"Gallows" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commodity. Yet this fraud, though easy and expeditious, is extremely dangerous as when detected it is invariably punished with death, and the company never want spies. Owing to this, cloves are commonly enough called galgen kruid, or gallows-spice, as frequently bringing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the newcomer explained to me that he was eighty-seven years old last May, and that he well remembered a time when a plain oaken gallows and a strong rope were good enough for Auburn—"provided Bill Seward didn't get the fellow free," added my ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... de Villefort is preparing against my amiable assassin—some brigand escaped from the gallows apparently." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... yelled, "Murder!" Dwyer fastened one end of the rope round Casey's body—under the arms—and stared about again. And again "Murder!" from Casey. Joe jumped off the yard to get further away. A tree, with a high horizontal limb, stood near. Dad once used it as a butcher's gallows. Dwyer gathered the loose rein into a coil and heaved it over the limb, and hauled Casey up. Then he tied the end of the rope to the yard ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Lieutenant Keith, by speed on that Wesel occasion, and help of Chesterfield's Secretary, got across to England; got into the Portuguese service; and has there been soldiering, very silently, these ten years past,—skin and body safe, though his effigy was cut in four quarters and nailed to the gallows at Wesel;—waiting a time that would come. Time being come, Lieutenant Keith hastened home; appealed to his effigy on the gallows;—and was made a Lieutenant-Colonel merely, with some slight appendages, as that of STALLMEISTER (Curator of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... about for a time in uneasy silence). If Count Sture had not said farewell to the world so hurriedly, within a month he had hung on a gallows, or had sat for all his days in a dungeon. Had he been better served with such a lot? Or else he had bought his life by betraying my child into the hands of my foes. Is it I, then, that have slain him? Does not even the wolf defend her cubs? Who dare condemn me for ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... followed one another in quick succession, no good thing for the discipline of the abbey. When Matilda died in 1219, the old gallows on which the abbess had had the right of hanging offenders condemned by her court, fell into disuse, but the right was restored by the King to Amicia. Towards the end of the century, episcopal visitations began, and the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... Sir Robert Dundas having taken my duty at the Court, I wrote for some time, but not much. Burke the murderer hanged this morning. The mob, which was immense, demanded Knox and Hare, but though greedy for more victims, received with shouts the solitary wretch who found his way to the gallows out of five or six who seem not less guilty than he. But the story begins to be stale, although I believe a doggerel ballad upon it would be popular, how brutal soever the wit. This is the progress of human passions. We ejaculate, exclaim, hold up to Heaven our hand, like the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... life and spirit, madam!" the mayor repeated more angrily than before; "let me tell you it is these fellows who are full of life and adventure who come to the gallows. Naturally I was offended; but as I had given you my word I kept to it. Every man in Southampton knows that the word of Richard Anthony is as good as his bond. I bound him apprentice, and what comes of it? My foreman, Andrew Carson, is knocked flat on his back ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... Sir, that the persons who formerly trumpeted forth the most loudly the violent resolutions of assemblies, the universal insurrections, the seizing and burning the stamped papers, the forcing stamp officers to resign their commissions under the gallows, the rifling and pulling down of the houses of magistrates, and the expulsion from their country of all who dared to write or speak a single word in defence of the powers of Parliament,—these very trumpeters are now the men that represent the whole as a mere trifle, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... recount a part only of the injustice that has been done me, a part only of the tyranny I have endured! By this last act of treachery of Weingarten was I held in chains, the most horrible, for nine succeeding years! By him was an innocent man brought to the gallows! By him, too, my sister, my beloved, my unfortunate sister, was obliged to build a dungeon at her own expense! besides being amerced in a fine, the extent of which I never could learn. Her goods were plundered, her estates made a desert, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... fortune. Well, he jogged on and on, paying his way with the few pennies he had saved in his seven years of service, but for all of his travelling nothing of good happened to him until, one morning, he came to a lonely place where there stood a gallows, and there he sat him down to rest, and it is just in such an unlikely place as this that a man's best chance of fortune comes ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... agonizing prayers. He became fond of drink. He left my humble roof, that he might be unrestrained in his evil ways. And at last one night, when heated by wine, he took the life of a fellow creature. He ended his days upon the gallows. God had filled my cup of sorrow before; now it ran over. That was trouble, my friends, such as I hope the Lord of mercy will ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... day drew near I felt like a real murderer, and had the prisoner all the time before my eyes, hanging on a gallows. I drank harder than ever, but I could not get that picture out of my mind. I saw worse pictures than before. So I determined what to do. I sat down, wrote a full confession of the murder, which I signed; and a friend of mine carried ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... consequence of this threat Captain Maitland was instructed by Lord Keith to tell those gentlemen that as the English law awarded death to murderers, the crime they meditated would inevitably conduct them to the gallows. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... have seen that the man sent for as a prisoner, with a gallows staring him in the face, ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... heart leaped with joy. An actual criminal standing upon the platform of the gallows could not have been more joyed at sight of the messenger that brought him reprieve or pardon. In the new-comers I recognised friends: in their countenances I read rescue. I was not displeased, therefore, when the sheriff, dismounting, advanced to my side, and ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Upon the gallows hung a wretch, Too sullied for the hell To which the law entitled him. As nature's curtain fell The one who bore him tottered in, For this was woman's son. ''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped; Oh, what ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... you vill make of it!' His words were justified by Read's monument to Admiral Tyrrell: possibly the most execrable work in stone in existence; which is saying a good deal. As Nollekens would often remark of it: 'Read's admiral going to heaven looks for all the world as though he were hanging from a gallows with ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... behind him on the glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when he knew that the Servitor would be coming, he arose and refired to his chamber and after a little while, behold, the Marid came bringing to him the newly-wedded couple upon their bridal-bed. Alaeddin rejoiced to see them with exceeding joy; then he cried to the Slave, "Carry yonder gallows- bird hence and lay him at full length in the privy."[FN144] His bidding was done straightway; but, before leaving him, the Slave blew upon the bridegroom a blast so cold that it shrivelled him and the plight of the Wazir's son became piteous. Then the Servitor returning ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... ruthless extermination of all the people of all sexes and ages, because it was their misfortune not to know the God of the Hebrews, or to worship Him under the wrong name, by the savage troops of Moses and Joshua. It sees the thumb-screws and the racks, the whip, the gallows, and the stake, the victims of Diocletian and Alva, the miserable Covenanters, the Non-Conformists, Servetus burned, and the unoffending Quaker hung. It sees Cranmer hold his arm, now no longer erring, in the flame until the hand drops off in the consuming heat. It sees ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... what he knew to a few disciples whom he gathered about him. Of the making of that "Anatomy" on which my first predecessor in the branch I teach "did read very well" we can know nothing. The body of some poor wretch who had swung upon the gallows, was probably conveyed by night to some lonely dwelling at the outskirts of the village, and there by the light of flaring torches hastily dissected by hands that trembled over the unwonted task. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... were caused by an 'inscrutable Providence'—their dwellings and store houses were burnt, their cattle and sheep disappeared, and their 'assigned' labourers took to the bush, and either perished of starvation or became bushrangers and went to the gallows in ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... island, which had taken place about three weeks before our arrival, was attended with great excesses by the people, who carried Le Compte M'Namarra to the gallows, where he was near being executed. The governor, Le Compte de Conway, had resigned his government to a Monsieur De Caussigny, commandant of Bourbon, who arrived here only three days before us. Monsieur de Conway ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... three-masted vessels are shown: and two or three smaller ships of the kind called ketch, sloop, or hoy. Along the river front of the Tower are mounted cannon. The ditch of the Tower is filled with water. On Tower Hill there stands a permanent gallows: beside it is some small structure, which is probably ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... away several books he did not want her to see. But the girls had gone to some of the old places, where witches had been taken from their homes and cast into jail, the Court House where they had been tried, and Gallows Hill, that most ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... foot of the gallows, Pacheco complained bitterly of the disgraceful death designed for him. He protested loudly that he came of a house as noble as that of Egmont or Hoorn, and was entitled to as honourable an execution as theirs ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... to save him? If now it were the marriage of his heart something might occur; but I never yet heard of an accident on the road to a gallows. ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... spoken of the gallows?" answered the captain. "That proves nothing. What is the gallows in the eyes of a philosopher? One of the thousand ways of parting from life, and certainly one of the least disagreeable. One can see that you have never looked ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... have pleasant leaves That in the spring-time shoot: But grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root, And, green or dry, a man must die ...
— The Ballad of Reading Gaol • Oscar Wilde
... neighboring counties, of such offenders worthy to be speedily executed by martial law, to attach and take the same persons, and in the presence of the said justices, according to justice of martial law, to execute them upon the gallows or gibbet openly, or near to such place where the said rebellious and incorrigible offenders shall be found to have committed the said great offences."[*] I suppose it would be difficult to produce ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... siller, and desired me to get him half a dozen ruffled sarks, and Peg Pasley's in bands wi' them e'en now—they may serve him to gang up the Lawnmarket I in, the scoundrel!" [*The procession of the criminals to the gallows of old took that direction, moving, as the schoolboy rhyme had it, Up the Lawnmarket, Down the West Bow, Up the lang ladder, And down the little tow.] Mr. Glossin then demanded to see the packet, but here ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... was across the room and on his knees beside the couch, kissing the pendent hand. "You have saved me, most noble sir!" he cried. "The gallows was fixed and the rope slung, when the good Lord Chandos told the King that you would die by your own hand if I were slain. 'Curse this mule-headed Squire!' he cried. 'In God's name let him have his prisoner, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to enquire after yours, and to deliver to your Majesty this letter." Then Saltan took the letter, broke the seal, and after reading it exclaimed aloud: "Where are my valiant knights, my faithful servants and warriors? Seize this messenger from King Sensibri, and lead him to the gallows, for he has slain my dear son and destroyed our ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... most deserving and most injured of her sex, I will be content to do it with a halter about my neck; and, attended by a parson on my right hand, and the hangman on my left, be doomed, at her will, either to the church or the gallows. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... drank to the health of the prince, and then of Wucics and Petronievitch, declaring that thanks were due to God and those European powers who had brought about their return. The shabby priest, with the gallows look, then sang a song of his own composition, on their return. Not being able to understand it, I asked my neighbour what he thought of the song. "Why," said he, "the lay is worthy of the minstrel—doggrel and dissonance." Some old ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... unprecedented Austrian terrorism, suppressing every manifestation of the real feelings of the people. The pro-Austrian declarations are enforced by the government. To-day the leading Czech politicians are in prison, the gallows have become the favourite support of the incapable administration, and Czech regiments have been decimated for acting spontaneously up to our national Czech programme. The rights of the Czech language have been ruthlessly ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... the "propatulum" was in a Roman house, but misled by the author having almost immediately before (IV. 72) spoken of "soldiers being fastened to the patibulum"—or, as we should say, "hanged on the gallows,"—he writes (IV. 74), "in propatibulo servitium" instead of "in propatulo servitium," the "propatulum" being an open uncovered court-yard, differing from the "aedium," as being in the forepart ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... over, the old man selected a fat kid, caught it by the hind leg and dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows behind the house, where he hung it up and skilfully cut its throat, leaving it to bleat and bleed to death while he wiped his knife and went on talking volubly with his guest. The occasional visits of Ramon were the most interesting ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... token of abasement and fear, seems to have absorbed all other feelings; and as this was the only thing withheld, so it was the only thing desired. To soothe the disgust and allay the indignation of Haman, the family council decreed the immediate death of Mordecai, and they doomed him to the gallows—a most ignominious death. While this instrument of his destruction was in preparation upon the grounds of Haman, he sought Ahasuerus, that the sentence might be ratified. He who had given him the ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... approached, they banged, they smashed to atoms. It was the most appalling collision that had ever been heard of, and the Guard and Engine-Driver, as well as the Ticket-Collectors and Directors of the Company, were all executed by the Government the very next day from gallows that an angry London built in half an hour on the top of ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... who gained a livelihood by practising on the credulity of even men of learning so late as 1650 to the 18th century. In Ashmole's life an account of these artful impostors may be read. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... they had talked it over long, they said, with one assent, that they would not make ill hap of their good-hap; so they went about and straightway reared up a gallows there in the wood, with the mind to hang Grettir, ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... Mordecai alone."—"If it please the king, let it be written that they (the whole people) may be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver,—to bring it into the king's treasuries."—"Behold also the gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon." (Esth. iii. 1, 9; vii. 9.) Such were the crimes and such the punishments of the enemies of God's people in ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... good and noble instincts, and it is with pride that we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who ever interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our Indians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to his dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more restraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other reformer that ever, labored among them. At this point the chronicle becomes less frank and chatty, and closes abruptly by saying that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by everyone as the man to fight the battle. He willingly accepted the responsibility. Even moderate men, partly sympathetic, shook their heads when they heard of this determination. "O'Connell will end his life on the gallows" was the confident prediction of some who passed among their neighbors for sensible persons. The Viceroy of Ireland predicted that O'Connell would take care to maintain good order in Clare during the election. O'Connell's opponent predicted that O'Connell would ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... had that day supped with her, together with the king, so was he also invited again for the next day; "yet," said he, "am I not pleased to see Mordecai the Jew in the court." Hereupon his wife Zeresh advised him to give order that a gallows should be made fifty cubits high, and that in the morning he should ask it of the king that Mordecai might be hanged thereon. So he commended her advice, and gave order to his servants to prepare the gallows, and to place it in the court, for the punishment of Mordecai ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... over the cliff. Others were straightway knocked down, stunned, and bound. Some died suddenly. And a few were saved to stretch the judicial ropes of the Bailiwick. For it was always thought a good thing by such as were in authority to have a good show on the "Thieves' Architrave," or general gallows of the vicinity, as a thing at once creditable to the zeal of the worthy dispensers of local justice, and pleasing to the Kaiser's officer if he chanced ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... innocent ex-vizier of El-Ashraf, because he had treated them with contempt and was in possession of riches for which they were greedy. He shared the fate of the king's assassins, for, in spite of the intercession of the ladies of the royal harem, he ended his life on the gallows. But as soon as the two rulers had got rid of their enemies and appeased their own avarice, their peaceful union was at an end, for each wished to have complete control over the sultan. Shujai had the Mamluks of the late ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Mrs. Bolton, sitting in a comfortless little chair, which she was accustomed to use when secluded, with her Bible, from all the household. She spoke in a voice that might have been fit had a son of hers been just executed on the gallows. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... thieves, That liveth by fraud and deceit; The gallows do for such blades groan, And the hangmen do for their clothes wait. Though poverty be a disgrace, And want is a pitiful grief, 'Tis better to go like a beggar Than to ride in a cart like a thief. For this I will make it appear, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... his fate. John A. Andrew spoke a common feeling when he said: "Whatever may be thought of John Brown's acts, John Brown himself was right." Emerson eulogized him in daring words. If, he said, John Brown is hung, he will glorify the gallows as Jesus glorified the cross. On the day of his death the church bells were tolled in many a Northern town. Said the Springfield Republican the next morning: "There need be no tears for him. Few men die so happily, so satisfied with time, place, and circumstance, as did he.... A Christian ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... boarding-houses abound there, convenient to the landing station. A feature of the neighbourhood is the cheap clothing stores where the immigrants buy their first United States suits. These suits hang swinging from the awnings like wasted gallows birds. A hawk-eyed salesman lurks beneath; in other ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... obvious pride. "He a sailor! That just shows your ignorance. But there! A foreigner can't be expected to know any better. I am an Englishman, and I know a gentleman at sight. I should know one drunk, in the gutter, in jail, under the gallows. There's a something—it isn't exactly the appearance, it's a—no use me trying to tell you. You ain't an Englishman, and if you were, you wouldn't ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... lamp;" the street lamp-irons being found, by the - French sansculottes, a handy substitute for the gallows.-ED. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... of land we are on is the 'Neck.' This water on our left is Charles River,—this on our right is Gallows Bay. Ye see that ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... crowd of people around, the dog on one side, and the soldier, armed with a stick of a cubit's length, on the other, the murderer was at length overcome by the victorious dog, and suffered an ignominious death on the common gallows. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... English vessel. The gallant sailor died of fever on his way home, and was buried according to his deserts in the Abbey. His body, with that of his master, was by a vote of Parliament, December 4, 1660, taken from the grave and drawn to the gallows-tree, and there hanged and buried under it. Pepys, who was to know something of naval administration under the second Charles, has his reflections on this ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... decisions of the Roman Senate, and who are for the most part scoundrels and villains. There certainly never were more gods than there are now; and among those of whom the myths tell us things strange enough to bring those who worship them into contempt, or to the gallows, is the countless swarm of good and evil daimons. Away with your Olympians! They ought to reward virtue and punish vice; and they are no better than corruptible judges; for you know beforehand just what and how much will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beyond the Extent of their Patience. Their intolerable Behaviour has rendered them so contemptible and odious in the Eyes of all Degrees of People whatever, that there is more Joy seen for one Hackney-Coachman's going to the Gallows, than for a ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... the King's men slew every one of them, and took Godard and bound him and brought him to Havelok. Then King Havelok summoned all his nobles to sit in judgment and say what should be done to such a traitor. And they said, "Let him be dragged to the gallows at the mare's tail, and hanged by the heels in fetters, with this writing over him: 'This is he that drove the King out of the land, and took the life of the King's sisters.'" So Godard suffered his doom, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can be seen down below ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... He walked out and sat down on the low wall of the terrace with his back to the club-house and his legs dangling. Below him in the moonlight lay the great basin of the golf links, the white rectangle of the polo fields with the gallows-like goals, and on a hill opposite, above the tree-tops, the chimneys of his house. He was down for a tennis match the next morning, and the sight of his home suggested to him only that he ought to be in ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... prepared for him before he has reached Calcutta." Reviewing the events of his Viceroyalty he writes on 8th August: "I suppose you will either hang me or magnificently honour me for my deeds (mine they are, be they good or bad). In either case I shall be gratified; for an English gallows is better than an Indian throne; but these words must be buried in your own breast; for here I pretend to be very happy and humble; although I am as proud as the D. and as wretched as his dam. I think you will enjoy ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Richard I, was hanged at Smithfield, the utmost eagerness was shown to obtain a hair from his head, or a shred from his garments. Women came from Essex, Kent, Suffolk, Sussex, and all the surrounding counties, to collect the mould at the foot of his gallows. A hair of his beard was believed to preserve from evil spirits, and a piece of his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... young gallows-birds!" cried they; "we cannot stuff you any more; you are big enough to fend for yourselves!" The poor young ravens lay on the ground, fluttering, and beating the air with ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... a moment, and he stole a furtive glance, like a murderer's at the gallows-tree, at the ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... "Not he; Barabbas, not he! Him, and what he is, and what he deserves, we know well enough: a reviler of the Chief Priests and sacred Chancery wigs; a seditious Heretic, physical-force Chartist, and enemy of his country and mankind: To the gallows and the cross with him! Barabbas is our man; Barabbas, we are for Barabbas!" They got Barabbas:—have you well considered what a fund of purblind obduracy, of opaque flunkyism grown truculent and transcendent; what an eye for the phylacteries, and ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... horizontal door hinged to the wall beneath, and raised or let fall by means of a sliding-bolt, which shot from the wall when there was occasion to put the apparatus of death in requisition. Fearful as this elevated gallows appeared, and unique in its character, it was not more so than the finisher of the law who then generally officiated upon it. No decrepit wretch, no crime-hardened ruffian, no secret and mysterious personage, who was produced occasionally disguised and masked, plied his dreadful trade here. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... agony, when he made the sign of the cross towards the Czar, as the crown and captain of his Christianity. But the Kaiser does not regard the Czar as the captain of Christianity. Far from it. What he supported in Stolypin was the necktie and nothing but the necktie: the gallows and not the cross. The Russian ruler did believe that the Orthodox Church was orthodox. The Austrian Archduke did really desire to make the Catholic Church catholic. He did really believe that he was being Pro-Catholic in being Pro-Austrian. But the ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... me, I asked myself if I had been right in saving a robber, perhaps a murderer, from the gallows only because I had eaten ham and rice and smoked ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... resuming the reckless voice and manner in which there was that peculiar levity which comes from hardness of heart, as from the steel's hardness comes the blade's play. "But if a man did not sometimes forget consequences, there would be an end of the gallows. I am glad that his eye never left mine." And the leaden head of the switch fell with a dull dumb sound ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... animated the people not to suffer the same sheriffs to be carried through the city to the Tower, prisoners. Now the poet hath undertaken, for their being kicked three or four times a-week about the stage to the gallows, infamously rogued and rascalled, to try what he can do towards making the charter forfeitable, by some extravagancy and disorder of the people, which the authority of the best governed cities have not been able to prevent, sometimes under ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Hermiston" is historically veracious, we might fancy that one of their descendants would feel his activities somewhat cramped on Beacon Street, Boston. The Elliotts were a wild lot, and some of them did not escape the hangman. Their family tree appears to have been the gallows. But Stevenson tells us they were noted for their prayers, and at least one of them wrote poetry, and declaimed it, drunk, to Walter Scott, who retaliated ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... 'twas hard, that to have him stay, I should be forced to do as criminals do to avoid the gallows, plead my belly; and that I thought I had given him testimonies enough of an affection equal to that of a wife, if I had not only lain with him, been with child by him, shown myself unwilling to part with him, but offered to go to the East Indies with ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... come; but rise as it may, linger at its height as it may, he will not be driven out. In his belief a hundred men are ready, at every possible point where his foot could overstep the line of this vast inundation, to seize him and drag him to the gallows. Ah, the gallows! Not being dead—not God's anger—not eternal burnings; but simply facing death! The gallows! The tree above his head—the rope around his neck—the signal about to be spoken—the one wild moment after ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... a dope-fiend. I've told you a hundred times you had precisely the kind of temperament that must avoid that sort of thing like the gallows." Burns hit the desk with his fist as he spoke, with a thump ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... had thrown the odium of the present application upon him, not having courage to take it upon themselves; and he had an indistinct apprehension that this very act of borrowing money would lead to transportation or the gallows, should the business go to rack and ruin, as he could see it shortly would. All these considerations went far to stultify the otherwise weak and feeble Mr Brammel; when, in addition, he endeavoured to arrange in his mind the terms on which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... home at 12, 1, 2, 3 o'clock at night, to demolish the furniture, beat the children, and destroy their wives' peace and lives—that these women are to find their rights by influence, by argument, by tenderness. These brutes who deserve the gallows if any human being can deserve anything so atrocious in these days—are these women, their wives, to find their safety, their security for themselves and their children, by influence, through argument and tenderness, or love, when ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily worse; the terror became chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed paper issued by the revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of Lugano, was enough to send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed leaflets, with no name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly written in the unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in the little booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to look at them without emotion. What hopes were carried ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... defieth my power and disregardeth my commands? If I had a sword within my grasp I would spilt his head like to an orange. Seize him, I command, and hang him upon the nearest gallows, and let his name be never ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... children; of the widows and orphans made by rum; of the misery and degradation attendant upon it; of the crimes committed under its influence—robbery, murder, suicide—leading to the penitentiary, the gallows, and death, it would have made your blood freeze in your veins. And these accounts were all true, Jack, for many of the horrible scenes had taken place about ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... environ; It shall be as it was in the past. Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron, Shall a nation be moulded to last.' So teach they, so preach they, Who dream themselves the dream That hallows the gallows ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fixing upon the offender a gaze severe yet pitiful and reluctant, as one who foresees for another a fate deserved indeed, and yet too terrible to contemplate. Perhaps before that astute and reflective mind there rose a vision of the gallows nine years later to be erected by his own order, whereon John Billington, deliberate murderer of John Newcomen, should expiate his crime and open the gloomy record of capital ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... midnight assault: the lurid fire, and the brandished tomahawk—these are pictures that have sometimes come with startling vividness to our youthful imaginations. And then our fancies have seen the so-called witches of Salem, the sudden arrest, the hurrying to the jail and perhaps to the gallows. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... barons was called, and Henry found them willing enough to advise him as he wished. "The only way to deal with such a fellow," said one, "is to plait a few withe in a rope, and have him up to a gallows." In the midst of the council, however, it was observed that four of the King's knights were missing—Reginald Fitzurse, William Tracy, Hugh Morville, and William Brito. It was remembered that they had heard the King's words about the insolent priest, and, becoming alarmed ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... said Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince Andrew scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..." continued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, "the man who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum or the gallows!" ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... great adventures he did when he was called Le Chevaler du Chariot. For as the French book saith, because of despite that knights and ladies called him the knight that rode in the chariot like as he were judged to the gallows, therefore in despite of all them that named him so, he was carried in a chariot a twelvemonth, for, but little after that he had slain Sir Meliagrance in the queen's quarrel, he never in a twelvemonth came on horseback. And as the French book saith, he did that twelvemonth more than forty battles. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... sufferers, they went away quite satisfied. The place where this disagreeable operation is performed, is in the barrack yard, on Point William, between the officers' house and the hospital. The culprit is tied up to a kind of strong gallows, erected for the purpose. Two stout pieces of timber, about seven or eight feet high, are driven perpendicularly into the ground, about four feet apart from each other, a piece is secured firmly across them at the top, and another at a short ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... pot-crooks. Mr. Arnold Talbot, of Providence, Rhode Island, has folding trammels, nine feet long, which were found in an old Narragansett chimney heart. Gibcrokes and recons were local and less frequent names, and the folks who in their dialect called the lug-pole a gallows-balke called the pothooks gallows-crooks. On these hooks pots and kettles could be hung at varying heights over the fire. The iron swinging-crane was a Yankee invention of a century after the first settlement, and it proved a convenient and graceful ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... said Susan, stonily. "They have to go through it—that's all. If you was standin' on the gallows with the rope round your neck and the trap-door under your feet, you wouldn't be bearin' it, but the trap-door would drop all the same, an' down you'd plunge—into ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so. But do not think I am the man to suffer myself to be sent to the gallows upon such paltry evidence as satisfies that lady. If any accuser comes to bleat of a trail of blood reaching to my door, and of certain words I spoke yesterday in anger, I will take my trial—but it ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... present; but I can tell you this, my Quaker friend, that the tree has not yet grown that will furnish a gallows ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... brother's murder, but there was a price on his head, and he wandered about from place to place in the wilderness. On one occasion, as he lay asleep, some men of Icefirth came upon him, and though they were ten in number they had much ado to take him; but at last they bound him, and put up a gallows, for they intended to hang him. Fortunately for Grettir, at that moment there rode along the wife of the ruling chief of that district, who interposed and set him free, on his promise not to stir up strife in that neighbourhood. His next adventure ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... the Time the Princess was to depart; and then she was put into a rich embroider'd Chair, and carry'd away, Tarquin going into his, for he had all that Time stood supporting the Princess under the Gallows, and was very weary. She was sent back, till her Releasement came, which was that Night about seven o'Clock; and then she was conducted to her own House in great State, with a Dozen White Wax Flambeaux ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... V., a great Pope, was a still greater executioner. That man of God delivered over to the gallows a Pepoli of Bologna, who had bestowed upon him a kick instead of a piece of bread when he was ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... at death in all forms," said Helm, coolly, "and I am not afraid to die." He then asked for a glass of whiskey, as did a good many of these murderers when they were brought to the gallows. From that time on he was cool and unconcerned, and showed a finish worthy of one ambitious to be ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... morning Faithful John was condemned to death and led to the gallows, and as he stood there ready to ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... of heaven!" said Prince John to Hubert, "an thou suffer that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows!" ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... faithfully with Judy, and in fact with all comers; and then came the moment when the gallows was erected, and the great scene with Mr. Ketch was to be enacted. It was now that something happened of which I can certainly not yet see the import fully. You have witnessed an execution, and know what the criminal's head looks ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... they shouted, "come out, murderer of a defenceless prisoner. Come out, before we drag you forth, for the rope is waiting for your neck and the gallows tree is waiting for ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... So, 'tis all ended—all except my boiling, And that will make a holiday for some. Perhaps I'm selfish. Fagot, axe, and gallows, They have their uses, after all. They give The lookers-on a deal of harmless sport. Though one may suffer, twenty hundred laugh; And that's a point gained. I have seen a man— Poor Dora's uncle—shake himself with glee, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... Let's go up to it, and gie it a prod with the knife, and then we'll see what sort o' sap it's got in its ugly veins—for dang it, it are about the ugliest piece o' growin' timber I e'er set eyes on; ne'er a mast nor spar to be had out o' it, I reckon. It sartinly are ugly enough to make a gallows of. Come on, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... that M. le Surintendant pass from the height of favor to the direst disgrace; that Vaux be turned into a dungeon for him; that after having been steeped to his lips, as it were, in all the perfumes and incense of Assuerus, he is transferred to the gallows of Haman; in other words, of Enguerrand de Marigny?" And at this reflection, D'Artagnan's brow became clouded with perplexity. The musketeer had certain scruples on the matter, it must be admitted. To deliver up to death (for not a doubt existed that Louis hated Fouquet mortally) ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... James Stewart, had fled, some years before, to Holland, in order to avoid the boot and the gallows, and had become intimate with the Grand Pensionary Fagel, who enjoyed a large share of the Stadtholder's confidence and favour. By Stewart had been drawn up the violent and acrimonious manifesto of Argyle. When the Indulgence appeared, Stewart ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... admitted to the bar. In the same year he married the wife who survives him—a grandniece of Captain White, who was so atrociously murdered at Salem, six years before, and whose murderers might have escaped the gallows but for the genius ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... over by a Pontifex Maximus, in which a Judex, an Advocatus Pro, and an Advocatus Con participated, with the foregone result that the culprit was sentenced to be hanged, shot, and burned; a decree carried out on a gallows and bonfire previously prepared in spite ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... the trial and execution of John Brown. There was the court house to which he was brought on his couch to receive his trial for treason, and there the jail in which he spent his last days, and from which he was led to execution. How had all things changed! The people who stood about the gallows of John Brown, and gnashed their teeth in their bitter hatred, were now themselves guilty of treason. The court house was in ruins, and the jail was but a shell of tottering walls. The town also had suffered fearful ravages from war, and now a Union army was ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... though he had not spoken. "I have played, both yesterday and to-day, a part for which I can only offer the excuse of youth. I was so unwise as to go to an execution; it seems I made a scene at the gallows; not content with which, I spoke the same night in a college society against capital punishment. This is the extent of what I have done, and in case you hear more alleged against me, I protest my innocence. I have expressed my regret already ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Shamus was in it, Not paler, but prouder than ever, that minute. An' as soon as the people saw Shamus O'Brien, Wid prayin' and blessin', and all the girls cryin', A wild, wailin' sound kem on by degrees, Like the sound of the lonesome wind blowin' through trees. On, on to the gallows the sheriffs are gone, An' the cart an' the sojers go steadily on; An' at every side swellin' around of the cart, A wild, sorrowful sound, that id open your heart. Now under the gallows the cart takes its stand, An' the hangman gets up with ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... my father refuse to own me as his son—me—a murderer—but one thing can I yet do to expiate my deed,—I can free my cousin's name from all blame, and if I were to hang for my deed, gladly would I walk over coals to the gallows, rather than that such a crime should be laid at his door as that he tried to return here and creep into my place after throwing me over the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... as any man in Europe, and, if it was required of me during that time to do anything desperate—downright wicked—I could be bound to do it; and what's more, I'd stand to it afterwards if it cost me the gallows. But as for keeping up the same mind, as for being able to say to myself my heart is as hard as ever, I'm just as much bent on cruelty as I was yesterday—that's clean beyond me; and the reason, God help me, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... life; and is the rich usurer who has wrung the widow's farthing from her, is the fraudulent bankrupt, is the unjust judge, is the cruel spoiler of war to pass from a world that in millions and millions of cases gave them wealth and honours, and stars and garters, instead of ropes and bars and gallows, to go forthwith to free pardon, to everlasting light and endless rest beyond the grave? It would indeed be strange justice that meted to Jude and Judas the same measure of mercy ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... carry out systematic trials with gliders. Encouraged by Colonel J. E. Capper, who was in charge of the factory, and assisted by Sir Hiram Maxim, he devised a biplane glider with a box-kite tail, which when it was suspended from a kind of revolving gallows at the Crystal Palace attained a speed in the air of seventy miles an hour and rose to a height of seventy feet. Later on the experiments were transferred to Blair Atholl in Perthshire, where the power-driven Dunne aeroplane was produced and flown. It ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... having been connected with the riots the night before. One of the prisoners had recognised Robertson, the leader of the rioters, and seen him trying to persuade Effie Deans to escape and to save himself from the gallows, being a well-known thief and prison-breaker, gave information, hoping, as he candidly said, to obtain ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... thinks himself secure in consequence of the lenity of Henley, he hates him as sincerely as if he were pursuing him to the gallows. The loss of the three thousand guineas is one great motive; and another is that he felt he was out-braved by Henley, whom he could not terrify, but who on the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... this time; among whom he gradually rose to be Major of Horse. Friedrich Wilhelm cited him by tap of drum three times in Wesel, and also in the Gazettes, native and Dutch; then, as he did not come, nailed an Effigy of him (cut in four, if I remember) on the gallows there; and confiscated any property he had. Keith had more pedigree than property; was of Poberow in Pommern; son of poor gentlefolks there. He sent no word of himself to Prussia, for the next ten years; so that ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... pin and record and let the djinn rave. So the sheik, with his rifle, shot his son as he had promised, and the English judge before whom he eventually came had all the trouble in the world to save that earnest gray head from the gallows. Thus: ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... done it without the impulse of an insane passion; but it was dreadful because it would have shut him out from society; because it would have placed the mark of Cain upon him; because the dungeon and the gallows were beyond it,—rather than because it was the sacrifice of a human life, of one created ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... blasphemous," and it certainly reads so, but Burgess meant no blasphemy. He was merely a brute, and whatever he said or wrote was sure to expose the fact. His redemption was a very real thing to him, and he was as jubilantly happy on the gallows as ever was Christian martyr at the stake. We dwellers in this world are strangely made, and mysteriously circumstanced. We have to suppose that the murdered men are lost, and that Burgess is saved; but we cannot ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... myself for a moment. The same doom hangs over me still, and though the court which condemned me was a military court, and its sentence would be modified by a Court of Assize, I see no difference between death in a moment on the gallows, and in five, ten, twenty years ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... said, however, of the Scottish Highlands, that the chiefs, at least, those of the northern ridge of the Grampians, were humane in their doings, even kindly, and certainly they were never fond of taking a clansman's life on the gallows-tree. Their whole code was against that ignoble death, unless when an enemy had played them unfair, or a vassal had proved himself traitor, and then they swiftly slipped a life to the other world, holding this world to ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow: comes no hammering from the Rabenstein?—their gallows must even now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal position; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... agent after warning the mariner to attend in the morning at his examination, going with them, well pleased, not only to have found the man he sought, but also to have him in such a situation that he could only choose between doing his bidding or the gallows. The boy, had never stirred from his sleep during this scene. The company at the ale house also broke up, and each wended his way home, where, no doubt, each in his own way, regaled his family with the marvels of the evening, and the ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... British lines gathering information. Just as he had accomplished his purpose, and was on the point of departing with his memoranda, he was arrested as a spy and hanged next morning, lamenting on the gallows that he had but one life to lose for ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... had nearly forsaken him when he desperately rang the bell at the home of Lilian Ashford; and he almost hoped the servant would inform him that she was not at home. Lilian was at home, and quaking like a condemned criminal before the gallows, he was ushered into the presence of the author of ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... Andrew, who, looking back, Saw none he despised, though poor and black; And Harriet Beecher, whose glowing pen Corroded the chains of fettered men. To-night with greenest laurels we'll crown North Elba's grave where sleeps John Brown, Who made the gallows an altar high, And showed how a brave old man could die. And Lincoln, our martyred President, Who returned to his God with chains he had rent.* And Sumner, amid death's icy chill, Leaving to Hoar his Civil Rights Bill. And let ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... French and Latin which schoolboys are accustomed to write under a sketch of the borrower expiating his offences on the gallows. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... said the blacksmith: "if I don't serve him so now, he'll be worse off in his old age. He'll come to the gallows, as sure as his name is Bill—-never mind what his name is." And so saying, he gave the urchin another cut; which ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... asked for ground to build upon. For them there was no choice but to settle on the north shore, at Norrmalm, as it is called. You may be sure that they were not over pleased with this location, for across Norrmalm ran a high ridge, and on that the city had its gallows hill, so that it was a detested spot. Nevertheless the Poor Clares erected their church and their convent on the strand below the ridge. After they were established there they soon found plenty of followers. Upon the ridge ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... liar! Why, you are shaking from head to foot now—your face is like that of a man who stands in the shadow of the gallows." ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... she had overheard Pollard and Broderick. "The ranch would come back into Henry Pollard's hands, the men who have committed these crimes would be able to keep the thousands and thousands of dollars they have taken from stages and stolen cattle, and Buck Thornton would go to the gallows!" ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... about this clover-top? Belike some scrivener's clerk at Bideford, With long goose-quill and inkhorn at his thigh— Methinks I see the parchment face of him; Or one of those swashbuckler Devon lads That haunt the inn there, with red Spanish gold, Rank scurvy knaves, ripe fruit for gallows-tree; Or else the sexton's son"—here Wyndham laughed, Though not a man of mirth—indeed, a man Of niggard humor; but that sexton's son— Lean as the shadow cast by a church spire, Eyes deep in the sockets, noseless, high cheek-boned, Like nothing in the circle of this earth But a death's-head ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... winna spare his tender age, Nor yet his hie, hie kin; But as soon as e'er he born is, He shall mount the gallows-pin.' ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... at every passer-by; for your beggarly house in a village is most apt to swarm with profligate and ill-conditioned dogs. What adds to the sinister appearance of this mansion, is a tall frame in front, not a little resembling a gallows, and which looks as if waiting to accommodate some of the inhabitants with a well-merited airing. It is not a gallows, however, but an ancient sign-post; for this dwelling, in the golden days of Communipaw, was one of the most orderly and peaceful of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... them without apparently noticing anything unusual and hurried to his office with his suspicions now a burning certainty. He had only to wait his opportunity to trap his quarry in the possession of a dispatch that would send him to the gallows. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Konigsmark: he went to execution like an undaunted hero, as one that had done a friendly office for that base coward, Count Konigsmark, who had hopes to marry his widow, the rich Lady Ogle, and was acquitted by a corrupt jury, and so got away: Vrats told a friend of mine, who accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice, that he did not value dying of a rush, and hoped and believed God would deal with him like a gentleman." Mr. Thynne was buried in Westminster Abbey; the manner of his death being represented on his monument. He was the Issachar of Absalom and Achitophel; in which poem ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... a civilized country. Not that there was a gallows, as the old joke says; but there were tracks in the shingle of the beach showing where wheels had been, and these led me to a cart-track between high growths of that Mediterranean reed which grows all along in those low flats. There is one of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... his ancestors at a time when to the average Scot the national tartan suggested but an alien barbarian who stole his cattle; and the national bagpipe, the national heather, and the national whisky were merely the noise the brute made, the cover that preserved him from the gallows, and the stuff that gave you your one chance of catching ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... even to vulgarism, to hear the remark that the same gallows-tree ought to bear as its fruit the arch-traitor and the leading champion of aggressive liberty. The mob of Jerusalem was not satisfied with its two crucified thieves; it must have a cross also for the reforming Galilean, who interfered so ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... prison rooms, and by sentry boxes upon the wall-top. Here the wretched were shot and hung in sight of their trembling comrades. The brick wall at the foot of the yard is scarred and crushed by balls and bullets which first passed through some human heart and wrote here their damning testimony. The gallows had been suspended from a wing in the ledge, and in mid-air the impotent captive swung, none daring or willing to say a good word for him; and not for any offence against God's law, not for wronging his neighbor, or shedding blood, or making his kind miserable, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... breweries, and might be warehouses but for having nothing in them. Opposite to one of these, a white house, the scaffold was built. An untidy, unpainted, uncouth, crazy-looking thing of course: some seven feet high, perhaps: with a tall, gallows-shaped frame rising above it, in which was the knife, charged with a ponderous mass of iron, all ready to descend, and glittering brightly in the morning sun, whenever it looked out, now and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... one found that out, for he had been a barber, as he had been a monk and most other things. He looked very well in a cowl, and spoke Neapolitan. I did not know him when he came to the foot of the gallows, howling out ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... wild and woeful race he ran Of lust and sin by land and sea; Until, abhorred of God and man, They swung him from the gallows-tree. And then he climbed the Starry Stair, And dumb and naked and alone, With head unbowed and brazen glare, He ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... them in forbidding buildings, belching chimney shafts and the spikes of a couple of spires. On the other sides it was bounded by the brick walls of factories, the municipal gasworks and the approach to the railway station, indicated by signal-posts standing out against the sky like gallows, and a tram-line bordered by a row of skeleton cottages. Golgotha was a grim garden compared with Paul's brickfield. Sometimes the children of the town scuttled about it like dingy little rabbits. But more often it was a desolate ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Stephanus, who have killed their master and left him unburied. They might have learned pity even from birds. Even the vulture, who lives on the corpses of other creatures, protects little birds from the attacks of the hawk. Yet men are found cruel enough to slay him who has fed them. To the gallows with them! Let him become the food of the pious vulture, who has cruelly contrived the death of his provider. That is the fitting sepulchre for the man who has ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... Kientz Bros, place is was the gallows where they hung folks in slavery times. You know—when they had ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... was it calculated to prepossess one in his favour! To be sure, if he were guilty, it was unpardonable in him to permit a man of so much dignity and worth as Mr. Falkland to suffer under the imputation of his crime! And yet I could not help bitterly compassionating the honest fellow, brought to the gallows, as he was, strictly speaking, by the machinations of that devil incarnate, Mr. Tyrrel. His son, too, that son for whom he voluntarily sacrificed his all, to die with him at the same tree; surely never was a story ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... being composed of Americans from the eastern states, English merchants, and French creoles. Vigorous laws and an efficient police were established; and one of the southern planters, of good family and connexions, having committed a murder, was tried and condemned. To avoid the gallows, he committed suicide in prison. This system having been rigorously followed up, New Orleans has become perhaps the safest city in the Union; and now, not even a brawl is heard in those streets where, a few years back, murders occurred every ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat) |
