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More "Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heroic resolutions followed him. He had thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was not without its influence even on these irredeemables. Men called him "The ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... like, the bloody ruffian!" he said, furiously, "but the mare will never rise from this! ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... his head, falling on his face as he lifted it up to drink the whisky, revealed in his wide open, protruding pupils, the reflection of a cat—I can swear it was a cat. Instantly my intoxication evaporated and I scented danger. How was it I had not noticed before that the man was a typical ruffian—a regular street-corner loiterer, waiting, hawklike, to pounce upon and fleece the first well-to-do looking stranger he saw. Of course I saw it all now like a flash of lightning: he had seen me about the town during ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... Clifford, "you see you can't take me in. I know your date. So come and give your old ruffian of an uncle ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Macpherson wrote offensively and violently to Dr. Samuel, who replied heartily enough—'I received your foolish and impudent letter ...I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian ...I thought your book an imposture. I think so still. Your rage I defy,' etc. etc. What was all this to Runciman? He had no learning—he cared nothing for antiquarianism. He took for granted that Ossian was authentic. Many ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Pennington," she cried, "the man by your side, a cowardly ruffian, a drunken swaggerer, and the companion of the vilest people in the country. We have sought to save her from him, John Penryn; and now, thank ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the whites and blacks, to the end that the education of both races might be fostered, that the indiscriminate and illegal killing of Negroes might be eliminated, and that the reign of terror effected by a union of the ruffian whites and ignorant blacks might be prevented. Nash then extolled the record of the party in power for its fairness to the Negro, and arraigned the attitude of the opposition to all measures designed to ameliorate the condition of the race. Concluding his remarks, Nash preached the sound doctrine ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... ruffian, with an Australian digger's beard, had turned up of late to disturb the tranquillity of the partners. He had been asking what they regarded as an exorbitant price for his silence in respect to the construction of that adit which has just been mentioned, and had been fobbed off from ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... him as I did; yet I was put out, for I thought his bold glances would have made her angry. But my dear Flavia was a woman, and so—she was not put out. On the contrary, she thought young Rupert very handsome—as, beyond question, the ruffian was. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... such he was, and one, too, whose name will live for many a year in the ruffian histories of Madrid; I answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... broke out upon me as the ruffian mentioned Dick. God! Was it possible these fiends would wreak their vengeance on a mere boy? And yet if they meant to, how could he escape them? How simple for such men to get him in their power. Ah, if only I could have spoken I should, I truly believe, have ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Point, January 19, 1775," addressed to an officer under his command. The three lines of which it consists can prove bad spelling, erroneous grammar, and misplaced and superfluous punctuation; but, with all this complication of iniquity, the ruffian General contrives to express his meaning as briefly and clearly as if the rules of correct composition had been ever so scrupulously observed. This autograph, impressed with the foulest name in our history, has somewhat of the interest that would ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... desperado, he then stretched himself out in the shadow of a small tree, drank deeply from a whiskey flagon which he produced, and pulling his hat over his eyes, was soon asleep and snoring. It was a long time before I could believe the evidence of my own senses. Finally, I approached the ruffian, and placed my hand on his shoulder. He did not stir a muscle. I listened; I heard only the deep, slow breathing of profound slumber. Resolved not to be balked and defrauded by such a scoundrel, I stealthily withdrew the vial from his pocket and sprang to ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... that nearly knocked me over. A cropped head and three days' growth of beard will make an extraordinary difference in any one, but I would never have believed they could have transformed me into quite such an unholy-looking ruffian as the one I saw staring back at me out of the glass. If I had ever been conceited about my personal appearance, that moment would ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... apple-barrel on deck, and from this place of ambush overheard Soutar and a comrade conversing in their oilskins. The smooth sycophant of the cabin had wholly disappeared, and the boy listened with wonder to a vulgar and truculent ruffian. Of Soutar, I may say tantum vidi, having met him in the Leith docks now more than thirty years ago, when he abounded in the praises of my grandfather, encouraged me (in the most admirable manner) to pursue his footprints, and left impressed for ever on my memory the image ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... guard, and then Merriwell went at him, while Grody gasped for breath, thinking the college lad could be no match for the young ruffian. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... well apprised of this, but pretended ignorance. One day my curiosity induced me to go to the Palace of Tears, to observe how my consort employed herself, and from a place where she could not see me, I heard her thus address the wounded ruffian: 'I am afflicted to the highest degree to behold you in this condition,' she cried, 'I am as sensible as yourself of the tormenting pain you endure; but, dear soul, I am continually speaking to you, and you do not answer ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... on the banks of the Cumberland in the early years of the last century, an attempt was made by a band of desperadoes to create a disturbance. To this end their leader, a burly ruffian, stalked to the front of the pulpit, and with an oath commanded Cartwright to "dry up." Suspending divine service for a few minutes, and laying aside his coat, the preacher descended from the pulpit and springing upon the intruder, felled him to the earth and ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... turned out eventually to be an umbrella, against the attacks of a tall, strapping fellow, in a rough frieze coat, who was endeavouring to wrest his weapon from him. A still more formidable adversary was, however, approaching in the shape of a second ruffian, who had armed himself with a thick stake out of the hedge, and was creeping cautiously up behind the shorter man, with 231the evident intention of knocking him on the head. I instantly determined to frustrate his benevolent design, nor was there much time to lose, if I wished my assistance ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... numbers. We met them with the point, in the good old Roman way, thrusting home remorselessly, fighting with silent contempt for them which must have been maddening. I even heard Brennan laugh, as he pierced a huge ruffian through the shoulder and hurled him backward; but at that moment I saw Craig knock aside a levelled gun and press his way to the front of the seething mass to assume control. His face was inflamed, his eyes bloodshot; drink had changed ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... daintiness that her father complained of "too much spring-time!" The whole place, including his own bedroom, was a young damsel's boudoir, he said, so that nowhere could he smoke a cigar without feeling like a ruffian. However, he was smoking when George arrived, and he encouraged George to join him in the pastime, but the caller, whose air was both tense and preoccupied, declined ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... was dying with a little child by her side, what could I do but go and comfort her? Ah, poor darling Annie!' sobbed the little old lady, 'she was sadly changed from the bright, beautiful girl I remembered. Her husband turned out a brute and a ruffian and a spendthrift. He wasted all her money, and left her within six months of the marriage—the wretch! Annie tried to support herself by needlework, but she took cold in her starving condition and broke down. Then Mab was born, and she ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... happened that they found themselves looking down upon Francoise de Montespan as she was led to her death, and that they heard that last piteous cry for aid at the instant when the heavy hand of the ruffian with the axe fell upon her shoulder, and she was forced down upon her knees beside the block. She shrank screaming from the dreadful, red-stained, greasy billet of wood, but the butcher heaved up his weapon, and the seigneur had taken a step forward ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this particular crime against children of that helpless sort does make my blood boil. Nothing, not even passion to excuse it—who could feel passion for that poor child?—nothing but the cold, clumsy lust of some young ruffian. Yes, I walked on in a rage, and went straight to her mother's cottage. That wretched woman was incapable of moral indignation, or else the adventures of her elder daughter had exhausted her powers of expression. 'Yes,' she admitted, 'Em'leen had got herself into trouble too, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and the injured party, and seven nobles write asking that he should be pardoned, and ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... with the babes we wander'd in the wood, Or view'd the forest-feats of Robin Hood: Oft, fancy-led, at midnight's fearful hour, With startling step we seal'd the lonely tower: O'er infant innocence to hang and weep, Murder'd by ruffian hands, when smiling in its sleep. Ye Household Deities! whose guardian eye Mark'd each pure thought, ere register'd on high; Still, still ye walk the consecrated ground, And breathe the soul of Inspiration round. As o'er the dusky furniture I bend, Each chair awakes ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... drinking at the bar of the hotel; and as it is no secret why he and Miss Bates parted, I enlightened the company on the subject of his antecedents. He threatened to challenge me! Ho! ho!—fight with a nigger—that is too good a joke!" And laughing heartily, the young ruffian leant back in his chair. "I want some money to-morrow, dad," continued he. "I say, old gentleman, wasn't it a lucky go that darkey's father was put out of the way so nicely, eh?—We've been living in clover ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... else could he have expected? He had rushed in like a ruffian; he had dragged the poor defenceless thing by the hair of her head, as it were, on board that ship. It was really atrocious. Nothing assured him that his person could be attractive to this or any other woman. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... he would like glass eyes, the ruffian!" he muttered to himself, "but I will not have the mockery. I will fill the sockets and sew up the eyelids, and the face shall be as ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the steel cane with her. In a second the ruffian had vanished, and a big black crow was flying about ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... of the trunk stand the officer and a brigand. The officer has a large wound across the temple, and attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... and hard to please' as Scott says, you know—and it must be a very skilfully-dressed fly indeed which brings her to the surface. She's been hooked once, mind, and she has a horror of it. Her husband was the most frightful brute and ruffian, you know. I was strongly opposed to the marriage, but her mother carried it through. But—yes—about her—I think she is afraid to marry again. If she does ever consent, it will be because poverty has broken her nerve. If she is kept on six ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... "Turn, ruffian, and defend yourself!" But old Jowler, when he saw me, only whistled, looked at his lifeless daughter, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... extended his arms straight out from either side, his head thrown back. He was a good-natured ruffian, with clear ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... cause—to be excluded from every office, State and National, and in many instances to be banished from the States they so faithfully laboured to save; it abandons the four millions of colored people to such treatment as the ruffian class of the South, educated in the barbarism of slavery and the atrocities of the rebellion, may choose to give them; it leaves the obligations of the Nation to her creditors and to the maimed ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... profound, and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... replied the Colonel. "There is no lack of them; nor shall you be able to complain that they are not recent, as well as of longer standing. Your conduct in the case of poor honest M'Evoy here is black and iniquitous. He must be restored to his farm, but by other hands than yours, and that ruffian instantly expelled from it. From this moment, sir, you cease to be my agent. You have betrayed the confidence I reposed in you; you have misled me as to the character of my tenants; you have been a deceitful, cunning, cringing, selfish and rapacious tyrant. My people you have ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... enraged young lord of Kingsland, "how dare you presume to answer me? How dare you stand there and look me in the face? If I called my servants and made them lash you outside the gates, I would only serve you right! You low-bred, impertinent ruffian, how dare you ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... he had come to know him as an insatiate gambler, the pitiful sort of gambler who is too much of a drunkard to be more than his opponent's dupe at cards. He had found him to be a brawler and very much of a ruffian. But though he did not close his eyes to these things they did not matter to him. For gratitude and a sense of loyalty were two of the strong silver threads that went to make up the mesh of Buck Thornton's nature, and it was enough to him that little Jimmie Clayton had played ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... medicine," or bribe of two bus (about three shillings), would substitute the weapon of a private individual for that of his Lord. Dogs and beggars, lying helpless by the roadside, not unfrequently serve to test a ruffian's sword; but the executioner earns many a fee from those who wish to see how their blades will cut ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... "The ruffian was disguised with his head in a bit of a bag, or something of that sort, and he never spoke a word from first to last," added Kennedy, looking over the article ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... about that afterwards," said Dennis grimly. "I'm going to save you now." And, cutting the cord, he threw the knife into the basin and proceeded to make a slip-knot. "We must make this old ruffian secure first." ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... in the dugout sprang to arms, and came running down the bank, and likely getting the particulars of the escape from the ruffian by the sage-hen, who was probably only stunned for the moment, they buckled warmly to the chase. The mountain-side was steep and rough, and men on foot were better than on horseback; accordingly Will dismounted, and clapping his ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... it prudent to avoid Montreal and Quebec and to board his ship at Rimouski. This circumstance afforded material to the editor of the Mail, Mr Edward Farrer, for an amusing article, bearing the alliterative title, 'The Murderer's Midnight Mizzle, or the Ruffian's Race for Rimouski.' ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... I handled that situation rightly?" he asked himself between chuckles. "One thing I know—if that old ruffian plays another trick on me—one more of any kind—Ill show my teeth. There's a thing known as ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... plain, honest 'gator hunters, working powerful hard for a mighty poor living," declared the ruffian. "An' you-alls, I reckon one guess will hit it, arter plumes, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... well as that of the Lord of Hosts! I'm a small man—a little G.P. in an obscure Highland village in rather shabby tweed knickerbockers and Inverness cape (yes, the same ones—still no new clothes! What would be the use in wasting money on adorning an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him. The point was not what I was wanting to know about. I was wanting, very much, to have a 'bit crack' with him, as they call it here. Lassie, he asked me to lunch with ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... with you! 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 ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... bag," he continued, "is a suit of clothes such as habitues of 'The Pidgin House' rejoice to wear. I, who have studied disguise almost as deeply as the great Willy Clarkson, will transform you into a perfect ruffian. It is important, you understand, that someone should be inside the house of Ah-Fang-Fu, as otherwise by means of some secret exit the man we seek may escape. I believe that he contemplates departing at any moment, and I believe that the visit of Miguel means that what I may term the masters of ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... highwayman;" and "the profession of the polite and accomplished adventurer who nicked you out of your money at White's, or bowled you out of it at Marylebone, was often united with that of the professed ruffian who, on Bagshot Heath or Finchley Common, commanded his brother beau to stand and deliver." "Robbers—a fertile and alarming theme—filled up every vacancy, and the names of the Golden Farmer, the Flying Highwayman, Jack Needham, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... old as his master, who was 'four-score and upward' and whom he 'loved as his father,' but, one may suppose, three-score and upward. From the first scene we get this impression, and in the scene with Oswald it is repeatedly confirmed. His beard is grey. 'Ancient ruffian,' 'old fellow,' 'you stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart'—these are some of the expressions applied to him. 'Sir,' he says to Cornwall, 'I am too old to learn.' If his age is not remembered, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... natural to suppose that every effort is made by the small traders of the interior to avoid these savage press-gangs. The poor wretches are not only subjected to annoying vassalage by ruffian princes, but the blockade of the forest often diverts them from the point they originally designed to reach,—forces them to towns or factories they had no intention of visiting,—and, by extreme delay, wastes their provisions and diminishes their frugal profits. It is surprising to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... said, "Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won't eat ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by argument the thesis they are maintaining, which is probably that two and two make five, they branch off and begin to adduce arguments which do not go to prove that, but to prove that the man who maintains that two and two make four is a fool, or even a ruffian. Some good men are subject to this infirmity—that if you differ from them on any point whatever, they regard the fact of your differing from them as proof, not merely that you are intellectually stupid, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... to what I say, a fright. Why! Do you suppose I would advise a crime? Good God! the very idea fills me with horror, and I fancy I can see before my eyes blood and fire! Nothing of the sort, senora. A fright—nothing but a fright, which will make that ruffian understand that we are well protected. He goes alone to the Casino, senora, entirely alone; and there he meets his valiant friends, those of the sabre and the helmet. Imagine that he gets the fright and that he has a few bones broken, in addition—without any serious wounds, of course. ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... is not a ruffian," he declared, speaking as calmly as possible. "There is a misunderstanding between us. I have wronged him, and he has a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... of a murderer asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would have told ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... and cruelly persecuted, and then to have him show the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances, will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to his doom" over a cliff a thousand ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at length from his ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... when they are behaving like men for the first time in their lives. Well, I tell you, March, I know them inside out; and I know they are behaving like heroes. Every man of them ought to have a statue, and on the pedestal words like those of the noblest ruffian of the Revolution: 'Que mon nom soit fletri; ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... pretended to consent to stay with him, telling him I should only step to my lodgings to leave a necessary direction, and then instantly return. This he very glibly swallowed, on the notion of my being one of those unhappy street-errants, who devote themselves to the pleasure of the first ruffian that will stoop to pick them up, and of course, that I would scarce bilk myself of the hire, by not returning make the most of the job. Thus he parted with me, not before, however, he had ordered in my hearing a supper, which I had the barbarity to disappoint ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... solemn of truths, on any such scale as that towards which events seemed to be pointing. The unfair notices put me in a tremor of distress. The brutal ones affected me like a blow in the face from the fist of a ruffian. None of them, that I can remember, ever helped me in any sense whatsoever to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... countenance confronting him, endeavouring to sense what had really occurred. He was undoubtedly trapped again, but how had the trick been accomplished? What devilish freak of ill luck had thus thrown them once more into the merciless hands of this ruffian? How could it have happened so perfectly? The boat on the sand in the cove yonder; perhaps that was the key to the situation. Those fellows who had left the Seminole to sink behind them, knew where they were when they deserted the yacht; they landed at the nearest point along shore, where they ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... was usually a gentleman, but in his cups he became little short of a ruffian in manner. He ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... its past," he admitted, "but we are living it down, and have succeeded pretty well. I think I've heard of a ruffian of the last generation named Jack Hollis; but I don't know anything, and I don't care to know anything, about him. But if you're interested in Garrison City, I'd like to show you a little plot of ground in a place that is going to be the center ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... romance!" cried Mrs. Forrester. "An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the conventional dragon ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Carlos would exclaim feebly, turning his head towards his uncle. His uncle's own province, the name of his own town, stood for a refuge of the scum of the Antilles. It wras a shameful sanctuary. Every ruffian, rascal, murderer, and thief of the West Indies had come to think of this ancient and honourable town as ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the wrong-doer; and that when the culprit was discovered the Irish law officers hesitated to prosecute; suppose that when a prosecution took place the Attorney-General showed that his heart was not in the matter, and that the jury acquitted a ruffian clearly guilty of murder, is it not as clear as day that smuggling would flourish and no customs be collected? In the same way the Irish Ministry might by mere apathy, by the very easy process of doing nothing, ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... it not, my lord?" rejoined the ruffian with bitter irony. "The evidence, you know, was irresistible; the crime as clear as the sun at noonday; and if in such plain cases, the just and necessary law was not enforced, society would be dissolved, and there would be no security for property! These were ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... am, in the first place, by no means sure that the risk existed," said the Earl of Etherington; "for, as I have often told you, I had but a very transient glimpse of the ruffian; and, in the second place, I am sure that no permanent bad consequences have ensued. I am too old a fox-hunter to be afraid of a leap after it is cleared, as they tell of the fellow who fainted in the morning at the sight of the precipice he had ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... where the privilege of having theatricals was allowed to the crew. What was their chagrin, then, when, upon making an application to the Captain, in a Peruvian harbour, for permission to present the much-admired drama of "The Ruffian Boy," under the Captain's personal patronage, that dignitary assured them that there were already enough ruffian boys on board, without conjuring up any ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the young man, turning toward Samuel Parker, "get you down, and come within my house. Perhaps by this time you are used to such. We bid you welcome. I shall return to you soon, after I have settled this matter which has come up between me and yonder ruffian." ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... more distinguishable than the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such a bad ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... into the wood before he beheld a most shocking sight indeed, a woman stript half naked, under the hands of a ruffian, who had put his garter round her neck, and was endeavouring to draw her up to a tree. Jones asked no questions at this interval, but fell instantly upon the villain, and made such good use of his trusty oaken stick that he laid ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... heard much of Heidrek, seeing that I am a Northumbrian," he said. "The track of that ruffian lies black on our coasts; but I have not heard of his son. We have naught against his name, ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... fine young man, I think I know you. Aren't you the chap that torn my coat sometime ago? Answer me, sir," giving me a vigorous shake on the shoulder. "You are the very d——n young ruffian that did it, and I am going to give you such a thrashing as you ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the young man, "nothing can cure my grief; this day my dear mistress is to be sacrificed to a rich old ruffian of a husband ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... the chief of Shere Subz in our favour by presents and fair words, might not the same means have been employed for the rescue of poor Stoddart? The only way to deal with a ruffian like him of Bokhara would have been by pitting against him some ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... every window and roaring and shooting high in air from the brush-heaped roof of Moreno's ranch,—there stood the Concord wagon, stalwart men clinging to the heads of the plunging and excited mules, a big ruffian already in the driver's seat, whip and reins in hand; there beside it was the paymaster's ambulance, into which three of the gang were just shoving the green-painted iron safe,—the Pandora's box that had caused all their ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... and Mary Stewart pity thee alike, Lindesay," said Mary— "alike thee pity, and they forgive thee. An honoured soldier hadst thou been by a king's side—leagued with rebels, what art thou but a good blade in the hands of a ruffian?—Farewell, my Lord Ruthven, the smoother but the deeper traitor.—Farewell, Melville—Mayest thou find masters that can understand state policy better, and have the means to reward it more richly, than Mary Stewart.—Farewell, George of Douglas—make ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the Church, and had his Condotta gradually increased. Meanwhile his cousins, the murderers of his father, began to dread his rising power, and determined, if possible, to ruin him. He was not a man to be easily assassinated; so they sent a hired ruffian to Caldora's camp to say that Bartolommeo had taken his name by fraud, and that he was himself the real son of Puho Colleoni. Bartolommeo defied the liar to a duel; and this would have taken place before ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... knife; my hair was matted; my face besmeared with the same guilty signs that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched; my whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was in form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian that ever ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... as soon as she saw him, and she wrote a letter and tied it to a string and let it down to him. He read it and wrote an answer, and was just getting ready to send it up, the same way, when a great, fierce ruffian with a bloodhound pounced on him, and threw him into the very darkest dungeon in the cellar of the tower. He was pretty much scared, for he was all in the dark, and he was without any food or anything ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... colossal, sir," the Colonel sternly looked at him. "Chivalry, Dale, is what we all have, and what prompted you to tackle that ruffian yesterday. The definition is quite simple, and of course you follow me. As I was saying, sir, we prefer to thank you now in behalf of Miss Jane, since any further reference to the matter will be ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... aussi bien que le mien, "Yes, he was called Joseph, as I am." I did not think proper to prosecute the inquiry; but did not much relish the nature of Joseph's connexions. The truth is, he had very much the looks of a ruffian; though, I must own, his behaviour ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Fontanges inquired, with an air of anxiety very remarkable in a Frenchman, how she had been treated. "Il n'y a pas de mal, mon ami," replied Madame de Fontanges. This was a Jesuitical sort of answer, and M. de Fontanges required further particulars. "Elle avait temporise" with the ruffian, with the faint hope of that assistance which had so opportunely and unexpectedly arrived. M. de Fontanges was satisfied with his wife's explanation; and such being the case, what passed between Jackson and Madame de Fontanges can be no concern of the reader's. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... bloody doings Josephus tells us. How the Jews should have been trying to murder such a man Lysias does not seem to have considered. But when he heard the courteous, respectful Greek speech of the Apostle he saw at once that he had got no uncultured ruffian to deal with, and in answer to Paul's request and explanation gave him leave to speak. That has been thought an improbability. But strong men recognise each other, and the brave Roman was struck with something in the tone and bearing of the brave ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... examine some old marble pillars. Soon, however, we found a rabble about us, who began to jerk our garments. I then turned and spoke to them, and they instantly rushed upon us like tigers. They seized Dr. Lobdell's hat, threw it into the air, and began to beat him. One ruffian seized me by the throat. By main strength I loosed his grasp, and was moving off, when two men tried to wrest my cane from me, but did not succeed. We retreated as last as possible, but when we got out of the reach of their hands, they resorted to throwing stones, some of them weighing two or ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... my young friend should have considered me so much of a blood-thirsty ruffian. But the ale of Boston is no doubt strange to him, and his confusion at finding himself in a large city quite natural. Besides, his suspicions were in some degree reciprocated. When I saw him flying out of the window, I was convinced that he must be an ingenious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... his money, his knife, and all he had, and said he would love him all the days of his life if he would spare him, and never tell what had happened; but the pathetic and forcible appeal, which would have melted many a ruffian-heart, was vain:—the little monster stabbed him in the throat, and then robbed him. On his trial he discovered no feeling, and he even heard his sentence with the utmost indifference, and without ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... for such a thing to happen either. London in the darkness of the night was a terrible place. Out from all the dens of Whitefriars and other like places swarmed the ruffian and criminal population that by day slunk away like evil beasts of night into hiding. The streets were made absolutely perilous by the bands of cutthroats and cutpurses who prowled about, setting upon belated pedestrians or unwary travellers, and robbing, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... instances of the sort of occurrence which was by no means unusual. In the immediate neighbourhood of Nuernberg, which was bien entendu one of the chief seats of the Imperial power, a robber-knight leader, named Hans Thomas von Absberg, was a standing menace. It was the custom of this ruffian, who had a large following, to plunder even the poorest who came from the city, and, not content with this, to mutilate his victims. In June 1522 he fell upon a wretched craftsman, and with his own sword hacked off the poor fellow's right hand, notwithstanding ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... pleasant to be laid hold of by a madman, if madman he be," said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, in polite excuse of Tito, "but perhaps he is only a ruffian. We shall hear. I think we must see if we have authority enough to stop this disturbance between our people and your countrymen," he added, addressing ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... believe that even that unprincipled ruffian is robbing cradles to fill up his ranks, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Anthony Fenn Kemp interposed, with a threat "to commit the judge advocate himself;" who, seeing among the spectators many soldiers wearing side-arms, and fearing for his personal safety, left the bench. Macarthur again appealled to his military brethren to preserve him from the ruffian constabulary: they immediately ordered the soldiers present to protect him against the peace officers. This interference was represented as an illegal rescue; Macarthur, however, surrendered to the provost marshal, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought forward to the readers ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... savage and disturbed countries, amongst which were specified New Zealand, Otaheite, and Honduras. Two others, in 1823 and 1828, gave the Australian courts jurisdiction over Whites in New Zealand. One White ruffian was actually arrested in New Zealand, taken back to Sydney, and executed. But this act of vigour did not come till the end of 1837. Then the crime punished was not one of the atrocities which for thirty years had made New Zealand ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... mean to tell me," Gurdon murmured, "that the lady in question is the daughter of that picturesque-looking old ruffian, Mark Fenwick?" ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... you were going away from me, did you?' Torpenhow put his hand on Dick's shoulder, and the two walked up and down the room, henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion. They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. 'That's some ruffian come up for a drink,' said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were deep pouches under ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... That no movement of the King might escape notice, two orderlies were appointed to watch the palace. One of these men, a bold and active Fleming, named Durant, was especially charged to keep Barclay well informed. The other, whose business was to communicate with Charnock, was a ruffian named Chambers, who had served in the Irish army, had received a severe wound in the breast at the Boyne, and, on account of that wound, bore a savage personal ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the calm conventional cadence, and instantly extorted from him—amid all his dazedness—the corresponding 'Goodbye'. When he turned and saw it was Mr. Glamorys who had come in, his heart leapt wildly at the nearness of his escape. As he passed this masked ruffian, he nodded perfunctorily and received a cordial smile. Yes, he was handsome and fascinating ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Is this old ruffian mad or drunk? was the secret question of the duke, whose tone and manner, always calm and polite, grew even calmer and more polite as the Iron King grew ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a very easy man, but would work you hard and never allow you any chance night or day; he was a farmer, about fifty, stout, full face, a real country ruffian; member of no church, a great drinker and gambler; will sell a slave as quick as any other slave-holder. He had a great deal of cash, but did not rank high in society. His wife was very severe; hated a colored ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman." ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian wished ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... are usually called, we find matter for deeper political meditation and subjects of curious research. But these emperors would be more properly classed with the five who succeed them—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines; after whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another Caligula or Nero, from whose short and infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the empire. And this classification would probably have prevailed, had not the very curious work of Suetonius, whose own life and period of observation ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... done so, in the fear that it would lead, if known, to some objection or estrangement. Suppose she married incautiously—it is not improbable, for her existence has been a lonely and monotonous one for many years—and the man turned out a ruffian, she would be anxious to screen him, and yet would revolt from his crimes. This might be. It bears strongly on the whole drift of her discourse yesterday, and would quite explain her conduct. Do you suppose Barnaby is ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... neither reason," Jasper answered, straightening his burly form as he glared at his adversary. "A young girl bluffed off Fletcher and the other ruffian there, the prisoner Gorst. She was alone, but she scared the pair of them with an empty rifle. Suppose you left your sister alone, and came back to find a half-drunk hobo trying ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... the wall, and lay musing on—he hadn't been drinking too much over-night—Oh, no! it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a deep whisper from the further ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... now, when one of them has taken his advice, if ye dinna turn round on the street and half kill him, till he had to be brought home half faintin' to his father's house! Fine-like conduct for a magistrate! Ye bloodthirsty old ruffian! ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... the trip to an end and separate me at once from the society of my brother (I'm afraid I cared much more about losing him than for the Turnours' loss of their Aigle) I was impelled to run down in my nightgown and mules to do battle single-handed with the ruffian; but suddenly, before I had quite decided, out went the light in the blue-curtained glass cage. In another instant the car door opened, and Jack Dane ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... attempted to steal a kiss. Robert heard a wild cry, and saw her struggle to be free. With a bound he was by her side. His right arm swung through the air, and his clenched fist came down like a sledge-hammer upon the head of the ruffian, felling him to the earth. The next moment the other was picked up and plunged headforemost into the watering-trough. No word had been spoken. The girl, as if not comprehending what had happened, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... romance. Scott replied, "that no character had been so foully traduced as the Viscount of Dundee; that, thanks to Wodrow, Cruickshanks, and such chroniclers, he, who was every inch a soldier and a gentleman, still passed among the Scottish vulgar for a ruffian desperado, who rode a goblin horse, was proof against shot, and in league with the Devil." "Might he not," said Mr. Train, "be made, in good hands, the hero of a national romance as interesting as any about either Wallace or Prince Charlie?" "He might," ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Bill?' when I came into the room. 'I've had rather a nasty turn, but I'm on the mend now. How is Phil? That ruffian has been keeping her away for a day or two, but he says I may see her soon now. Will you give her my dear love?' And then he looked round for the violets which were beside his bed. 'Give her these, ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... did require great deliberation, for, after all, it was a mad thing, a parcel of weak women and children thinking they could out-do thirty-two ruffian pirates. To be sure we had some great advantages, but, after all, what we should lose in the event of this act of philanthropy failing was everything, and for two strangers! who might turn out to be what Schillie called very ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... wait for either of these questions to be answered. He sprang into action with all the agility and ferocity of a young panther. The handle of his cane was a huge knob of carved ivory. He brought it directly on the head of the ruffian in a blow of tremendous force, and as the fellow staggered, Mr. Dootleby grasped the poker, turning it so that its heated end touched his antagonist's arm. Of course, the man loosened his hold, and in an instant more dropped upon the floor. Then ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and in a stentorian tone: "We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right instead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate villain, ever to have ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... sir?" says the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir," replies the doctor, "that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suddenly to have turned to the consideration of household affairs, and a lively widow-vole flirted so outrageously with bachelor Kweek that, having at last fallen a victim to her persistent attentions, he was never happy save in her company. Unfortunately a big ruffian mouse also succumbed to the widow's wiles, and Kweek found himself awkwardly placed. He fought long and stubbornly against his rival, but, unequally matched and sorely scratched and bitten, was at last forced to rustle away in the direction of his burrow as quickly as ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious backhander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... maintained as long as possible, and I seriously trust some steps may speedily be taken for that most desirable object. Should it not be so, then in a short time these kingdoms will fall into the hands of those vile ruffian traders on the White Nile, in the same way as Kaze has been occupied by the Arabs of Zanzibar. To give an instance of the way it most likely will be effected, I will merely state that the king of Unyoro begged me repeatedly ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... than to render assistance. There were no means of apprising the police, or obtaining succour from without. Poor Andres, severely wounded, weak from loss of blood, without arms, and unable to use them had he had any, lay at the mercy of a ruffian intoxicated with rage and jealousy. All this because he had ogled a pretty manola at a bull-fight. It is allowable to suppose that at that moment he regretted the tea-table, piano, and prosaic society of Dona Feliciana de ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... wrong. About those nine lacs of rupees for the Sawab, Finlay was all wrong. Camperdown owns that he was wrong. If, after all, the diamonds were hers, I'm sure I don't know what I am to do. Thank you, Hittaway, for coming over. That'll do for the present. Just leave that ruffian's letter, and I'll ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... fury). Officer, you are a disgrace to your coat! Arrest that man, I say. I would have had the Court cleared long ago, but that I hoped that you would have arrested the ruffian if I gave him a ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... did, and very properly, because I was greatly afraid of a ruffian with a bludgeon and fled accordingly. But I do not fear ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... these," said Theodore, Are they who let the love of wealth absorb All other passions; in their souls that vice Struck deeply-rooted, like the poison-tree That with its shade spreads barrenness around. These, Maid! were men by no atrocious crime Blacken'd, no fraud, nor ruffian violence: Men of fair dealing, and respectable On earth, but such as only for themselves Heap'd up their treasures, deeming all their wealth Their own, and given to them, by partial Heaven, To bless ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... as he stepped into the room. The act of robbery which he found them coolly perpetrating in broad daylight, instantly set his irritable temper in a flame. He rushed at the younger of the two men—being the one nearest to him. The ruffian sprang aside out of his reach; snatched up from the table on which it was lying ready, a short loaded staff of leather called "a life-preserver;" and struck him with it on the head, before he had recovered himself, and could face ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... imagine, much of a critic in such matters. Garrick reports him to have said of an actor at Lichfield, "There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;" when, in fact, said Garrick, "he was the most vulgar ruffian that ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... The ruffian against whom I was pitted began to draw his breath in gasps. He was a scoundrel not fit to die, less fit to live, unworthy of a gentleman's steel. I presently ran him through with as little compunction and as great a desire to be quit of a dirty job as if he had been ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... 1889, and that was, "I cannot and will not allow threats of personal violence to deter me from the regular performance of my judicial duties at the times and places fixed by law. As a judge of the highest court of the country, I should be ashamed to look any man in the face if I allowed a ruffian, by threats against my person, to keep me from holding the regular courts in ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... turn drove the enemy. Slowly and sullenly the Rebels fell back to the hill where James and his friend were lying. There they made a stand, and for half an hour fought desperately, but were at last overborne and forced back again. As they were on the eve of retreating, a tall, ragged ruffian came up to James, and demanded the watch ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... of Falerina was protected by a river, which was crossed by a bridge, kept by a ruffian, who challenged all comers to the combat; and such was his strength that he had thus far prevailed in every encounter, as appeared by the arms of various knights which he had taken from them, and piled up as a trophy on the shore. Rinaldo ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... deep, and the government was afraid. Endicott sent his own doctor, but the surgeon said that Brend's flesh would "rot from off his bones," and he must die. And now the mob grew fierce and demanded justice on the ruffian who had done this deed, and the magistrates nailed a paper on the church door promising ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... the truth, for weeks thereafter, Nan never saw a rough-looking man approach the house on the outskirts of Pine Camp, without fearing that here was coming a ruffian bent on her ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... really believe the stories you hear of this man, I hope," he said to his wife and sister, one morning; "he is some inhuman ruffian, who is disgracing, by his cruelty, the cause which he has joined, for the sake of plunder ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... ear; And orphan-sorrows drew the ready tear. Oft with the babes we wander'd in the wood, Or view'd the forest-feats of Robin Hood: Oft, fancy-led, at midnight's fearful hour, With startling step we seal'd the lonely tower: O'er infant innocence to hang and weep, Murder'd by ruffian hands, when smiling in its sleep. Ye Household Deities! whose guardian eye Mark'd each pure thought, ere register'd on high; Still, still ye walk the consecrated ground, And breathe the soul of Inspiration round. As o'er the dusky furniture I bend, Each chair awakes the feelings of a friend. ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... Scott who called into life the Vigilance Committee which expatriated York's friend, Jack Hamlin; it was York who created the "Sandy Bar Herald," which characterized the act as "a lawless outrage," and Scott as a "Border Ruffian"; it was Scott, at the head of twenty masked men, who, one moonlight night, threw the offending "forms" into the yellow river, and scattered the types in the dusty road. These proceedings were received in the distant and more civilized outlying towns ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the lords of the creation has become very prevalent in England since pugilism has been discountenanced. Now the writer strongly advises any woman who is struck by a ruffian to strike him again; or if she cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... loyally remembering in her excitement, the part she was playing, "Helen, where did you come across that ferocious-looking ruffian? Can't you see he intends to steal your ruecksacks, or—or blackmail you, or something? Is there no man-servant about the place whom the landlady can ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... of the advantages of liberty and equality, and the freedom of a wild life; but let me assure them that the liberty of having one's eye gouged out, the equality which every ruffian claims, and the freedom which allows a man to die without any one to assist him, are practically far from desirable; and yet such are the false phantoms by which many are allured to a land of strangers, away from the home of their countrymen and friends. However, I am ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... popular decisions, too often turns on the great master hinge of party spirit or personal prejudice. Imbecility is bolstered up, and merit blasted by the clamours of an ignorant and corrupt few, who, with roar and ruffian impudence spread their perverted opinions, and at last pass them through the ignorant multitude with the current ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... poor brave old fellow, made one dash at the ruffian as he threatened dad; and, seizing him by the throat, dashed him to ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... passage was thus opened, one of them attempted to enter through it. The heroic Mrs. Merril, in the midst of her screaming and affrighted children, and her groaning suffering husband, seized an axe, gave the ruffian a fatal blow, and [301] instantly drew him into the house. Supposing that their end was now nearly attained, the others pressed forward to gain admittance through the same aperture. Four of them were in like manner despatched by Mrs. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... I would," said the young ruffian, with a grin. "You should ha' given 'em to me at first, and then I shouldn't have hurt yer. Come on; I'll show yer now where yer can ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... what was left of the village with his prisoners and captives, all neatly tied up. Boh Na-ghee was first, and one of the villagers, as soon as he found the old ruffian helpless, began kicking him quietly. The Boh stood it as long as he could, and then groaned, and we saw what was going on. Hicksey tied the villager up and gave him a half a dozen, good, with a bamboo, to remind him to leave a prisoner alone. You should have seen the old Boh grin. Oh! but ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... you've seen for yourself! You've seen how that girl led me on to squander the treasure of a splendid passion on her unresponsive spirit while, all the time, she was abasing herself before a miserable, preposterous scoundrel like that ruffian Butterwick." ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... but for the timely arrival of Achilles Henderson. The giant had heard the boy's warning cry, and being near at hand, rushed to his aid. His arrival was most opportune. He seized the miner in his powerful grasp, and the ruffian, strong and muscular as he was, was like a child in his clutch. His knife fell from his hand, as he was shaken like a reed ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Christian and corsair during the 16th century. While the Christians were slowly collecting their armada, Barbarossa, with a force of 122 galleys, set out to catch his enemy in detail if he could. Pirate as he was, the old ruffian had a clear strategic grasp of what he might do with a force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron had collected in the Gulf of Arta, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... surname of Great—seemingly by comparison; 'Inter caecos luscus rex;' and it was highly creditable to a Roman Emperor in those days to be neither ruffian nor villain, but a handsome, highbred, courteous gentleman, pure in his domestic life, an orthodox Christian, and sufficiently obedient to the Church to forgive the monks who had burnt a Jewish synagogue, and to do penance in the Cathedral of Milan ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... unworthy of Irving, whom, in all his other pieces, I have vastly admired. He completely misconceives his hero. Instead of representing him as, from first to last, a shallow Rousseau sentimentalist, with the proper mixture of vanity, suspicion, and cruelty, he puts into him a great deal too much of the ruffian, which was not ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... permanent residence in Italy. Mrs. Billington realized all her property, and with her jewels and plate, of which she possessed a great quantity, departed for the land of song, taking with her Miss Madocks. She paid a bitter penalty for her revived tenderness toward Felican, for the ruffian subjected her to such treatment that she died from the effects of it, August 25, 1818. In such an ignoble fashion one of the most brilliant and beautiful women in the history of song departed from ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... very easy man, but would work you hard and never allow you any chance night or day; he was a farmer, about fifty, stout, full face, a real country ruffian; member of no church, a great drinker and gambler; will sell a slave as quick as any other slave-holder. He had a great deal of cash, but did not rank high in society. His wife was very severe; hated a colored man to have any comfort ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... honest 'gator hunters, working powerful hard for a mighty poor living," declared the ruffian. "An' you-alls, I reckon one guess will hit it, arter ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... from every window and roaring and shooting high in air from the brush-heaped roof of Moreno's ranch,—there stood the Concord wagon, stalwart men clinging to the heads of the plunging and excited mules, a big ruffian already in the driver's seat, whip and reins in hand; there beside it was the paymaster's ambulance, into which three of the gang were just shoving the green-painted iron safe,—the Pandora's box that had caused all their sorrows; there Moreno's California ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... recurring to me," I whispered. "Halsey, Gertrude probably had your revolver: she must have examined it, anyhow, that night. After you—and Jack had gone, what if that ruffian came back, and ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... French officer, retreating with his four ships, which had had no part in the battle, discharged his broadsides, as he passed, into English vessels no longer capable of pursuit,—conduct which, as the victory was complete, could have no object but that of carnage. Nay, such was the ruffian nature of this man's soul, he fired into the Spanish ships which had yielded to the English, thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy, sacrificing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate friends. The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at this brutality, asked their English ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... our aims are just! Behold, we seek Not merely to preserve for noble wives The virtuous pride of unpolluted lives, To shield our daughters from the ruffian's hand, And leave our sons their heirloom of command, In generous perpetuity of trust; Not only to defend those ancient laws, Which Saxon sturdiness and Norman fire Welded forevermore with freedom's cause, And handed scathless down from sire to sire— Nor yet, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... nineteenth century it became a place of varied amusements, from balloon ascents to comic songs. Dickens visited the place about 1835. The titles of some of the pieces he mentions as having been sung there are real, while others (such as 'Red Ruffian, retire') ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... caution to elude or fortitude to bear the evils to which I was reserved? My present thoughts were, no doubt, indebted for their hue to the similitude existing between these incidents and those of my dream. Surely it was frenzy that dictated my deed. That a ruffian was hidden in the closet was an idea the genuine tendency of which was to urge me to flight. Such had been the effect formerly produced. Had my mind been simply occupied with this thought at present, no doubt the same impulse ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... quite loudly, and another added: "I believe he said something impudent to that gentleman. I saw him go quite white, and look as if he were in two minds about ordering the fellow right out of the grounds." And a third expressed the general opinion that the culprit looked a real ruffian with all that hair on his face. "Might be a gorilla," said the third tourist. "And look what a clumsy sort of walk he ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... rush upon him, and Veyergang, with a cry of "You cowardly ruffian!" returned the blow with his walking-stick right across Nikolai's face, so ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... trying to get on his feet to put an end to the conversation. "I ask your pardon, Mr. Peterson. I forgot he was a friend of yours. But the point is right here. The men don't like him. They've been wanting to strike these three days, just because they don't want to work for that ruffian. I soothed them all I can, but they won't hold in much longer. Mark my words, there'll be a strike on your hands before the week's out unless you do ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... 'What a ruffian!'—(puff)—observed Mr. Waffles, taking his cigar from his mouth as he sat on the bench, dressed as a racket-player, looking on at the game, 'he shalln't ride ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the decalogue, crimes for the most part actuated apparently by no other motive than a monstrously innate thirst for notoriety—and the victims, for the most part, too, have been the innocent and the defenceless. What is the end of this to be? If the police cannot cope with this blood-mad ruffian, is New York to sit idly by and submit to another reign of terror instituted and carried on under the nose of authority by this inhuman jackal? If so, we are committing a crime against ourselves, we are insulting our ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... courting their destruction by a desperate advance at all hazards, as we should have in any case been obliged eventually to renew the difficulty when retracing our route. I therefore cantered in upon my mule, with the guide who always lost his way, Hadji Christo. This man was a great ruffian, and had laws existed for the prevention of cruelty to animals, I would have prosecuted him; nominally he had the charge of the mule and two ponies, but he illtreated these poor animals, and the donkeys also, in a disgraceful manner. However, I had no ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... swaggering ruffian, but he only swore, and reiterated his threats. Then I told him to be gone for an insolent savage, and that if I found him prowling about the Fort again, I should send my men to take charge of him. Thereat his squaws began to jeer, and cut capers; and squatting upon the sod in a row they made mouths, ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... grizzled head bowed and great pearly drops streaming down his rugged cheeks. He was absent—he was probably "Out Back." For similar reasons I have omitted reference to the suspicious moisture in the eyes of a bearded bush ruffian named Bill. Bill failed to turn up, and the only moisture was that which was induced by the heat. I have left out the "sad Australian sunset" because the sun was not going down at the time. The burial took ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... his daughter had received him kindly, and that she had promised to be married the next Sunday. This Katharine denied, saying she would rather see him hanged on Sunday, and reproached her father for wishing to wed her to such a mad-cap ruffian as Petruchio. Petruchio desired her father not to regard her angry words, for they had agreed she should seem reluctant before him, but that when they were alone he had found her very fond and loving; and he said ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... it?" he said calmly, "like something out of a book. Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... than counterbalanced by the determined set of his features, and the keen, calculating glance of his eyes. The latter, particularly, were darkly luminous and lit with an expression of lawless exhilaration as the work proceeded. Compared with his fellows, who were of the well-known type of ruffian, in whom the remoter prairie lands abound, he looked wholly out of place in such a transaction. His air was that of a town-bred man, and his clothing, too, suggested a refinement of tailoring, particularly the rather loose cord ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... If this stranger was accessory to it, she must be satisfied with his fidelity and worth. I observed, did not you, Bianca? that his words were tinctured with an uncommon infusion of piety. It was no ruffian's speech; his phrases were becoming a ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... ill-looking, and squalid, approached the Confessional to reveal some great crime. The confession was very long, so was the admonition of the Cardinal which followed it. The appearance of the Cardinal is particularly dignified and noble, and, as he bent down his head, joining it to that of this ruffian-like figure, listening with extreme patience and attention, and occasionally speaking to him with excessive earnestness, while the whole surrounding multitude stood silently gazing at the scene, all conscious that some great criminal was before them, but none knowing the nature of the crime, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... highly as a counsellor and a good friend. His love letters are among the best on record. He has a wild sense of humor, which enables him to laugh at himself as well as at everybody else. In the eyes of the English visitor now about to be admitted to his presence he may be an outrageous ruffian. In fact he actually is an outrageous ruffian, in no matter whose eyes; but the visitor will find out, as everyone else sooner or later fends out, that he is a man to be reckoned with even by those who are not intimidated by his temper, ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... which I am part owner, and has therefore no need to serve an evil cause. He was born in New Orleans of Northern parents, spent two years in the School of Mines in Paris, and until this wretched war broke out has lived for some years among mining camps and in the ruffian life of the far West. It is a fair chance which side turns up, the ways of the salon, the accuracy of the man of science, or the savagery of the Rockies. You will ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... Winter passes off Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, And Winter oft ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... united in the ultimate essential, and this was put by a great exponent of the best known school of etiquette, the Ogasawara, in the following terms: "The end of all etiquette is to so cultivate your mind that even when you are quietly seated, not the roughest ruffian can dare make onset on your person." It means, in other words, that by constant exercise in correct manners, one brings all the parts and faculties of his body into perfect order and into such harmony with ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... reckon you'd say," he interrupted uneasily. "Maybe not, but a ruffian's got his instincts too. When he's afraid of hurting someone, he ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... face. Perhaps pain and terror quickened his intelligence, but certainly at that moment the whole business flashed across him in another light; and he saw that there was nothing for it but to accede to the ruffian's proposal, and trust to find the house and force him to disgorge, under more favorable circumstances, and when he himself was clear from ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... He unfurls the umbrella in the face of the bull or dog, and the brute turns round quite scared, and runs away. Or if a footpad asks him for his money, what need he care provided he has an umbrella? He threatens to dodge the ferrule into the ruffian's eye, and the fellow starts back and says, "Lord, sir! I meant no harm. I never saw you before in all my life. I merely meant a little fun." Moreover, who doubts that you are a respectable character provided you ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... of having such an angel," replied the old man, "but unless you were a cruel and a heartless ruffian, you would not at this moment mention her, or bring the thoughts of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... management of the property, and who had the writings in his possession, determining, by one bold stroke, to strip Darnford of the succession,] had planned his confinement; and [as soon as he had taken the measures he judged most conducive to his object, this ruffian, together with his instrument,] the keeper of the private mad-house, left the kingdom. Darnford, who still pursued his enquiries, at last discovered that they had fixed their place of ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... a few before M. Gaston Paris had published his views, I read these two forms of the story in the valuable joint edition, verse and prose, of M. Jonckbloet, which some ruffian (may Heaven not assoil him!) has since stolen or hidden from me. And I said then to myself, "There is no doubt which of these is the original." Thirty years later, with an unbroken critical experience ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... space here with an account of him, but he did, after this first meeting, in some sort attach himself to me. I never learned his name nor where he lived; he was I should suppose an absolutely abominable plunderer and pirate and ruffian. He would appear suddenly in my room, stand by the door and talk—but talk with the ignorance, naivete, brutal simplicity of an utterly abandoned baby. Nothing mystical or beautiful about the Rat. He did not disguise from me in the least that there was no crime that he had not committed—murder, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... a pin from his sleeve, the ruffian plunged it deeply into the poor creature's flesh. Nance winced, but she set her teeth hardly, and repressed the cry that must otherwise have been wrung ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the chief) at once gave the reins to his ruffian tyranny; and the keen eye of Soto saw that he who had fawned with him the day before, would next day rule him with an iron rod. Prompt in his actions as he was penetrating in his judgment, he had ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... is truly pale, And colder than the rude and ruffian air That howls into her ear a horrid tale Of storm and wreck, and uttermost despair, Saying, "Leander floats amid the surge, And those are dismal waves that ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... concierge had once more gone within; there was no one abroad, and if there were, no one probably would take any notice of a burly ruffian brow-beating ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... gentleman, who repressed him: but when he gets out of the sight of his tutor, I'll warrant you he'll spare no woman he meets, young or old."' 'No, sir,' I replied, 'she'll say, "There was a terrible ruffian who would have forced me, had it not been for a civil decent young man who, I take it, was an angel sent from heaven to ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... placed the light on the table, opened the outer door, went down two or three of the steps which led from the house to the road, and began to whistle for his companions. The girl (who had hitherto had presence of mind enough to remain perfectly quiet) now jumped up, rushed behind the ruffian, and pushed him down the steps. She then shut the door, locked it, and ran upstairs to try and wake the family, but without success: calling, shouting, and shaking were alike in vain. The poor girl was in despair, for she heard the traveller and his comrades outside the house. So she ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... caught her breath quickly. She knew the big ruffian's methods, and with good reason feared for her old friend, should he even unconsciously incur the ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters, still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his guillotine! These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as they went; but can they ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... he answered, with a satanic grin. She sought to escape by him with the loud cry that Dennis heard, but the ruffian planted his big grimy hand in the delicate frill of her night-robe where it clasped her throat, and with a coarse laugh said: "Not so ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... my host. The Baluch saddle consists simply of two sharp pieces of wood bound together by leathern thongs, and the exchange was by no means a welcome one so far as I was concerned. Had it cut me in two, however, I would have borne it, if only to punish this boorish ruffian for his insolence of yesterday. Malak's chief failing was evidently vanity, and he was very reluctant, even for an hour, to cede the place of ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... came and went quickly, as though he would have been well enough pleased to begin the bone-breaking business at once. Theobald turned of an ashen colour—not, as he explained afterwards, at the idle threats of a detected and angry ruffian, but at such atrocious insolence from one of his ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... nervousness. So when Dr. Losberne came, and begged them to accompany him to the patient's room, they dreaded to comply with the request, but finally yielded to his demand. What was their astonishment when the bed-curtains were drawn aside, instead of a black-visaged ruffian, to see a mere child, worn with pain, and sunk into a deep sleep. His wounded arm bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast. His head reclined upon the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed over ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat. "There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles—a builder— who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... thus addressed, but no one was in sight. A moment later, however, Diether sprang up from a ditch, seized the frightened boy, and ran back toward the mill. The girl had but little time in which to decide on a course of action. If she barricaded herself in the mill, might not the ruffian slay the child? On the other hand, if she waited to meet him, she had no assurance that he would not kill them both. So she retired to the mill, locked the door, and awaited what fate had in store for her. In vain the robber threatened to kill the child and ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... to them, while they ranged in a solid line, shoulder to shoulder, men, women, children. And then Larry la Roche went down the line with a saddlebag and took up the collection. "Passin' the hat so often has give me a religious touch, ladies and gents," Andrew heard the ruffian say. "Any little contributions I'm sure grateful for, and, if anything's held back, I'm apt to frisk the gent that don't fork over. Hey, you, what's that lump inside your coat? Lady, don't lie. I seen you drop it inside your dress. Why, it's ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... frozen with terror. Ali raised his whip to strike the ruffian who had spoken so flippantly of Monte-Cristo's daughter, but the indignant mute was instantly overpowered and ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... condoling with the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum to read the list, and finding himself among the proscribed, cried out, "Woe is me, my Alban farm has informed against me." He had not gone far, before he was dispatched by a ruffian, sent on that errand. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... morning Gon lay before the house door, basking in the sun. He looked lazily at the world stretched out before him, and saw in the distance a big ruffian of a cat teasing and ill-treating quite a little one. He jumped up, full of rage, and chased away the big cat, and then he turned to comfort the little one, when his heart nearly burst with joy to find that it was Koma. At first Koma did not know him again, he had grown so ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... offensively and violently to Dr. Samuel, who replied heartily enough—'I received your foolish and impudent letter ...I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian ...I thought your book an imposture. I think so still. Your rage I defy,' etc. etc. What was all this to Runciman? He had no learning—he cared nothing for antiquarianism. He took for granted that Ossian was ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... of the Inferior Doors of the Palace] the Steward of Admetus: he has stolen away to get a moment's respite from the hateful hilarity of this strange visitor—some ruffian or robber he supposes—on whom his office has condemned him to wait, and thereby to miss paying the last offices to a mistress who has been more like a mother to him. The guest has been willing to enter, and though he saw the mourning of the household, he did not allow ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... show me, villain? What! I warrant me, you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, "We'll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond)." And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. "Ah, rogue!" he proceeded, "you can roar now, marauder; you were silent enough when you ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... I must have been more than human to resist taking her part. I was in a hot rage, as it was, and I did not hesitate an instant. I shot out with my right arm—a straight, hard blow from the shoulder that took the ruffian between the eyes. He reeled and fell ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe he used to be the most thieving old ruffian of a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... around them, and sometimes casting a reproachful glance at the slowly plodding horse. One of the two was an old man, of fine, aristocratic presence, which the coarse clothes he wore could not disguise. The other was a low ruffian, with swollen face and bleared eyes, in the dress of a butcher. Between the two, except that they were on their way to death, there was nothing in common. Till to-day they had never met, and after to-day they ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... was the work of a very few seconds. Now what was my chief doing? Seeing a row going on, he was dismounting; in fact, was half-way off his horse, only one foot in the stirrup, when the man made the rush at him. Finding me stuck to my saddle (for the ruffian's knife had gone through my coat and pinned me), and the fellow snapping my gun, which was pointed at him, he as coolly as possible put his gun over his horse's shoulder and shot the would-be murderer dead on the spot. Then turning to me he said ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... if he can? Are we to delay every time that lazy ruffian spying a shadow makes it an excuse to stop to yawn and scratch? Go on, you plankful of lubbers, or I'll give you something worth thinking about!" And joyfully, oh, so joyfully, we heard the sullen dip of ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... most palatial of the lot. The old ruffian is as rich as Croesus. It's a country-place ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... I was cursed for writing! When it came out no word was bad enough for me! I was a blackguard, a ruffian and an atheist! You will live to have as great a contempt for literary critics and the public as ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill's, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult game she ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... woefully unlike to those of the bold, lion-like scout of former days, he told how he had fainted and fallen on the breast of his master, how he had lain all night on the battle-field among the dead and dying, how he had been stripped and left for dead by the ruffian followers of the camp, and how at last he had been found and rescued by one of the ambulance-wagons of the ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ten-Million-Dollar Railroad Show; but since that organisation fell into the hands of the sheriff at Red Oak Junction, Iowa, I have been unsuccessful in tracing his movements. Nor can I at this time furnish you with the names and exact addresses of the bearded ruffian in the long blue blouse, the porter of the hotel, the warder of the dungeons, or the others implicated in those culminating outrages of which I was the innocent victim. Repeatedly have I written the mayor of the town of Abbevilliers, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... lay hid till he had heard all Nancy said; then he slipped out and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back to Fagin. The latter sent for Bill Sikes, knowing him to be the most brutal and bloodthirsty ruffian of all, and told ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... gave him a few kicks with their heavy boots, and he lay like a log on the floor, until the ruffian named "Roaring John" picked him up and threw him into the next room. The incident was forgotten at once, and Captain ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... impressively, in the darkness amidships: "You don't deserve a kindness. I've been drying them for you, and now you complain about the holes—and you swear, too! Right in front of me! If I hadn't been a Christian—which you ain't, you young ruffian—I would give you a clout on the head.... Go away!" Men in couples or threes stood pensive or moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of a homeward passage was sinking into the dull ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... useful a member of society as you might find in a day's journey, and obnoxious only to political opponents, who fear him more than he dislikes them, is called a 'liar,' a 'coward,' and a 'heartless ruffian.' He is nothing of the kind; he is proudly conscious of this fact; his accusers do not even believe it; the world—that portion of it in which he moves—is satisfied that he is a remarkable instance of truth, of courage, and extreme tenderness of spirit. The revilers have made a great mistake ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... Now the boy presses fiendishly on an intimate discovery in the nature of his friends, both because it gives him a new and delightful feeling of power over them, and also because he has not learned charity from a sense of his deficiencies, the brave ruffian having none. He is always coming back to probe the raw place, and Barbie boys were always coming back to "do a gunk" and "play a chaw" on young Gourlay by boasting their knowledge of the world, winking at each other the while to observe his grinning anger. They ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... to the people over there that one should take the law into one's own hands in such an exceptional case. You might do that, Evelyn, for the sake of the Society. The people over here don't know what a ruffian he is, and how he is beyond the ordinary reach of the law, or how the poor people have groaned under his iniquities. Don't seek to justify me; I shall be beyond the reach of excuse or execration by that time; but you might break the shock, don't you see?—you might explain a ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... this assault," stormed Mr. Drayne, applying a handkerchief to the bruised spot under his eye. "Both you and Prescott—-your ruffian ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... impossible to set 'em sideways. If it was possible, the blamed printers could do it, you bet. When I was writing leaders on the Saxville Citizen years ago there was a ruffian up in the composing-room who used to set whole paragraphs of my best editorials in em quads, and when I kicked,—Hello, isn't that ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... to keep these things entirely to himself; adding that it was quite necessary for his Majesty to learn in this manner what were the real dispositions of the gentlemen of the provinces. It was also stated in the same letter, that a ruffian Genoese, who had been ordered out of the Netherlands by the Regent, because of a homicide he had committed, was kept at Weert, by Count Horn, for the purpose of murdering ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... table to avoid the first thrust; but as Gryphus continued, with horrid threats, to brandish his huge knife, and as, although out of the reach of his weapon, yet, as long as it remained in the madman's hand, the ruffian might fling it at him, Cornelius lost no time, and availing himself of the stick, which he held tight under his arm, dealt the jailer a vigorous blow on the wrist of that ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... cette affaire. The brothers Desbouleaux were drowned by night in the Canale Orfano, pour ne point ebruiter l'affaire; and the instructions sent to the Admiral who was to drown Pierre were to fulfil his commission avec le moins de bruit possible. Accordingly that ruffian, and forty-five of his accomplices, were drowned at once sans bruit. Interrogatoire des Accuses, translated by Daru, vol. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... as we were slowly sailing along towards the Grand Cayman, Gaskell came crawling up the steps leading to the half-deck, and tottered along towards me. I was appalled at the change which a single night had made in his appearance. The defiant, rollicking ruffian no longer stood before me; the sneer was no longer on his countenance, his eyes no longer sparkled with mischief, and his language was not interlarded with disgusting profanity. His eyes were glassy, his cheeks ghastly pale, and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... "Here comes the young ruffian!" said Mrs. Badger as soon as he came within hearing distance. "Here comes the wicked boy who tried to kill my ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... wherby to conueie to chast eares, som fond or filthie taulke: And if som Smithfeild Ruffian take vp, som strange going: som new mowing with the mouth: som wrinchyng with the shoulder, som braue prouerbe: som fresh new othe, that is not stale, but will rin round in the mouth: som new disguised garment, or desperate hat, fond in facion, or gaurish in colour, what soeuer it cost, ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... miserable situation imaginable. They could not remain in their own houses or convents for want of subsistence; if they went abroad in quest of maintenance, they were dismounted, robbed of their horses and clothes, abused by every ruffian, and no redress could be obtained by them for the most violent injury. The primate himself was attacked on the highway, was stripped of his equipage and furniture, and was at last reduced to board himself with a single servant in the house of a country ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... in, and, throwing his window open, remained there a long time, his figure outlined against the lighted room for the benefit of the dark square below, his hands in his pockets, his head down, a reflective frown about his eyes. A half-intoxicated old ruffian, a policeman, and a man in a straw hat had stopped below, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... de Fontanges inquired, with an air of anxiety very remarkable in a Frenchman, how she had been treated. "Il n'y a pas de mal, mon ami," replied Madame de Fontanges. This was a Jesuitical sort of answer, and M. de Fontanges required further particulars. "Elle avait temporise" with the ruffian, with the faint hope of that assistance which had so opportunely and unexpectedly arrived. M. de Fontanges was satisfied with his wife's explanation; and such being the case, what passed between Jackson and Madame de ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... This would satisfy him there was no further danger. Besides, these were not men to be easily frightened at sight of a dead body, even that of their own captain. They might hesitate, discuss, but they would never flee in panic. Surely not with that ruffian Estada yet alive to lead them, and the knowledge that fifty thousand pounds was yonder in that unguarded house, with no one to protect the treasure but two old men asleep, and the women. The women!—Dorothy! What would become ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Scoundrel! Ruffian! Why do you go sniffin' around me now! Who are you? What has I done? You stuck to my heels! You followed me an' baited me an' snapped at me ... Rascal ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... replied the ruffian, "I am at your service. Tell me the name of the fellow who has wronged you and I will kill him right off. I would kill Jesus Christ ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... said above that this affair of Lord Lufton's was ended, but it now appeared to Mark that it was not quite ended. "Tell Lufton, you know," said Sowerby, "that every bit of paper with his name has been taken up, except what that ruffian Tozer has. Tozer may have one bill, I believe,—something that was not given up when it was renewed. But I'll make my lawyer Gumption get that up. It may cost ten pounds or twenty pounds, not more. You'll remember that when you see Lufton, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Roman antiquities; among which is a triumphal arch of the time of Augustus, and an arcade called the Romulus. It was at Rheims where the holy ampoule, or oil for consecrating the Kings of France was kept—who were usually crowned here. A Jacobin ruffian, of the name of Ruht, destroyed this ampoule during the revolution. This act was ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... him no more makes a man a good man, than the faculties of making money, making speeches, making books, or making a noise about public abuses. And of all ruffians, the worst, if history is to be trusted, is the ruffian on a horse; to whose brutality of mind is superadded the brute power of his beast. A ruffian on a horse—what is there that he will not ride over, and ride on, careless and proud of his own shame? When the ancient chivalry of France descended to that level, or rather ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... me at once from the society of my brother (I'm afraid I cared much more about losing him than for the Turnours' loss of their Aigle) I was impelled to run down in my nightgown and mules to do battle single-handed with the ruffian; but suddenly, before I had quite decided, out went the light in the blue-curtained glass cage. In another instant the car door opened, and Jack Dane quietly ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... eyes, "so! it was only a fancy. And yet—even now, as he turned away, I saw the same cold insolence in his eye. Caramba! Am I mad—mad—that I must keep forever before my eyes, night and day, the image of that dog in every outcast, every ruffian, every wayside bully that I meet? No, no, good Pereo! Softly! this is mere madness, good Pereo," he murmured to himself; "thou wilt have none of it; none, good Pereo. Come, come!" He let his head fall slowly forward on his breast, and in that action, seeming to take up again the burden ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... cuirass! What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian wished ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... trusting creatures of their treasure, or do any thing to strip them of their native robe of virtue? Curst be the impious hand that would dare to violate the unblemished form of Chastity! Thou wretch! thou ruffian! forbear; nor venture to provoke heaven's fiercest vengeance." I know not any comment that can be made seriously on this curious passage, and I could produce many similar ones; and some, so very sentimental, that I have heard rational men use the word indecent, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... you propose," answered the young nobleman. "I am sensible the Major will be unable to bring the mutineers to reason; and I tremble to think of the consequences, should the ladies and the brave old man be delivered up to this bloodthirsty ruffian, Burley." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... car, me and my liver—my liver is my worst enemy; terrible things, livers; is life really worth the liver?—I sat down and paid my fare to a burly ruffian in a grimy uniform. ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... in the nineteenth century it became a place of varied amusements, from balloon ascents to comic songs. Dickens visited the place about 1835. The titles of some of the pieces he mentions as having been sung there are real, while others (such as 'Red Ruffian, retire') appear ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... who had a more ruffian-like face, or a more ragged coat than my own; so fearful was I of being thought good-looking enough to be noticed. More particularly I dreaded the approach of the widow's servants, for although I was dying to know if any of them were of my acquaintance, yet I carefully turned ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... together, though by now they're asleep. Are the peasants here worth such kindness, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or the girls either? To spend a sum like that on such coarseness and rudeness! What's the good of giving a peasant a cigar to smoke, the stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I'll get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that. They've only just gone to bed, I'll give them a kick and set them singing for you. You gave the peasants champagne to drink ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Redfield, generally called Cousin Redfield, or Reddie. Mr. Crow once told us about some of his little-boy adventures, as you may remember. Well, I found Cousin Redfield and told him what had happened, and he said he would go with me and help me fight that spread-shouldered ruffian, and asked me what were his weak points. I said I hadn't noticed any, and we decided that we wouldn't bother with him, and went to visit a honey-tree that Cousin Redfield had found and thought of robbing, some night. I said I didn't think ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... been behaving like a young ruffian," said Mr. Davis, who felt that he must make out a strong case to justify him in dismissing Robert from ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... turf, with some red soil underneath but speak to her, or give her a cat to deal with, be it bigger than herself, and what an incarnation of affection, energy, and fury—what a fell unquenchable little ruffian. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... most part actuated apparently by no other motive than a monstrously innate thirst for notoriety—and the victims, for the most part, too, have been the innocent and the defenceless. What is the end of this to be? If the police cannot cope with this blood-mad ruffian, is New York to sit idly by and submit to another reign of terror instituted and carried on under the nose of authority by this inhuman jackal? If so, we are committing a crime against ourselves, we ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... with a Christian name, Buy what is woman born, and feel no shame? Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead Experience as a warrant for the deed? So may the wolf whom famine has made bold, To quit the forest and invade the fold: So may the ruffian, who, with ghostly glide, Dagger in hand, steals close to your bedside; Not he, but his emergence forced the door— He found it inconvenient to be poor. Has God then given its sweetness to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... far the finest and smartest at the jetty, and woe betide the unwitting 'bow' who touched her glossy varnished side with his boat-hook. For him a wet swab was kept in readiness, and their stroke, a burly ruffian, was always willing to attend to the little affair if it went any farther. Our Captains came down in batches, as a rule, and there would be great clatter of oars and shipping of rowlocks as their boats hauled alongside to take them off. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... less by the exasperation, by the authority in the speaker's tone, than by the fact that the entire complexion of the affair had changed. The ruffian, who had entered so confidently, was no longer the aggressor; a mere look, a word, a gesture from this aged, unknown person had put him upon the defensive. More extraordinary still was the fact that his power of ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window—an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward—it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... ye;' then, going down on my knees before his Holiness, I said, 'Arrah, now, your Holiness! will ye not see justice done to a poor boy who has been sadly misused? The pack of cards which that old ruffian has in his hand are my cards, which he has taken from me, in order to chate with. Arrah! don't play with him, your Holiness, for he'll only chate ye—there are dirty marks upon the cards which bear the trumps, put there in order to know them by; and the ould thaif in ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... an amoeba as well as that of the Lord of Hosts! I'm a small man—a little G.P. in an obscure Highland village in rather shabby tweed knickerbockers and Inverness cape (yes, the same ones—still no new clothes! What would be the use in wasting money on adorning an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him. The point was not what I was wanting to know about. I was wanting, very much, to have a ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... would have the wicked reign, Instead of help will find his bane. The Doves had oft escaped the Kite, By their celerity of flight; The ruffian then to coz'nage stoop'd, And thus the tim'rous race he duped: "Why do you lead a life of fear, Rather than my proposals hear? Elect me for your king, and I Will all your race indemnify." They foolishly the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... she had abandoned this very arm and hand to the white-haired ruffian. It rendered me gloomy and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... etc. all in the open streets. We see every hour, such comical, indescribable appalling sights; such strange figures, such wild physiognomies, picturesque dresses, attitudes and groups—and eyes—no! I never saw such eyes before, as I saw to-day, half languor and half fire, in the head of a ruffian Lazzarone, and a ragged Calabrian beggar girl. They would have embrase half London ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... observed the girl coming towards them, and were evidently preparing some plan for accosting her. When she was only about fifty yards away, two of them walked to a distance, leaving the third and biggest ruffian to waylay her. He did so, but without success; she passed him and continued her walk ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... pen of Homer (though they say he never used one), or even that of the worthy who wasted precious years in writing a Homer Burlesqued, what heroic exploits might not I immortalise! In every stupid serf and cunning ruffian there, there was a heart as brave as Ajax's own; but then they fought with sticks instead of lances, and hammered away on fustian jackets instead of brazen shields; and, therefore, poor fellows, they were beneath 'the dignity of poetry,' whatever that may mean. If one of your squeamish ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... shooting or something," whispered the boy, "and that old ruffian's laughing and pointing up at the ceiling to tell them he has got us safe. Oh, murder in Irish!" continued the boy. "He's took up the lamp and he's showing them the way. Here, Private Gray, try and pull yourself together and ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... They then advance to the Junior Warden (who represents JUBELA, one of the ruffians), who exclaims, "Who comes here?" [The room is dark, or the candidate hoodwinked.] The conductor answers, "Our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff." "Our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff!" exclaims the ruffian, "he is the very man I wanted to see (seizing the candidate by the throat at the same time, and jerking him about with violence); give me the Master Mason's word, or I'll take your life." The conductor replies, "I cannot give it now, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... we come in," said Lord Grosville, when, with more digressions and more plainness of speech with regard to his quondam sister-in-law than can be here reproduced, he had brought his story to this point. "Blackwater—the old ruffian—when he was dying had a moment of remorse. He wrote to my wife and asked her to look after his girls, 'For God's sake, Lina, see if you can help Alice—Wensleydale's a perfect brute.' That was the first light we had on the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know it: You'll keep to your island, and stick to the poet. And he for his part Will practice his art With a patriot heart, With the honest views That he now pursues, And fair buffoonery and abuse: Not rashly bespattering, or basely beflattering, Not pimping, or puffing, or acting the ruffian; Not sneaking or fawning; But openly scorning All menace and warning, All bribes and suborning: He will do his endeavor on your behalf; He will teach you to think, he will teach you to laugh. So Cleon again and again may try; I value him not, nor ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... women. Some stagger. All blaspheme. Men with rings in their ears instead of their nose; and blotches of breast-pin. Pictures on the wall cut out of the Police Gazette. A slush of beer on floor and counter. A pistol falls out of a ruffian's pocket. By the gas-light a knife flashes. Low songs. They banter, and jeer, and howl, and vomit. An awful goal, to which hundreds of people better ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... which Burr had asked the way, Perkins stayed outside with the horses, and the sheriff went into the house. He was going to arrest a bold bad man, and it would be a great feather in his cap. So in he marched feeling very firm and grand, expecting to find a terrible ruffian of a fellow. But instead of a terrible ruffian the sheriff found a pleasant, delightful gentleman, and a brilliant talker. So the poor sheriff's heart failed him. He really could not arrest this charming gentleman, and instead he stayed ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... blinking the fact," she said straight out, "that Francie is no better than she should be. I can't understand it; no Pennycuick that ever I heard of took that line before. She has a dog's life with that ruffian, no doubt; and of course the poor child never had a chance to enjoy the right thing in the right way—though that ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... improvement and literary industry there was still nothing great or original, nothing to mark an epoch in the history of letters. The only poets worthy of notice were Charles, Duke of Orleans (1391-1465), and Villon, a low ruffian of Paris (1431-1500). Charles was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and carried to England, where he was detained for twenty-five years, and where he wrote a volume of poems in which he imitated the allegorical style of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... get out of my sight, you ruffian!" exclaimed the little servant, as she looked at him with laughter in her eyes, in ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... mother," screamed the boy. The ruffian caught the saree with a fearful oath and turning on him said: "Now I can deal with you. I will fetch a brick from yonder kiln and pound the breath out of you," With these words he strode forward, tying the jewels in the saree as he went. Now her sorely-tried nerves gave way, and, ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... There happened to be a goodly supply of arms on the Spanish ship in addition to those the buccaneers had brought with them, which were all distributed. Many a steel cap destined for some proud Spanish hidalgo's head now covered the cranium of some rude ruffian whom the former would have despised ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... take up much space here with an account of him, but he did, after this first meeting, in some sort attach himself to me. I never learned his name nor where he lived; he was I should suppose an absolutely abominable plunderer and pirate and ruffian. He would appear suddenly in my room, stand by the door and talk—but talk with the ignorance, naivete, brutal simplicity of an utterly abandoned baby. Nothing mystical or beautiful about the Rat. He did not disguise from me in the least that there was no crime that he had not ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... in sight. A moment later, however, Diether sprang up from a ditch, seized the frightened boy, and ran back toward the mill. The girl had but little time in which to decide on a course of action. If she barricaded herself in the mill, might not the ruffian slay the child? On the other hand, if she waited to meet him, she had no assurance that he would not kill them both. So she retired to the mill, locked the door, and awaited what fate had in store for her. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Skylights); and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed, so to speak, without offence, and was the only Nonconformist in Hook's crew; and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on backwards; and Robt. Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian long known and feared on the ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... low, vulgar, border ruffian, had what even the lowest of his kind generally appear to possess: a lingering sense of respect for a good woman. Until the night of the attack upon her by the hoboes in the railroad yard, he had never dared to presume ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... from his sleeve, the ruffian plunged it deeply into the poor creature's flesh. Nance winced, but she set her teeth hardly, and repressed the cry that must otherwise have been ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he continued, "is a suit of clothes such as habitues of 'The Pidgin House' rejoice to wear. I, who have studied disguise almost as deeply as the great Willy Clarkson, will transform you into a perfect ruffian. It is important, you understand, that someone should be inside the house of Ah-Fang-Fu, as otherwise by means of some secret exit the man we seek may escape. I believe that he contemplates departing at any moment, and I believe that the visit of Miguel means that what I may term the masters ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... not," said Albert. "The ruffian can't have left the ruins—We'll dig him out of some hole ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... self-assumed by men who have abolished all other titles; and who have disgraced and debased the former denomination, and under the latter have enjoined triple perjuries, and at last cannot fix on any code which should exact more forswearing. I own I am pleased that that ruffian pedant Condorcet's new constitution was too clumsy and unwieldy to go down the throats of those who have swallowed every thing else. I did but just cast my eyes on the beginning and end, and was so lucky as to observe the hypocrite's contradiction: he sets out with declaration ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... been the fate of Swanevelt or of me, had the brute got hold of us," said the Major; "I never saw such a malignant, diabolical expression in any animal's countenance as there was upon that buffalo's. A lion is, I should say, a gentleman and man of honour compared to such an evil-disposed ruffian." ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Hamdi," Pasquale continued. "He was the politest old ruffian that ever had a long nose and ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... "Yes, and the ruffian may open on you again at any moment," warned Jack, keeping an anxious glance turned in the direction whence came the disturbing ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... is certain that he will scheme night and day for vengeance. When the report gets abroad of his cock-and-bull story, and the true history of the loss of his teeth, he will not be able to show his face in public for some time; but he will be none the less dangerous. Through that notorious ruffian, Captain Copper, he can dispose of half the cutthroats about the town, and I should advise you not to go out after dark until you have put the seas between you and him, and even then you had better be cautious ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... proceed By reasonable rules, and choose a breed For profit and increase, at any price: Of a sound stock, without defect or vice. But, in the daily matches that we make, The price is everything: for money's sake, Men marry: women are in marriage given The churl or ruffian, that in wealth has thriven, May match his offspring with the proudest race: Thus everything is mix'd, noble and base! If then in outward manner, form, and mind, You find us a degraded, motley kind, Wonder no more, my friend! the cause is plain, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the ship you wouldn't let him go out in—and the whole thing fitted in! Of course he had told the old ruffian—saving his presence elsewhere—all about the forbidden voyage; and that gentleman of genius had it ready for immediate use. I'm bound to say he used it ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... Kathinka's despairing cry, and had hastened to protect her. A rapid glance made the situation clear to him and he at once prepared to attack the Governor's son. But the priest had forestalled him. With a yell of rage, Mikail threw himself upon the young ruffian and the two were instantly engaged in a desperate combat. Loris was inspired by passion and revenge; the priest was moved by a feeling which he could not himself analyze. The hatred which he bore Loris broke ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... Lightmark was painting her. It's certainly a striking likeness, and that's what astonished me, you know. Almost like seeing a ghost. Ah, that little fellow used to sit for Lightmark in Rome—little sunburnt ruffian. We picked him up on the Ghetto, almost starving, and he got quite an artistic connection before we left. He was positively growing too fat; prosperity ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... enjoyable. When we clattered into the cobbled street, we found a solitary Bashi-Bazouk armed with a Winchester repeating rifle. Him, the sergeant of my escort questioned. "Had he fired a shot lately?" "Evvet," said the insolent ruffian, with a grin, answering in the affirmative. "What had he fired at?" asked the sergeant. "A small bird," was the answer. "Had he fired in the direction of the highway?" the sergeant asked him again. "Evvet," once more. "And ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... knew not why,— Christ told you to give it, and to Him you gave. That night watch beside the bed of a woman as fallen as yourself,—Christ bade you watch, and you watched by Him. For that drunken ruffian, whom you, a drunken ruffian yourself, leaped into the sea to save, Christ bade you leap, and like St. Christopher of old, you bore, though you knew it not, your Saviour and your God to land." And if they shall make answer, "And who ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the ruffian. "But don't attempt to break it, or I shall put an end to you as well ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... the Cyclops told about Odysseus? It is absolutely out of keeping, and it puzzles commentators. In fact, here was a hero and there was a tale, and the tale was attracted into the cycle of the hero; the very last man to have behaved as Odysseus is made to do. {34} But Cronos was an odious ruffian. The world-wide tale of swallowing and disgorging the children was attracted to his too notorious name 'by grace of congruity.' Does Professor Tiele now grasp my ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... scoundrel who has been with his gang committing all sorts of atrocities in Galway, has made the place too hot for him at last, and is reported to have made his way down to the south coast, somewhere in this direction; and we are ordered to keep a sharp lookout for him. He is an unmitigated ruffian, and a desperate one. He has shot several constables who have tried to capture him, and as he has three or four men with him nearly as bad as himself I expect we shall have some trouble with him. There has been a reward of a hundred pounds for his capture for ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... under the heavy rattan which he or his brother always held. I myself—infant as I was—for not learning a spelling-lesson properly, was subjected to a caning which would have been cruel if inflicted on a convict or sailor. In the lower story this man's sister kept a girls' school, and the ruffian was continually being called downstairs to beat the larger girls. My mother knew nothing of all this, and I was ashamed to tell that I had been whipped. I have all my life been opposed to corporal punishment, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the public headsman was entrusted with the duty, and for a "nose medicine," or bribe of two bus (about three shillings), would substitute the weapon of a private individual for that of his Lord. Dogs and beggars, lying helpless by the roadside, not unfrequently serve to test a ruffian's sword; but the executioner earns many a fee from those who wish to see how their blades ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Here in County Galway they have not come to that as yet. There is not a county in all Ireland in which such a deed could be done," said Mr. Blake, standing up for his country. "Are you to let this ruffian pass unpunished while you have the power of convicting him? I think that you are bound to punish him. For the sake of your country you ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... coming to business. One day I was in a bad temper, because you would not come home, and when some one mentioned you at the officers' cafe, I could not refrain from casting a doubt on the possibility of one man's uniting so many good qualities. Then a ruffian replied with a slap in the face: I confess I was not prepared for this; but my cheek deserved it—why had it not kept my tongue quiet? I was as sorry as a dog that I ventured to let fall a disrespectful ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious backhander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had molested my tranquillity. I had made no preparation for defense. What was it that suggested the design of perusing my father's manuscript? If, instead of this, I had retired to bed and to sleep, to what fate might I not have been reserved. The ruffian, who must almost have suppressed his breathings to screen himself from discovery, would have noticed this signal, and I should have awakened only to perish with affright, and to abhor myself. Could I have remained unconscious of my danger? Could I have ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... river from Lewiston to the Canadian side, some wag at Queenston will take up the cry through the dark and bawl back, "All's well here too"; and all night long the two sentries bawl back and forward to each other through the dark. Sometimes, too, though strictest orders are issued against such ruffian warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by rat-tat-too of Lewiston, though river mist ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... screw loose in my intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theater, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth and somewhat rasping voce di petti, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... hand-to-hand conflict. But Grace felt her heart sink a little as she saw the round and rather pursy form of her natural protector walk away into the depths of a mirror at the forward end of the car, and so vanish. And in this same mirror she beheld, seated only two sections behind her, the scowling ruffian! ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... captain Mario, a bigoted Roman catholic, and a desperate ruffian, to undertake the enterprise. He, therefore, obtained leave to raise a regiment in the following six towns: Lucerne, Borges, Famolas, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... our four friends were standing near the venerable image of Saint Peter, and a squalid, savage-looking peasant, a tattered ruffian of the most orthodox Italian aspect, had been performing his devotions before it. He turned away, crossing himself, and Mrs. Hudson gave a little ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... didn't know him as I did; yet I was put out, for I thought his bold glances would have made her angry. But my dear Flavia was a woman, and so—she was not put out. On the contrary, she thought young Rupert very handsome—as, beyond question, the ruffian was. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... despised the fewer inches of the owner. But between spirits of earth and spirits of the skies there is but one issue to the conflict, and Blake "laid hold of the intrusive blackguard, and turned him out neck and crop, in a kind of inspired frenzy." The astonished ruffian made good his retreat, but in revenge reported sundry words that exasperation had struck from his conqueror. The result was a trial for high treason at the next Quarter Sessions. Friends gathered about him, testifying to his previous character; nor was Blake himself at all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... earth among you could you let George marry the daughter of a low-bred ruffian like that,—a man that never ought to have been allowed to put his ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... all about that afterwards," said Dennis grimly. "I'm going to save you now." And, cutting the cord, he threw the knife into the basin and proceeded to make a slip-knot. "We must make this old ruffian secure first." ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... was a man of stalwart proportions, and Christy realized that he was no match for him in a hand to hand encounter, even with the aid of the steward, for the ruffian would not fail to use ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... I, coming on deck, "and I am witness that you tried to save me, until you were struck senseless by that ruffian, Fleming, who threw me overboard, that I might not give evidence as to the silver and gold which I found in the cabin; and which I overheard him tell you must be put into sacks and sunk, as two ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vengeance wreaked by a villainous Neapolitan street loafer upon a woman who has played him false—a vengeance which takes the form of ruining her son by drink and play, and of attempting to seduce her daughter. In the end this egregious ruffian is murdered in the street by the mother of his two victims, just in time to prevent his being knifed by the members of a secret society whom he had betrayed to justice. The music is not without dramatic vigour, and ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... in front of the house. He was a big, burly, broad-shouldered, bearded ruffian, with a red shirt, and a slouching felt hat. A short pipe was in his mouth, stuck into the mass of hair which covered the lower part of his face. His hair was long, and dark, and glossy, and curling; falling in rich clusters below his broad felt hat. He had gaiters and stout shoes, and was engaged ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... hanging; and the usual little crowd of witnesses, consisting of the sheriff, the governor, three or four reporters, a magistrate, and a couple of warders, was assembled in the prison. The condemned man, a brutal ruffian who had been found guilty of murdering a young girl under exceptionally revolting circumstances, was being pinioned by the hangman and his assistant; and my uncle was employing the last few moments at his disposal in trying to break down the sullen indifference the fellow ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... men. A tall ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footing someone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands; and a hard flat object crashed against ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... I had fifty of them here," he thought to himself; "we would surround the hall, and pay these traitors dearly. As for their captain, I would hang him over the door with my own hands. The cowardly ruffian, to strike an unarmed boy! At any rate I have spoiled his beauty for him, for I pretty nearly cut his face in two, I shall know him by the scar if I ever meet him in battle, and then ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... crew were brought into Salem for trial, my brother had the questionable satisfaction of identifying in the court-room the ruffian of a boatswain who had threatened his life. This boatswain and several others of the crew were executed in Boston. The boy found his brief sailor-experience quite enough for him, and afterward settled down quietly to the trade ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... a new and resolute voice, that of Henry Chester, who, pushing both aside, stands face to face with the aggressor, fists hard shut, and eyes flashing anger. "Now, you ruffian," he ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... all Which thou dost best and dearest call; Then let the darts of envy fall, Let ruffian malice ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... I think I know you. Aren't you the chap that torn my coat sometime ago? Answer me, sir," giving me a vigorous shake on the shoulder. "You are the very d——n young ruffian that did it, and I am going to give you such a thrashing as you will ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the sort of occurrence which was by no means unusual. In the immediate neighbourhood of Nuernberg, which was bien entendu one of the chief seats of the Imperial power, a robber-knight leader, named Hans Thomas von Absberg, was a standing menace. It was the custom of this ruffian, who had a large following, to plunder even the poorest who came from the city, and, not content with this, to mutilate his victims. In June 1522 he fell upon a wretched craftsman, and with his own sword hacked off the poor fellow's right hand, notwithstanding that ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... daylight, especially as, judging from the sounds, others of the ship's company were at present baiting him. But he did not see his way to earning that extra L200, which he would very much like to have fingered. To let this vulgar, drunken ruffian commit some overt act against Hamilton's life, without doing him actual damage, seemed an impossibility. He had taken far to great a fancy for Hamilton to allow him to be hurt. He was beginning to be mystified by the whole thing. The case was by no means so simple and straightforward ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... redoubled. Here had we two expatriated Frenchmen engaged in an ill-regulated combat like the battles of beasts. Here was he, who had been all his life so great a ruffian, dying in a foreign land of this ignoble injury, and meeting death with something of the spirit of a Bayard. I insisted that the guards should be summoned and a doctor brought. "It may still be possible to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as he sat writing at his desk in the Senate House, two men came up to him. One of these, a Senator and a slaveholder from South Carolina, of the name of Brooks, was armed with a heavy stick. This ruffian attacked Sumner from behind, felled him with a blow, and then beat him as he lay upon the floor, leaving him almost dead. For this grievous offence a small fine was imposed upon Brooks, and the amount ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... not only came aboard looking what you are, but you came aboard fairly slimed over, in addition, with all that had ever been told or guessed against Buck Vliet's missionary. The stories didn't agree about his sect: but they agreed that Vliet, though a ruffian, hadn't marooned the man just for fun—that he must have been a hard case somehow. The stories might vary concerning Vliet's reasons: but they agreed that the man hadn't come to it by sheer over-prayerfulness: and the conclusion ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to seven and forty? But that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you love, else you might come to love both alike; ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... servant with a knife is punished by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and the injured ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... carefully," said the Professor, "you came near breaking a valuable exhibit then. Living Skeletons have to be handled gingerly, madam. I am sure the ruffian deserves all you can give him. May I inquire what villain's ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... say, that he has, in the hurry of the moment, left up stairs his br——; his—psha! a part of his dress, in short, with a number of bank-notes in the pockets. Look in the next page, and you will see the ferocious, bacon-devouring ruffian of a miller is actually causing this garment to be carried through the village and cried by the town-crier. And we blush to be obliged to say that the demoralized miller never offered to return the banknotes, ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of their grandfathers, two of the noblest of Englishmen, Lord William Russell and Colonel Algernon Sidney, had been murdered by the iniquitous sentence of time-serving judges. They had not forgotten the ruffian George Jeffreys and his "bloody assizes" of 1685. They well remembered how their kinsmen in England had driven into exile the Stuart family of kings, who were even yet, in 1745, making efforts to recover their lost throne. They remembered how the beginnings of New ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... compounds, as the Low Ger. bullerjaan, meaning "noisy"; the word has also, with less probability, been derived from the Dutch boel, and Ger. Buhle, a lover), originally a fine, swaggering fellow, as in "Bully Bottom" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, later an overbearing ruffian, especially a coward who abuses his strength by ill-treating the weak; more technically a souteneur, a man who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. The term in its early use of "fine" or "splendid" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... it. The woman is a coward, and if you speak sharply she will be frightened. I do not like to think that when I am out of the house and my man is out too, anybody may get in. You are not safe in such conditions. Any ruffian who knew her story could force his way to you! No, no, love—we must speak ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... men were rich; he knew that they were drunk; and he knew, what was worst of all, that they were fundamentally frightened. And he knew this also, that no common ruffian (such as attacks ladies in novels) is ever so savage and ruthless as a coarse kind of gentleman when he is really alarmed. The reason is not recondite; it is simply because the police-court is not such a menacing novelty to the poor ruffian as it is to the rich. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... and Cora, who very recently passed at the Royal Palace Hotel for General Gastang and Countess de la Moray. There is the scoundrel Stephen Richford who tricked Beatrice Darryll into marrying him, and then there is also a ruffian called Dr. James Bentwood. What ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... Spenser wrote. In Ireland, he had before his eyes continually, the dreary world which the poet of knight errantry imagines. There men might in good truth travel long through wildernesses and "great woods" given over to the outlaw and the ruffian. There the avenger of wrong need seldom want for perilous adventure and the occasion for quelling the oppressor. There the armed and unrelenting hand of right was but too truly the only substitute for law. There might be found in most ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... the wretched arrangement of the time—in the worst society in the world. In sketching, as he sometimes did, for the general amusement, the characters of the various prisoners with whom he had associated—from the sneaking pick-pocket and the murderous ruffian, to the simple Highland smuggler, who had converted his grain into whisky, with scarce intelligence enough to see that there was aught morally wrong in the transaction—he sought only to be as graphic and humorous as he could, and always with complete success. But ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... "Thou ruffian, thou!" he chuckled. "See how he fights! A true Rajput! Nay, beat me not. Some day thou too shalt bear a sword for England, great-grandson mine. Ai-ee! ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Sally. "Why, I saw this young ruffian pommeling him. And look! Martha is bound in her ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... till the close of evening sought the place; Then at his feet the fair deceiver fell, And gloss'd her artful tale of mischief well; Told how a saucy knight his queen abus'd, With prayer of proffer'd love, with scorn refus'd; Thereat how rudely rail'd the ruffian shent, With slanderous speech and foul disparagement, And boastfully declar'd such charms array'd The veriest menial where his vows were paid, That, might one handmaid of that dame be seen, All eyes would shun with scorn imperial Arthur's ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... as escort an Afghan or Pathan, a soldier of the Maharajah's irregular force of foreign mercenaries, who had been sent to meet me when I entered Kashmir. This man, Usman Shah, was a stage ruffian in appearance. He wore a turban of prodigious height ornamented with poppies or birds' feathers, loved fantastic colours and ceaseless change of raiment, walked in front of me carrying a big sword over his shoulder, plundered and beat the people, terrified the women, and was eventually ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... of France, awake to glory; Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, Behold their tears, and hear their cries! Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate the land, While Peace and Liberty lie bleeding? To arms, to arms, ye brave, Th'avenging sword unsheath; March on, march on, all hearts resolv'd On victory ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... to Louis Napoleon is stronger, and it tends more to unanimity every day. The Orleans confiscation has, I think, almost too much weight given to it. After his other crimes the mere robbery of a single family, ruffian-like as it is, ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... was as hard a character as his close-set, little eyes and weasel face bespoke him; he had come to know him as an insatiate gambler, the pitiful sort of gambler who is too much of a drunkard to be more than his opponent's dupe at cards. He had found him to be a brawler and very much of a ruffian. But though he did not close his eyes to these things they did not matter to him. For gratitude and a sense of loyalty were two of the strong silver threads that went to make up the mesh of Buck Thornton's nature, and it was ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... be: that he had often heard him say it was indecent to be angry, nay, had written a book to that purpose; and that the causing him to be so cruelly beaten, in the height of his rage, totally gave the lie to all his writings; to which Plutarch calmly and coldly answered, "How, ruffian," said he, "by what dost thou judge that I am now angry? Does either my face, my colour, or my voice give any manifestation of my being moved? I do not think my eyes look fierce, that my countenance appears ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sister. The lad picked up a revolver from where it had fallen as its owner retreated and fired point blank at Mike. The ruffian crumpled up and went down in a heap, as Rosemary herself, unable to stand the strain longer, sank down ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... the young man will come to himself; and let us hope that it will be a better and wiser self," said Mr. Carrington. "But what was it all about? What did that truculent young ruffian want with Rupert?" ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... rapidly slipped in on deck through her open ports aft, and then made a furious charge forward, attacking the Spaniards in their rear. Our presence on board seemed to take them considerably by surprise. They wavered and hesitated, but, incited by a burly ruffian who forced his way through the crowd, rallied once more and attacked us hotly. This was exactly what we wanted. Our fellows, by Smellie's order, contented themselves with acting for the time being strictly ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... rejoins the ruffian; "that is, if you become one o' us, and go where we're a-goin'. Enough now for you to be told that, there you will ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... bills?—and lose money?—and be as mild as mother's milk all the time? Oh! yes, of course! I'm so devilish fond of you and your friend! You're such nice men, you can make me do anything! Damn all this jabber and nonsense!" roared the ruffian, passing suddenly from insolence to fury, and striking his fist on the table. "Give me the child at once, do you hear? Give her up, I say. I won't leave the house ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Edinburgh, he had hurried to Mossgiel and gone through a justice-of-peace marriage with Jean Armour. Burns, with all his faults, was an honest and a high-spirited man, and he loved the mother of his children. Had he hesitated to make her his wife, he must have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian, or that misery of miseries, the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... a stanch friend, a fond husband, a devoted father, as useful a member of society as you might find in a day's journey, and obnoxious only to political opponents, who fear him more than he dislikes them, is called a 'liar,' a 'coward,' and a 'heartless ruffian.' He is nothing of the kind; he is proudly conscious of this fact; his accusers do not even believe it; the world—that portion of it in which he moves—is satisfied that he is a remarkable instance of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... came here, heroic resolutions followed him. He had thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was not without its influence even on these irredeemables. ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... the trunk stand the officer and a brigand. The officer has a large wound across the temple, and attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, with hands clasped and eyes raised to a brigand, who grasps her by the hair ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... of indifference in such cases? A ruffian cruelly beats his horse, the poor beast that has rendered him faithful service for many a day, but is feeble now and sinks beneath its load. With curses and the sharp persuasion of the lash, the ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying from some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from his pinnacled castle, and darting down towards the river for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding about in the zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his bravery, finally persecutes him back to his stronghold. The otherwise dauntless bandit, soaring at his topmost ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... handsomeness of his features. It needed freedom, and the absence of any urgency, to enable him to personate a gentleman. Given those conditions, he succeeded. But as soon as he was disturbed, the gloss vanished, and the true nature came out, that of a ruffian and a sneak. He quite quivered at the look with which Falconer turned ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... worthy of the cool yet romantic gallantry of the achievement. Kinmont Willie was a ruffian, but he had been unlawfully seized. This was one of many studied insults passed by Elizabeth's officials on Scotland at that time, when the English Government, leagued with the furious pulpiteers of the Kirk, and with Francis Stewart, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... my Silver-arrowed, you must promise that you will use only means worthy of you, and that you will not act as would act such a ruffian as Ares, for instance, or even, speaking between ourselves, as acts our ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... Dr. Hofmann when he spoke of Wolfgang. When he spoke to him he certainly said: "What a little ruffian you are! Just you wait till you go to school and they'll soon teach you to ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... This is a very dangerous way to administer a whipping! Moreover, if the hotel keepers of the vicinity only wished to have Mr. Smith pounded, it seems strange that not one of their number was willing to undertake the task himself. Or, if not, why did they not hire some ruffian who could be induced to give almost any man a pounding for a smaller sum of money than that promised to Walter Kelly, and, besides, might have supplied his own necessary outfit, and save them the trouble and expense of providing board, team, ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... were going away from me, did you?' Torpenhow put his hand on Dick's shoulder, and the two walked up and down the room, henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion. They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. 'That's some ruffian come up for a drink,' said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... knowing and the bold Fall in the general massacre of gold; Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfined, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind; For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws, For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws; Wealth heaped on wealth nor truth nor safety buys; The dangers gather as ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... means of apprising the police, or obtaining succour from without. Poor Andres, severely wounded, weak from loss of blood, without arms, and unable to use them had he had any, lay at the mercy of a ruffian intoxicated with rage and jealousy. All this because he had ogled a pretty manola at a bull-fight. It is allowable to suppose that at that moment he regretted the tea-table, piano, and prosaic society of Dona Feliciana de los Rios. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... blank stare, quite through. Then he lifted his eyebrow; the glass dropped and bounded before him on its ribbon. And he turned and walked away. Walked away, I dare say, to his frowning club, to tell how he had just been set upon in the street and insulted by some strange ruffian. But, you see, I didn't know; I ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... an insolent lot of young ruffians!" he snapped, "and Merriwell is the biggest ruffian of ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... mission, have interpreted my queries aright and are piloting me thither; only to conclude by their actions, the next minute, that they have not the remotest conception of my wants, beyond reaching the other side of the city. Now and then some ruffian in the crowd, in a spirit of wanton devilment, utters a wild, exultant whoop and raises the cry of "Fankwae. Fankwae." The cry is taken up by others of his kind, and the whoops and shouts of "Fankwae" swell into ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... friend) in 1763 wrote of the slave-trade, in which he had been engaged, 'It is indeed accounted a genteel employment, and is usually very profitable, though to me it did not prove so, the Lord seeing that a large increase of wealth could not be good for me.' Newton's Life, p. 148. A ruffian of a London Alderman, a few weeks before The Life of Johnson was published, said in parliament:—'The abolition of the trade would destroy our Newfoundland fishery, which the slaves in the West Indies supported by consuming that part of the fish which was ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... he called this beautiful plant. "Dolt! ass! inhuman brute! If I had the kicking of you—" here he recovered his silence; found pebbles to kick, and pursued them savagely up one path and down another. A mental flash-light showed him the ruffian who had wounded this bright creature; had led her on to love him, and then—either betrayed his brutal nature so that hers rose up in revolt, or—just as likely—that kind of man would do anything—gone off and left her. His picture ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... be disregarded. During some portion of Johnson's married life he had lodgings, first at Greenwich, afterwards at Hampstead. But he did not always go home o' nights; sometimes preferring to roam the streets with that vulgar ruffian Savage, who was certainly no fit company for him. He once actually quarreled with Tetty, who, despite her ridiculous name, was a very sensible woman with a very sharp tongue, and for a season, like stars, they dwelt apart. Of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... people grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat. "There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles—a builder— who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... show himself at once," returned the ruffian, "he'll not escape by refusing to do so; we'll search every corner till we ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... followers—mostly rollicking and arrogant foreign adventurers—who robbed and devastated the land, and thrashed and even mutilated passers-by for fun, people looked forward with great fear to the accession of such a ruffian. A few years of responsibility, and failure, soon changed him into the noblest and most law-abiding of the Plantagenets. It was Wales which gave him his first lesson. He first tried his hand at the reorganisation of the "Middle Country," making it "shire-land," ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... way by which I can recover my lost ground. Scindia is solely under the domination of Ghatgay, whose daughter he will shortly marry. I have, of course, made it my business to enquire as to the antecedents of this man. I find that he has the reputation of being a brutal ruffian, remarkable alike for his greed and his cruelty—a worse adviser Scindia could not have. Holkar was but a poor reed to lean upon, for he was as weak in mind, as in body. But at any rate, he was a true friend of mine and, now that he has been succeeded ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... virtue of some agreement with the Christians, and in that case he wished people to believe him. He saw this, too, from his face; hence in one moment, without showing doubt or astonishment, he raised his eyes and exclaimed,—"That was a faith-breaking ruffian! But I warned thee, lord, not to trust him; my teachings bounded from his head as do peas when thrown against a wall. In all Hades there are not torments enough for him. He who cannot be honest must be a rogue; ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... grisly satellite, who seemed prepared to execute the will of the tyrant, and then he said with firmness, "Hear me, William de la Marck, and good men all, if there be any here who deserve that name, hear the only terms I can offer to this ruffian. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... his pennywise parsimony had left himself defenceless, made a feeble and wholly vain attempt to put the city in a state of defence. The corrupt and cowardly citizens could not have opposed any valid resistance to the ruffian hordes who were slowly but surely, like an advancing conflagration, coming upon them, even if they had been willing to do their best. But the trembling Pope's appeal to them to defend the walls fell on the ears of as sorely ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... wall, and lay musing on—he hadn't been drinking too much over-night—Oh, no! it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a deep whisper from the further end of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such a bad character that when he went to confession the priest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... course, the man who had been shot. Tom lighted the lantern, for it was now quite dark, and found that the ruffian had been shot in the lower part of his right leg, and had fainted from loss of blood. Taking a towel, Tom tore it into strips, and bound up the wound, and by the time he had finished the patient became conscious again, and begged Tom not to take ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... when it was a question of begging from a burgess, but was as well furnished with limbs as other men when no burgess was in sight. There was a wretched woman violer, with her jackanapes, and with her husband, a hang-dog ruffian, she bearing the mark of his fist on her eye, and commonly trailing far behind him with her brat on her back. There was a blind man, with his staff, who might well enough answer to Keen-eye, that is, when no strangers were in sight. There was ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... qualified as he in every respect; and if it lies between him and me, I will undoubtedly offer myself, and accompany my address with the publication of this precious document which he calls his notice—the composition, in all respects, of a ruffian—and which will inspire every gentleman who reads it with disgust, abhorrence, and contempt. His threat I don't understand. I despise his machinations. I defy him utterly; and the time is coming when, in spite of his manoeuvring, I'll drive him into a corner and pin him to the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... art an inexorable ruffian, Troisboules; but I will give thee all I am worth." And here he produced a billet of five hundred francs. "Look," said he, "this money is all I own; it is the payment of two years' lodging. To raise it, I have toiled for ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she can support the calamity of her brother's absence—laying a grossly insulting emphasis on the word "brother." The Countess preserves her impenetrable composure; nothing in her betrays the deadly hatred with which she regards the titled ruffian who has insulted her. "You are master in this house, my Lord," is all she says. "Do as ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... up his guard, and then Merriwell went at him, while Grody gasped for breath, thinking the college lad could be no match for the young ruffian. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... long toil on many a painful road, That toil increased by nature's growing load, When evening brought the friendly hour of rest, And all the mother thronged about her breast, The ruffian officer opposed her stay, And, cruel, bore her in her pangs away, So far beyond the town's last limits drove, That to return were hopeless, had she strove; Abandoned there, with famine, pain, and cold, And anguish, she ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... him, therefore, as he entered the inn, and caught a hasty glance which Clark directed at himself and Langhetti. He did not understand the meaning of the scowl that passed over the ruffian's face, nor did Clark understand the full meaning of that gloomy frown which lowered over Despard's brow as his eyes blazed wrathfully and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... murder, Cry out against them. But this very day, An honest man, my neighbor—there he stands— Was struck—struck like a dog, by one who wore The badge of Ursini, because, forsooth, He tossed not high his ready cap in air, Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men, And suffer such dishonor?—Men, and wash not The stain ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Marchese di Rionero—once hanged a ruffian for mutilating one of his horses out of spite. And they say that Italy has not progressed! There is no hanging, not even for ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... the best type. Being outlaws in every sense, these men sought shelter from the Indian in the wilderness; and he learned of their ways about his lodge-fire, or in battle, often provoked by the white ruffian in the hope of gain. They lied to the Indian—these first white acquaintances, and in after-years, the great Government of the United States lied and lied again, until he has come to believe that there is no truth in the white man's heart. ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... seeking a resting-place for his weary head, Dock Vincent walked down to the Point to ascertain whether or not he had killed his victim. He was gone, and the ruffian went home again. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... silent, Seppi quitted the room on tiptoe, locked the door on the outside, and crept noiselessly along the passage and down the stairs. Andre had not forgotten to leave the outer door unlocked, and pushing back the bolt with the greatest caution, the ruffian slipped out, and as soon as he had got clear of the village hurried away at the ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... proving to be less than expected, he carried her off to England, where he did not wait to be drunk in order to maltreat her. She was not free from his cruelty night or day. Before she was sixteen, she had run the whole gamut of human suffering; and that, not at the hands of a coarse, common ruffian, but from an elegant, handsome, luxury-loving gentleman, whose taste in dress was so nice he would sooner fling a garment of hers into the fire than see her go into company clad in a manner he did ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... Such was the character of the frenzied host, which progressed slowly through the streets, while every now and then, when there was an interval in the hubbub, the words "Christianos ad leones" were thundered out by some ruffian voice, and a ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... each his dream. Sagan's of empire and revenge, for he is after all a splendid ruffian, untamable, gallant, a man who could never be compelled to ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... been a convict before. It was during these daily rounds that I witnessed with sadness the evil effects of sending boys or lads to prison for a few days or weeks for some petty theft, and placing them in constant contact and association with the habitual and reputed scoundrel and ruffian. These men are always willing to make a convert, and they generally succeed, for the battle is half won ere they bring their forces on the field. It is here that the juvenile offender is nursed in villainy, here he learns the ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... Peter sees, while in the shade He stood beside the cottage-door; And Peter Bell, the ruffian wild, Sobs loud, he sobs even like a child, "Oh! God, I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... books with the huge patriarch of all the rats dangling by his tail! Three hopeful families were destroyed; rooms, vaults, and cellars examined and cleared; and Petty declared the race to be exterminated, picturesque ruffian that he was, in his shapeless hat, rusty velveteen, long leggings, a live ferret in his pocket, and festoons of dead ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bundle of that stuff ye spend your nights and days writing; taking the flesh off your bones, and making that face of yours so black and yellow; it's your father's face, too—ay—well it's like him now, indeed—the ruffian. I wish I had never seen him, nor you, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... fair pay; but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank good-will of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the mercy of his ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... window—an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward—it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... when the wintry blast With shout and clamor is sweeping past, To watch the stately and stern old tree As he battles alone on the wintry lea, With leafy crown to the four winds cast, And stout arms bared to the ruffian blast; Or fiercely wrestles with wind and storm, Unbowed of forehead, unbent ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... her crimson lips parted to reveal her even, gleaming teeth. She laughed, a rippling little laugh like the tinkle of steel links, and with a single gliding movement that permitted no avoidance she swept to within two feet of the now frightened ruffian. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... love you; I hate and despise you, old wretch that you are, seeking to tempt a poor child like me to her ruin. Oh! you are rich, and have the manners of a gentleman before the world,—and yet you are more base, mean and cowardly than the commonest ruffian that ever stole a purse or cut a throat! Let me go hence, I command you; you dare not refuse me, for I know there is a law to protect me, as well as the richest and the highest, and I will go to those who execute the law, and have you dragged to the bar of justice to answer ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... made him two long visits. I was well apprised of this, but pretended ignorance. One day my curiosity induced me to go to the Palace of Tears, to observe how my consort employed herself, and from a place where she could not see me, I heard her thus address the wounded ruffian: 'I am afflicted to the highest degree to behold you in this condition,' she cried, 'I am as sensible as yourself of the tormenting pain you endure; but, dear soul, I am continually speaking to you, and you do not answer me: ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... "You do more than ever deserve death!!" Then turning again towards Pei Ming, "You ruffian!" he said, "what are you still ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... as warmly engaged in favor of Hypsaeus and Scipio, though in the turn which affairs took he seems to have been willing enough to accept the office himself when it came in his way. Milo and Clodius had often fought in the streets of Rome, each ruffian attended by a band of armed combatants, so that in audacity, as Asconius ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... Charley about a pair of socks. He could be heard saying impressively, in the darkness amidships: "You don't deserve a kindness. I've been drying them for you, and now you complain about the holes—and you swear, too! Right in front of me! If I hadn't been a Christian—which you ain't, you young ruffian—I would give you a clout on the head.... Go away!" Men in couples or threes stood pensive or moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of a homeward passage was sinking into the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... Diether sprang up from a ditch, seized the frightened boy, and ran back toward the mill. The girl had but little time in which to decide on a course of action. If she barricaded herself in the mill, might not the ruffian slay the child? On the other hand, if she waited to meet him, she had no assurance that he would not kill them both. So she retired to the mill, locked the door, and awaited what fate had in store for her. In vain the robber threatened to kill the child ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... for weeks thereafter, Nan never saw a rough-looking man approach the house on the outskirts of Pine Camp, without fearing that here was coming a ruffian bent on her ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... bid Soule and Eaton stand on guard, and if they hear me cry Rescue! make in to my help. Let no more of the salvages into the stockade until we have settled with these. Hobomok, tell Pecksuot, Kamuso, whom I saw behind the rest, Wituwamat, and that notorious ruffian his brother, that I fain would speak with them in ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... be the missing girl, Esmay, and certainly she who had walked here was the veiled woman of the temple worshippers; there were the footprints, broader and heavier in appearance, of her companion, and the halting progress of the black-chapped ruffian, who had accompanied them, was also plainly visible. Constans followed the trail at a smart pace, for it was snowing harder than ever, and it would not take long to obliterate the marks. But three blocks farther on the three sets of footprints ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... boys,—tells off-hand affecting story of strange woman—one 'more unfortunate'—having baby in Eagle's Nest, lonely place on 'peaks of Snowdon,' midnight; eagles screaming, you know, and far down unfathomable depths; only attendant, cold-blooded ruffian, evidently father of child, with sinister designs on ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a terrible story that we are about to narrate, and we warn the lover of pleasant books to lay down our volume at the first page. We shall see Cunningham, that burly, red-faced ruffian, the Provost Marshal, wreaking his vengeance upon the defenceless prisoners in his keeping, for the assault made upon him at the outbreak of the war, when he and a companion who had made themselves obnoxious to the republicans were mobbed and beaten in the streets of New York. He was rescued ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... laugh, the ruffian took down his sabre and buckled the belt around his waist. He then armed himself with a pair of heavy pistols; and, after looking to the straps of his spurs, strode out of ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... because of its history and celebrity: Caravaggio, of whom it was said that he always painted like a ruffian, because he was a ruffian, was also a genius in his way, and for a few months he became the fashion at Rome, and was even patronized by some of the higher ecclesiastics. He painted for the church of la Scala ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... A ruffian band Rush in and savagely demand, With brutal voice and oath profane, The startled boy for ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... by the exasperation, by the authority in the speaker's tone, than by the fact that the entire complexion of the affair had changed. The ruffian, who had entered so confidently, was no longer the aggressor; a mere look, a word, a gesture from this aged, unknown person had put him upon the defensive. More extraordinary still was the fact that his power of initiative was for the moment completely paralyzed, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... be regarded as the legitimate representative of the traditionary highwayman who levied toll at Highgate, or stopped the post-boy and captured the mailbags in Epping Forest. The real, living bushranger is, however, more of a ruffian and less of a hero than our ideal highwayman; for time, like distance, softens down the harsh and the coarse, and gives dignity ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... Marcella, shaking her head. "I know the Boyce they mean. He was a ruffian, but he shot himself in London; and, any way, he was dead long before that staircase ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... loose in my intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... A certain hulking ruffian, with an Australian digger's beard, had turned up of late to disturb the tranquillity of the partners. He had been asking what they regarded as an exorbitant price for his silence in respect to the construction of that adit which has ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... he; but Turnus shook his head, and said, "Ruffian! thy threats are but as empty sound; They daunt not Turnus; 'tis the gods I dread, And Jove my enemy." Then, glancing round, He marked a chance-met boulder on the ground, Huge, grey with age, set ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... among their bright, clustering masses, was found the letter from Antoinette, quoted above. The barber took the poor, disfigured head into his hands, cleansed the face from blood, and arranged and powdered the ringlets. The ruffian said, "Antoinette will recognize it now;" and, replacing it on the point of his pike, moved forward with the mob to the prison of the unhappy queen, before whose windows they elevated the appalling trophy, at the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... approached the Confessional to reveal some great crime. The confession was very long, so was the admonition of the Cardinal which followed it. The appearance of the Cardinal is particularly dignified and noble, and, as he bent down his head, joining it to that of this ruffian-like figure, listening with extreme patience and attention, and occasionally speaking to him with excessive earnestness, while the whole surrounding multitude stood silently gazing at the scene, all conscious that some great criminal was before them, but ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to, since, far from saying a word in her favor, all the other persons present joined in applauding the wit of the count. He, already the minister, almost, of a God of peace, could not be the one to give the lie to this ruffian, and thus expose himself to the risk ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... wore a cuirass! What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian wished ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... trigger at the same time. Never was a man nearer his death than was Asmani during those few moments. I was reluctant to shed his blood, and I was willing to try all possible means to avoid doing so; but if I did not succeed in cowing this ruffian, authority was at an end. The truth was, they feared to proceed further on the road, and the only possible way of inducing them to move was by an overpowering force, and exercise of my power and ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... that some one was in the cabin, he could not see why his persecutor was so strenuous to obtain the key. Pearl was not a large man; but he was very strong and quick, as he had learned in the affair in the woods, when the ruffian had hurled him away from him as though he had been nothing ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... only the more sombre side of the picture?" returned his friend. "In your anxiety to anticipate evil, Charles, you have overlooked one important fact. Ponteac distinctly stated that his ruffian friend was still lying deprived of consciousness and speech within his tent, and yet two days had elapsed since the encounter was said to have taken place. Surely we have every reason then to infer they were beyond all reach of pursuit, even admitting, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... afforded satisfaction at home, but if not, let me be allowed to state that it was not in my power to accomplish more than I have. I have borne hunger and thirst, cold and fatigue, I have exposed myself to danger from robbers, and was near losing my life from the ruffian soldiery at Arrayolos, whose bullets so narrowly missed me. I have been as economical as possible, though the charges in Portugal for everything are enormous, and a stranger there is like a ship on shore, a mark for plunder. In ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... to him, and meanwhile here is something to please you." Norvin handed the old ruffian a gold coin, greatly to his delight. "They have been gone two months and you have ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... the unfortunate girl's life—indirectly described by the ruffian who got possession of her in Paris—produce on the mind that sickening sense of the wanton stupidity of the Universe which fills ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... force and vividness with which Spenser wrote. In Ireland, he had before his eyes continually, the dreary world which the poet of knight errantry imagines. There men might in good truth travel long through wildernesses and "great woods" given over to the outlaw and the ruffian. There the avenger of wrong need seldom want for perilous adventure and the occasion for quelling the oppressor. There the armed and unrelenting hand of right was but too truly the only substitute for law. There might be found in most certain ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... of the press, like every other privilege, it must be restrained within certain bounds; for if it is carried to a branch of law, religion, and charity, it becomes one of the greatest evils that ever annoyed the community. If the lowest ruffian may stab your good name with impunity in England, will you be so uncandid as to exclaim against Italy for the practice of common assassination? To what purpose is our property secured, if our moral character is left defenceless? People thus baited, grow ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... honour. Give me this hand, this hand by which I caught thee From the bold ruffian in the massacre, That would have stained thy almost infant honour, With lust, and blood;—dost ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... doing so; and this contributed largely to that revolution in the public opinion of the county, which had been going on for eighteen months, and which at the last compelled a radical change in the policy of these "Border Ruffian" leaders. But this again gave the chiefs of this conspiracy abundant experience that it pays to do right, and that a good Providence had brought them prosperity and honor by defeating their original counsels and turning ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... this ruffian?" he demanded, drawing his tall form up more haughtily than before. "A ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... tyrants, mischief-breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate the land, While Peace and Liberty lie bleeding? To arms! to arms, ye brave! The avenging sword unsheathe! March on! March on! all hearts resolved On Liberty ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... love with the girl, and I believe she is with me. I ought to have nipped my feelings in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand, who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. To what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be respected?" and I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this train of thought, until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my escort, with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence had been the cause of much anxiety, and my fate was even then ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... Portuguese, who naturally enough were exasperated with him for stopping their trade, and harbouring their runaway slaves; but we learned afterwards from the natives, that the accounts given us by the Portuguese had not exceeded the truth; and that Mariano was quite as great a ruffian as they had described him. One expects slave-owners to treat their human chattels as well as men do other animals of value, but the slave-trade seems always to engender an unreasoning ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... and men; and that with both a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens all. "But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, "the greatest sinner may return." I have been cheered to see symptoms of effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope the period of STURM ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said I, coming on deck, "and I am witness that you tried to save me, until you were struck senseless by that ruffian, Fleming, who threw me overboard, that I might not give evidence as to the silver and gold which I found in the cabin; and which I overheard him tell you must be put into sacks and sunk, as two of the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to avoid the first thrust; but as Gryphus continued, with horrid threats, to brandish his huge knife, and as, although out of the reach of his weapon, yet, as long as it remained in the madman's hand, the ruffian might fling it at him, Cornelius lost no time, and availing himself of the stick, which he held tight under his arm, dealt the jailer a vigorous blow on the wrist of that hand which ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Falerina was protected by a river, which was crossed by a bridge, kept by a ruffian, who challenged all comers to the combat; and such was his strength that he had thus far prevailed in every encounter, as appeared by the arms of various knights which he had taken from them, and piled up as a trophy on the shore. Rinaldo ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the little drama closely, saw that the ruffian was plainly taken off his feet by this. He had not expected—or so it seemed clear—that he would encounter any opposition in carrying out his rascally plan of playing off the safety of a boy and a girl who had never wronged him for the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... only at the distance of a few paces, the ball whizzed over his shoulder, but the powder singed his clothes, and burnt his face. Another presented his piece, which flashed in the pan; a third drew his hanger and attempted to stab him, but the General parrying it off, an officer standing by run the ruffian through the body, and killed him on the spot. Upon which the mutineers ran, but were caught and laid in irons. A court-martial was called to try the ringleaders of this desperate conspiracy, some of whom were found guilty ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... headstrong passions of a thorough savage—it strikes me that he must have been a runaway convict, probably from Norfolk Island. It is fortunate that his sphere of mischief is so limited, for a more dangerous ruffian could not easily be found. As matters stand at present, it is probable that not only during his life, but for years afterwards, every European who falls into the hands of the Badu people ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... she's right, Seth Huntington!" exclaimed Claire, coming to Marion, and putting an arm, around her. "If there's any ruffian it's you, and I'm ashamed ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... afar they looked over their property, though Billy moved like one in a dream. Her father was engaged in placating Dusty Rhodes and in explaining their agreement to the rest, and she still felt surprised that she had ever consented to accompany so desperate a ruffian. Yet as he knocked off a chunk of ore and showed her the specks of gold, scattered through it with such prodigal richness, she felt her old sense of security return; for he had never been rough with her. It was only with Old Whiskers, the grasping ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... stay with him, telling him I should only step to my lodgings to leave a necessary direction, and then instantly return. This he very glibly swallowed, on the notion of my being one of those unhappy street-errants, who devote themselves to the pleasure of the first ruffian that will stoop to pick them up, and of course, that I would scarce bilk myself of the hire, by not returning make the most of the job. Thus he parted with me, not before, however, he had ordered in my ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... across the narrow neck of land where his men would have had to battle for progress. It was from no mere bravado that he had gone forward alone to the tower, but because men were worth saving, and he believed that his own sword was a match for any ax. If this ruffian Cathbarr was a freebooting outlaw, he would be willing enough to stake his ten men on his prowess, and Yellow Brian was very anxious to have those ten ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... appreciate, even if they could find, the loftier flights of social romance. Sam Weller to-day has joined a union, and reads his Henry George. Rawdon Crawley of our own generation is a mere drunken ruffian, only fit to point the moral in a lecture on the drink traffic. And Becky Sharp is voted to be a stupid libel on the social destiny of ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... where surly Winter passes off Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... adds something to the interest of landscape, and botany much to the charm of flowers; natural history increases the pleasure with which we view society and the justice with which we judge it. An instinctive sympathy, a solicitude for the perfect working of any delicate thing, as it makes the ruffian tender to a young child, is a sentiment inevitable even toward artificial organisms. Could we better perceive the fine fruits of order, the dire consequences of every specific cruelty or jar, we should grow doubly considerate toward all forms; for we exist through form, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... of Hudson himself, displaying the chart to his men; his countenance careworn and sad, but still concealing, under the appearance of calmness and indifference, the apprehensions and forebodings, which harrowed his mind. About him would be seen the rude and ruffian-like men; some examining the chart with eager curiosity, some glaring on their commander with eyes of hatred and vengeance, and expressing in their looks those murderous intentions, which they ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... left-handed, although unusual in that region, proved nothing by itself. But the dead steer had borne the mark of a left-handed man—and Pedro was in charge of a part of Melton's stock—and he had sneaked away from his work to talk with this ruffian, apparently by appointment—and the latter had given the half-breed money. Had Bert known the additional fact that Pedro had been riding herd in the section where a large drove had recently disappeared, the conclusion would have been irresistible that he and the stranger had been in league to ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... sat writing at his desk in the Senate House, two men came up to him. One of these, a Senator and a slaveholder from South Carolina, of the name of Brooks, was armed with a heavy stick. This ruffian attacked Sumner from behind, felled him with a blow, and then beat him as he lay upon the floor, leaving him almost dead. For this grievous offence a small fine was imposed upon Brooks, and the amount was promptly paid by ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... wrong. Camperdown owns that he was wrong. If, after all, the diamonds were hers, I'm sure I don't know what I am to do. Thank you, Hittaway, for coming over. That'll do for the present. Just leave that ruffian's letter, and ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... to get that ruffian Mitya locked up and I don't know now what I shall decide about it. Of course in these fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a prejudice, but even now the law does not allow you to drag your old father about by the hair, to kick ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... for your matron's likeness was a very handsome Sepoy havildar whom we took at Lucknow, a capital soldier before the mutiny, and then an ineffable ruffian." ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not allow any dissoluteness like dancing, dice or cards, nor shall he receive any one suspected of being a debauche or ruffian. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... this, Jim Smith, that you have no authority over me and never will have. I have not been here long, but I have been here long enough to find out that you are a cowardly bully and ruffian. How all these boys can give in to you, I ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... less. Take a passel uv them barbarities an' shet 'em up inter a prison for three or thirteen yeers, an' ye'd see w'at an impression et'd make, now. Thar'd be siveral less massycrees a week, an' ye wouldn't see a rufyan onc't a month. W'y, gentlefellows, thar'd nevyar been a ruffian, ef et hedn't been fer ther cussed Injun tribe—not one! Ther infarnal critters ar' ther instignators uv more deviltry nor a cat wi' ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... just plain, honest 'gator hunters, working powerful hard for a mighty poor living," declared the ruffian. "An' you-alls, I reckon one guess will hit it, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... foremost; another advanced, Harold left his present prey and attacked the new assailant. The brave dog did wonders, but the odds were fearful; and the men had bludgeons, were enraged, and had already wounded him. One ruffian had grasped the arm of Sybil, another had clenched her garments, when an officer covered with dust and gore, sabre in hand, jumped from the terrace, and hurried to the rescue. He cut down one man, thrust away another, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... whispered the boy, "and that old ruffian's laughing and pointing up at the ceiling to tell them he has got us safe. Oh, murder in Irish!" continued the boy. "He's took up the lamp and he's showing them the way. Here, Private Gray, try and pull yourself together and let's make a fight for it, if ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... of answer Calcol extended his arms straight out from either side, his head thrown back. He was a good-natured ruffian, with ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... have turned to the consideration of household affairs, and a lively widow-vole flirted so outrageously with bachelor Kweek that, having at last fallen a victim to her persistent attentions, he was never happy save in her company. Unfortunately a big ruffian mouse also succumbed to the widow's wiles, and Kweek found himself awkwardly placed. He fought long and stubbornly against his rival, but, unequally matched and sorely scratched and bitten, was at last forced to rustle away in the ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... new book. My favorite poets, novelists, and historians have failed to interest me. I devoured the Trials with breathless delight; beginning of course with the murder in which I felt a family interest. Prepared to find my grandfather a ruffian, I confess I was surprised by the discovery that he was also a fool. The officers of justice had no merit in tracing the crime to him; his own stupidity delivered him into their hands. I read the evidence twice over, and put myself in his position, and saw the ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... to speak to them, while they ranged in a solid line, shoulder to shoulder, men, women, children. And then Larry la Roche went down the line with a saddlebag and took up the collection. "Passin' the hat so often has give me a religious touch, ladies and gents," Andrew heard the ruffian say. "Any little contributions I'm sure grateful for, and, if anything's held back, I'm apt to frisk the gent that don't fork over. Hey, you, what's that lump inside your coat? Lady, don't lie. I seen you drop it inside ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... of the heavy iron gate, I looked down at the front kitchen window. A man stood in the kitchen, and he looked up and saw me—such a horrible-looking ruffian, too. Fear lent wings to my feet, and I flew up the road. The watchman was just entering the park from the opposite end; he saw me, and sounded his whistle; the policeman turned and ran towards me. I was too exhausted to speak, and he caught me, just as, having gasped "Thieves at 50!" ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... reached it, she surely would have perished; for no female head and hands, how strong and resolute so ever, could have descended that frail rope, and even if they could, the ruffian, rather than see her so escape, would have cut it asunder, and so precipitated her to the bottom ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... many cases, not to resist. There is something hid away somewhere in most men's hearts which makes them ashamed of smiting the offered left cheek, and then ashamed of having smitten the right one. 'It is a shame to hit him, since he does not defend himself,' comes into many a ruffian's mind. The safest way to travel in savage countries is to show oneself quite unarmed. He that meets evil with evil is 'overcome of evil'; he that meets it with patient love is likely in most cases to 'overcome evil ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... insisted he should be made an end of. In the midst of the quarrel, a fierce-looking fellow with a wooden leg and his belt full of pistols, intervened, asking with many oaths for Macrae, who thought his last moment had come.[3] He was pleasantly surprised when the ruffian took him by the hand, and swore with many oaths that he would make mince-meat of the first man that hurt him; and protested, with more oaths, that Macrae was an honest fellow, and he had formerly sailed with him. So the dispute ended. Taylor was plied with punch till he was prevailed on to ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... Rutherford! Suppose they were to elect to office some wild and reckless demagog... take, for instance, that ruffian you were telling us about... down there on the Bowery... [HAGEN starts, and listens] and he were to defy the law and the courts? He is preaching just that to the mob... striving to rouse the elemental wild beast ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... "You are a ruffian to treat me so," wept La Cibot, now released,—"me that would go through fire and water for you both! Ah! well, well, they say that that is the way with men—and true it is! There is my poor Cibot, he would not be rough with me like this. . ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Macklin. And his opinion of the two sank a full hundred points. Such grammar proclaimed a ruffian. ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... no excuse, sir," bellowed Uncle Wattleberry. "No one but an unmitigated ruffian would pull ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... 16th century. While the Christians were slowly collecting their armada, Barbarossa, with a force of 122 galleys, set out to catch his enemy in detail if he could. Pirate as he was, the old ruffian had a clear strategic grasp of what he might do with a force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron had collected in the Gulf of Arta, and Barbarossa made for it. By sheer luck just before he arrived ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... which the lady is made to be the sufferer by misplaced affection, and commencing, "Stay, my Willie, yet believe me," though published, remain likewise in obscurity. "Roy's Wife" was originally written to an old tune called the "Ruffian's Rant," but this melody is now known by the name of its favourite words. The sentiment of the song is peculiarly pleasing. The rejected lover begins by loudly complaining of his wrongs, and the broken assurances of his former sweetheart: then he suddenly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... falsehood was based on a worthier motive than the lies which were told to him. There was, indeed, in the fearless courage and unflinching fidelity of Guy Fawkes, the wreck of what might have been a noble man; and he certainly was far from being the vulgar ruffian whom he is commonly supposed to have been. In person he was tall and dark, with brown hair ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... outbreaks of pestilence or famine, horror suggests that we should dismiss as incredible such stories as the imagination shrinks from dwelling on. What greatly added to the dreary wretchedness of the lower order in the towns was the fact that the ever-increasing throngs of beggars, outlaws, and ruffian runaways were simply left to shift for themselves. The civil authorities took no account of them as long as they quietly rotted and died; and, what was still more dreadful, the whole machinery of the Church polity had been formed and was adapted to deal with entirely different ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... woman, much liked and respected as a teacher in one of the Board schools. On her way home from school she was accustomed to follow a footpath through a lonely wood, and here one evening her body was found. She had been strangled by a ruffian who had thought in this lonely place to have his wicked will of her. She had resisted successfully and he had killed her in the struggle. Fortunately the murderer was caught and the facts ascertained from circumstantial evidence were confirmed ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... not, we may imagine, much of a critic in such matters. Garrick reports him to have said of an actor at Lichfield, "There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;" when, in fact, said Garrick, "he was the most vulgar ruffian that ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... if ye like, the bloody ruffian!" he said, furiously, "but the mare will never rise from this! Oh, my ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... represented Macdonald at court as an incorrigible rebel, as a ruffian inured to bloodshed and rapine, who would never be obedient to the laws of his country, nor live peaceably under any sovereign. He observed, that he had paid no regard to the proclamation, and proposed that the government should sacrifice him to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... I, "the thing to do would be to apply to the police, have the ruffian run to earth and arrested, no matter what his position. The worst of it is, though, I'm not anxious to have the eye of the Spanish police turned upon me, and there are those ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... said, the fine mailed and plumed, noble-natured, maiden-rescuing, wrong-redressing, adventure-seeking knight of romance is accepted and believed in by the peasantry with pleasing simplicity, while they reject with scorn the plain, unpolished verdict whereby history exposes him as a braggart, a ruffian, a fantastic vagabond; and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... what seemed in the twilight a club, but which turned out eventually to be an umbrella, against the attacks of a tall, strapping fellow, in a rough frieze coat, who was endeavouring to wrest his weapon from him. A still more formidable adversary was, however, approaching in the shape of a second ruffian, who had armed himself with a thick stake out of the hedge, and was creeping cautiously up behind the shorter man, with 231the evident intention of knocking him on the head. I instantly determined to frustrate his benevolent design, nor was there much time to lose, if I wished ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... realized all her property, and with her jewels and plate, of which she possessed a great quantity, departed for the land of song, taking with her Miss Madocks. She paid a bitter penalty for her revived tenderness toward Felican, for the ruffian subjected her to such treatment that she died from the effects of it, August 25, 1818. In such an ignoble fashion one of the most brilliant and beautiful women in the history of song departed from ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... complete the frame. When the world bow'd to Rome's almighty sword, Rome bow'd to Pompey, and confess'd her lord. Yet one day lost, this deity below Became the scorn and pity of his foe. His blood a traitor's sacrifice was made, And smok'd indignant on a ruffian's blade. No trumpet's sound, no gasping army's yell, Bid, with due horror, his great soul farewell. Obscure his fall! all welt'ring in his gore, His trunk was cast to perish on the shore! While Julius ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... Margaret heard him and opened a window to peek out. She knew him as soon as she saw him, and she wrote a letter and tied it to a string and let it down to him. He read it and wrote an answer, and was just getting ready to send it up, the same way, when a great, fierce ruffian with a bloodhound pounced on him, and threw him into the very darkest dungeon in the cellar of the tower. He was pretty much scared, for he was all in the dark, and he was without any food or anything to drink, and he only had his banjo to comfort him. But he was ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... in the window there were two other men withdrawn by themselves; but these I did not at first notice, being taken up with attending to this one-eyed ruffian. ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... and weasel face bespoke him; he had come to know him as an insatiate gambler, the pitiful sort of gambler who is too much of a drunkard to be more than his opponent's dupe at cards. He had found him to be a brawler and very much of a ruffian. But though he did not close his eyes to these things they did not matter to him. For gratitude and a sense of loyalty were two of the strong silver threads that went to make up the mesh of Buck Thornton's nature, and it was enough to him that little Jimmie Clayton had played the part of friend ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
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