"Windfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dreadful exasperation to the sense that she was still dependent upon Mrs. Minto for her existence. During this tea-time, while her mother mutely ate bread and margarine, Sally was away in the clouds, dreaming of all that her windfall was to produce. It was to produce beauty, opportunity, happiness. So much for a pound to do! Sally was so impatient to call on Mrs. Perce that she could hardly eat anything or ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... "This luck was a windfall for the Lobore natives who had accompanied us; and a man immediately started off for assistance, as many men were required to transport the flesh and ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... there was nothing after us, and we both paused to take breath, and, so far as I was concerned, to ascertain, if possible, what had occasioned the race. I learned that my friend, after I left him, had gone into the windfall, and was standing upon the long trunk of a fallen tree, picking berries, when he saw, a few rods from him towards the other end of the log on which he was standing, a great black hand reach up and bend down a tall blackberry-bush ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... that of his days; but, of course, he could not keep it up for long. It is highly-paid work, as it ought to be; but the ten shillings or so that a man may earn at it four or five times a year come rather as a welcome windfall than as a part of income ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... of many things, of Gertrude's departure for school—she was leaving on the three o'clock train—of the engagement, of course, and of the three thousand dollar windfall from Aunt Lavinia. The captain had told that bit of news when ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... presented to him. "Disease, slow fever—nervous. Plague on it!" cried the doctor, with an expression of profound satisfaction; "if the attending physician is not mistaken in his diagnostic, it is a most excellent windfall; I have desired a slow nervous fever for a long time, as this is not a malady of the poor. These affections are caused in almost every case by serious perturbations in the social position of the subject; ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... before he felt the good firm ground under his feet and laid the still unconscious Molly on the grass behind a gray and barkless windfall that had ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... doubt if the bloom of it will survive the rough contact of a public elementary school? . . . Come, I've thought of that, as a godfather should. You're aware that, a couple of years ago, a small legacy dropped in upon me—a trifling windfall of ten guineas a year. Well, I've been wasting it on luxuries—a few books I don't read, a more expensive brand of tobacco, which really is no better than the old shag, some extra changes of body-linen. Now since the Education ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to him. Bight deeds, and not the judgment thereupon; true words, and not what reception they may have, shall be our care. Not merely shall we not love money, or trust in it, or seek it as the business of life, but, whether we have it or have it not, we must never think of it as a windfall from the tree of event or the cloud of circumstance, but as the gift of God. We must draw our life, by the uplooking, acknowledging will, every moment fresh from the living one, the causing life, not glory in the mere consciousness of health and being. It is God feeds ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... Taiwan, where foreign investment helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy, lassitude, corruption) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation). Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. In late 1993 China's leadership approved additional long-term reforms aimed at giving still more play to market-oriented institutions ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... his horses through the darkness. He grumbled at my shillings: he did not know how few I had. Our poverty wore a pretty decent face. My relatives never thought of relieving it, nor I of complaining before them. I don't know how Sampson got a windfall of guineas; but, I remember, he brought me six once; and they were more welcome than any money I ever had in my life. He had been looking into Mr. Miles's crib, as the child lay asleep; and, when ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... myself at last in Paris, I naturally determined to throw myself on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene Marie d'Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a year or more ago on receiving word of the death of an aunt who had left him such property as she possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging from Eugene's remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... from the poop-deck to the chart-room. We had also taken aboard a ton of whale-meat for the dogs. The big chunks of meat were hung up in the rigging, out of reach but not out of sight of the dogs, and as the 'Endurance' rolled and pitched, they watched with wolfish eyes for a windfall. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Libyan-Tunisian border in April 1988 and the Libyan-Egyptian border in December 1989 have somewhat eased shortages. Austerity budgets and a lack of trained technicians have undermined the government's ability to implement a number of planned infrastructure development projects. Windfall profits from the hike in world oil prices in late 1990 improved the foreign payments position and may permit Tripoli to ease austerity measures. The nonoil industrial and construction sectors, which account for ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... so much of his lost money seemed to Herbert quite a lucky windfall. He went at once to a trunk store, and, for five dollars, purchased a good, durable trunk, which he ordered sent home to his lodgings. Fifteen dollars more he invested in necessary underclothing, and this left him one-half of the money for future use. Besides this he had six ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... bear, Whose hides so heavy and ill-scented were, They almost choked the foolish beast. 'I wish me with my former lord,' he said; 'For then, whene'er he turn'd his head, If on the watch, I caught A cabbage-leaf, which cost me nought. But, in this horrid place, I find No chance or windfall of the kind:— Or if, indeed, I do, The cruel blows I rue.' Anon it came to pass He was a collier's ass. Still more complaint. 'What now?' said Fate, Quite out of patience. 'If on this jackass I must wait, What will become of kings and nations? Has none ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... D'Artagnan; who said afterwards to himself, "I'faith, I greatly deceive myself, or I have been the means of a good windfall to that rascal Moliere, and we shall assuredly see the scene hit off to the life in some comedy or other." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the morning after Kid Wolf's arrival in the town, the old padre was astonished to find a package of money inside his door. It was addressed simply: "For the poor." It was a windfall and a much-needed addition to the mission's ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... passed successively through the lodges of Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas, where they were feasted almost to death by the Iroquois Confederacy.[11] Then they marched to the vast wilderness of snow-padded forests and heaped windfall between ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... the same. I like everything in this world but Saratoga. Once or twice our monotony was broken up by short halts before country inns. At one an excitement was going on. "Had a casualty here this afternoon," remarked a fresh passenger, as soon as he was fairly seated. A casualty is a windfall to a country village. It is really worth while to have a head broken occasionally, for the wholesome stirring-up it gives to the heads that are not broken. On the whole, I question whether collisions and collusions do not cause as much good as harm. Certainly, people seem to take ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... your uncle's pictures, but they ought to be good, judging by the places from which they came. If they are worth only forty thousand francs,—a thousand francs apiece,—tell no one. Though my grandsons are discreet and well-behaved, they might, without intending harm, speak of this windfall; it would be known all over Issoudun; and it is very important that our adversaries should not suspect it. You behave like ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... to keep the godsend to herself,—one saw on the instant that le bon Dieu was paying for Madame Choucrou,—it was an instantaneous dread of the "Princess's" quixotic code of honour. La Valiere was capable of flying in the face of Providence, of taking the windfall to a bureau de police. As if the inspector wouldn't stick to it himself! A purse—yes. But a five-franc piece, one ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,—finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... still curious, surmising that in all this there was probably no fabulous treasure of the legends, but some fine windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil's bank-bills, and that the road-mender had half discovered the secret. The most "puzzled" were the school-master and Thenardier, the proprietor of the tavern, who was everybody's friend, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... tree, climbed by every Bradstreet child, stood at the east of the old house, and held its own till well into the present century, and little John may have been on his way for a windfall, when the capon flew toward him. To stealing was added offences much more malicious, several discreet Puritan lads, sons of the foremost land holders having been induced by sudden temptation, to join him in running Mr. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... for a long time. Such things happen only once a year or more around dull old Stanhope. To-night we meet to see how many have the money earned for the suits; and I'm glad to say I can cover my needs. You're doubly supplied now, with this windfall." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... day after day echoing with the steady fusillade from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off into swamps ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... old man's castle in the air; his clever, selfish son soon demolished it. 'This sum of money,' he said, 'is only a lucky windfall. If you indeed wish it to become the foundation of my fortune, give me one hundred florins besides, and let me return to Amsterdam: there I must ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... what; it's my opinion that if a chap is to turn soldier and carry a musket, he should have soldier's play, and leave to plunder a little—now the devil a thing have I laid my hands on to-night, except this firelock and my cutlash—unless you can call this bit of a table-cloth something of a windfall." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have it your own way. But I should have only paid her what I agreed to. It is a great windfall for her." ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... thirty-third degree,' and in three days Atwater, the two women and I will be off for Breslau. Leave me a free hand, and I'll get your murderer and the money. But remember, one single imprudence loses both man and money; you, your vengeance; me, my reward. And I depend on this windfall to marry!" ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... bold defence of Freethought. He made out a will in Mr. Bradlaugh's favor, but he subsequently made another will, and died in circumstances that necessitated an inquest. By agreement, however, Mr. Bradlaugh obtained L2,500 from the estate, and the windfall came opportunely, for his struggles and litigations had involved him in considerable debt. I know he often had to borrow money on heavy interest. One day, at Turner-street, he told me that a creditor of this species had coolly ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... cadet of the noble family of that name. He passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early those parsimonious habits which in after-life never forsook him; so that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite the pump in Serjeant's-inn, Fleet-street. J., the counsel, is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... The ranger's job was a man's job in the old days when it was a mere matter of patrolling; but it's worse and more of it to-day. A ranger must be ready and willing to build bridges, fight fire, scale logs, chop a hole through a windfall, use a pick in a ditch, build his own house, cook, launder, and do any other old trick that comes along. But you'll know more about all this at the end of ten days than I can ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... a picture? — or more likely had a windfall? Or for God's sake, what's broke loose? Have you a bee-hive in your head? A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing. Do you know that? Understand it, if you do; for if you won't. . . . What the devil are you saying! Make believe you never said it, And ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... to give me no chance to change my mind and fly his net. I was soon alone, staring dazedly at my windfall and wondering if fortune would ever give me anything without attaching to it that which would make me doubt whether my gift had more of bitter or more of ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... sixty-five pounds? Conceivably it represented about half of the total, in which case a further sum of, say, two hundred and fifty pounds might be coming to Louis. Already he was treating this two hundred and fifty pounds as a windfall, and wondering in what most pleasant ways he could employ it!... But with what kind of fact could Julian be acquainted?... Had Julian been dishonest? Louis would have liked to think Julian dishonest, but he could not. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague as the first faint gleams of daylight, made him fancy relations between this ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... been able to make out. He bought a boat and a shanty down at my shore and went into a sort of mackerel partnership with Snuffy Curtis—Snuffy supplying the experience and this young fellow the cash, I reckon. Snuffy's as poor as Job's turkey; it was a windfall for him. And there he's fished ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ingredient in the successful career of every man, but that the man was on the spot to take the luck, knew when to take it, and how to use it. "The lucky man is the man that sits up watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"—that was the way he had put it. So Rudyard Byng, if lucky, had also been of those who had grown haggard with watching, working and waiting; but not a hair of his head had whitened, and if he looked older than he was, still he was young enough to marry the youngest ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... five hundred dollars, and he was upon the point of returning to Crosset with a request to double the loan when his common sense asserted itself. Poverty was odious, but not shameful, he reflected; ostentation, on the other hand, was vulgar. Would it not be in bad taste to squander this happy windfall upon jewelry when Lorelei ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... frequenting ordinaries—a school, by the way, in which he had obtained most of his notions of the proprieties of the table. One or two slices were obtained in the usual manner, or by means of the regular service; and, then, like one who had laid the foundation of a fortune, by some lucky windfall in the commencement of his career, he began to make accessions, right and left, as opportunity offered. Sundry entremets, or light dishes that had a peculiarly tempting appearance, came first under his grasp. Of these he soon ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... but only the other day. It was a most unexpected windfall. I was delighted to hear about it." Jean looked at him and wondered if he were well. His long holiday did not seem to have improved his spirits; he was more absent-minded ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... tears and half of laughter, in her voice. Indeed the phrase fits Partenopeus precisely. We are told that Urraca would have been formally in love with him if it had not been unsportsgirl-like towards her sister; and as for Persewis, there is once more a windfall in the description of the "butter-cup's" delight when Urraca, going to see Melior, has to leave her alone with the Count. The Princess is of course very sorry to go. "But Persewis would not have minded if she had stayed ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... "I am one who believes that where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." Mrs. Evringham had regained a quite light-hearted appearance in the interest of expending a portion of her windfall on her own ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... right. He was still young, as every man of forty-three will agree, but he was getting older. A few years ago a windfall of three hundred and forty-one pounds would not have been followed by morbid self-analysis; it would have been followed by unreasoning, instinctive elation, which elation would have endured at least ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... Cardigan sat down on a small sugar-pine windfall, his head held slightly to one side while he listened to that which in the redwoods is not sound but rather the absence of it. And as he listened, he absorbed a subtle comfort from those huge brown trees, so emblematic of immortality; in the thought he grew closer ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... jackass remains a jackass, a culprit a culprit, and loafing never fails to bring the loafer to a disgraceful end. The Devil has a short but nimble tail; and it makes no difference how slovenly he may conduct his business, his recruits have got to pay the piper in the end. This will be a windfall for mother. Let's hurry so that we can serve it to ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Hertfordshire.(547) We conclude, that the Duke of Argyle will abandon Mrs. Villiers(548) for this richer widow; who will only be inconsolable, as she is too cunning, I believe, to let any body console her. Lord Macclesfield(549) is dead too; a great windfall for Mr. Grenville, who gets a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... shadows began to lengthen, I shouldered my rifle and plunged into the woods. At first my route lay along a mountain side; then for half a mile over a windfall, the dead timber piled about in crazy confusion. After that I went up the bottom of a valley by a little brook, the ground being carpeted with a sponge of soaked moss. At the head of this brook was a pond covered ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... bird-house was the Banquo's ghost at the Rodney board, Mrs. Rodney hearkening back to it in and out of season. If the family made merry over a chance windfall of game or fresh vegetables, a prospect of possible employment for one of the boys, a donation of money from Judith, Mrs. Rodney remembered the unbuilt bird-house and indulged herself to the full of melancholy. It is not improbable that, if she had been asked to name ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... excited bark broke the silence. The Harvester stretched on the ground, his eyes feasting on the Girl. Intensely he watched every movement. If a squirrel barked she gave a nervous start, so precipitate it seemed as if it must hurt. If a windfall came rattling down she appeared ready to fly in headlong terror in any direction. At last she dropped her pencil and looked at ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... His income would scarcely have kept her in flowers, and to supply her with jewels and dinners and a hundred other luxuries, as well as to repay money lost at cards, he had plunged deeper into the books of Benjamin and Company, hoping each time that some windfall would stave off disaster. Disregarding the advice of a few sincere friends, he had continued his mad course of dissipation. And now the blow had fallen—sooner than he had reason to expect. A bill for a large amount was due that very day, and Benjamin and Company refused ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... were pleased with the Crisis and the voyage, and, instead of returning to their own country, sailor-like, they took service to go nearly round the world. These were first-rate men—Delaware-river seamen—and proved a great accession to our force. We owed the windfall to the reputation the ship had obtained by her affairs with the letter-of-marque; an account of which, copied from the log-book and a little embellished by some one on shore, he consignee had taken care should appear in the journals. The history of the surprise, in particular, read very well; ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... nest of the Chalicodoma of the Walls, most of whose cells are occupied by the numerous cocoons of a parasite, the Stelis. The contents of these cells, which have been partially ripped up to satisfy my curiosity, are very much exposed to view. The windfall appears to be appreciated, for I see the dwarf ferret about from cell to cell for four days on end, see her choose her cocoon and insert her awl in the most approved fashion. I thus learn that sight, although ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... effectually than the single-handed capture of so notorious a desperado as Stingaree. The dashing officer was not unnaturally actuated by the sum of three hundred pounds now set upon the outlaw's person, alive or dead. That would be a little windfall for one man, but not much to divide among five or six; on the other hand, and with all his faults, Sub-Inspector Kilbride had courage enough to furnish forth a squadron. He was a black-bearded, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... I've had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... Vanringham, "and I warn you, you will find me a daring antagonist. I had to-day an extraordinary—the usual prejudice, my dear Herle, is, I believe, somewhat inclined to that pronunciation of the word,—the most extraordinary windfall. I am rich, and I protest King Croesus himself sha'n't intimidate me to-night. Come!" he cried, and he drew from his pocket a plump purse and emptied its contents upon the table; ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... know, but a half hour later they made some sweeping attempts to clean up the mess to which their efforts at personal cleanliness had reduced the shop, pleased once more with what they saw now in the mirror. They had divided the shirts, and while the fit was not perfect, they were satisfied with the windfall. Before he left the shop Kirby swept a half dozen cakes of ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... for it, I should let myself hope. After all, why not clear up my doubts? What do I risk by it? I have plenty of money. Ah, then, my children," said he to the young peasants, "your father is sick and poor? He will not be vexed to gain a little windfall; although I carry a wallet, I have a purse. Well, instead of going to dine and sleep at the inn (may the lightning strike me if I ever set foot in this abbey, the Lord confound it!) I will go and dine and sleep at your place. I will not be any trouble to you. I have been a soldier, I am not hard ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... way the men figgered it out," he went on, "though I reckon they're under the mark more'n over it, you'll have forty thousan' dollars. That's quite a windfall, though nothin' to Miss Peggy, here, or me, for that matter. I s'pose you got it ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... on, circling around the edge of a great windfall. A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above. Again and again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... was about four o'clock in the afternoon when, pressing through brush and windfall, we came suddenly out into a sunny road. Beside the road ran a stream clattering down-hill over its stony bed—a clear, noisy stream, with swirling brown trout-pools and rapids, rushing between ledges, foaming around boulders, a joyous, rolicking, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... that he demanded faith of them in order to make them regard him, that so his personal being might enter into their hearts. Healing without faith in its source would have done them harm instead of good—would have been to them a windfall, not a Godsend; at best the gift of magic, even sometimes the power of Satan casting out Satan. But he must not therefore act as if he were the only one who could render this individual aid, or as if men influencing the poor individually could not aid each other ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... in frolic and pathos, and inculcates so pure a moral, that we must pronounce him a very fortunate little fellow, who catches these "Tales of Magic," as a windfall from ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... said Fleda, shaking her head comically;—"I am told 'The wind's voices' have blown it here, but privately I am afraid it is a windfall ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... not seeing or hearing anything of the other wagon, I made my camp where an old Indian camp had been and prepared to spend a comfortable night in the woods. I cooked my supper and then turned in. The wind had come up and I soon became very chilly, so I looked around for a warmer place. I found a windfall and made myself a nice little fire by crossing the trunks and building a fire under them. I spent the next four hours in comfort, though it was very cold. My uncle had told me to start with the first rays of the sun. I ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... came upon the beginning of the long lead that comprised many rushes, known as Forest Creek. The impression Jim retained was a semi-humorous one of humans reduced to the proportions and the dignity of ants, engaged upon the business of ants wrought to a pitch of excitement by some grand windfall at their doors. Little figures bustled about, carrying burdens; pigmies swarmed along the lead. The holes, with their white and yellow tips, were clustered as close together as the cells in a great honeycomb, and into the shafts and out of them bobbed hurrying, eager creatures. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... could do it, Rose," said Hester. "It would not take much time, and if your work satisfied the great tradesman who has given such an impetus to this kind of art, it might be a perfect windfall to art students wishing to keep themselves. You need not despise it in the light of house-painting. If you read your Ruskin, you will find him as good as calling Titian and Veronese house-painters, though to be sure frescoes are ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... weeks since he had quitted Littlefield. Having disposed of his practice in the nick of time to a college friend who wished to settle in the country, and having also received an unexpected windfall in the shape of a small legacy from a distant relation, he had decided, after a short stay in London, to take a holiday before starting to work ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... This timely windfall 'from the clouds' put an end to the misery of distress about money. For the first time in his life Schiller found himself free to consult inclination in the forming of his plans and the disposition of his time. Without hesitation he gratefully accepted the gift and resolved ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... to the tract owned by the Americo-African Mining Company of New York. It is understood that the American Company is negotiating for the property; some say the transfer has already been made. If this is true, the finding of this colossal stone means a windfall for the ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... church whither we had to take him. Besides, what is Dierich Brower to me? I'll see him hanged ere I'll tell him. But I wish you'd tell me where the parchments are! There are a hundred crowns offered for them. That would be a good windfall for my Joan and the children, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Captain Wilson, after a silence of some minutes; "if he had not assisted me when I was appointed to a ship, I should not have gained my promotion—nor three thousand pounds I have made in prize-money—the command of a fine frigate—and now four thousand pounds in a windfall." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... use their church for our Sunday night meetings. We thought that a fortunate windfall. We were to pay five dollars a night. We did so until one week we had nothing to eat and we let the rent wait. The trustees of the Universalist Church met and passed a resolution something like this: "Resolved, that in order that the good feeling existing between the People's Church ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... take his rifle and he would take my gun. (For some reason or other he had promoted me, may be he thought I was luckier than he.) We started out into the woods south of our house, I went ahead. There was snow on the ground, it was cold and the wind blew very hard. We crossed the windfall. This was a strip of land about eighty rods wide. It must have been a revolving whirlwind that past there, for it had taken down pretty much all the timber and laid it every way. Nothing was left standing except some large trees that had little ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... tracks showed that all stopped to play, romping much as children romp and showing a sociable disposition. It was usually late in November before the black bear denned up for the winter, commonly adapting the shelter beneath some windfall to make a winter home by enlarging and improving it and perhaps by raking in some ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... come to sketch in words the rare and weird effects, the storm, the sunsets that seem not of earth, the cascade, or the ravage of the "windfall," it is wise not to be lured into fanciful word-painting, and the temptation is large. Yet the simplest expression of facts is then and for such rare occasions the best, and often ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... into his hands the opportunity of striking a vigorous and telling blow for the newly-published book. Never was windfall more eagerly accepted. A short account of this lucky chance was written by him for the Darwin "Life" (volume 1 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... glittered in the afternoon sun. It was a confused affair, and all he made out of it, without close examination, was a life-sized angel with an early-Victorian countenance, leaning against the broken stump of an oak tree and scattering from a basket, of the kind that is used to collect nuts or windfall apples, on to a sarcophagus beneath a profusion of marble roses, some of which seemed to have been arrested and frozen in mid-air. He glanced at the inscription in gold letters. It was "To the beloved memory of Lady Jane Blake, wife of Sir John Blake, Bart., ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... Rennes has sent us word this morning that he will pay ten louis to any one giving information that will lead to this scoundrel's arrest. So there's ten louis to be earned by keeping your eyes open, and sending word to the nearest justices. It would be a fine windfall for you, that." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... investment has helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. The leadership, however, often has experienced - as a result of its hybrid system - the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and growing income disparities). China thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. The government has struggled to (a) collect revenues due from provinces, businesses, and individuals; (b) reduce corruption and other economic ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... covered with numerous shoots or suckers which deprive the crowns of their necessary food and cause them to "die back." Where the trees are tall and slim or on short and steep hillsides, it is also important to be conservative in marking in order that the stand may not be exposed to the dangers of windfall. No hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to what would constitute a conservative percentage of trees to cut down. This depends entirely on the local conditions and on the exposure of the woodlot. ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... sweet smell of pine had intoxicated me, for as I rode along utterly content I entirely forgot about Dick and the trail and where I was heading. Nor did I come to my senses until Hal snorted and stopped before a tangled windfall. ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... aware they are done to betray me?" The worthy young man answered: "My Benvenuto, they say in Rome that the Pope has bestowed on you an office with an income of five hundred crowns; I beseech you therefore not to let those suspicions deprive you of so great a windfall." All the same I begged him with clasped hands to aid me in escaping from that place, saying I knew well that a Pope of that sort, though he could do me much good if he chose, was really studying secretly, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... morning when my husband nearly killed me my friend cried because he hadn't the money to get me away. He told me afterwards he'd come into a windfall. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all the while had been gloating over the gold on the table now swept it into her pocket. It was a windfall which had come at the right moment. She was tired of Bedfordbury. She aimed at a step higher. There was a coffee house business in the Old Bailey going cheap, the twenty pounds would enable ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... happiness was drawing so near. The Gethin Castle was not, however, very full of guests. It had been wet for a few days, and rain spoils the harvest of the inn-keeper even more than that of the farmer. One night, when it was pouring heavily, and such a windfall as a new tourist was not to have been expected by the most sanguine Boniface, a lady arrived, alone, and took up her quarters in the very room that Richard had vacated. Trevethick himself was at the door when she had driven up and asked ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... month De Quincey had been able to render Coleridge a minor service, while at the same moment gratifying a long cherished wish of his own. Mrs. Coleridge was about to return with her children to Keswick, but her husband, not yet master of this L300 windfall, and undoubtedly at his wits' end for money, was arranging for a course of lectures to be delivered at the Royal Institution early in the ensuing year, and could not accompany them. De Quincey offered accordingly to be their escort, and duly conducted them to Wordsworth's ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... poverty rate declined but remained high at 38% in 2006. In 2006 the government of Alfredo PALACIO (2005-07) seized the assets of Occidental Petroleum for alleged contract violations and imposed a windfall revenue tax on foreign oil companies, leading to the suspension of free trade negotiations with the US. These measures, combined with chronic underinvestment in the state oil company, Petroecuador, led ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... My next windfall was Jack's berth on board a beautiful little schooner called the Ida, that was to sail for Curacoa, in the hope of being purchased by the governor of the island or a yacht. I expected to find my way to the Spanish main, after the craft was sold. We ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Chapel Royal, and was appointed organist to Westminster Abbey when only two-and-twenty, a place he very nearly lost by refusing to give up to the Dean and Chapter the proceeds of letting the seats in the organ-loft to view the coronation of James II., a windfall he considered as a perquisite. He is buried beneath the great organ, which had so often throbbed out his emotions in the sounds in which he had clothed them. On leaving Tufton Street he went to Marsham Street, where ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... fast was in some measure atoned for, the burden of the table-talk fell upon Bainbridge, who lifted and carried it generously on the strength of his windfall. But no topic can be immortal; and when the vacation under pay had been threshed out in all its anticipatory details it occurred to the host that his guest was less than usually responsive; a fault not to be lightly condoned under the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... could get through it. In this laudable endeavour he was ably assisted by Lady Scattercash, late the lovely and elegant Miss Spangles, of the 'Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells.' Sir Harry had married her before his windfall made him a baronet, having, at the time, some intention of trying his luck on the stage, but he always declared that he never regretted his choice; on the contrary, he said, if he had gone among the 'duchesses,' he could not have suited himself better. Lady Scattercash could ride—indeed, she ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... shall be dreaming of some lovely Maria who loves me, the toothless old man, as she might love a Mazeppa; of some imbecile son who, through some extraordinary chance, has suddenly become a minister of state; of my suddenly receiving a windfall of a million of roubles. I am sure that there exists no human being, no human age, to whom or to which that gracious, consolatory power of dreaming is totally a stranger. Yet, save for the one general feature of magic and impossibility, the dreams of each human being, of each age of man, have ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... nobody knows where he is," retorted the skipper; "that's where it is. No sooner does he get a small windfall—leastwise, his mother gets it—than he cuts the trawlers, an' all his old friends without so much as sayin' 'Good-bye,' an' goes off to Lunnon or somewheres, to set up for a ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... of friend in dire straits, himself fell into the bog. It appeared that of 1056 divisions taken in two Sessions he had been absent from 602. Here was another unexpected little windfall ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... along in high spirit. Such an unexpected acquisition both of dead souls and of runaway serfs had come as a windfall. Even before reaching Plushkin's village he had had a presentiment that he would do successful business there, but not business of such pre-eminent profitableness as had actually resulted. As he ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... who, upon my arrival at Unyanyembe, without an exception, voluntarily engaged themselves as carriers to Ujiji. With the formidable marches of Marenga Mkali in front, I felt thankful for this happy windfall,, which resolved the difficulties I had been anticipating; for I had but ten donkeys left, and four of these were so enfeebled that they were worthless ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... General Sras, the officers of his staff, the colonels and battalion commanders of the regiments in his division soon took up our seventeen horses, which produced the sum of 85 louis. This was handed over to my detachment, who, not having had any pay for six months, were delighted with this windfall, for which they gave ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... at the fresh meat, evidently in high glee, and not caring to consider whence such a windfall had come, so long as they were getting the benefit of it. They occasionally uttered loud snorts—as if to express their gratification—and at intervals the old male one growled as the cub interfered with his eating. The female, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... of events was a wonderful windfall for the Irish Nationalists, beyond what the most sanguine of them can ever have hoped for. The rejection of a money Bill by the House of Lords raised a democratic blizzard, the full force of which was directed against the constitutional power of veto possessed by the hereditary Chamber ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... goods and merchandise on credit, and selling them at a lower price for ready money. Victims of this treatment began to press him seriously for their money or their goods. Desperately he continued to fence them off with the long expected windfall of the Duplessis inheritance. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... a short distance from us, commences one of the thickest windfall jungles in these parts, and extends up nearly to the chiefs outermost cornfield, about half a mile off. I have been threatening to come here some time; and if, as I will propose, we go into the tangle, and get through, or half through, without encounter ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... accept as certainties on the eve of realization what are really only signs that point to possibilities in a far to-morrow. In the play four old men of a little village on the west coast are debating what they will do with their share of a windfall that has come to the village in the shape of two whales that have drifted up on the beach. When the priest determines that all the proceeds from the sale of the oil from the whales be spent on something that will benefit the whole community they plan a statue ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... Despite this happy windfall, life for the next few years proved an arduous affair. The horrors of reconstruction which followed the war were more agonizing than the war itself. Page's keenest enthusiasm in after life was democracy, in its several manifestations; but ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... had peddled apples among the employees of my cloak-shop. He had then been literally in tatters. That was why I was now slow to connect his former image with his present surroundings. I had heard of his windfall. He had had a job as watchman at houses in process of construction. While there he had noticed things, overheard conversations, put two and two together, and finally made fifty thousand dollars in a few ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... change in the watch. One of our watch was laid up for two or three days by a bad hand (for in cold weather the least cut or bruise ripens into a sore), and his place was supplied by the carpenter. This was a windfall, and there was a contest who should have the carpenter to walk with him. As "Chips" was a man of some little education, and he and I had had a good deal of intercourse with each other, he fell in with me in my walk. He was a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... touched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the English Admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the Devil would order, was the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Something inside is green and untrained. It shied before real man-talk.... Bedient came into a fortune recently, the result of saving a captain during a long-ago typhoon. His property is down in Equatoria, where he has been for some months. So he has had a windfall that would be unmanning to most, yet he comes up here, just as unspoiled as he used ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... heartily," Hallett said, when he heard the contents of the will. "It is a good windfall, but not a bit more ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... was only too delighted at such a windfall. This man promised to send me two days after his return 120,000 francs, and he kept his word. My reason for giving the details of this little episode, which after all belongs to my life, is to show how differently things turn out from what seems likely according ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... a real windfall. The shelves were relatively untouched and he had a wide choice of tinned goods. He found an empty cardboard box and hastily began to transfer the cans from ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan
... rose from passengers and crew alike as the bicycle was lowered to the waves, the string tightened, and the bicycle started, Billy in the saddle and Harold on the step. The event was a perfect windfall to the passengers. It gave them something to talk of all the way to Suez; some of them are ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... walking was easy and we made pretty good time; then we had a rocky hill to get over. We had to use care when we got into the timber; there were marshy places which tried us sorely, and windfall so thick that we could hardly get through. We were obliged to pick our way carefully to avoid noise, and we were all together, not having come to a place where it seemed better to separate. We had about resolved to go to our horses when we heard ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... before leaving London, and for the first time in her life there, she had sat down with paper and pencil and made up a statement—rough, of course—of all she owed, and added it up.... Appalling! Thousands and thousands of pounds! Why, great Heavens! if she used her recent windfall to pay her debts, she would have nothing left worth mentioning. And Bullard was going to give her a hundred thousand—if—if ... Oh, but he must not fail! It was her final chance, her final hope, of ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... the Courts of St. James and of Madrid were at variance. The latter urged the need of speedily removing the French warships from Toulon to a Spanish port, or of making preparations for burning them. Whereas Pitt, who regarded Toulon, not as a windfall, but as a base of operations for a campaign in Provence, maintained that such conduct must blight their prospects. With phenomenal stupidity, Langara allowed his secret instructions on this topic to leak out, thereby rousing the rage of the Toulonese and the contempt ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... cool face on it. That we, ourselves, were some kind of a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and what faith could we put in dukkerin? But as it would indubitably bring forth shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, but calmly took this windfall, which had fallen as it were, from the skies, even as they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a providential rain, unto them, in the thirst of ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... he was in thinking what a windfall it was for his friend, and how far it would go in fitting him ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... candle and goe light a fire, You shall haue leaues and windfall bowes enow Neere to these woods, to rost your meate withall: Ascanius, goe and drie thy drenched lims, Whiles I with my Achates roaue abroad, To know what coast the winde hath driuen vs on, Or whether men ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... his fifteenth year, with the exception of a short sojourn in Willoughby seven or eight years after, he lived by his wits and by the strong hand. His purse was now and then replenished by a lucky windfall, which enabled him to extend his travels and seek more adventures. This is the impression that his own story makes upon the reader in a narrative that is characterized by the boastfulness and exaggeration of the times, and not fuller of the marvelous than most others ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... impiousness," remarked that sour-faced little man, "have you all heard the tales about Reuben Merryweather's gal sence she's had her windfall? Why, to see the way she trails her skirt, you'd think she was the real child of her father." Then rushing hurriedly to generalization at Abel's entrance, he added in a louder tone—"Ah, it's a sad pass for things ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... the exile mounted the fallen tree, dug his claws deep into the bark, stretched himself again and again, yawned prodigiously, and ended the exercise with a big, rasping miaow. At the sound there was a sudden rustling in the bushes behind the windfall. Instantly the catamount sprang, taking the risk of catching a porcupine or a skunk. But whatever it was that made the noise, it had vanished in time; and the rash hunter returned to his perch ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was one of glorious excitation in the swift, smooth flight and a grim assurance of soon seeing the old lion. But I hoped we would not rout him too soon from under a windfall, or a thicket where he had dragged a deer, because the race was too splendid a thing to cut short. Through my mind whirled with inconceivable rapidity the great lion chases on which we had ridden the year before. And this was another chase, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... consider matters, was he not in perfect health, more sound and fit than many a man but half his age? And were not his fortunes just now at a specially happy turn, his sister, Mrs. Dreydel, having lately been blessed with a windfall, in the shape of yearly income, which—did he so choose—relieved him of much expenditure on her account. Her eldest son had received his commission. The three younger boys had done well as to scholarships thereby materially ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... was new, now, and Tom's low condition was a windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him up in the woodshed and drowned him with a deluge of cold water; then she scrubbed him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to; then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets till she sweated his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... occupation than from hunger. Still it was not ten o'clock, and the night was long before us, when one of the party produced an old pack of Spanish cards from his monkey-jacket pocket, which we hailed as a great windfall; and, keeping a dim, flickering light by our fagots, we played game after game, till one or two o'clock, when, becoming really tired, we went to our logs again, one sitting up at a time, in turn, to keep watch over the fire. Toward morning the rain ceased, and the air became sensibly colder, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... this evil place. But what! You would have me then renounce the hope of getting back anything of all I have put in here. No, it is not possible. There is urgent need on the contrary that I should remain, that I should be on the watch, always at hand, ready to profit by any windfall, if one should come. Oh, for example, I swear it upon my ribbon, upon my thirty years of academical service, if ever an affair like this of the Nabob allow me to recover my disbursements, I shall not wait another ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... indulgently; there it is; no mortal eye had fallen on it in the course of three and a half centuries; and how can we be expected to judge its value or quality by the ordinary standard—on an ordinary critical principle? It has come to us like an unlooked-for testamentary windfall. We are not to look at it in the mouth too curiously or fastidiously, or we deserve to have lost it; and it is the very same thing with scores of remains of the kind, brought to light in various ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... akin to awe she approached the windfall where a cyclone years before had levelled a wide swath through the heavy growth. Giant trunks and branches, resisting decay, littered the floor of the lane and formed a barrier impenetrable to those inhabitants of the jungle confined to a life on the ground. Second growth ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... I should say: Confine your formal programme (super-programme, I mean) to six days a week. If you find yourself wishing to extend it, extend it, but only in proportion to your wish; and count the time extra as a windfall, not as regular income, so that you can return to a six-day programme without the sensation of being poorer, ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... under the wall there; One eye keeps aloof The urchins that itch to be putting His jews'-harps to proof, 240 While the other, thro' locks of curled wire, Is watching how sleek Shines the hog, come to share in the windfall —Chew, abbot's own cheek! All is over. Wake up and come out now, And down let us go, And see the fine things got in order At church for the show Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening. To-morrow's the Feast 250 Of the Rosary's ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... way to a point where the scant timber had in times past suffered a windfall. Through the opening thus made they looked abroad over the countryside. They could see the snake-fences about the farms, and the white dusty road like a ribbon and the stumps like black dots, and the waving green tops of the "wood lots" and ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... first priority of this session of the Congress. These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans. And they will give us the organization, the incentives, the authorities needed to deal with the short-term emergency and to move ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... year round, but when she did it was Eunice Plympton, the daughter of the drunken fiddler who earned his livelihood by playing for the dances the young people of Olney sometimes got up. He was anticipating quite a windfall from the infair it was confidently expected would be given by Mrs. Markham in honor of her son's marriage; and Eunice herself had washed and starched and ironed the white waist she intended to wear on the same occasion. Of course ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... as well as a gun; and by stopping to clear an occasional windfall from the old road and going slowly over the logs, stones and holes, the horses took us up to Clear Pond in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... was, at all hazards, to write something grand—"to be stared at, lifted on peoples' shoulders." He found his Griffiths in Sir Richard Phillips, the radical alderman and philanthropic sweater, under whose tender mercies he rapidly developed a suicidal tendency, until in May, 1825, a windfall of 20 pounds enabled him to break his chain and escape to the highway and the dingle and the picturesque group of moochers and gipsies enshrined for ever in the pages of "Lavengro." The central portion of this marvellous composition ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... so," replied the old lady. "In each barrel are two thimblefuls of powder, and half-a-box of Windfall's Teaberry Tonic Pills, each one of them as big and as hard as a buckshot. They were brought here by a travelling agent, who sold some of them to my people; and I tell you, sir, that those pills made them so sick that one man wasn't able to work for two days, and ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... stood glancing from one to the other of us with half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in the sitting-room at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and unclaspings ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... muffle all sound but the scream of the wild cat or the uncanny hoot of the screech owl. Aubry wanders desperately on and on in the dark, his cassock torn to tatters by the brushwood, his way blocked by the undisturbed windfall of countless ages, . . . on and on, . . . till gray dawn steals through the forest and midday ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... requires much water and so is usually found not far from a brook, pond or river. He has a favorite drinking place and goes to drink early in the morning and just at dusk. During the day he usually sleeps hidden away in a thicket or under a windfall, coming out late in the afternoon. He feeds mostly in the early evening. He eats grass and other plants, beechnuts and acorns, leaves and twigs of certain trees, lily pads in summer and, I am sorry to say, delights ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... has never been proved—will pretty certainly now never be proved. M. Gaston Paris failed to do it; and it is exceedingly unlikely that, where he failed, any one else will succeed, unless the thrice and thirty times sifted libraries of Europe yield some quite unexpected windfall. In the works commonly attributed to Chrestien, all of which are well known to the present writer, there is no sign of his having been able to conceive this, though he is a delightful romancer. Robert is a mere shadow; and his attributed works, as his works, are shadows too, though they are ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Davy bought the 'Game of Chess, 1474,' the first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland for about two groschen, or two-pence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne re-sold this inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr. Askew's sale," continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, "this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value and was purchased by Royalty itself for one hundred and seventy pounds! Could a copy now occur, ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... so hard on the chance of winning a mere fifty pounds. For the public at large there is the gratifying thought that Messrs. EDWARDS and WALTON are very nearly matched, and they should therefore produce between them in their friendly struggle the best part of four tons of coal, an unexpected windfall ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... there, brother, they come and they go. Ha, yonder soundeth Ralfwyn's horn—three blasts which do signify some right fair windfall. Come, let us see what this jolly wind hath blown us this time!" So saying, Robin laughed and led the way out into the sunny green. And here, surrounded by a ring of merry forest rogues, they beheld a knight right gallantly mounted and equipped, his armour blazing in ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... that this windfall meant a short cut to things which she had only looked to attain by plodding over economic hills. She could say good-by to singing in photoplay houses, to vaudeville engagements, to concert work in provincial towns. She could hitch her wagon to a star and ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... you a small case, in which is a large ring, seemingly of the finest gold, with a little label attached to it, on which is marked 2 pounds 15s. "Now, sir," he continues, "I said we were fortunate, because as we were close to each other, I consider you as much entitled to gain by this windfall as myself. I'll tell you how it shall be: the price of the ring, which was probably dropped by some goldsmith's man, is, as you see, two pound fifteen; however, as I am in a hurry, you shall only give me a quid, a pound, and then the valuable shall be all your own; it shall ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... he offered to the spirits; he sliced off the top of it as if it were the head of a fowl, and as he did so he saw that the inside was full of rice; he called his mother and they filled a winnowing fan with the rice and there was enough besides to nearly fill a basket; they were delighted at this windfall but kept the matter secret lest they should be robbed. The monkey boy told his mother to be sure and cook enough rice so that his brothers and their wives might have as much as ever they could eat, and not merely a small ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... twos and tens and twenties, and even as many as five hundred, the miners began moving up the river prospecting. Those with horses had literally to cut the way with their axes over windfall, over steep banks, and round precipitous cliffs. Where rivers had to be crossed, the men built rude rafts and poled themselves over, with their pack-horses swimming behind. Those who had oxen killed the oxen and sold the beef. Others breasted the mill-race of the Fraser ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... year. The children were like to get nothing at all. And then just when I was trying to comfort myself with thinking how glad I should be that Joey was well, and that we all had our health even if we did lack a turkey and the fixings, along comes this windfall. Why, it is as if the heavens opened and dropped it straight down at our door. It does you good to know there are kind hearts in the world, ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... a windfall, and both mother and son retired to rest in a cheerful frame of mind, in spite of Luke's failure ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... wont to do. I have misjudged her needs. The Bee, hitherto her favourite dish, tempts her no longer. In vain does the prey buzz close by, an easy capture within the cage: the watcher does not shift from her post, takes no notice of the windfall. She lives exclusively upon maternal devotion, a commendable but unsubstantial fare. And so I see her pining away from day to day, becoming more and more wrinkled. What is the withered thing waiting for, before expiring? She is waiting ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... paid, however, even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after an average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay, and the picnics were the means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall. This was at the end of the season, after the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress Gala." Many of the hampers had suffered severely; and it was judged wiser to save storage, dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when the campaign reopened. Among my purchasers was a working man of the name of Speedy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... round a troika from the posting-house. It did not arrive. Probably it was asleep, like most other things on that warm day. It was too far off to invite investigation, and sallying forth after breakfast to hire an izvostchik, I became a blessed windfall to a couple of bored policemen, who waked up a cabman for me and took a kindly interest in the inevitable bargaining which ensued. While this was in progress, up came two dusty and tattered "pilgrims,"—"religious tramps" will designate their character with perfect ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... prospects. Whether there was any special reason for hopefulness, Piers could not discover; it seemed probable that here also the windfall of fifty pounds had changed the aspect of the world. To hear him, one might have supposed that the struggling casual contributor had suddenly been offered some brilliant appointment on a great journal; ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... seemed to have hoped that he would take his place entirely, and it was due less to the fact that his talent was still unknown, than to his repellent manner, that he was disappointed in his expectations. His wife, however, suddenly came into some money, and this windfall enabled him to devote all his energies to his work as composer of operas, without being obliged to fill ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... new one, and scarcely fit for it either. Happily Darius had heard of a houseful of furniture for sale at Oldcastle by private treaty, and in a wild, adventurous hour he had purchased it, exceedingly cheap. Edwin had been amazed at his luck (he accepted the windfall as his own private luck) when he first saw the bought furniture in the new house, before the removal. Out of it he had selected the table, the carpet, and the rug for his bedroom, and none had demurred. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... whose dress betokened holiday. A glance told me that he felt anything but at ease; his mind misgave him as he looked about the long room and at the table before him; and when a waiter came to offer him the card, he stared blankly in sheepish confusion. Some strange windfall, no doubt, had emboldened him to enter for the first time such a place as this, and now that he was here, he heartily wished himself out in the street again. However, aided by the waiter's suggestions, he gave an order for a beef-steak and vegetables. When the dish was served, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... their means, find themselves threatened with the extinction of a considerable part of their incomes: a part, too, that is easily and regularly earned, since it is independent of disease, and brings every person born into the nation, healthy or not, to the doctors. To boot, there is the occasional windfall of an epidemic, with its panic and rush for revaccination. Under such circumstances, vaccination would be defended desperately were it twice as dirty, dangerous, and unscientific in method as it actually is. The note of fury in the defence, the feeling that the anti-vaccinator ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... younger days. "A life," he says, "it was without progress or profit, or anything that tended to moral elevation." For such dull companies to get a spirit like Burns among them, to enliven them with his wit and eloquence, what a windfall it must have been! But for him to put his time and his powers at their disposal, how great the degradation! During the day, no doubt, he was employed busily enough in doing his duty as an Exciseman. This could now be done with less travelling than in the Ellisland days, and did ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp |
