"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soon," replied Lady Stanley, and she went away to seek the truant sister, leaving her husband to beguile the tediousness of the time by engaging in conversation with his brother. Sir Thomas was in high glee, and could find no sympathy with the miserable forebodings ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... when I first struck the water, which I did upon the summit of a wave, I bounded off again and ricochetted several times from one wave to another, like the shot fired from a gun along the surface of the sea, or the oyster-shell skimmed over the lake by the truant child. The last bound that I gave, pitched me into the rigging of a small vessel on her beam-ends, and I hardly had time to fetch my breath before she turned over. I scrambled up her bends, and fixed myself astride ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... gives warning, 'Tis the wished-for nuptial morning. Sweetest truant from Elysium, Golden morning of the May! All the guests are in their places— Lilies with pale, high-bred faces— Hawthorns in white wedding favours, Scented with celestial savours— Daisies, like sweet country maidens, Wear white scolloped frills to-day; 'Neath her hat of straw the ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... to the fields and woods for the one day in their lives. One day! In all their lives, one day! And for the rest of the days, as the boy told a certain bishop, "At ten we 'ops the wag; at thirteen we nicks things; an' at sixteen we bashes the copper." Which is to say, at ten they play truant, at thirteen steal, and at sixteen are sufficiently developed hooligans ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... followed her; a loud barking of dogs changed every other emotion to lively apprehensions for her safety, but he soon saw her run back, and, on observing him coming to meet her, assume an untroubled countenance. "Has this serene night," said she, "made you too a truant with your pillow? I have, of late, been little disposed to sleep, and enjoy a moon-light walk amazingly."—"Do not those dogs annoy you," inquired Sedley, with more of moody displeasure than tenderness; "I should think they would form but ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... audible, but that was all, and, deeply pained, Ellen retired to her own room, which she did not quit, even to see her favourite cousin decked for the ball. Emmeline sought her, however, and tried by kisses to recall the truant rose, the banished smile, but Mrs. Hamilton did not come to wish her good night, and Ellen's ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... occasionally the boisterous wind lifted that trifling appendage right into the air, and deposited it over a wall or a fence, and Will Locke was not half so quick as Dulcie in tracing the region of its flight, neither was he so active, however willing, in recovering the truant. Why, Dulcie found his own hat for him, and put it on his head to boot one day. He had deposited it on a stone, that he might the better look in the face a dripping rock, shaded with plumes of fern and tufts of grass, and formed into mosaic by tiny sprays ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... sweetheart how much he loved her. So he "sought fit words, studying inventions fine, turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow, some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain." But "words came halting forth" until he bit his truant pen and almost beat himself for spite. Then said the Muse to him, "Fool, look in thy heart and write." And without that first word, this is the advice that should be given to all speakers. "Look in your heart, mind, life, experiences, ideas, ideals, interests, enthusiasms, and from them draw ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... silks had ceased in the corridor outside, she caught up a book and a cushion, and, creeping down by the side stairs, set gaily out across the sunlit lawn, with the deliciously guilty thrill of a truant little boy who has run away ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... of fact, I was alone in the world, dependent upon my own resources for whatever little truant ray of sunshine I might get from the golden flood that illuminated the world outside me, and forced by rigid, arbitrary circumstances to train my growing convictions into many a hazardous channel, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... sent as a pupil to Westminster. It was not long before he rebelled against the discipline and trammels of school-boy life; and one day he threw down his Euclid and Caesar and vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed him. Every street, court, and alley was searched in vain for the truant; advertisements and handbills offering a reward for his recovery were equally futile. Not a trace of the runaway was to ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... sons," by which name we are universally distinguished, have our own crosses as well. It is generally agreed that much ought to be expected of us and little obtained. Let one of us play truant from school, or use a naughty word in play, or make marbles a source of revenue, or fight on the common when provoked, or steal a cherry, and the fact travels our town over like a telegram. We once suffer greatly in repute by selling our neighbor's old iron and brass ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... skies of blissful blue, Oh, the woodland's verdant hue,— Oh, the lazy days of boyhood, when the world was fair and new! Still to me your tale is told In the summer's sunbeam's gold, And my truant fancy straying, goes a-Maying as ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... everybody miserable until he was found in the evening, and brought home by a woman who washed for his mamma. Mabel and Julia did not feel at all comfortable, though Aunt Mary would not let them leave the table to go in search of the truant. ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... yours, believe me, Steal my priceless jewels, In fancy's store-house cherished, Your roguish eyes have robbed me, Of all my dreams bereft me, Dreams that are fair, yet fleeting. Fled are my truant fancies, Regrets I do not cherish, For now life's rosy morn is breaking, Now golden love is waking. Now that I've told my story, Pray tell me yours, too; Tell me frankly, who are you? Say, ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... the real Mrs. Manston, who was known to be a Philadelphian by birth, had returned by the train to London, as the porter had said, and then left the country under an assumed name, to escape that worst kind of widowhood—the misery of being wedded to a fickle, faithless, and truant husband? ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... The widespread nature of the movement may be illustrated by the school strike of the spring of 1912, during which every boy and girl above the age of fourteen in most of the primary and secondary schools of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia played truant as a protest against the misgovernment of Croatia. On that occasion a crowd of 5000 school children paraded the streets of Agram shouting "Down with Cuvaj" (the Ban or Governor of Croatia), and cheering the police when they ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... he spoke, the stout traveller picked him up by the collar, and dropped him like a puppy dog into Ulick's arms, just as the train was getting into motion; and a head protruded from every window to see the truant, who was pommelling Ulick in a violent fury, and roaring, 'Let me go; ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew: Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... the colors are as vivid and as fresh as if they were laid on but yesterday. Would that my old friend and master, Otho Venius, was here! At least I will carry back to Antwerp that in my coloring which shall prove to him that I have not played truant to the art." ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... He was received with demonstrations of regard and affection by Emilia and her mother; but his absence produced great disturbance at Winchester, and finally the Commodore, having been informed of his nephew's disappearance, dispatched Hatchway, who traced the truant to the village where he had taken up his abode, and persuaded him to return ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... care a fine pair of horses, a yoke of oxen, three cows, and a numerous family of pigs, besides having to chop all the firewood required for our use. His unexpected departure caused no small trouble in the family; and when the truant at last made his appearance, Moodie discharged ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... lie, Will they not trust me for a spy? Dear Mullinix, your good advice I beg; you see the case is nice: O! were I equal in renown, Like thee to please this thankless town! Or blest with such engaging parts To win the truant schoolboys' hearts! Thy virtues meet their just reward, Attended by the sable guard. Charm'd by thy voice, the 'prentice drops The snow-ball destined at thy chops; Thy graceful steps, and colonel's air, Allure the cinder-picking fair. M. No more—in ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... destination, the gentlemen parted with the understanding that they would dine together at a certain restaurant the next day. The appointed hour came, but not the Englishman; and my friend's appetite and patience were keen set, when, after an hour's delay, the truant made his appearance, looking pale, triste and exhausted. He soon explained the cause of his detention. He had gone to the police court to prove and regain his valise, and found at the bar a young man ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... very slippery organ. Reckon my small truant holiday's over. Everybody generally is letting me know what effect that emancipation-thunder will have." A strangely tender smile grew upon the large features. "You see, Colonel, you and I are the only ignorant people in ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... said that he would be back "when the robins nest again," and that suffices Cio-Cio-San. But when Sharpless comes with a letter to break the news that his friend is coming back with an American wife, he loses courage to perform his mission at the contemplation of the little woman's faith in the truant. Does he know when the robins nest in America? In Japan they had nested three times since Pinkerton went away. The consul quails at that and damns his friend as a scoundrel. Now Goro, who knows Butterfly's pecuniary plight, brings Yamadori to her. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... idea with the American is to educate children. This is carried to the extent of making it an offense not to send those above a certain age to school, while State or town officers, called "truant police," are on the alert to arrest all such children who are not in school. The following was told me by a Government official in Washington, who had obtained it from a well-known literary man who witnessed the incident. The literary man was ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... queen, Thus Helen's brethren, stars of brightest sheen, Guide thee! May the Sire of wind Each truant gale, save only Zephyr, bind! So do thou, fair ship, that ow'st Virgil, thy precious freight, to Attic coast, Safe restore thy loan and whole, And save from death the partner of my soul! Oak and brass of triple fold Encompass'd sure ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... a rifle, a revolver, and the two chamois-leather bags that the men had brought there. They were so heavy that the boy could scarcely lift them. His face flushed; his hands trembled with excitement. To a boy whose truant wanderings had given him a fair knowledge of mining, he knew that weight could have but one meaning! Gold! He hurriedly untied the nearest bag. But it was not the gold of the locality, of the tunnel, of the "bed rock"! It was ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... other; and the injunctions to attain a free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after, with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be apparent in this manuscript; the truant looks sidelong to the garden, which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling, which had almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect upon without a vanity which I ought to be ashamed of; our little leaden inkstands, not separately subsisting, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the world, and he always talks it away whenever he finds a scholar in company; but I know the rogue, and will catch him yet.' Though I was already sufficiently mortified, my greatest struggle was to come, in facing my wife and daughters. No truant was ever more afraid of returning to school, there to behold the master's visage, than I was of going home. I was determined, however, to anticipate their fury, by first falling ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... right, we will now go back, ma'am, to me and my doings. Last Monday, I asked you for leave of absence for two days; I employed the time in clearing up the matter of Benjamin's face. Last Saturday I was out of the way when you wanted me. I played truant, ma'am, on that occasion, in company with a friend of mine, who is managing clerk in a lawyer's office; and we both spent the morning at Doctors' Commons, over the last will and testament of Mr. Forley's father. Leaving the will-business for a moment, please ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... am indeed a truant, Miss Rainsfield, and ought therefore to make my apologies due on my neglect; but it would be useless in my attempting to exonerate, or even excuse myself; so I will throw myself on your clemency, and crave your interpretation of my abandonment, in ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... crossed the valley on Monday, nobody would have played truant, and if nobody had played truant on Monday, there would not have been occasion to whip three boys on Tuesday morning, and if Ben Berry and Riley had escaped a beating on Tuesday morning, they would not have thought ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... tolerably tractable now that he was having his own way, and was not very strenuous in support of his own pugnacious views. When their plans were fully digested they left the island to prepare the stakes. Before noon they separated, and the truant returned ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... The Curse of Minerva to that of the "Isles of Greece"—are brightened by lights and adorned by allusions due to his training, imperfect as it was, on the slopes of Harrow, and the associations fostered during his truant years by the sluggish stream of his "Injusta noverca." At her, however, he continued to rail as late as the publication of Beppo, in the 75th and 76th stanzas of which we ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... this the only member of his family. It was unjustifiable, as he remarked twenty times a day, unfeeling, unheard-of, unaccountable. He rang for the servants at his private residence every quarter of an hour or so to learn if the truant had returned. He questioned the boy at the office sharply and repeatedly as to orders left with him by Mr. Ryfe before he went away, only to gather from the answers of this urchin, who would, indeed, have forgotten ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and shall, I hope, come to myself and business again, after a small playing the truant, for I find that my interest and profit do grow daily, for which God be praised and keep me to my duty. To my office, and anon one tells me that Rundall, the house-carpenter of Deptford, hath sent me a fine blackbird, which I went ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... flesh of his flesh." It is seldom that her wishes cross the limits of the domestic circle, which to her is earth itself, and all that it contains which is most desirable. Her husband and children compose her little world, and beyond them and their sympathies, it is rare indeed that her truant affections ever wish to stray. A part of this concentration of the American wife's existence in these domestic interests, is doubtless owing to the simplicity of American life and the absence of temptation. Still, so devoted is the female heart, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... With instant flash, life's inextinguished fires; Plunging along each tense limb poured the blood Hot with its years of sleeping-smothered flame. And in a dream I charged, and in a dream I smote resistless; foemen in my path Fell unregarded, like the wayside flowers Clipped by the truant's staff in daisied lanes. For over me burned lustrous the dear eyes Of my beloved; I strove as at a joust To gain at end the guerdon of her smile. And ever, as in the dense melee I dashed, Her name burst ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... whose parents had given him up as incorrigible before he entered the school. As it was, there was something almost pathetic in his good behavior, as being possible to him, but utterly alien to his instincts. The boys of these schools seldom play truant, and they are never severely beaten in school; when quite intractable, notice is given to their parents, and they usually return in a more docile state. It sometimes happens that the boys are taken away by their parents, from one motive or another; ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... from the Archduke with an air rather of dignity than scorn, leaving the Austrian apparently as much relieved by the removal of his eye as is a sullen and truant schoolboy when the glance of his severe pedagogue ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... time, Frank and Fanny went to school again; but Jack played truant, as he had done in the morning, and went down in the meadows, with the boys, whom he had told Frank he was ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... plunged into hot water. Between four and five he was sent to school, his parents thinking to keep him out of mischief of this kind. But he had not the least interest in school knowledge, and constantly played truant; and when he did come to school he brought with him all kinds of horrid insects, reptiles, and birds. One morning during prayers a jackdaw began to caw, and as the bird was traced to the ownership of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... blew out my taper, and composed myself to sleep. But sleep was playing truant from me. Long I lay there surveying the events of that day—the day in which I had embarked upon the discovery of myself; the most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which, although I scarcely realized ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... continued on the subject of the American War, without further reference to the truant who stood by them in the covert of the dusk, thrilling with happiness and the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... softly-yielding submission of elastic wires. Susan had just finished her early dinner: in mind and body alike, this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease. By finely succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and lay lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel was ready at her side; she took ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... was a miniature fair, the path being lined by itinerant temptations. There was brisk traffic in toffy, and gray peas and monkey-nuts, and the crowd was swollen by anxious parents seeing tiny or truant offspring safe within the school-gates. The women were bare-headed or be-shawled, with infants at their breasts and little ones toddling at their sides, the men were greasy, and musty, and squalid. Here a bright earnest little girl held her vagrant ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... daughters of celestial Virtue, point not the scoffing glance at these, her truant children, as ye pass them by—but pity, and afford them a gleam of cheerful hope: so shall ye merit the protection of Him whose chief attribute is charity and universal benevolence. And ye, lords of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... as a rook's wing, but far away down the street burned a little light, like a red star truant from heaven. The Prince riding by descried it for a lanthorn, with an old ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... quivering. I then approached; she suffered me to lead her to the roots of our tree, which for the present formed our stables, and there I tied her up close to the donkey, who was likewise prevented from playing truant. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... it," she said. "We're thirsty...." She came back into the room. "The postman's just come," she said with a nod and a smile to Esther. "Lydia will bring our letters up if there are any." She turned again to Micky. "Well, truant! And what have you been doing? ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... as I might have observed, if I had been a little less pleased with the universe at the moment, there was a clear way round the tree-top at the farther side. He had offered his services to haul me out, but as I was then already on my elbows I had declined and sent him down stream after the truant Arethusa. The stream was too rapid for a man to mount with one canoe, let alone two, upon his hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore, and proceeded down the meadows by the riverside. I was so cold that my heart was sore. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you such as that—walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and then, and then only, there will be no condemnation for you, for you will be in Christ Jesus. Do not—do not talk about making your peace with God some day—like a naughty child playing truant till the last moment, and hoping that the schoolmaster may forget to punish it. No, I trust you have received the Spirit. If you have, then look facts in the face. I trust that none of you have received the Spirit of bondage, which is slavery again unto fear. If you have God's Spirit you will ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... to the graceful groves and Gallic beauties of Belle Etoile his truant thoughts will fly once more. He wonders why he threw up his law studies under his uncle, Judge Valois, to rove in ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... was a wild, uncontrolled boy, who spent most of his time in the street, played truant three days out of five, was a great boaster, and sneered at anything like goodness. He was vastly amusing, however, and generally was surrounded by a crowd of admiring lads who thought him quite a hero. He had completely fascinated Louis, who was blind to his faults and attached great ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... his appearance, and was immediately pressed in the old people's arms. This son was a truant, long absent from his home. At length, grown weary at delay, quitting their abode near Edinburgh, they had travelled south, inquiring at every port for their lost son, and only that morning had they arrived by waggon at Poole, believing ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... her rudder, and drifts helpless to and fro, hindering and confusing. The duke, having (so the Spaniards say) weighed his anchor deliberately instead of leaving it behind him, runs in again after awhile, and fires a signal for return: but his truant sheep are deaf to the shepherd's pipe, and swearing and praying by turns, he runs up Channel towards Gravelines picking up stragglers on his way, who are struggling as they best can among the flats and shallows: but Drake and Fenner have arrived as soon as he. When Monday's ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... OF THIS LEGISLATION. One of the results of all this legislation has been to throw, during the past quarter of a century, an entirely new burden on schools everywhere. Such legislation has brought into the schools not only the truant and the incorrigible, who under former conditions either left early or were expelled, but also many children who have no aptitude for book learning, and many of inferior mental qualities who do not profit ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... potsherds all the day, Truant children, Lord, we roam; Fret, and longer want to play, When at cool thy voice doth come!— Elder Brother, lead the way; Make us good ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... was the weather that certain lads, imbued with that spirit of lawlessness and adventure which seems inherent in the nature of the young Briton, had conspired together to defy the authority of their schoolmaster by playing truant from afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship gliding up the Sound before ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... doorway slow doth close. The birds begin to twitter and to sing. All nature waketh and on pointed toes Young truant Morpheus stealeth gently in. Oh, happiness of reinstalled repose, And balsam for thy cold and sweated skin! 'Twas worse than all the nightmares, blessed wight; This vigil with ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... begin without him, and poor Mary's verse was read, in consequence, with a most dolorous tone. As soon as the books were shut, she ran off, and a few words passed among the elder ones about the truant—Flora opining that the Andersons had led him away; Ethel suggesting that his gloom must arise from his not being well; and Margaret looking wistfully at Norman, and saying she feared they had judged much amiss last spring. Norman heard in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... coaxingly, 'Come its ways, then, and get its patten.' Until that reconciling word was uttered, there had been a shadow of distrust on the baby's face, as if treachery might be in the wind. But the magic of that one word patten wrought an instant revolution. Back the little truant ran, and the young mother's manner made it evident that she would not on her part forget what had passed between the high contracting parties.[51] What, then, could be the meaning of this talismanic word patten? Accidentally, having had a naval brother ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... have gone to college," she used to insist, regretfully, summing up by implication his lack of advancement. At first he took a measure of comfort in her excuse; later he came to be irritated by it. And in moments of truant self-candor he admitted he could have made the grade with concessions to pride. There were plenty of youths who worked their way through. But he always had moved close to the edge of affluent circles, where he had caught the cold but disturbing glow of their ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Beth immediately jumped out of bed, and rushed out upon the upper piazza. In the yard below, looking as conscious as a truant child, was Duke. ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... When near the portal seat, His truant Gelert he espied, Bounding his lord to greet. But when he gained the castle door, Aghast the chieftain stood: The hound was smeared with drops of gore; His lips ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... to get his holiday so easily. There came a shout from the forest, and a boy on a brown moor pony went racing off after the truant beast, while a lady and a young girl looked on laughing. It was a very pretty chase, but at last Roger came back in triumph and tethered the donkey, repentant and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... there is not one of us, except the children, that is not some years younger for their presence. Mr Grey deserts his business for them, like a school-boy; and Mr Rowland watches his opportunity to play truant in turn. Mrs Enderby gives dances, and looks quite disposed to lead off in person. Mrs Plumstead has grown quite giddy about sorting the letters, and her voice has not been heard further than three doors off since the arrival of the strangers. Dr Levitt is preaching his old sermons. ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... in the main reception-room for the truant expedition. He was hoping against hope. Orders had been given that Popova, Kalora and the whole disobedient crew should be brought before him as soon as they arrived. His wrath had not cooled, but somehow his confidence in himself seemed slowly to evaporate, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... melancholy fact that the boy had been left behind at Potsdam. The tutor thereupon turned back in one of the carriages, whilst the rest proceeded to the next stopping-place. In the course of an hour he returned with the truant seated by his side, dusty and footsore, but otherwise as fresh as when he had started. He had, it appeared, strayed from the party at Potsdam, and returned to the starting-place in time to see the carriages ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... sing—how oft in glee Came a truant boy like me, Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody, Till the gurgle and refrain Of your music in his brain Wrought a happiness as keen to him ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... SPECTATOR, I am a Lad of about fourteen. I find a mighty Pleasure in Learning. I have been at the Latin School four Years. I don't know I ever play'd [truant, [1]] or neglected any Task my Master set me in my Life. I think on what I read in School as I go home at noon and night, and so intently, that I have often gone half a mile out of my way, not minding whither I went. Our Maid tells me, she often hears me talk Latin in my sleep. And I dream two or ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... wrought: I too felt the air of June Humming with a merry tune, I too reckoned, like a boy, Less of Time and more of Joy: Till, as homeward I was wending, I perceived my back unbending, And before the mile was done Ran beside my truant son. ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... prettiest, gentlest, and most innocent-looking little person that a fairy wand ever drew from an enchanted eggshell. She had come up noiselessly, and they became aware of a slender, dainty figure, charmingly timid blue eyes, and white transparent brows. No ingenue among the naiads, a truant from her river spring, could have been shyer, whiter, more ingenuous than this young girl, seemingly about sixteen years old, ignorant of evil and of the storms of life, and fresh from some church in which she must have prayed the angels to call her to heaven before the time. Only in Paris are such ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... drooped upon his breast, and nestled there, as if at last at home. Never before had Enrica's dainty form yielded beneath his touch. Before, he had but clasped her little hand, or pressed her dress, or stolen a hasty kiss on those truant locks of hers. Now Enrica was his own, his very own. The blood shot up like fire over his face. His eyes devoured her. As she lay encircled in his arms, a burning blush crimsoned her cheeks. She turned away her face, and feebly tried to loosen ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... that prudence could not then approve, That clung to Nature with a truant's love, O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45 Her files of road-elms, high above my head In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze; Or where her pathways straggle as they please By lonely farms and secret villages. But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50 Toy with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... these barren cliffs the ravenous vulture dwells, Who never fattens on the prey which from afar he smells; But, patient, watching hour on hour upon a lofty rock, He singles out some truant lamb, a ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... want to go to school, that morning. He would much rather have played truant. The air was so warm and still,—you could hear the blackbird singing at the edge of the wood, and the sound of the Prussians drilling, down in the meadow behind the old sawmill. He would so much rather have ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view,— I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face. 1591 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... to be realised, as the truant emerged from the thicket and entered upon an open plain clothed with low heath,—the Erica vestila, loaded ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... you ever try calling the rooster back, when he starts to play truant, with all that mouthful of words?" ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... Gaston with the ready intimacy of one's equal in age, fresh at every point; and he experienced what it is the function of contemporary poetry to effect anew for sensitive youth in each succeeding generation. The truant and irregular poetry of his own nature, all in solution there, found an external and authorised mouthpiece, ranging itself rightfully, as the latest achievement of human soul in this matter, along with the consecrated poetic ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... might pity win, and pity grace obtain,— I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain; Oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful flower upon my sunburned brain. But words came halting forth ... Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool,' said my muse to me, 'look in thy ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... into the light, the Texans see before them three men in soldier garb—the uniform of Mexican lancers. It is the corporal squad sent back by Uraga to bring on the truant traitor. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... said we would not wait, and his remark called my attention to the fact that there was one more place at the table than there were people assembled. I had barely noted this, when my host said, "Here's the truant," and, turning, I faced a lady who had just entered. Mr. Cullen said, "Madge, let me introduce Mr. Gordon to you." My bow was made to a girl of about twenty, with light brown hair, the bluest of eyes, a fresh skin and a fine figure, dressed so nattily as to be to me after ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... He came to ask if Benny was ill. The mother was vexed when she found that he had staid away from school. She went to look for the naughty boy. After a while she found the little truant. He was hard at work in his garret. She saw what he had been doing. He had not copied any of his new en-grav-ings. He had made up a new picture by taking one person out of one en-grav-ing, and another out of another. He had copied these ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... a fine long day, and all to myself. What do you think of Harry playing truant?'" (Here we may imagine, what they call in France, or what they used to call, when men dared to speak or citizens to hear, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ordered on a Sunday morning to get ready for church. Disobeying the order, he ran off and concealed himself, but was pursued, captured, and returned to his mother, who at once sent for a switch. The switch was a limb from a Lombardy poplar, and the precocious little truant, seeing this, quoted a verse from St. Matthew which was from a lesson he had but recently read to his mother. The quotation was as follows: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." The ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... spare judge braid yeast poem value growl crawl scowl goose giant Maud argue groan moist yawn swore drawl mirth coach raisin squirt oyster annoy boiler strain choice swoon broom gaudy priest gleans squaw sneeze whisk quake rescue truant poison prince renew crouch sprout dredge crease flower motion greedy chance charm bridge mound believe supply nation notion squeak shower lawyer plunge square employ comply quench awning stream ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... had set herself to make amends. The sparkle came back to Celia's eyes and the lilt to her voice. The children who had been models of deportment while the cold lasted, developed a frisky unruliness, resulting in Malcolm's playing truant and Algie's coming home with a black eye, trophy of his first fight. Persis was too thankful over being able to raise every window in the house and have the sweet spring air flooding in upon her, to take these enormities very much to ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... way; here is the gate, This little creaking wicket; Here robin calls his truant mate From out the lilac-thicket. The walks are bordered all with box,— Oh! come this way a minute; The snowball-bush, beyond the phlox, Has chippy's nest hid in it. Look at this mound of blooming pinks, This balm, these mountain daisies; And can you guess what grandma thinks The ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... said that 'the characteristics of Addison's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed by Person:—'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's middling style.... But what can you expect, as Lord Kames justly observes, from a school where ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... National bank. The financial panic that falls like a thunderbolt, wrecks the bank, crushes the banker, and swamps thousands in an hour. But the bank which holds the treasures of the barefooted boy never breaks. With his satchel and his books he hies away to school in the morning, but his truant feet carry him the other way, to the mill pond "a-fishin'." And there he sits the livelong day under the shade of the tree, with sapling pole and pin hook, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and waits for a nibble of the drowsy sucker that sleeps on his oozy bed, oblivious of the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... to be enjoying a quick and merry reaction from the doleful domestic dumps in which the voyage was begun. Old and young behaved this afternoon like a lot of truant boys on a lark. When we came to a pond fenced off from the main channel by a moraine dam, John went ashore to seek a shot at ducks. Creeping up behind the dam, he killed a mallard fifty or sixty feet from ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... caution of a driver, every one admitted, and in a few minutes he had all but overtaken the truant pair. Miss Long turned and took in the situation. She sat just a shade straighter, grasped her whip more firmly, and urged her horse to the utmost. Around and around the ring flew the runaways, and around and around behind ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... joy!) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... Le Bourget they circled the 'drome once, noted the wind socks on the great hangars, and dropped as lightly to the field as two tardy, truant schoolboys seeking to gain ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... Memory of the Late Archdeacon Elwood, A.M. Thomas Moore Robert Burns Byron Goderich Kelvin Niagara Falls Autumn A Sunset Farewell By the Lake The Teacher Grace Darling The Indian Lines on the North-West Rebellion Louis Riel Ye Patriot Sons of Canada A Hero's Decision John and Jane The Truant Boy A Swain to his Sweetheart The Fisherman's Wife The Diamond and the Pebble Temptation Slander Woman Sympathy Love and Wine. How Nature's Beauties Should be Viewed To a Canary The School-Taught Youth A Dream A Snow Storm To Nova Scotia ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... between the recurrences even of his most acute suffering; and the pursuit of his most beloved Art became every year more determined and independent. The first beginnings in landscape study were made in happy truant excursions, now fondly remembered, with the painter Haydon, then also a youth. This companionship was probably rather cemented by the energy than the delicacy of Haydon's sympathies. The two boys were directly opposed in their habits of application ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touch'd with love: if he be sad, he ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... had never "skipped" school before, but the Zoo had him utterly. He was powerless against himself. Some bigger force, represented by a truant officer, was necessary to keep him away from those cages. His father got down to business and gave him a beating—much against that good man's heart. (Skag's father was a Northern European who kept a fruit-store down ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... finer than the way in which this "milky steer," with Europa on his back, goes sailing over the brine, his "feet all oars." Meantime, she, the pretty truant, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... no visible reason why she should have had it put out, except as a picturesque and imaginative way of rubbing her altruism into its nearest victim. Unless, indeed, it was done in order that the darkened window should seem to announce to the returning truant that she had gone to bed, and to lull his mind to unconsciousness of the ambush that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... may be surmised, were no other than Miss Hopkins and Miss Rae, whom chance or fate or bungling Eric Madden, who bought the tickets, had seated side by side with the Maddens and Jerrolds. It was bothersome, when Norman and Eric had played truant at any rate, but there was no help for it; so after a little Eric introduced them all round, and the two parties apparently merged into one, or broke up into four, for tete-a-tetes soon began. It was a little hard that three girls should have each a devoted servant, and that ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... flattening of the great red foot that before had been round and perfect. I turned my smarting eyes away a minute,—saw the seventh drop fall with a melodious tingle into the cup, then back again,—there was no mistake—the truant fire was a fraction less, it had shrunk a fraction behind the hill even since I looked, and thereon all my life ran back into its channels, the world danced before me, and "Heru!" I shouted hoarsely, reeling back towards the palace, "Heru, 'tis well; ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... her head was covered with tiny close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, long, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Inn, and Edward Aylward, mine host, would welcome him with bows; and so he would sit and drink a tankard of sack with his neighbours, very slow and dignified, as befitted the greatest clothier of the town, and looking benevolently upon the company. But at times he would frown, if he saw a truant monk from the abbey stolen out for a drink in spite of all the prohibitions of bishop and abbot, shaking his head, perhaps, and complaining that religion was not what it had been in the good old days; but not ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... not answer. Her pride would not allow her to admit that she was glad to see him, relieved to be overtaken like a truant from school. And Bill did not seem to expect a reply. He slung his rifle into the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... cheeks, and gazed fixedly into the green waters, the laughing, dancing, purling waters, green, and, where the sun reached them, shot with seams and cleavages of light, like fluorspar. In the sun-flecked, shadow-dappled grass near by, violets tried to hide themselves, but were betrayed by their truant sweetness. The waters purled, a light breeze rustled the olive-leaves, and birds were singing loud and wild, as birds will ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... the maternal slipper. The other day the two boys started out, ostensibly for school, but as they did not come home to dinner and were not seen by their little sister about the school-grounds, the awful suspicion entered the good mother's mind that they had again been truant. Along about dark one of them, the younger, came in ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... tumultuously, fetid, muddy, dusty, ragged, dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with their ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... stream and meadow, They searched 'neath hedge and tree; "Where," said the puzzled children, "Where can the truant be?" ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... had spread from the Potomac to Detroit and Louisville. Many an anxious mother on the border used the story of his captivity as a means to frighten truant youngsters who had evinced a love for running wild in the woods. The evening of Isaac's return every one in the settlement called to welcome home the wanderer. In spite of the troubled times ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... make the lingua vernacula flag. We should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple finch, and the squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, the November traveller and the truant boy, ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... one of the boys sat at his iron-barred window, wide awake. He was a Truant, and had never yet been in any place from which he could not run away. He felt that his school-fellows depended upon him to run away and bring them assistance, and he knew that his reputation as a Truant was at stake. His responsibility was so heavy that he could not sleep, and ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... in and proved himself a law-breaker, just as Ben Lindsey was when he inaugurated the juvenile court and waived the entire established legal procedure, even to the omission of swearing his witnesses, and believed in the little truant even though he lied. Froebel told the little other-mothers to come to school anyway and bring ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... so. I am a truant there, for I do not answer aunt Julia's letters as punctually as I ought to do. I shall be down there for the hunting I suppose next month." Then dinner was announced; and as it was necessary that the Earl should ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... playin' truant maybe. A' mind gettin' ma paiks for birdnestin' masel. I'll wager that's ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... of the imagination and intellect, added to a uniform and sedentary life, affected the system of her nerves, and contributed to debilitate her frame. She was prohibited by her physician, not merely from committing her thoughts to paper, but, had it been possible, from thinking at all. No truant, escaped from school, could receive more pleasure in eluding a severe master, than did Mrs. Robinson, when, the vigilance of her physician relaxing, she could once more resume ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... laughter, and the next moment the little questioner had squeezed her way through a slightly open door, and was toddling down the broad stone stairs and across a landing to Hetty's room. The room-door was open, so the truant went in. A bed with the bed-clothes all tossed about, a half worn-out slipper on the floor, a very untidy dressing-table met her eyes, but ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... present, they would hardly be as studiously cherished and transmitted as they are. We are, after all, living in the present. The culture of the past either does or does not illuminate it. If it does not it is a competing environment, a shadow world in which we may play truant from actuality, but which brings neither "sweetness nor light" to the actual world in which ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... own business without assistance. Hamilton missed him, and glanced down the table with a gaze of mingled disappointment and displeasure. A few words from him might have recalled Louis, but they were not spoken, and the only impression conveyed to the poor truant was, that the friend he most cared about, in common with the rest, considered him ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May |
