarcely daring to believe my heart that tells me such a tale of magic and enchantment—after these barren, loveless years. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the amiable man became capable of deeds that Marizano himself might have been proud of. The only difference, in fact, between the two was that the Governor, like the drunkard, often felt ashamed of himself, and sometimes wished that he were a better man, while the man-stealer gloried in his deeds, and had neither ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... a sheep-stealer. What would I want to hurt you for? Jim, you're joking, and it's a ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dull despair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In his hot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, a coo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheld kisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore . . . but that had nothing to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with Mrs Peagrim. The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in his arms ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... well known and strictly confined by the two covers of the Bible. Their characters were all provided by the familiar narrative. It is true that a few additions to the canonical list were admitted, such as Cain's servant Garcio, Pilate's beadle, and Mak the sheep-stealer. Lively characters were also created out of nonentities like the various Judaeans and soldiers, and the shepherds. But these were all minors; they had no influence on the course of the action, and the smallness of their part made anything like a full delineation ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... heaven, Forged the earth a concave cover!" Spake again the magic eagle: Why this ringing of thine anvil, Why this knocking of thy hammer, Tell me what thy hands are forging?" This the answer of the blacksmith: "'Tis a collar I am forging For the neck of wicked Louhi, Toothless witch of Sariola, Stealer of the silver sunshine, Stealer of the golden moonlight; With this collar I shall bind her To the iron-rock of Ehstland!" Louhi, hostess of Pohyola, Saw misfortune fast approaching, Saw destruction flying over, Saw the signs of bad-luck lower; Quickly winged ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... between two condemned criminals. One a murderer, particularly odious to the Stuttgart burghers, for he had stabbed his employer, a well-known lady, the much-esteemed widow of a popular town councillor. The other a notorious horse-stealer, whom the law-abiding Stuttgarters had stoned but ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Shane Bearna was a celebrated Rapparee, who, among his other exploits, figured principally as a horse-stealer. He kept the stolen animals concealed in remote mountain caves, where he trimmed and dyed them in such a way as made it impossible to recognize them. These caves are curiosities at the present day, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women, who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head were the greetings with which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... that neighbour's real name? That, nobody knows, or ever will know now. We only know that whatever it may have been it certainly was not John Smith, because when, in after years, Tanner Savery occasionally told this story he always called the stealer of his hides 'John Smith' in order to disguise his identity; so we will speak of John Smith too. 'A ne'er-do-well' was the character people gave him. They spoke of him as a man who was his own worst enemy, sadly too fond of his glass, and always quarrelling ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... free-spoken and manly language against slavery. I listened with the intense satisfaction that only a refugee could feel, when hearing, embodied in earnest, well-chosen, and strong speech, his own crude ideas of freedom, and his own hearty censure of the man-stealer. I believed, I knew, every word he said was true. It was the whole truth,—nothing kept back,—no trifling with human rights, no trading in the blood of the slave extenuated, nothing against the slaveholder said in malice. I have never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... our method will be found in the following pages. Thus, if the myth of the fire-stealer in Greece is explained by misunderstood Greek or Sanskrit words in no way connected with robbery, we shall show that the myth of the theft of fire occurs where no Greek or Sanskrit words were ever spoken. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... this cause. Let us have a public breakfast. Let the ministers meet him; let them hear him; let them grasp his hand; and let him enlist their sympathies on behalf of the slave. Let him inspire them with abhorrence of the man-stealer—the slaveholder. No slaveholding American shall ever my cross my door. No slaveholding or slavery-supporting minister shall ever pollute my pulpit. While I have a tongue to speak, or a hand to write, I will, to the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... wonderful host that ever went forth to conquest, won for himself a crown, and died the death of a soldier, leaving behind him a son, only inferior to himself in strength, in prowess, and in horsemanship. The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a novel writer, the panegyrist of great folks and genteel people; became insolvent because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel to be mixed up with the business part of authorship; died paralytic ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... know why you were in the plot to do as you did—last Monday afternoon," she said slowly; "but whatever it was, it was unworthy of you. You are not by nature a criminal and a stealer of women, I know. And you have been kind and brave to-day; I shall never forget that. Do you really mean now to stay ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... crafty soul and bitter tongue, Sinner, that did'st betray to mortal man The attributes of gods, stealer of fire, The Father bids thee tell what wedlock this That thou dost boast shall hurl him from his throne. Speak plain, Prometheus, and take heed that I Have not a second journey, for such shifts, As well thou seest, turn ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... permission to encamp and purchase a supply of provisions, he was honourably received, and the sultan of the city proceeded in great pomp to visit his brother monarch, who then informed him of the object of his expedition. This convinced the other sultan that the stealer of the bird must also have been the deliverer of his daughter, and he resolved to join in the search. Accordingly, after three days of splendid entertainments and rejoicings, the two sultans, with the two ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... talk like a foolish one, for how may a crocodile who does not leave the water, and moreover is evil and old, a stealer of women and children and dangerous to your goats, how can this thing bring ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... kept his eye on the border for a sight of Marker, who might come over to replenish his stock of horses. Church got word of his intention at a given time, and taking a man named Kelly with him he rode all night, and finding a companion of Marker's, he got the information that the horse-stealer would likely cross over some 20 miles westward. Their horses were pretty tired, but Church and his men kept on, and concealed themselves near a trail crossing the boundary about that distance away. In a few hours Marker and another man rode over and Corporal ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... other, in no wise hurt by what Steve said, I never claimed to be a hunter like you, Steve and you know it. I guess shooting a trapped bear is about my limit. But I know you wouldn't run away from the biggest old pig-stealer that ever ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... —But thou king of the greedy heart, thou king of the thievish grip, What now wilt thou bear to the sea-strand and set within my ship To buy thy life from the slaying? Unmeet for kings to hear Of a king the breaker of troth, of a king the stealer of gear." ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... the Grand Falconer. This was a necessary precaution, for the birds frequently strayed, and, if captured, they could thus be recognised and returned. The ownership of a falcon was considered sacred, and, by an ancient barbaric law, the stealer of a falcon was condemned to a very curious punishment. The unfortunate thief was obliged to allow the falcon to eat six ounces of the flesh of his breast, unless he could pay a heavy fine to the owner and another to ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... shillings. Had he fished out the pieces, and replaced the pots and the honey, he might have been safe, and a respectable citizen all his life after. The principal would not have dared to confess the loss of his money, and did not, openly; but he vowed vengeance against the stealer of his sweetmeat, and a rigid search was made. Cartouche, as usual, was fixed upon; and in the tick of his bed, lo! there were found a couple of empty honey-pots! From this scrape there is no knowing how he would have escaped, had not the president ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brothers were transported last session, and his mother and father are now in Clerkenwell. The prisoner has been a dog-stealer for years. ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Mr Gosport, looking significantly at Cecilia, "that he was feloniously inclined, though I must confess I took him not for a dog-stealer." ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer, recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute, intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our thinking, is a thief's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... she had been one of the neatest maids far and wide, and had set her heart on a charcoal burner who was a sorry knave indeed, a sheep-stealer and a rogue, who came to a bad end on the rack. But for all that Riklein never ceased to love him truly and, albeit he was dead and gone, she did not give over toiling diligently while she lived yet for him. The priest had told her that, inasmuch as her lover had taken ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... renowned Hercules always carried a quarterstaff, and was from thence called Claviger. A learned chronologist is about proving what wood this staff was made of, whether oak, ash, or crab-tree. The first trial of skill he ever performed, was with one Cacus, a deer-stealer; the next was with Typhonus, a giant of forty feet four inches. Indeed it was unhappily recorded, that meeting at last with a sailor's wife, she made his staff of prowess serve her own use, and dwindle away to a distaff: she clapped him on an old tar jacket ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... freight-stealer spoke with satisfaction, and rising, grasped Jack's hand. "I told you I knew a clever boy when I saw one—and that means a ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... with another William Shakespeare; Lord Campbell's 'Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements considered' (1859); John Charles Bucknill's 'Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare' (1860); C. F. Green's' 'Shakespeare's Crab-Tree, with its Legend' (1862); C. H. Bracebridge's 'Shakespeare no Deer-stealer' (1862); William Blades's 'Shakspere and Typography' (1872); and D. H. Madden's 'Diary of Master William Silence (Shakespeare and Sport),' 1897. A full epitome of the biographical information accessible at the date of publication is supplied in Karl Elze's 'Life of Shakespeare' ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... his last agonies, no doubt! Your deer-stealer doth boggle at nothing. He hath alway the knife in doublet ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... some degree of merit in myself to punish others for their transgressions, I am of opinion that both these girls are punishable for their breach of parental injunctions. And as to their letter-carrier, I have been inquiring into his way of living; and finding him to be a common poacher, a deer-stealer, and warren-robber, who, under pretence of haggling, deals with a set of customers who constantly take all he brings, whether fish, fowl, or venison, I hold myself justified (since Wilson's conveyance must at present be sacred) to have him stripped ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... must have been good fishing for cunners. Like Carker this fish comes to you teeth first. His mouth is so full of them that they stick out like quills on the fretful porcupine. Nature, which gives each tools for the trade which he most loves, made him a bait-stealer extraordinary with these. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... near dead myself. I tried to borrow another horse up at Clancey's, and at Scotton's Drive, but they didn't know me, and they bounced me. So I borrowed a horse off Weigall's paddock, to make for here—to you. I didn't mean to keep that horse. Hell, I'm no horse-stealer! But I couldn't explain to them, except that I had to git to Bindon to save a man's life. If people laugh in your face, it's no use explainin'. I took a roan from Weigall's, and they got after me. 'Bout six miles up they shot at me an' ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... protection. The capital of our nation was purged of the foul stain that dishonored her in the eyes of the nations, and that gave the lie direct to our most solemn Declaration. The fugitive-slave acts that disfigured our statute-book were blotted out, and fugitive-slave-stealer acts filled their vacant places. The seal of freedom, unconditional, perpetual, and immediate, was set upon the broad outlying lands of the republic, and from the present Congress we confidently await the crowning act which shall make slavery forever impossible, and liberty the one supreme, universal, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... that "Dry Head and Bloody Bones," a ghost who didn't like children, was in that wagon. It was not until later years that Florida and the other children learned that the driver of the wagon was a "nigger stealer" who stole children and took them to Georgia to sell ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... a liar, you stealer, They did not eat him, and they're taking Nor a taste of the sort without being thankful, You took him yesterday As Nora told me, And the harvest quarter will not be spent till I take a tax ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... though he would, though, when the first man up, after receiving three and two, was allowed to walk. Joe felt a bit shaky, but he steeled himself to hold his nerve. The man at first was a notorious base-stealer, and Joe watched him closely. Twice he threw to the initial sack, hoping to nip him, and he almost succeeded. Then he slammed in a swift one to the batter, only to know that the ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... sheep-stealing.' Miss Ouldcroft was staggered, and would have cut the connection; but by main force I made her go and take her leave of her protegee. I thought, if she went no more, the Abactor or the Abactor's wife (vide Ainsworth) would suppose she had heard something; and I have delicacy for a sheep-stealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mutton-pie at the baker's (his first, last, and only hope of mutton pie), which he never came to eat, and thence inferred his guilt. Per occasionem cujus, I framed the sonnet; ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... reckless bravado of temper which, while causing half his guilt, threw at times a false glitter over its baseness, piqued by the cowardice of his comrade, gave a lusty kick at the closed door, and shouted out: "Old grave-stealer, come out, and let me finish your picture. Out, out! I say, out!" Grabman left the candle on the steps, and made but three bounds ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said Sam, leaning forward again, and tapping my knee very gently, "there were two men condemned at Tregarrick, that Assize; and two men put to death that morning. The first to go was a sheep-stealer. Ten minutes after, Dan'l saw Hughie his brother led forth; and stood there and watched, with the reprieve in his hand. His wits were gone, and he chit-chattered all ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shouts I, without a further thought than that here was the midnight miscreant and cattle-stealer, and that I had caught ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... muttered sadly, more to himself than to me, "a true knight of the road with seven ballads written of me in Bristol and three in Bath. Ill betide me for not minding my mother's word and staying at home this day. 'Tis all the unhappy luck of Jem Bottles. I should have remained an honest sheep-stealer and never engaged in this dangerous and nefarious game ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... misery; the initiated a man shunned and banned by his fellows. Oh!' said Bullwig, clasping his hands, and throwing his fine i's up to the chandelier, 'the curse of Pwomethus descends upon his wace. Wath and punishment pursue them from genewation to genewation! Wo to genius, the heaven-scaler, the fire-stealer! Wo and thrice-bitter desolation! Earth is the wock on which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing wictim;—men, the vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is agony eternal,—gwoaning and solitawy ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Still, I have stamped this letter at the expense of the office, and entered it up under the heading 'Sundries,' which is a sort of start. Look out for an article in the Wrykynian, 'Hints for Young Criminals, by J. Wyatt, champion catch-as-catch-can stamp-stealer of the British Isles.' So long. I suppose you are playing against Ripton, now that the world of commerce has found that it can't get on without me. Mind you make a century, and then perhaps Burgess'll give you your first after all. There were twelve colours given three years ago, because ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... child-stealer," said the boy lightly. "Here, just lift her soft with me, and I'll bet we can put her in without waking ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... you go, p'raps, when I've done with you and got all I wants," said the boy, in a husky, satisfied tone, as he seemed to gloat over his victim. "No, I won't; you're a thief, and a deer-stealer, and I shall just take yer to one of ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... hiding-places he can find, until a ship passes that will take them to New Orleans. Of course, I need not caution you to be silent about this affair, especially concerning the slaves being mortgaged to me. If that is whispered abroad, it will soon get into the Abolition papers that I am a man-stealer, as ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... attempted to comply with the request, but was seized at sea by an American vessel, consigned to the authorities at Key West, and thence sent back to Pensacola, where, after a long and rigorous confinement in prison, he was tried and sentenced to be branded on his right hand with the letters "S.S." (slave-stealer) and amerced ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... little further explanation we found that this Portuguese trader was a man-stealer, on his way to one of the smaller villages, with the intention of attacking it. Makarooroo ascertained that they meant to proceed direct to that of King Jambai, first, however, getting one of the neighbouring tribes to pick a quarrel with that monarch and go to war ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... a baby-stealer like your father. The law gives me the right to my own child. But swear to give up your lover, and the baby shall come back to you at once. If you do not give him up, I will take her away out of England. Send me an answer to this post-office, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... acquittal of a horse-stealer, the thief, in the ecstasy of his gratitude, cried out, "Och, counsellor, I've no way here to thank your honor; but I wish't I saw you knocked down in me own parish—wouldn't I bring a faction to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... whenever the sun was not obscured by clouds. The sun-dial, which was an improvement upon this, was known to the ancient Jews and Greeks. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians possessed an instrument called the Clepsydra (water-stealer), which was merely a vessel full of water with a small hole in the bottom by which the water slowly escaped. There were marks in the inside of the vessel which showed the hour. An improvement upon this was made about two hundred and thirty-five years before ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... vain; still, in deference to public opinion, after this the death-penalty was not inflicted upon a forger. Nevertheless, there remained plenty of food for the gallows. An incendiary, as well as a sheep-stealer, was liable to capital punishment; and so severely was the law strained upon these points, that he who set fire to a rick in a field, as well as he who found a half-dead sheep and carried it home, was condemned without mercy. But the advocates ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... and always gave him the good word when they met, which was but seldom, for Jakoits and Kiti are far apart, and there was bad blood between the people of the two places. And then—so the girl Sipi afterwards told me—Franka was a lover of grog and a stealer of women, and kept a noisy house and made much trouble, and so Preston went not near him, for he was a quiet man and no drinker, and hated dissension. And, besides this, Franka took part in the wars of the Kiti people, and went about with a following of armed ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... sallies of his conversation; while they expressed the utmost concern and disgust at the boorish demeanour of his companion, whose extorted bows resembled the pawings of a mule, who hung his head in silence like a detected sheep-stealer, who sat in company under the most awkward expressions of constraint, and whose discourse never exceeded the simple monosyllables of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... found, and some tufts of wool. That also, I pointed out, could be explained in a perfectly natural way. Further, the nights upon which sheep disappeared were invariably very dark, cloudy nights with no moon. This I met with the obvious retort that those were the nights which a commonplace sheep-stealer would naturally choose for his work. On one occasion a gap had been made in a wall, and some of the stones scattered for a considerable distance. Human agency again, in my opinion. Finally, Armitage clinched all his arguments by ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... horseman, fond of horses, and much connected with the turf. To this hour, therefore, amongst some worthy shepherds and others, it is a received article of their creed, and (as they justly observe in northern pronunciation,) a shamful thing to be told, that Lord Lowther was once a horse stealer, and that he escaped lagging by reason of Harry Brougham's pity for his tender years and hopeful looks. Not less was the blunder which, on the banks of the Rubicon, befriended Caesar. Immediately after crossing, he harangued the troops whom he had sent forward, and others who ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the Archdeacon went into his father's house, and he then followed him on his way to Russell Square, but strayed somewhere in Holborn; and as several gentlemen had stopped to admire him in the street, saying he was worth a great deal of money, the Archdeacon concluded that some dog-stealer had enticed him away. He however wrote to the captain of the vessel to mention his loss, and made inquiries on the following morning at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, when he learnt that the dog had come to the gates late in the evening, and howled most piteously for admission, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... asses, his son reminds him to be moderate—but it was a promise made to thieves—'it gets nearer the owner, if taken from the stealer'—the son disputes this morality—'they stole it, ergo, they have no right to it; and we steal it from the stealer, ergo, our title is twice as bad as theirs.'"] in Sheridan's hand-writing,—though the dialogue was, no doubt, supplied (as Mr. Boaden says,) "by Cobb, or some ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... years, and many a pound, too, out of his small salary, were you not a little puzzled to make out what spell there could be in those "useless" moths, to draw out of his warm bed, twenty miles down the Eastern Counties Railway, and into the damp forest like a deer-stealer, a sober white-headed Tim Linkinwater like him, your very best man of business, given to the reading of Scotch political economy, and gifted with peculiarly clear ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... a green tablecloth. The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk; reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated in at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop, out ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... formed from the red puffy cheeks developed by innumerable bottles of port and burgundy at Carlton House; and the whole surmounted by a bonnet with waving plumes. Scott was chiefly responsible for disguising that elderly London debauchee in the costume of a wild Gaelic cattle-stealer, and was apparently insensible of the gross absurdity. We are told that an air of burlesque was thrown over the proceedings at Holyrood by the apparition of a true London alderman in the same costume as his master. An alderman who could burlesque such ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... a cool specimen, although there was nothing "cheeky" about the intruder. He showed neither the sneakiness nor the effrontery of the professional railroad beat or ride stealer, nothwithstanding the easy, natural way in which he made himself at home in the cab as though he ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... never get the Cow of him, but still as he brought a Cow to him, some body or other came and challeng'd it, proving that it was lost or stolen from them; so that the Man got nothing but the Name of a Cow-stealer, and was at last carried to Hereford Goal, and condemn'd to be hang'd for stealing two Cows, one after the other: The wicked Fellow was then in the greatest Distress imaginable, he summon'd his Devil to help him out, but he failed ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... Failing, in one or two trials, and seeing that the lights were steadily coming on that way, and that in a moment I must be discovered, I sprang across the way, and dived into the side-lane by which the child-stealer had vanished. ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... "The wife-stealer," exclaimed Alfred, and he clinched his fists in anticipation of the justice he would one day mete out to ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... vp herbes, and beganne to throwe them at the boye, wherat the boye laughed hartelye, and thought that the olde man hadde ben mad, to thynke to driue him out of the tree with casting of herbes. Than the olde man sayde: well, seynge that nother wordes nor herbes haue no vertue agaynste the stealer of my goodes, I wylle proue what stones wylle do, in whiche, I haue harde men saye, is great vertue; and so he gathered his lappe full of stones, and threwe them at the boye, and compelled hym to ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... of Ireland ordained and placed in an Irish living a Hampshire deer-stealer, who had only saved himself from the gallows by turning informer against his comrades. Archbishop King wrote to Addison, "You make nothing in England of ordering us to provide for such and such a man L200 per ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... so he might, as it was no other than his own father. Sir William then inquired what family he had, and whether he had not a son called Bampfylde, and what was become of him. Your honour, replied he, means the mumper and dog-stealer: I don't know what has become of him, but it is a wonder he is not hanged by this time. No, I hope not, replied Sir William; I should be very glad, for his family's sake, to see him at my house. Having satisfactorily answered many other questions, Sir William, generously ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... labourer—carried some thousands of pounds for his master, faithfully delivering every shilling. He had, however, a little failing—a dangerous one in those days, when the gallows was the punishment for sheep-stealing. He was known to be a sheep-stealer, and actually after bringing home a hundred pounds would go and put his neck in danger the very same night by taking a sheep. This went on for some time, people shut their eyes, but at last patience was exhausted, and efforts were made to catch him ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... says she, throwin' the gimlets my way. "And tell that broken-nosed child stealer over there to take that monkey grin off'm his face or ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... from those three places were formerly hanged. We looked for the gate in the direction pointed out to us, but failed to find it. Some people in the village thought its name of the Gallows Gate was derived from an incident which occurred there many years ago. A sheep-stealer had killed a sheep, and was carrying it home slung round his shoulders when he came to this gate. Finding it fastened, he was climbing over, when in the dark his foot slipped and the cord got across his neck. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... first time I have heard the like," he said. "If the man complains, pay him. But if he is a man stealer, as is likely, you will hear naught of him, and he will get him from Norwich ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... fust go. It was jus' a sorter mistake, he said. He said it wun't happen again. He's a jolly good stealer. The cops said he was and they ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... ecclesiastic, to cover the rents. I bought them on the Boulevard, and at the same stall I bought a bright blue handkerchief which was going cheap; this I wear round my neck. My upper man resembles that of a dog-stealer, my lower man that of a bishop. My buttons are turning my hair grey. When I had more than one change of raiment these appendages remained in their places, now they drop off as though I were a moulting fowl. I have to pin myself together elaborately, and whenever ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... and massacre made the Bhil a cruel and half-crazy thief and cattle-stealer, and when the English came he seemed to be almost as open to civilisation as the tigers of his own jungles. But John Chinn the First, father of Lionel, grandfather of our John, went into his country, lived with him, learned his language, shot the deer that stole his poor crops, and won his confidence, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... ye'll have the biggest stealer of these Big North Woods, but have yer gun handy when ye git him or he'll git ye first." With this parting admonition, Joe took a currycomb and brush from her kit bag and began grooming Henry's coat, which, from contact with brush and thorns, and the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to see his friend Hal use him so scurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of the second part of Henry the Fourth. Amongst other extravagances, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, he has made him a Deer-stealer, that he might at the same time remember his Warwickshire prosecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the same coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, describes for ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... while they are no more regarded than the men of rags and straw with sham rifles in their hands. It was for him to shift the dead from place to place, to arrange them in dying attitudes with outstretched wings. Finally, there was the fox, the stealer of dead crows, to be guarded against; and again at eventide Giles must trudge round to gather up his dead and suspend them from twigs out of reach of hungry night-prowlers. Called up at daybreak each morning, he would take his way through ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Luis!" and again by the Ministers of State and Fomento in the spring of 1870, who started back aghast when the coffin-lid was lifted and disclosed the grim face of the Burgess of Ghent, just as Titian painted him,—the keen, bold face of a world-stealer. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... answered Aziel, "being none other than the lady Elissa, daughter of Sakon, governor of this city, and our host, whom it has been my good fortune to rescue from a woman-stealer yonder in the grove of ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... suspicion. Hallam and Heine, and all the cry of critics, are mistaken in this matter. Shakespeare admired Lord Herbert's youth and boldness and beauty, hoped great things from his favour and patronage; but after the betrayal, he judged him inexorably as a mean traitor, "a stealer" who had betrayed "a twofold trust"; and later, cursed him for his ingratitude, and went about with wild thoughts of bloody revenge, as we shall soon see in "Hamlet" and "Othello," and then dropped him into ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... lies in their way. Horses, however, are the especial objects of their depredations, and their skill and audacity in stealing them are said to be astonishing. This is their glory and delight; an accomplished horse-stealer fills up their idea of a hero. Many horses are obtained by them, also, in barter from tribes in and beyond the mountains. They have an absolute passion for this noble animal; besides which he is with them an important object of traffic. ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... possession. One of its possessors, my great-great-great-grandfather, who lived about two hundred and fifty years ago, was upon a visit to England, and became intimate with a poet who was a great deer-stealer; I think his name was Shakespeare: he frequently borrowed this sling, and with it killed so much of Sir Thomas Lucy's venison, that he narrowly escaped the fate of my two friends at Gibraltar. Poor Shakespeare was imprisoned, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... System.—At a time when the British statute-book bristled with capital felonies, when the pick-pocket or sheep-stealer was hanged out of hand, when Sir Samuel Romilly, to whose strenuous exertions the amelioration of the penal code is in a great measure due, declared that the laws of England were written in blood, another and less sanguinary penalty came into great favour. The deportation of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... there are more toys where he has been. What should we feel if there were less? Down what chimney from hell would come the goblin that should take away the children's balls and dolls while they slept? Could a Greek tragedy be more gray and cruel than that daybreak and awakening? Dog-stealer, horse-stealer, man-stealer—can you think of anything so ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... walk for a girl to take on a winter evening, although the weather was brilliantly light and clear, and it was not yet much past seven o'clock. Except, perchance, a deer-keeper, or a deer-stealer, it was not likely she would meet a human being for two or three miles together, and farm and other houses near the track were very sparsely scattered here and there. I walked swiftly on, and soon came within sight of Wyatt; but so eagerly was his attention ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead of being the selfish stealer of her sister's happiness, as I had thought, she is an angel from whom all future suffering should ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... that to those weekly seances there flocked many of the wealthiest and most cultured women in Petrograd, who actually held the ex-horse-stealer in veneration, and believed, as the peasants believed, that he ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... A poor sheep-stealer is hanged for stealing of victuals, compelled peradventure by necessity of that intolerable cold, hunger, and thirst, to save himself from starving: but a [333]great man in office may securely rob whole provinces, undo thousands, pill and poll, oppress ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... which he never spared himself, if the exhibition of a weakness or absurdity gave but point to the fun. His narrative of a visit to Inverness, which he had made when an apprentice lad, to see a sheep-stealer hung, and his description of the terrors of a night-journey back, in which he fancied he saw men waving in the wind on almost every tree, till on reaching his solitary barrack he was utterly prostrated by the apparition of his own great-coat suspended ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the baron. "What do you mean by great wrong? Would you have had her married to a wild fly-by-night, that accident made an earl and nature a deer-stealer? that has not wit enough to eat venison without picking a quarrel with monarchy? that flings away his own lands into the clutches of rascally friars, for the sake of hunting in other men's grounds, and feasting vagabonds that wear Lincoln green, and would have flung away ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... in a nutshell. My Mary was tokened in a sort of childish way to a man called Nathan Coaker—a horse-stealer or little better, and a devil of a rogue, anyway. But it seems you looked in your bit of glass and ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... at each other with blood in their eyes, and the long, yellow teeth of Red-Hair ground together, but no words passed between them till Red-Hair, poising a great stone on his shoulder, called out to Harry: 'Follow me, O boastful stealer of my wife, and drown ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... was immediately despatched for his majesty; and Mr. Hill was a good deal alarmed by the fear of its being known in Hereford that he was on the point of swearing examinations against an innocent man upon the evidence of a dog-stealer and a gipsy. ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... indeed," said the Flying-fox, while Bill was measuring him, "if a man can't go about his business without being measured by total strangers. A nice thing, indeed, to happen to Finglebury Flying-fox, the well-known and respected fruit stealer." ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... many ill-defined privileges. They grazed their cattle during a part of the year on the manor-land; they received firewood and occasionally logs for repairing their huts; sometimes the proprietor lent them or gave them a cow or a horse when they had been visited by the cattle-plague or the horse-stealer; and in times of famine they could look to their master for support. All this has now come to an end. Their burdens and their privileges have been swept away together, and been replaced by clearly defined, unbending, unelastic legal relations. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... of the multitude which surrounds the court-house, sounds like the murmur of the sea, till suddenly it is raised to a sort of shout. John West, the terror of the surrounding country, the sheep-stealer and burglar, had ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... guarantee nobody won't hear a squeal. It's all in the way you grab hold of 'em and carry 'em atterwards. Some day,' goes on this gentle despoiler of pig-pens, 'I hope to become reckernized as the champion shoat-stealer ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... identification of the poet with another William Shakespeare; Lord Campbell's 'Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements considered' (1859); John Charles Bucknill's 'Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare' (1860); C. F. Green's' 'Shakespeare's Crab-Tree, with its Legend' (1862); C. H. Bracebridge's 'Shakespeare no Deer-stealer' (1862); William Blades's 'Shakspere and Typography' (1872); and D. H. Madden's 'Diary of Master William Silence (Shakespeare and Sport),' 1897. A full epitome of the biographical information accessible at the date of publication is supplied in Karl Elze's 'Life of Shakespeare' (Halle, 1876; ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... we have returned slaves, we have let our wounded lie in the open air and die rather than offend the fiendish-hearted women of Secessia—and what have we got by it? Lies and lies, again and yet again. For refusing to touch the black, Mr. Lincoln is termed by the Southern press 'a dirty negro-stealer,' and our troops, for not taking the slaves and thereby giving the South all its present crop and for otherwise aiding them, are simply held up as hell-hounds and brigands. Much we have made ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... night was coming on, and Edward's attendant was sent off with one of Evan Dhu's men, that they might find a place to sleep in, while Evan himself pushed forward to warn the supposed cattle-stealer, one Donald Bean Lean, of the party's near approach. For, as Evan Dhu said, the Cateran might very naturally be startled by the sudden appearance of a sidier roy—or red soldier—in the very place of ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... unconsciously passed a full celestial year there in the abode of king Vaisravana.[195] Then king Vaisravana said unto the Rishi,—O learned Brahmana, behold, a little more than a year has passed away since thy arrival here. This music and dance, especially known by the name of Gandharva, is a stealer of the heart (and of time). Do thou act as thou wishes or let this go on if that be thy pleasure. Thou art my guest and, therefore, worthy of adoration. This is my house. Givest thou thy commands. We are all bound to thee. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... she said; for she knew as well as he did that for the horse-stealer, in those parts and at that time, there was scant mercy and short shrift: it was danger to be ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... have received honour from the state than death. And this I take to be the strictly legal view of the case, for what does the law require? (37) "If a man be proved to be a thief, a filcher of clothes, a cut-purse, a housebreaker, a man-stealer, a robber of temples, the penalty is death." Even so; and of all men Socrates stood most aloof from ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... incident as an example of the fact that when a man cracks a joke in the Middle Ages he's apt to affect the sausage market in the Nineteenth Century, and to lay open an honest butcher to the jeers of every dog-stealer in the street. There's such a thing as carrying a joke too far, and the fellow who keeps on pretending to believe that he's paying for pork and getting dog is pretty apt to ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... very hot, and smelt of freshly washed floors. A short, lean peasant of about forty, with a small, fair beard, wearing a dark blue shirt, was sitting at the table under the holy images. It was Kalashnikov, an arrant scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose father and uncle kept a tavern in Bogalyovka, and disposed of the stolen horses where they could. He too had been to the hospital more than once, not for medical treatment, but to see the doctor about horses—to ask whether he had not one for sale, and whether ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... these malefactors, was convicted for stealing two horses in Yorkshire, but selling them in Smithfield he was tried at the Old Bailey. It seem she had been an old horse-stealer as most people conjecture, though he himself denied it, and as he pretended at his trial to have bought those two for which he died at Northampton Fair, so he continually endeavoured to infuse the same notions into all persons who spoke to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... be contemplated. For he never paltered with truth. He had no weak sensibilities, few tears for imaginary griefs. But his heart opened wide to real distress. He never applauded the fault; but he pitied the offender. He had a word of compassion for the sheep-stealer, who was arrested and lost his ill-acquired sheep, "his first, last, and only hope of a mutton pie;" and vented his feelings in that sonnet (rejected by the magazines) which he has called "The Gypsey's Malison." Although he was willing to ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... stealer," cried Prudy. "Now, Gracie Clifford, I saw you once, and you was a-nippin' cream out of the cream-pot. You're a ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... ends of the large bone, splintering off small pieces between his strong jaws, and sucking at the delicious marrow within; but all the time he cast repeated glances into the village. He saw white-robed figures, and half-naked blacks; but not once did he see one who resembled the stealer ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they are drawn towards the kamic elements of men and animals, and it is here that we ought to place the list of those misdeeds, by reason of which these elements pass into bodies of animals or men of inferior development. "A drunken priest becomes a worm," says Manu, "a stealer of corn, a rat; the murderer of a Brahman, a dog, a tiger, or a serpent"—and this means that those elements which, in man, serve as a basis for the passions, at death, pass over into the bodies of animals that possess the same passions ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... was inhaled. And if in addition to all this, it be remembered that the savages he was going to visit were practising cannibals, were notoriously treacherous, were violently hostile to all whites (on account of many cruelties bestowed by Belgians), and were especially exasperated against the stealer of their idol, it will be seen that from an ordinary point of view Captain Kettle's ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... scene which was passing at the pillory caught her wild eye. Her brow contracted with horror, she stretched her two skeleton arms from her cell, and shrieked in a voice which resembled a death-rattle, "So 'tis thou once more, daughter of Egypt! 'Tis thou who callest me, stealer of children! Well! Be ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... "Stealer of the Sacrament! Open not!—open not, I say, your lying, Judas lips to me! Ah! half-breed, with the ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... A sheep-stealer might easily have fallen into temptation in Canterbury at that time. In three years the settlers owned 100,000 sheep; in four more half a million. Somewhat slower, the Otago progress was to ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... "What name did they give the child?" "Top off!" said the cat quite coolly. "Top off!" cried the mouse, "that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in your family?" "What does it signify," said the cat, "it is no worse than Crumb-stealer, as your god-children ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... deceived his patron, shall be condemned to Iuppiter; the parricide to the spirits of his dead ancestors, the husband who sells his wife to the gods of the underworld, the man who removes his neighbour's landmark to Terminus, the stealer of corn to Ceres. All these persons shall be sacri: they have offended against the gods and the gods will see to their punishment. But these are old-world notions which soon passed into the background ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... woman stealer; Muata freed himself;" and out of the water, out of the blackness, came the voice, without warning, "Muata is here, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... The girl is gone! If you want to know where she is, apply to the police. Now, don't show your lying face here again! I will have you arrested! You are a child stealer! You and your ruffian had better never ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... death? If they must be sold to pay his debts, they could not fall into the hands of a more heartless tyrant. Who then can blame those feeble women and helpless children, long held as chattels in his iron grasp, if they are grateful that the man-stealer ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... of Evil: 1. The Snake as the Stealer of Daylight; 2. Norka the Beast, Lord of the Lower World; 3. Koshchei the Deathless, The Stealer of Fair Princesses—his connexion with Punchkin and "the Giant who had no Heart in his Body"—Excursus on Bluebeard's Chamber; ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... man was savage as a Sioux. I had the pleasure of his acquaintance; he appeared grossly stupid, not in his perfect wits, and interested in nothing but small change; for that he had a great avidity. In the course of time he proved to be a chicken-stealer, and vanished from his perch; and perhaps from the first he was no true votary of forest freedom, but an ingenious, theatrically-minded beggar, and his cabin in the tree was only stock-in-trade to beg withal. The choice of his position would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
