"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman, walks in the bazaar, yea, even at noon and at sunset. Perchance one evening, lured by the tale of the riches of the house of Zulannah, might not her feet stray within the portals at the setting of the sun. And behold, the key of the great door is within these ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... being aided by the inhabitants, whom we had ruined, for the sake of delivering them from the yoke of the beys, we found all against us: Mamelukes, Arabs, and fellahs. No Frenchman was secure of his life who happened to stray half a mile from any inhabited place, or the corps to which he belonged. The hostility which prevailed against us and the discontent of the army were clearly developed in the numerous letters which were written to France at ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... at the Church they would give us some ale, And a pleasant fire our souls to regale, We'd sing and we'd pray all the livelong day, Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray. ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... benignity of his face. On the end of his nose grew a tuft of long hairs, which he seemed to prize as a natural mark of royalty, or chieftainship. Indeed, there was a popular legend afloat that he was of true royal blood—a stray Bourbon, or something of the sort. His speech was singularly fluent and elegant. The Emperor was one of the celebrities that no visitor failed to see. It is said that his mind was unhinged by a sudden loss of fortune in the early days, by the treachery of a partner ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... wicked she was, a woman having a husband and three children, to let her mind stray to a stranger in this unconscionable manner. No, he was not a stranger! She knew his thoughts and feelings as well as she knew her own; they were, in fact, the self-same thoughts and feelings as hers, which her husband distinctly lacked; ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... chained to the rowing-galley's benches had interest neither one way nor the other, and looked on the contest with dull concern, save when some stray missile found a billet amongst them. But a handful of the fighting men had scrambled desperately on board the galley after us, preferring any fate to a fiery death on the "Bear," and these had to be dealt with promptly. Three, with their fighting fury ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... they are covered with a sward of grass—the 'ycha' grass, the favourite food of the llamas—and this renders them serviceable to man. Herds of half-wild cattle may be seen, tended by their wilder-looking shepherds. Flocks of alpacas, female llamas with their young, and long-tailed Peruvian sheep, stray over them, and to some extent relieve their cheerless aspect. The giant vulture—the condor, wheels above all, or perches on the jutting rock. Here and there, in some sheltered nook, may be seen the dark mud hut of the 'vaquero' (cattle herd), or the man himself, with ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... moon-lighted midnight when they set out, the four of them, to walk from the gate across the park to the Old House. Like shadows they flitted over the green sward, all silent as shadows. Scarcely a word was spoken as they went, and the stray syllable now and then, was uttered softly as in the presence of the dead. Suddenly but gently opened in Juliet's mind a sense of the wonder of life. The moon, having labored through a heap of cloud into a lake of blue, ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness—Troen itself was gone now—and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves and searched for stray cattle—swiftly all known things drew away and vanished, until at last the whole parish was ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... in one of the computer buildings. These were completely sealed to keep stray animal life out of the delicate machinery. While Meta checked a bed-roll out of stores, Jason painfully dragged a desk, table and chairs in from a nearby empty office. When she returned with a pneumatic bed he instantly dropped ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... useful check on the other branch of that order, especially on its arrogant provincial, Lorenzo de Leon—of whose unlawful acts Guiral complains, and demands an investigation. He has obliged the stray Indians about Manila to return to their native places; and he asks that those who are retained for the service of the religious orders shall be kept within the allotted number, and that the friars be compelled to pay these servants fairly. The Audiencia has allowed Gabriel de Ribera to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... Sam! Lend a hand with these baskets, and then steer for the lighthouse; the ladies want to see that first," answered Captain John, as he tossed a stray cookie into Sammy's mouth with a smile that caused that youth to cleave to him like ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... from your wife and children, and want to keep you all your life hoeing corn for them, if you'd think it your duty to abide in the condition in which you were called. I rather think that you'd think the first stray horse you could find an indication ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the boys had from time to time allowed their thoughts to stray away, and mental pictures of the Lawson crowd suffering from hunger and cold intruded upon their minds. They forgot whatever they chanced to be doing at that moment, and came ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... in the twilight pink and gray, Whilst with a sound like wings, note after note Takes flight to form a pensive little lay That strays, discreet and charming, faint, remote, About the room where perfumes of Her stray. ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... foregathered from the length and breadth of the Pacific. There was a Maori from New Zealand, a Koriak tribesman from Kamchatka, two Kanakas, a stray from Ponape, and an Aleut. The six natives, Martin discovered, had all been with the ship for years, were old retainers of Captain Dabney. The four white men, and the cook, who rejoiced in the name of Charley Bo Yip, had been newly shipped ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... and gave wings to the hours. Among the scenes through which they passed, she reminded him, not of an exotic or a stray tropical bird, but rather of the ideal mountain nymph humanized, developed into modern life, the strong original forces of nature harmonized into perfect womanhood, yet unimpaired. Her smiles, her piquant words, and, above all, the changing expression of her ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... as a stray dog to Milton, the place where Harry lived. If he could have told his own story, it would probably have been a very pitiful one, of kicks and cuffs, of hunger ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... Panama-Pacific International Exposition through architecture and the allied decorative arts are so engrossing that one yields to the call of the independent Fine Arts only with considerable reluctance. The visitor, however, finds himself cleverly tempted by numerous stray bits of detached sculpture, effectively placed amidst shrubbery near the Laguna, and almost without knowing he is drawn into that enchanting colonnade which leads one to the spacious portals of the Palace of ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... water pipes!" I exclaimed, thinking of statements I had heard by engineers. "That's what they mean by stray or vagabond ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... because of her. But then it had been the very first time in her life that she had ever walked alone, and if words cannot describe the joy and triumph of it how was it likely that she should have been able to resist the temptation to stray aside up a lovely little lane that lured her on and on from one bend to another till it left her at last high up, breathless and dazzled, on the edge of the heath, with Exmoor rolling far away in purple waves to the sunset and all ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... all the stray children of London. Call them from every street and court, from out every by-way, ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... confused on the road. Do you know your letter brought the tears into my eyes? I hardly know why, unless it was that I saw Procter had been pouring his kind heart into yours, and you said:—'We must have him here instead of the coffee-house, and plant him by the fire, and warm him like a stray bird till he sings.' But indeed a kind word affects me where many a hard thump does not. Nevertheless, you must not tell this, except to the very masculine or feminine; though if you do not take it as a compliment to yourself,—I mean the confession of my weakness,—why, you ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him—a full foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand—and after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a little while, and tempted it to ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... with a sword with crape round the handle. The coffin-bearers, grumbling and altercating among themselves, laid the coffin on the hearse; the garrison soldiers lighted their torches, which at once began crackling and smoking; a stray old woman, who had joined herself on to the party, raised a wail; the deacons began to chant, the fine snow suddenly fell faster and whirled round like 'white flies.' Mr. Ratsch bawled, 'In God's name! start!' and the procession started. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... looked down upon the world, sitting erect, with his golden padlock and chain glittering in any stray gleams of sunshine; his white coat evenly spotted with black, his long drooping ears, neat row of carefully-painted black curls across the forehead, and that proud smile which, though the whole village had been smitten down before him, would still ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... usually beginning, "I regret exceedingly," from which beginning he launched out into well balanced, well phrased excuses, of admirable logic, by means of which he proved the imperative necessity of finding other anchorage for this stray and apparently very frail bark. Of necessity these letters were vague, since he did not know what particular form of frailty he had to contend with. Of one thing, however, he was sure—the Colony offered opportunities for the indulgence of every form known ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... similar effect. The greatest epic poets and satirists have always transcended rules to follow "Nature's light"; Pope, over-topping them all, has "still corrected Nature as she stray'd" (pp. 19, 21). But perhaps Harte's most successful attempt to elevate The Dunciad comes in section two of his poem. Unlike Dryden, in whose Discourse the account of the "progress" of satire is confined almost exclusively to ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... or kids assail, Stray'd from their dams, by careless shepherds left Upon the mountain scatter'd; these they see, And tear at once their unresisting prey; So on the Trojans fell the Greeks; in rout Disastrous they, unmann'd by terror, fled. Great Ajax ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... full of copious and original associations. The subject of thought, once started, develops all sorts of fascinating consequences. The attention is led along one of these to another in the most interesting manner, and the attention never once tends to stray away. ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... living, as yet, only by the affections, that required such a wealth of love to fill it! The little outcast heart depending on casual passers by for a stray word or look of comfort, striving to feed itself on such poor, miserable crumbs as these! It made the mother's face grow white with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... terrible. Yet terrible only to those who have known what the solace and gaiety of words and the beauty of sound can be. To have been born deaf is different, and I have no doubt whatever that the deaf and dumb have delectable lands of their own into which we can never stray, where wonderful flowers of silence grow. It is even possible, since all the visible world is theirs, that they never envy ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... festivals, had taken to smoking, as in harmony with his bucolic transformation. An old setter lay dozing at his feet; a small spaniel—old, too—was sauntering lazily in the immediate neighbourhood, looking gravely out for such stray bits of biscuit as had been thrown forth to provoke him to exercise, and which hitherto had escaped his attention. Half seated, half reclined on the balustrade, apart from the baronet, but within reach of his conversation, lolled a man in the prime of life, with an air of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to ask their way, And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray, To make no step until the event is known, And ills to come as evils past bemoan. Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps To spy what danger on his pathway creeps; Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth,—his hall the azure dome; Where his clear ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... back to the hidden canon. He felt a little lonely as he thought of Collie. He gave the burro some scraps of camp bread, knowing that the little animal would not stray so long as he was fed, even a ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... costume, short enough to display her thin, elderly ankles, and adorned with many flying ribbands and furbelows. An impossibly high garden hat crowned her faded head, allowing certain rather unattached-looking ringlets of colourless blonde hair to stray about her cheeks. She made one think of a butterfly, no longer young, but attempting to keep up the illusions of spring. Hilda and her mother smiled and returned the salutation in ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... little far to the south, and then died down entirely. There were one or two stray flashes of lightning and then no more. He sank into a sort of doze that was more like a stupor, from which he was awakened by a dusky figure in the doorway of the little shelter. It was Tayoga, and he bore a heavy ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to a neighboring river-town to look after the shipments to the West Indies in which he was now interested in company with the Squire. But this had not forbidden a little cursory reading of a sentimental kind. There may have been a stray volume of Pelham upon his table, and a six-volume set of Byron in green and gold upon his limited book-shelf, (both of which were strongly disapproved of by Mrs. Elderkin, but tolerated by the Squire,)—besides which, there were certain Spanish ballads to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... go, but when I spoke again there was no answer, and I devoted all my energy to my task, though it had become so monotonous that my thoughts began to stray, and I found myself wondering how matters were going in the cabin—whether they were very much alarmed by the noise of the steam, or whether they felt as confident as the mate did about our ultimate mastery of the fire, and how Walters ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... been seen lately in the country, they did not feel uneasy. At the upper grove they found two soldiers of the First Nebraska Cavalry, named Bentz and Wise, who had been sent out by the quartermaster to look for stray mules, and they had stopped to gather some plums. As both these men were well armed, Captain Mitchell attached them to his party, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... crowd of excited Luxembourgers filled the streets in the morning and gave every sign of extreme dissatisfaction. "What were these Prussian soldiers doing there? Had they come to spy out the land and the city in preparation for an invasion? Was there a stray prince or duke among them who wanted to marry the Grand Duchess? The music was over. These Kriegs-Herren had better go home at once—at once, did they understand?" Yes, they understood, and they went by the next train, which took them to ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... great rush of customers in the office. About twice a day some one would stray in; but gen'rally they was lookin' for other parties, and we didn't take in money enough over the counter to pay the towel bill. It had me worried some, until I tumbles that the Glory Be ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... disguise from himself the overwhelming probability against an affirmative answer to his hopes. He was very miserably certain that he had no right to hope, and that accusing conscience of his which never permitted him to stray without rebuke, and yet had never been worth a farthing to him in his whole career, worried him without ceasing. But he knew enough of himself already to have learned that the fault of character which had wrecked him was half made up of reluctance to add ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... satiric frolicking as Ibsen's "Ghosts" to its mood of moral horror. Sincerity bars out no themes; it only demands that the dramatist's moods and visions should be intense enough to keep him absorbed; that he should have something to say so engrossing to himself that he has no need to stray here and there and gather purple plums to eke out what was intended to be an apple tart. Here is the heart of the matter: You cannot get sincere drama out of those who do not see and feel with sufficient fervour; ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... was in the clasp of the Grand Inquisitor himself, the venerable Pedro Arbuez d'Espila, who gazed at him with tearful eyes, like a good shepherd who had found his stray lamb. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... greatness, Ill suits my humble, unambitious soul;— Then leave me here, to tread the safer path Of private life; here, where my peaceful course Shall be as silent as the shades around me; Nor shall one vagrant wish be e'er allow'd To stray beyond ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... eyes beheld from yon hill a cloud of dust arise at a small distance; the intermediate space were thick set with laurels, willows, evergreens, and bushes of various kinds, the growth of wild nature, and which hid the danger from my eyes, thinking perchance my flock had thither stray'd; I descended, and straight onward went; but, Dick, judge you my thoughts at such a disappointment: Instead of my innocent flock of sheep, I found myself almost encircled by a herd ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... sixteen N.C.O.'s went forward on August 6th to spend a night in the new firing line. On the way up, as they were passing along the westmost sector of the Eski line, one of our most promising young N.C.O.'s—Corpl. W. Wood, "D" Company—was killed by a stray bullet. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... for Annie Hempstead. Letters did not come very regularly from Tom Reed, for it was a season of heavy snowfalls and the mails were often delayed. The letters were all that she had for comfort and company. She had bought a canary-bird, adopted a stray kitten, and filled her sunny windows with plants. She sat beside them and sewed, and tried to be happy and content, but all the time there was a frightful uncertainty deep down within her heart as to whether or not ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Gibson could have asked Osborne, or in default, Roger Hamley to go to the ball with them and to sleep at their house,—or if, indeed, she could have picked up any stray scion of a 'county family' to whom such an offer would have been a convenience, she would have restored her own dressing-room to its former use as the spare-room, with pleasure. But she did not think it was worth her while to put herself ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... grown he had been in the habit of flying from his nest in the early morning for a brief survey of the Piazza. First, he would make his way to the famous well and, after a refreshing bath, would walk about on the ground for a while in search of stray morsels of food, perchance left by tourists the day before. Then, on the way back to his ledge, he would stop for a moment here and there among the statuary for a gossipy "coo" with one and another pigeon friend. ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... seen to it, mother," said Ralph; "it is packed, and the oxen are already tied to the yokes for fear lest they should stray." ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... matter required by the hypothesis, apart from other reasons, is against it. There is undoubtedly an enormous amount of meteoric matter moving about within the bounds of the solar system, but most of it seems to be following definite routes round the sun like the planets. The stray erratic quantities destined to meet their doom by collision with the sun can hardly be sufficient to account for the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... their laces. There were sounds of revelry by night, where fair women and gallant men drew around the social board, on which sparkled the wine-cup and glimmered the yellow gold, to be taken up by the winner. Champagne was drunk in honor of the famous victory, hands were shaken over it, stray sheep were brought back into the true Democratic fold, and late opinions about presses and ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... the German dropped his bayonet with a crash and threw up both arms. He spun on his heel and then fell to the ground without an outcry. A stray bullet had done what Chester had been unable to accomplish, and for the moment the lad ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... ceiling of blue and gold, which will look very well for some time; and is filled with gaudy pictures and carvings, in the very pink of the mode. The congregation did not offer a bad illustration of the present state of Catholic reaction. Two or three stray people were at prayers; there was no service; a few countrymen and idlers were staring about at the pictures; and the Swiss, the paid guardian of the place, was comfortably and appropriately asleep on his bench at the door. I am inclined ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... where the tents were pitched by the side of the bananas, they were equally pleased: it was quite a fairy spot. Mrs. Seagrave went into her tent to repose after her fatigue; the goats and sheep were allowed to stray away as they pleased; the dogs lay down, panting with their long journey; Juno put Albert on the bed while she went with William to collect fuel to cook the dinner; Ready went to the pits to get some water, while Mr. Seagrave walked about, examining the different ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... merely demanded a guard on the farther side of the river. Nevertheless, the enthusiastic fellows threw themselves into the game with the same spirit with which, twenty years before, they had faced the danger of a runaway by the tandem of rampant hall chairs. A stray Boer or two would have made an interesting diversion; but, even without the Boers, a night guard in the open possessed ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... finds for the man who has won her gratitude by supplementing her deficiency in strength and courage with his own, she was worthier love than ever. At this view, too, he was sure that, unlike too many of the divas of these spielungs, or dens, she was not one of the stray creatures who sell pleasure to some and give it to others, and for themselves keep only shame—fatal ignominy, wealth at best very unsubstantial, and if, at last, winners, they laugh—one would rather see ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... idle, and eager, curious faces began to peep at the "stray dog" through the half-open door. Just as I was about to turn in, curiosity could be restrained no longer; the room filled with noisy young fellows, who took up a position round my bed and proceeded to bombard me with ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... this new campaign Paget's Brigade was, in conjunction with the forces of Baden-Powell, Plumer, and Hickman, to scour the district whose backbone is the railway line running due north from Pretoria to Petersberg. He was to occupy strategic points, isolate and round up stray commandos, and generally to engage the attention of the enemy here, while the grand advance under Roberts and Buller was ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... farmer within a mile or so of the spot; or it might be that he was a stray beast, drawn back to the original state of his kind by the call of ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... am going away from my story, and that I must not do, for I have many things to tell, so many that it will not be well for me to stray away from the ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... its equipment dozens of new horse-blankets. With the exception of a few stray animals, no horses had been received by the battery in France thus far. Several were in care of the outfit at Ville sous La Ferte, where six horses caused as much stable detail work as a complete battery of mounts occasioned at Camp Meade. The main ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... walked over open country, made dangerous, however, by the presence of gaping shell-holes. Runners, soldiers and others passed them going to or from the trenches. The artillery duel, save for an occasional stray shot, had ceased ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... creature passed her hands over her eyes an instant, tucked in a stray lock of hair that had become disarranged, and after a look around the garden made those present a gracious bow and said, in a sweet ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... the hot sun, as the kite lay on the grass while the string was fastened, Tizzy having the delightful task of rolling the ball along the grass to unwind enough for the first flight; and then, after Ned had thrown a stray goose-feather to make sure which way the wind blew, this being towards the tall poplars, Tizzy was set to hold up the kite as ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... reached our first balanced budget, I asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable seven years ago: We are actually paying down the national debt. If we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 years and make America debt-free for the first time ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... so close to her father's castle that she might be seen and recognized by the first passer-by, and, besides that, it was full of lions and wolves, who would have snapped up a princess just as soon as a stray chicken. So she began to walk as fast as she could, but the forest was so large and the sun was so hot that she nearly died of heat and terror and fatigue; look which way she would there seemed to be no end to the forest, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... you ride him even a short distance on the other side," called a Telluride liveryman to me as I rode out of his barn. It seems that the most faithful return horse may not come back if ridden far down the slope away from home, but may stray down it rather than climb again to the summit to return home. The rider is warned also to "fasten up the reins and see that the cinches are tight" when he turns the horse loose. If the cinches are loose, the saddle may turn when the horse rolls; or if the reins are down, the horse ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... provocation. On the other hand, there came a time when she grew just a little weary of these dear sweet friends, and began to find them less charming than of old; but she was never uncivil to them; they always remained on her list, and received stray gleams from the sunlight of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... was called, when it was decided to move on to the vicinity of Clearwater, and there remain until all the final preparations for our long trip were completed. Our horses were turned loose and hobbled during the day, but were not allowed to stray very far from the camp. Watchful eyes were ever upon them, and also scanning the prairies for suspicious intruders. Before sundown they were all gathered in and securely fastened in a large barn that stood out upon the prairie, the sole building left of a large farmstead: ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... would give my memory every possible chance. Take a few at a time, and see what effect they produced on me. Perhaps—though I shrank from the bare idea with horror—they might rouse in my sleep such another stray effort of spontaneous reconstruction. Yet the last one had cost me much nervous ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... St. Paul is. Its distance from all known civilization—all civilization that has succeeded in obtaining acquaintance with the world at large—is very great. Even American travelers do not go up there in great numbers, excepting those who intend to settle there. A stray sportsman or two, American or English, as the case may be, makes his way into Minnesota for the sake of shooting, and pushes on up through St. Paul to the Red River. Some few adventurous spirits visit the Indian settlements, and pass over into the unsettled regions of Dacotah and Washington Territory. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... him, and these were Forrest's friends and associates and the men who least liked the tutor. But while Elmendorf had ceased to spend some time each afternoon in the offices adjoining the general's sanctum, picking up all stray items of military news and haranguing such men as would listen, his was by no means an unfamiliar figure about the great building. True to his policy, he had made acquaintance among the clerks, messengers, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... much, whereon St. Anne and other saints played among roses and raspberries, beautiful to behold. These things made both the picker-up and the payer exceedingly contented. Meanwhile Peter with difficulty restrained Leslie from "picking up" stray pieces of mosaic from tessellated pavements, and other curios. Oddly together with Leslie's feeling for the costly went the insane and indiscriminate avidity of the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... did; and there was hardly a nondescript face to be seen. All could be classified in historic Scottish types. But the whitewashed, thatched cottages in the suburbs would have looked Irish if they had not been too preternaturally clean. In the streets of Newton-Stewart there was not so much as a stray stick or bit of paper. It looked to me a deeply religious place, and Basil said perhaps it was trying to be worthy of St. Ninian, who first brought Christianity to Scotland. He was a native of the Solway shore, but went to Rome, where they liked him very much and made him a bishop. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... ever varies when the plant is easily accessible and which can be supplemented by plenty of others when it is not. The bird's botany would be worth examining; it would be interesting to draw up the industrial herbal of each species. In this connection, I will quote just one instance, so as not to stray too far from the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... of time, the whole country was turned against them; for no crowd could get together in which they didn't kick up a row, nor a bit of stray fighting couldn't be, but they'd pick it up first; and if a man would venture to give them a contrary answer, he was sure to get the crame of a good welting for his pains. The very landlord was timorous of them; for when they'd get behind ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... nut-hatch came, and even the snow-bird took a taste occasionally; but this sap-sucker never touched it; the sweet of the tree sufficed for him. This woodpecker does not breed or abound in my vicinity; only stray specimens are now and then to be met with in the colder months. As spring approached, the one I ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... along the rail of the big steamer, half interested in spite of themselves. Twice they passed a certain point on the forward deck, unconscious of a force that was attracting them in that direction. The third time he allowed them to settle for an instant on the group of faces and figures and then stray off to other parts of the ship. Some strange power drew them again to the forward deck, and this time he was startled into an intent stare. Could he believe those eyes? Surely that was her figure at the rail—there between the two young women who were waving their handkerchiefs ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... story. On page 228 of the first volume three pages of the "Sky-Walk" are "extracted from Brown's MSS." The singular title of this unfinished story, which was afterward woven into the web of "Edgar Huntley," seems to have been as puzzling to readers then as now, and it is explained in a stray note on page 318 of the magazine as "a popular corruption of Ski-Wakkee, or Big Spring, the name given by the Lenni Lennaffee (sic) or Delaware Indians to the district where the principal scenes of this ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... and learn that if we are children then are we heirs. Is there any motive that will so surely still the desires of the flesh and of the mind as the blessed thought that God is ours and we His? Surely their feet should never stumble or stray, who are aware of the Spirit of the Son bearing witness with their spirit that they are the children of God. Surely the measure in which we realise this will be the measure in which the desires of the flesh will be whipped back ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... showing the honour done to our unheroic hero. There is also a Slihlyah quarter or suburb of Damascus famous for its cemetery of holy men, but the facetious Cits change the name to Zlliniyahcausing to stray; in allusion to its Kurdish population. Baron von Hammer reads "le faubourg Adelieh" built by Al-Malik Al-Adil and founded a chronological argument ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... tell you at once that this little stray dog soon got tired of waiting, outside the door. When lessons were over, and the children went to look, no doggie was to be found; and as they did not know his name it was not easy to call him. I have no doubt he found his own master and his own home ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... career a disappointment, she leaves us only the passing glimpse of what she was, and the hazy possibility of what she might have been. Perhaps the defect was, after all, in herself; perhaps the soil was not deep enough to produce anything but a few stray heroisms, bright and transitory;—perhaps otherwise. What fascinates us in her is simply her daring, that inborn fire of the blood to which danger is its own exceeding great reward; a quality which always kindles enthusiasm, and justly,—but which is a thing of temperament, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... the thickets, avoiding the warm forest. The dark brown coati (Nasua montana, Tsch.) howls, and digs at the roots of trees in search of food; the shy opossum crawls fearfully under the foliage; the lazy armadillo creeps into his hole; but the ounce and the lion seldom stray hither to contest with the black bear (Ursus frugilegus, Tsch.) the possession of his territory. The little hairy tapir (Tapirus villosus, Wagn.) ventures only at twilight out of his close ambush to forage in ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... no plan. They go where they list and in curves and angles, and only once in a mile in short, straight stretches. They twist and stray north and south and nor'nor'west and eastsou'east, as if each new-comer had cleft a walk of his own, caring naught for any one else, and further dwellers had smoothed ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... villain flies, he, full of rage and ire, Pursues, she stood and wondered on them both, But yet to follow them showed no desire, To stray so far she would perchance be loth, But quickly turned her, fierce as flaming fire, And on her foes wreaked her anger wroth, On every side she kills them down amain, And now she flies, and now she ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there ain't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... only little stray things, and Cherry has done the chief of them," said Ethel. "Oh, it is grievously bad still," she added, sighing. "Such want of truth, such ungoverned tongues and tempers, such godlessness altogether! It is only surface-work, taming ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... heard that you were with him at the end, and I caught stray words from her ladyship of what had passed. Lord Rotherby had the information from the tipstaff who went to arrest Sir Richard Everard. I guessed he was your—your foster-father, as you called him; and I came to tell you how deeply I sorrow ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... whispering said, or seem'd to say, No lasting joys to earth are given, No longer near these ashes stray, Go, mourner! hence, away! away! Thy lost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... trademark the picture of an Indian maiden with bow raised and arrow poised ready for its flight, and beneath it the word "Manikawan." With this constantly before them Shad declared they could never stray from the original object of their enterprise, and could never forget the lesson taught by Manikawan's heroic sacrifice. And never since the firm began business have Manikawan's people failed to receive relief in times of need, and never has there been a repetition of ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... particulars. What are his tonsils for? They perform no useful function; they have no value. They are but a trap for tonsilitis and quinsy. And what is the appendix for? It has no value. Its sole interest is to lie and wait for stray grape-seeds and breed trouble. What is his beard for? It is just a nuisance. All nations persecute it with the razor. Nature, however, always keeps him supplied with it, instead of putting it on his head, where it ought to be. You seldom ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... unharassed through all its most gorgeous pageant. Great fronds of ivory white, of palest gold, of brownest gold, of reddest gold upreared themselves among the purple waves of the heather, wearing the stray flecks of the sunshine like jewels on their breasts. We sat down on a fallen tree round which the ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... cheerily Were love-y-woven then; And o'er Elysium drearily The May-time flew for men;[14] The morning rose ungreeted From ocean's joyless breast; Unhail'd the evening fleeted To ocean's joyless breast— Wild through the tangled shade, By clouded moons they stray'd, The iron race of Men! Sources of mystic tears, Yearnings for starry spheres, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... mirror, adjusted her cap, put back a stray lock of hair, and opened the door. But she stopped, looking at ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... by the stream where you stray, A beam is reflected afar, Which seems, on the waters, a ray— The ray from a luminous star. What is it that sweetens my sight, That lightens the leaf-burthened skies? What is it, my Love, but the light,— The light ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... arrival, as Essnousee's departure, shows the security of the routes in some directions. The Arab told me he made his journey in nine days, and stopped occasionally on the road to sleep and refresh himself. In the night he tied his camel's leg to his own leg, so that if it attempted to stray, it would awake him. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... his mouth, and stray hairs caught inside his lips when he opened and closed them. His lips, like his eyes, were pale, and his skin sickly as that of a man who sees but little of the light. His cheeks and chin were stubbly, like his head; his ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... set out upon his journey, but his wife and his children were all, save one, stretched out in profound sleep. That one, the most beautiful of all creatures—look at her, and say if she is not!—sat bathing her lovely cheeks and stately neck in the morning dew, and brushing off the stray drops with the white lily of the lake. Her little feet were carelessly thrust into the clear stream gliding by her, beneath which they glittered like the sparkling sands washed from the mountains into the river of the Nanticokes. Her long bright hair, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the beech-mast, Now the ploughland's clay, Now the faery ball-floor of her fields in May. Now her red June sorrel, now her new-turned hay, Now they keep the great road, now by sheep-path stray, Still it's "England," "England," ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... wet walk in the forest; the mosses and ferns being kept moist and green by the innumerable little streams of water which abound everywhere. Owing to the thickness of the surrounding jungle, it was impossible to stray from our very narrow path, notwithstanding the attractions of humming-birds, butterflies, and flowers. At last we came to an opening in the wood, whence we had a splendid view seawards, and where it was decided to turn round and retrace our steps through the forest. After walking some distance ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... that crossed the river, which was running full and foaming, had been burnt; but a span, charred and broken, still swung from the central pier. Over toward the dun-tinted west a house was blazing, fired by some stray bomb, perhaps, or by official design, to hinder the enemy from utilizing the shelter, and its red rage of destruction bepainted the clouds that hung so low above the chimneys and dormer-windows. To the east, the woods on the steeps had been shelled, ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... freely in their accounts of them. But the Story Girl was the soul of honour; and Peter, early in life, had had his feet set in the path of truthfulness by his Aunt Jane and had never been known to stray from it. When they assured us solemnly that their dreams all happened exactly as they described them we were compelled to believe them. But there was something up, we felt sure of that. Peter and the Story Girl certainly had a secret between them, which they kept for ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... got scratched in the foot with a stray bullet, just as we went into the thicket there at the fort, and I can't walk. I am a little faint ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... this time were fairly well broken to camp life, and, with the cattle on hand, night herding them had to be abandoned. Billy Honeyman, however, had noticed several horses that were inclined to stray on day herd, and these few leaders were so well marked in his memory that, as a matter of precaution, he insisted on putting a rope hobble on them. At every noon and night camp we strung a rope from the hind wheel ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... ripen, will generally require a little fire heat to push them on; when ripened in good time they are better flavoured and keep longer than when the ripening process is delayed to a late period of the season. Continue to remove the stray laterals that begin to shade the larger leaves; to be done a little at a time, as disbudding on an extensive scale is prejudicial to fruit trees. The young Vines in pots to have every attention, to secure as much growth and healthy vigour as possible while the growing season lasts. Allow all young ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... worse beasts still. Worse beasts, certainly, Sturmi and his comrades would have met, if they had met them in human form. For there were waifs and strays of barbarism there, uglier far than any waif and stray of civilization, border ruffian of the far west, buccaneer of the Tropic keys, Cimaroon of the Panama forests; men verbiesterte, turned into the likeness of beasts, wildfanger, huner, ogres, wehr-wolves, strong thieves and outlaws, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... raised in California in those days so long ago, and cattle were counted by the thousands and sheep by tens of thousands. Then the grizzly and cinnamon, or brown, bear feasted all the time on stray calves and yearlings. Every spring and fall the cattle, which had roamed almost wild in the pastures, were "rounded up" by the cowboys, or vaqueros. After the work of picking out each ranchero's stock and branding the young cattle was over, the vaqueros thought it fine fun to lasso ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... when the movers went into camp or put up in state at a tavern. Around a camp were all sorts of woodsy creatures to be scratched out of holes or chased up trees, or to be nosed and chewed at. There were stray and half-wild pigs that had tails to be bitten, and what could be more exhilarating than making a drove of grunting pigs canter like a hailstorm away into deep woods! And in the towns and villages all resident ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... him seek his Daughter himself; she cannot stray about a little necessary natural business, but the whole Court must be in Arms; when she has done, we shall ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... device aboard whose job it is to get us out of the way of stray meteors, and it works automatically. Arcot and I were just changing places at the controls. While neither of us was strapped into our seats, a meteor came within range and the rocket tubes shot the car out of the way. We both went tumbling head over ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... departure, horsemen appeared in the road near by. They had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground behind a log. From the conversation overheard, they were assured that they had narrowly escaped the night-riders on the lookout for stray negroes. The next year, 1822, Coffin himself joined a party going to Indiana by the southern route through Tennessee and Kentucky. In the latter State they were at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a pet dog, but whose ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... took up so much room aboard, the scouts saw that it was no false alarm. A number of men were hurrying toward them, splashing through water that was in places almost knee deep, even when they took the upper levels. Should they make a blunder, and stray off the ridges, it was likely they would speedily have ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... well enough how they'd take care of him at Station C. They'd shoot him—that's what they do to stray dogs without any friends. But anyhow, I could keep him over night, for mother would think it was all right, now father had said so. So I took him to the shed-chamber and gave him a good supper,—how he did ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning |
