"Headsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the crowd was bitterly disappointed. This was Boxtel, who had bribed the headsman to let him have Van Baerle's clothes, believing that he would thus obtain the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that she at length had d'Artagnan in her power, that she was present at his execution; and it was the sight of his odious blood, flowing beneath the ax of the headsman, which spread that charming smile upon ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was great cruelty on your part to put to death these six honorable burghers, who of their own free will have put themselves at your mercy to save the others." The king gnashed his teeth, saying, "Sir Walter, hold your peace; let them fetch hither my headsman; the people of Calais have been the death of so many of my men that it is but meet that yon fellows die also." Then, with great humility, the noble queen, who was very nigh her delivery, threw herself on her knees at the feet of the king, saying, "Ah gentle sir, if, as you know, I have asked ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Spaniards were bringing to England in their Armada; and, at the end of the room, sits Queen Elizabeth on horseback, in her high ruff and faded finery. Very likely none of these clothes were ever on her actual person. Here, too, we saw a headsman's block,—not that on which Raleigh was beheaded, which I would have given gold to see, but the one which was used for the Scotch Lords Kilmarnock, Lovat, and others, executed on account of the Rebellion of 1745. It is a block of oak, about two feet high, with a large knot in it, so that it would ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... all power of words to tell it, when into the courtyard of the Castle of Edinburgh they brought the two noble young men forth to die. The sun had long risen, but the first flush of broad morning sunshine still lingered upon the low platform on which stood the block, and beside it the headsman sullenly waiting ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... on that bleak and lonely shore; the two comrades drank to each other for the last time, shared the sacrament, and embracing, said their farewells. Doughty proved that if he could not live a true man he could die like a gentleman; the headsman did his work, and Drake pronounced the solemn sentence, "Lo! this ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Some had lost one or more fingers or toes, others had received gashes in their faces, or arms, or legs, but they had seldom long been laid up, and had willingly again returned to their work. The term "putter," it should be understood, includes the specific distinction of the "headsman," "half-marrow," and "foal." The "headsman," taking the part of conductor, pushes behind. The "half-marrows" drag at the sides with ropes; while a "foal" precedes the train, also dragging by a rope. ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... injury. But in the meantime, the bubble had burst, Sherrifmuir had been fought, Mar's army had been totally routed, the prisons in England and Scotland had been filled with his misguided followers, and the headsman and the hangman were ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... times he laboured at his gentle craft all day - "No doubt you mean his Cal-craft," you amusingly will say - But, no—he didn't operate with common bits of string, He was a Public Headsman, which is quite ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... really haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful brows. "It's not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or an old ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... cell door opened; soft the headsman came, Within his hand a mighty axe a-gleam, (A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes,) . . . And as he lay, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... differently. He cried out loudly that her Majesty must be mad to tell such a lie. He had no time to say more. The guards seized him, and at a sign from the queen the headsman came forward. He was always beside the throne, for she might need his ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... probable affinity to the noises which deranged the workmen of Babel. It appeared, by parts of sentences and broken remonstrances, equally addressed to the patron, whose name was Baptiste, and to the guardian of the Genevese laws, a rumor was rife among these truculent travellers, that Balthazar, the headsman, or executioner, of the powerful and aristocratical canton of Berne, was about to be smuggled into their company by the cupidity of the former, contrary, not only to what was due to the feelings ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... bewilderment, disgust, facetiousness. The people in New England finally become facetious about spring. This is the last stage: it is the most dangerous. When a man has come to make a jest of misfortune, he is lost. "It bores me to die," said the journalist Carra to the headsman at the foot of the guillotine: "I would like to have seen the continuation." One is also interested to see how spring is going ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and rehearse our parts?" asked the count: "for methinks everything is prepared, except the headsman and the spectators. A plague on ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... we may say that Kwan-yu was prepared to die. In fact, on the night before the final casting he had a dream in which he saw himself kneeling before the headsman and cautioning him not to forget the binding agreement the latter had ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... had struggled to his knees, where he leaned with neck outstretched as if he waited the stroke of the headsman's sword, unable to regain his feet. The girl looked with serious eyes into Morgan's face, the hot ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... foreign, which may be resident in the towns and cities. So the Jews of Barbary have their chiefs, and the slaves theirs. In Tunis a number of free coloured people, called Waraghleeah, emigrants from the Algerian oasis of Warklah, have also their chief or headsman. This chief has rather large and even discretionary powers, and can order his subjects to be imprisoned by the officers of the sovereign Government of the country. But, of course, this imperium in imperio is subject to the supervision of the supreme Government. The object is apparently ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... sublimely, "Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie, Madame Roland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierre recalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder upon his heart than the ax of the headsman." ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... moment too late—Talhouet was dead: and, as he lifted his eyes, he saw in the hand of the headsman the bleeding head of his friend—and then, in the nobility of his heart, he felt that, one being dead, they all should die. That not one of them would accept a pardon which arrived a head too late. He looked around him; Du Couedic ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... was depicted as a headsman in a cartoon printed in "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper," on February 14, 1863, the title of the picture being "Lincoln's Dreams; or, There's a Good ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... and on looking out, he saw a whale spouting about a mile to windward. In less than a minute after the people had come on deck half dressed, the boats started away with six men in each, including the headsman and boat's steerer. The captain went as headsman in one, and the first mate in the other. The water bubbled and hissed under the bows of the boats, as the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... bowed head and the headsman brought the knife down across the back of his neck, but the knife was nicked and the ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... fatal stroke. And now, as the spear of the retiarius was not a weapon to inflict instant and certain death, there stalked into the arena a grim and fatal form, brandishing a short, sharp sword, and with features utterly concealed beneath its vizor. With slow and measured steps, this dismal headsman approached the gladiator, still kneeling—laid the left hand on his humbled crest—drew the edge of the blade across his neck—turned round to the assembly, lest, in the last moment, remorse should come upon them; the dread signal continued the same: the blade ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... our wrath by the precipitation of their crane-neck quarterings. Treason they feel to be their crime; each individual carter feels himself under the ban of confiscation and attainder; his blood is attainted through six generations; and nothing is wanting but the headsman and his axe, the block and the sawdust, to close up the vista of his horrors. What! shall it be within benefit of clergy to delay the king's message on the high road?—to interrupt the great respirations, ebb and flood, systole and diastole, of the national ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... but evidently used often before for the same purpose. It was buttressed up against their wall, and extended a clear twenty feet out, with a broad wooden stair leading down from the further side. In the centre stood a headsman's block, all haggled at the top, and smeared with ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on his fate took place in the Convention. It was proposed to deal with him as he had dealt with better men, to put him out of the pale of the law, and to deliver him at once without any trial to the headsman. But the humanity which, since the ninth of Thermidor, had generally directed the public councils restrained the deputies ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... little table; the usual deadened fire was in the grate; the bed had its usual pall upon it; and the mistress of all sat on her black bier-like sofa, propped up by her black angular bolster that was like the headsman's block. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... 1644 he presided over a Rosicrucian assembly at which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... gave the information asked, and agreed to cede these lands back to the crown, were led into the white tent, where an ample feast awaited them. Those who refused were dismissed with frowns into the red tent, where they found awaiting them the headsman's fatal block and axe. The hapless guests were instantly seized ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... dreadful instruments of torture, some of them taken from the Armada, and the ghastly headsman's block and mask, and then they descended the winding stairs again and went into the little shadowy St. John's Chapel, on the ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... disgrace. Is this a crime? I give you my life in exchange for my son's disgrace. Does my country need a victim? I have lived for my country's glory, and I can die contented to satisfy its laws, sure that, if you blame me, you will not despise; sure that the hands that give me to the headsman will scatter flowers over my grave. Thus I confess all. I, a soldier, look round amongst a nation of soldiers; and in the name of the star which glitters on my breast I dare the fathers of France to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he, "grow ye merry in sooth by reason o' this Fool! Aye me, all men do grow merry save only I, Ranulph, Chief Torturer, Ranulph o' the Keys, o' the Gibbet, o' the City Axe—poor Ranulph the Headsman. Good lack! I've cut off the head o' many a man merrier than I— aye, that have I, and more's the pity! And now, ye that are to die so soon can wax joyous along o' this motley Fool! Why, 't is a manifest good Fool, and rare singer ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... interceded for them with all his might, even telling the king that such an execution would tarnish his honor, and that reprisals would be made on his own garrisons; and all the nobles joined in entreating pardon for the citizens, but still without effect; and the headsman had been actually sent for, when Queen Philippa, her eyes streaming with tears, threw herself on her knees amongst the captives, and said, "Ah, gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea with much danger to see you, I have never ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... held his hat and wig] somewhat more for you. Let me lie down once, to see how the block fits me." This he did. Then, kneeling down again, and uttering a short prayer with the executioner, he arose, and undressed himself for execution, the headsman assisting him. After which, the Earl desired the executioner to take notice, that "when he heard the words 'sweet Jesus!' then he should do his office so soon as he pleased." After which, his Lordship laid himself down on the block, and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... is—to die. —Ye towers! within whose circuit dread A Douglas by his sovereign bled; 550 And thou, O sad and fatal mound! That oft hast heard the death-ax sound, As on the noblest of the land Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand— The dungeon, block, and nameless tomb 555 Prepare—for Douglas seeks his doom! —But hark! what blithe and jolly peal Makes the Franciscan steeple reel? And see! upon the crowded street, In motley groups what maskers meet! 560 Banner ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... kisse From his soft lipps such as the amorous Fawnes Enforce on the light Satyrs. Let[130] me dy Who, like the palme, when consious that tis void Of fruite and moysture, prostratly doe begg A Charitable headsman. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... you by a look if I had any mind to do it. I will tell you what it is, youngster; why should I kill you? I can see a red line round your neck—the guillotine is waiting for you. Yes, you will end in the Place de Greve. You are the headsman's property! there is no escape for you. You belong to a vendita of the Carbonari. You ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... a board; Suits of armor, shield, and sword; Kerchief with its bloody stain; Ghosts of the untimely slain; Thunder-clap and clanking chain; Headsman's block and shining axe; Thumb-screw, crucifixes, racks; Midnight-tolling chapel bell, Heard across the gloomy fell,— These and other pleasant facts Are the properties that shine In ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... so very bad,' said the younger journeyman, 'if one only had to suffer death and nothing worse. But these Swedes torture people as the very headsman himself would be ashamed to do. My father died by the dreadful "Swedish Drink," and then they took my eldest brother, and—ah! it's too ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... mountain in the background would answer for the rolling billows of the ocean. He said he'd be hanged if it should. So I mentioned that it might perhaps pass for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Put George in black for the headsman, bend over the tree and put a frock on it for Mary, let the hatchet stand, and work in the guinea-pig and the factory chimney as mourners. Just as I had got the words out of my mouth, Barker knocked me clean through the picture. My head tore ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... and romantically inclined. Here I seemed to live in the midst of these wonderful intrigues of long ago. Documents passed through my hands whose very possession at one period meant capital danger, bringing up even now visions of block, axe, and masked headsman. It seemed strange to me that so sinister a man as Lord Rantremly, who, I had heard, cared for nothing but drink and gambling, should have desired to promote this historical research, and, indeed, I soon found he felt nothing but contempt for it. However, he had undertaken it at the instance ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... he would succeed, and that fields of gold and springs of eternal youth exist only in dreams, where they best belong. It was a cold, gray morning, and Sir Walter was kept standing on the scaffold while the headsman ground his ax, the delay being for the amusement and edification ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the energy and profundity of a Hegel; to the physicist it is all one and the same thing—a fresh distribution of matter and motion, muscular contraction, and rise and fall of the grey pulp called brain. A burglar shoots a policeman dead and the public headsman decapitates a criminal. To physical science, those two acts differ in no respect. They are exercises of muscular energy, expenditure of nervous power, the effecting of molecular change, and there the matter ends. But surely, you would urge, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... indignant scorn; for their golden locks had ever been sacred to them as their honor. When the Roman Empire was invaded by the Goths and Vandals, a Helwyse—so runs the tale—was taken prisoner and brought before the Roman General. The latter summoned a barber and a headsman, and informed the captive that he might choose between forfeiting his head, and that which grew upon it. As to the precise words in which the Northern warrior couched his reply, historians vary; but they are ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... America again. He was of the Catholic faith in America and they conferred the honor of priesthood upon him but after he married me this priesthood was taken away and he joined the Episcopal Church. After we were married we decided to go on an extensive lecture tour. He had been a headsman in his own country and a prince. We took the customs of his people and his experiences as the subject of our lectures. I could sing, play the guitar, violin and piano, but I did not know his native language. He began to teach me and as soon as I could sing the song How Firm A Foundation ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... of outcasts, fallen as low as the fancy of man can picture, this voluntary headsman, had treated her without rudeness, but with such absence of even a hint at endearment, with such disdain and wooden indifference, as no human being is treated; not even a dog or a horse, and not even an umbrella, overcoat or hat, but like some dirty, unclean object, for ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... taken, will in all probability share the fate of Wallace." His voice became husky with strong emotion. "There is no exception in his sweeping tyranny; youth and age, noble and serf, of either sex, of either land, if they raise the sword for Bruce and freedom, will fall by the hangman's cord or headsman's axe; and I, alas! must look on and bear, for I have neither men nor power to avert such fate; and that hand which places on my head the crown, death, death, a cruel death, will be the doom of its patriot owner. Think, think on this, and oh, retract thy noble resolution, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... middle-aged man, without encumbrance, who can have an undeniable character from his last situation, as headsman, hangman, and general executioner. He is accustomed to the use of thumbikins and the most approved and fashionable modes of torture; and officiated for many years as superintendent of the wheel of a foreign prince, renowned for the neatness of his rack. Drawing and quartering in all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... the word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late! And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in the world, The mightiness of love ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the headsman came to Vagn. Now, as he had a dislike to this brave viking, Thorkel rushed at him, holding his sword in both hands. But Vagn threw himself suddenly at Thorkel's feet, whereupon the headsman tripped over him. In a moment Vagn was on his feet, Thorkel's ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... where once was the home of the ill-fated Earl of Derwentwater, who was beheaded in 1716 for espousing the Pretender's cause. It is related that before his execution on Tower Hill he closely viewed the block, and finding a rough place which might offend his neck, he bade the headsman chip it off; this done, he cheerfully placed his head upon it, gave the sign, and died: his estates were forfeited and settled by the king on Greenwich Hospital. Castle Hill rises boldly on the shore above Derwent Isle, where there is a pretty residence, and every few years there is added ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... sentence was executed, but the cutting out of the tongue was omitted, the executioner only pretending to do that part of his work. La Barre's head fell, amid the applause of a cruel crowd which admired the skillful stroke of the headsman. A thrill of indignation, not unmixed with fear, ran through the liberal party in France. The anger and grief of Voltaire were loudly expressed. It was at least an improvement on the state of public feeling in former generations that such severity should not have met with universal ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Sir Thomas More, for instance, on the scaffold, and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when, grasping her neck, she remarked, that it "was too slender to trouble the headsman much." During one part of the French Revolution, it became a fashion to leave some "mot" as a legacy; and the quantity of facetious last words spoken during that period would form a melancholy ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... however, proceeded with amazing rapidity. The First Assistant Postmaster-General was J.S. Clarkson, who had been vice-chairman of the Republican National Campaign Committee. The speed with which he cleared the service of Democrats earned him the title "headsman" and is indicated by the estimate that he removed one every three minutes for the first year. When the force of clerks was increased for the taking of the census of 1890, the superintendent of the census office found himself "waist deep in congressmen" trying to get places for friends. The Republican ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... was a sight that the gods looked on with pleasure." Here, indeed, was adversity, and here was true greatness struggling against it; but to a mere mortal it was a heart-rending sight. The ship's deck looked like a place of execution, and we only wanted the headsman, his block, and his axe, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... prisoner's legs, that he might go to hear mass, commanded his jailer not to let him budge from his cage except to be tortured (gehenne) and the duke wrote a piteous letter, praying for clemency and signing himself le pauvre Jacques. In vain: him, too, the headsman's axe sent to his ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... this evidence that the hurdy-gurdy sets the world to dancing—like the fiddle in the Turkish tale where even the headsman forgot his business—despite such evidence there are persons who affect to despise its melody. These claim such perceptivity of the outer ear and such fineness of the channels that the tune is but a clack when it gets inside. God pity such! ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... so discordantly with the scene in her memory that for an instant she grew faint and clung to the curtains between which she was passing. That death should leave so little trace, that the spot which one night was occupied by a headsman, the next, should hold a bride, made her fancy reel with horror even while she pulled ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Franks seated themselves and caused the prisoners to pass in parade order, one by one before the King who said to the first, "O Moslem, whence comest thou?" He answered, "From Alexandria;" whereupon the King said, "O headsman, put him to death." So the sworder smote him with the sword and cut off his head: and thus it fared with the second and the third, till forty were dead and there remained but Ala al-Din, who drank the cup of his comrades' ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... holiday on the shores of Lake Leman, and the Pass of St. Bernard, Cooper placed as a background for his plot based on the hard old feudal-times law—that (in the canton of Berne) the odious office of executioner or headsman was made a family inheritance. The efforts of the unhappy father and mother to save their son from such a fate make up the pathetic interest of "The Headsman," issued in 1833. The Hospice of St. Bernard ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... evil' is a petition which, in its width, fits the close of the prayer better than does the translation of the Revised Version. There seems an echo of the words in Paul's noble confidence while the headsman's axe was so near, 'The Lord will deliver me from every evil work.' Entire exemption from evil of every sort, whether sin or sorrow, is the true end of our prayers, as it is the crown of God's purpose. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... have an underground communication. We were shown one dark and gloomy cellar far below the level of the fort, known as the execution room, where the criminals, condemned in the Judgment Hall above, received their punishment. The headsman's block was still there, and certain dark stains were pointed out to us by means of the candle carried by the guide, which told their own story. In the centre of this dreary vault was a well whose water was level with the ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... "I have deserted my charge—the banner entrusted to me is lost. When the headsman and block are prepared, the head and trunk are ready ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the king, however harmless in itself, had in it for her something dismal and dreadful. It was the involuntary, instinctive touch of the headsman, who examines the neck of his victim, and searches on it for the place where he will make the stroke. Thus had Anne Boleyn once put her tender white hands about her slender neck, and said to the headsman, brought over from Calais specially ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... rise, with the impatience and sickening dread of a doomed man, who longs to have done with life, and turns cold at the thought of the headsman. She had braced herself for a last effort, but perhaps the prospect of the certain failure of the attempt was less dreadful to her than the fear of receiving yet again one of those thrusts that went ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... faithful in his adherence to Jesus Christ, a gleam of sunshine at eventime, which foretells Heaven's welcome and 'Well done!', before it is uttered. He was no self-righteous braggart, but a very rigid judge of himself, who, close by the headsman's block that ended his life, said: 'I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith.' 'Put on the whole armour of God,' and when the time comes to put it off, you will have a peaceful assurance as far removed from despair as it is from boasting. Distrust yourselves; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that gnaws the guns, And shattered shells are but the runs Where warring insects cope; And all the headsman's racks and blades And pincers, tools of tyrants' aids, Are ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... through the shadowy illusion of passing hansoms and omnibuses, like the sole fact of the street, the king's voice rising above the noises in tender caution to a heedless witness, "Have a care of the axe; have a care," and then gravely to the headsman: "When I stretch out my hands so, then—" The drums were ordered beaten, so that we could not hear more; and we went out, and crossed among the cabs and 'busses to the horse-guards sitting shrunken on their steeds, and passed between them into ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Paula, with the dignity of the headsman. "You have no truer friend than me at this moment, as some day you will discover. Come, now, will you do me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I do as you bid, I may not go unrecognized. I say not, 'Spare me this, John Nevil!' I only ask, 'Is it wise?'... Sir Francis Drake is commander here. Four years ago he swore that you were too merciful, that in your place he would have played hangsman to me more blithely than he played headsman to Thomas Doughty." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... as that?" said Claparon. "Gobseck is a banker, just as the headsman is a doctor. The first word is 'fifty per cent'; he belongs to the race of Harpagon; he'll take canary birds at all seasons, fur tippets in summer, nankeens in winter. What securities are you going to offer him? If you want him to take your paper without security you will ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... tongue the secret tells, Not that remorse my bosom swells, But to assure my soul that none Shall ever wed with Marmion. Had fortune my last hope betrayed, This packet, to the King conveyed, Had given him to the headsman's stroke, Although my heart that instant broke. Now, men of death, work forth your will, For I can suffer, and be still; And come he slow, or come he fast, It is but ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... to the throne, yet are we free? 'Tis not words, I tell thee, but action, swift, sharp and merciless, that will put down our enemies. Fearest thou the block? Did Essex, did Moore, a hundred others whose faith was their life, fear the headsman? Good Percy hath brought us to our senses and surely thou must see ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... each other, as the Red Indians have done, off the face of the earth. They lived these Norsemen, not to live—they lived to die. For what cared they? Death—what was death to them? what it was to the Jomsburger Viking, who, when led out to execution, said to the headsman: "Die! with all pleasure. We used to question in Jomsburg whether a man felt when his head was off? Now I shall know; but if I do, take care, for I shall smite thee with my knife. And meanwhile, spoil not this long hair of mine; it ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... think if you had been Sir Walter, instead of sailing to England where you knew that a headsman's axe awaited you, you would have coasted by the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and dropped off quietly where is the home of the canvas-back and the terrapin! Just stepped into one of the jolly-boats and peacefully drifted ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... returned to Paris, whither he was accompanied by the whole of the royal party, which was moreover augmented by the presence of the Duc de Bouillon, who, according to Bassompierre, was as much at his ease, and as arrogant in his deportment, as though he had never incurred the risk of the headsman as a rebel and a traitor. The Court dined at La Roquette, and it was near dusk when they reached the Barriere St. Antoine, where they were met by the corporate bodies. Henry himself rode on horseback, preceded by eight hundred nobles in full dress, and ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the watch at the front and rear platforms. The car took its time; it stopped, started again, stopped, started, after the manner of ordinary cars; oh, for a magic carpet or pneumatic tube, to make an end of this! or for a thousand years! It was as if the headsman were making preliminary flourishes with his sword, ere delivering his blow. These ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... twenty persons, or yet more, Arrive, they were imprisoned and put by; And every day one only from the store Of victims was brought out by lot to die, In fane by Orontea built, before An altar raised to Vengeance; and to ply As headsman, and dispatched the unhappy men, One was by lot selected ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... that it was the tatters of a people, rags of wood, of iron, of bronze, of stone, and that the Faubourg Saint Antoine had thrust it there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the broom making of its misery its barricade. Blocks resembling headsman's blocks, dislocated chains, pieces of woodwork with brackets having the form of gibbets, horizontal wheels projecting from the rubbish, amalgamated with this edifice of anarchy the sombre figure of the old tortures endured by the people. The barricade ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... safe custody," answered Villefort; "and rely upon it, if the letter is found, he will not be likely to be trusted abroad again, unless he goes forth under the especial protection of the headsman." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... can give you hope. We are alone on the sixth story. Beneath us are only women, and if you call from the window, I can shoot you dead before your voice can reach the street. Perhaps, though, you do not think of saving yourself, but of ensnaring me. Bah! as if the sight of the headsman would stop me now. Besides, I am prepared for flight. Have you looked at this house? It is not like other houses; it is double, and the room in which we stand has other foundations and walls from this one behind me which I guard with my pistol. Let the deed be once ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... it war rather a tantalizing scene to stand aloof and contemplate; and so the guards very likely felt; but Sir Norman's thoughts were of that room in black, the headsman's axe, and Leoline. He felt he would never see her again—never see the sun rise that was to shine on their bridal; and he wondered what she would think of him, and if she was destined to fall into the hands of Lord Rochester or Count L'Estrange. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... would not suffer any libels to defame him after death.—"And now I have a long journey to go, and must take my leave." "He embraced all the lords and other friends with such courtly compliments, as if he had met them at some feast," says a letter-writer. Having taken off his gown, he called to the headsman to show him the axe, which not being instantly done, he repeated, "I prithee let me see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of it?" He passed the edge lightly over his finger, and smiling, observed to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the headsman's trade, Alike was famous for his arm and blade. One day a prisoner Justice had to kill Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, As ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... would serve her save royal blood! My poor father says as sure as the lions and fleur-de-lis have come into a family, the headsman's axe ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lady Jane to Robert Dudley, all the traitors who had conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband were led to the headsman's block; while Robert Dudley was among those who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of their cells, where they may be seen to this day, or to stroll disconsolately on the Tower leads ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... and then they let the ladies come up. When they began to help her with her dress I covered my face—I could not help it. There was such a stillness now that I could hear her beads chink at her girdle. When I looked again, she was ready, with her sweet neck uncovered: all round her was black but the headsman, who wore a white apron over his velvet, and she, in her beauty, and oh! her face was so fair and delicate and her eyes so tender and joyous. And as her ladies looked at her, they sobbed piteously. 'Ne ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... easy to understand the feelings of Marie Stuart when she arrayed herself in her best garments for her execution: it was simply the heroism of supreme vanity, the desire to fascinate if possible the very headsman. One can understand any beautiful woman being as brave as she. Harder than death itself would it have seemed to her had she been compelled to appear on the scaffold looking hideous. She was resolved to make the most ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... wry grin. "Certainly. The hands of the felon were amputated at the wrist. Usually with a headsman's ax, I believe." ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... gamesome creatures of the haberdasher had dressed themselves for a more recent banquet. Their black-tailed coats and glossy shirts attest a rare occasion. It was in holiday mood, when they were fresh-combed and perked in their best, that they were cut off from life. It would appear that Jack Ketch the headsman got them when they were rubbed and shining for the feast. We'll not squint upon his writ. It is enough that they were apprehended for some rascality. When he came thumping on his dreadful summons, here ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... anybody had ever wanted to read them, had never succeeded in getting themselves read, but they had cuts and cuts which were fascinating to surmise about. The sixth book was the second volume of a romance called "The Headsman," by "the author of 'The Spy,'" and the seventh was a back-split edition of ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... a Dutch headsman, that he would do his office with so much ease and dexterity, that the head after execution should stand upon the shoulders. Pray God Sir William be not probationer for the place; for as if he had the like knack too, most of those whom the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... have chained and fettered God himself! You have already put one God to death on the cross; I am the second, and you have given me into the hands of the headsman. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Old Griffin was a kindly man enough, and not very old; and I suppose that the other constable, as known to his family and friends, was not at all the gloomy headsman he appeared to the boys. When he became constable (they had not the least notion how a man became constable) they heard that his rule was to be marked by unwonted severity against the crime of going in swimming inside the corporation line, and so they ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... I hear is true, rogue," answered Ithobal savagely, "the tormentor and the headsman alone could satisfy all my debt to you. Say, merchant, what return have you made me for that sackful of gold which you bore hence some few ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... was presently discovered who agreed simply for what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Birth being stopped, Enough of room remained in every zone, And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne. Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacks Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped) 'Twas made worth having by the headsman's axe. Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking, And crumbled all ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Here Cecilia advances towards the place where the palm of martyrdom awaits her. Her feet only still belong to this earth. Her upraised eyes tell that her thoughts are already in heaven. The man who bears the sword is not an executioner whose stern ferocity augments that of the spectacle. Here the headsman has an air of compassion. Behind the saint walks a priest who assists her. His physiognomy is common, but sweet. He applauds the tranquil resignation of the victim, who seems already to hear the celestial concert that is going on above. The angels celebrate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various |
