"Headsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... returned; "silly things, girls are. There's Dorothy, you know; we were playing at executions the other day—she was Mary Queen of Scots an' I was the headsman. I made a lovely axe with wood and silver paper, you know; and when I cut her head off she cried awfully, and I only gave her the weeniest little tap—an' they sent me to bed at six o'clock for it. I believe she cried on purpose—awfully caddish, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... peace, Master Walter; it shall be as I have said.—Call the headsman. They of Calais have made so many of my men to die, that they ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... centre, so that they could be secured to the end of the harpoon-line, to check the speed of the whale when running or sounding. Six men formed the crew of each boat: four for pulling, and two being officers; one called the boat-steerer, and the other the headsman. ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... rings not soundly on politic ear; Obedience, the watchword e'er should be. To do and not to think we must demand. The welfare of our party e'er should be Our slogan even in this wilderness; And he who doth as critic act a part Should quickly feel the headsman's shining blade. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... execution, and she, unconscious of the terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing him, has a vision of the procession to the guillotine, with Zanoni there, radiant in youth and beauty, followed by the sudden vanishing of the headsman,—the horror,—and the "Welcome" of her loved one to Heaven in a myriad of melodies ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... might go to hear mass, commanded his jailer not to let him budge from his cage except to be tortured (gehenne) and the duke wrote a piteous letter, praying for clemency and signing himself le pauvre Jacques. In vain: him, too, the headsman's axe sent to his ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... the headsman's trade, Alike was famous for his arm and blade. One day a prisoner Justice had to kill Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, Rudolph the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... greasy boards newly fastened together, but evidently used often before for the same purpose. It was buttressed up against their wall, and extended a clear twenty feet out, with a broad wooden stair leading down from the further side. In the centre stood a headsman's block, all haggled at the top, and ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and a murmur as the headsman stepped forward with the huge-headed axe over his shoulder, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... the craziness of the scaffold a good pretext for leaning in friendly fashion on his gaoler's arm, he extended his hand to Sir William Kingston, saying, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself." Even to the headsman he gave a gentle pleasantry and a smile from the block itself, as he put aside his beard so that the keen blade should not touch it. "Wait, my good friend, till I have removed my beard," he said, turning his eyes upwards to the official, "for it ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... a single sob and fell a-swoon; and the headsman's heart was moved to ruth for me and he exclaimed, 'By Allah, this is no murtherer's face!' But the Chief said, 'Smite his neck.' So they seated me on the rug of blood and bound my eyes; after which the sworder drew his sword and asking leave of the Wali, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... moment too late—Talhouet was dead: and, as he lifted his eyes, he saw in the hand of the headsman the bleeding head of his friend—and then, in the nobility of his heart, he felt that, one being dead, they all should die. That not one of them would accept a pardon which arrived a head too late. He looked around him; Du Couedic ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... assembly at which Ashmole was present. At this time also Oliver Cromwell is said to have been an accepted Mason, and it was by his intervention that, a year later, Thomas Vaughan was substituted for the headsman at the execution of Archbishop Laud, for the object already described. It was after his compact with Lucifer that the alchemist wrote the "Open Entrance." His activity in the Rosicrucian cause then became prodigious, and the followers of Socinus, apparently all implicated in the Satanism of their ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... In the meantime, another discussion on his fate took place in the Convention. It was proposed to deal with him as he had dealt with better men, to put him out of the pale of the law, and to deliver him at once without any trial to the headsman. But the humanity which, since the ninth of Thermidor, had generally directed the public counsels restrained the deputies from ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... now, as the spear of the retiarius was not a weapon to inflict instant and certain death, there stalked into the arena a grim and fatal form, brandishing a short, sharp sword, and with features utterly concealed beneath its vizor. With slow and measured steps, this dismal headsman approached the gladiator, still kneeling—laid the left hand on his humbled crest—drew the edge of the blade across his neck—turned round to the assembly, lest, in the last moment, remorse should come upon them; ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... gates and the opposing fighters threaten to dash Danton's every hope of saving by reprieve his "dear one of treasured memory." Indeed, as we have seen, but for frenzied Pierre's maniacal slaughter of the headsman, the fatal blow would now be falling! Neither Danton nor his men, of course, know that. Theirs to struggle on, to confront and conquer fortune, never to despair! Within those iron souls is no such thought ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... alas! he only found that man must work wherever he is, if he would succeed, and that fields of gold and springs of eternal youth exist only in dreams, where they best belong. It was a cold, gray morning, and Sir Walter was kept standing on the scaffold while the headsman ground his ax, the delay being for the amusement and edification of the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late! And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... been the work of a moment to order up a brazier, a pair of pincers, a poker, a headsman and an axe. The instruments of torture waste no time in getting red-hot; and we anticipate the worst. Joseph, however, who has ignored these preparations and maintained an attitude of superbly indifferent aloofness, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... shoulders and rusty joints, he still had something of the lithe, strenuous carriage of his youth. In his dignity of manner, there almost seemed to you a glimpse of the gallant age when forbears had gone whistling to the headsman. He was of a line which counted in English history, which among its women had a Lady Jane Grey. His mother, with the mother's wistful love and pride, had traced that line for him. He was not deeply moved, unless by the romance and the tragedy ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... early hour, the chains and bolts of the cell were heard to clash and groan, and Damian was startled from a broken sleep, which he had not enjoyed for above two hours. His eyes were bent on the slowly opening door, as if he had expected the headsman and his assistants; but the jailer ushered in a stout man in a pilgrim's habit. "Is it a priest whom you bring me, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... which may be resident in the towns and cities. So the Jews of Barbary have their chiefs, and the slaves theirs. In Tunis a number of free coloured people, called Waraghleeah, emigrants from the Algerian oasis of Warklah, have also their chief or headsman. This chief has rather large and even discretionary powers, and can order his subjects to be imprisoned by the officers of the sovereign Government of the country. But, of course, this imperium in imperio is subject to the supervision of the supreme Government. The object is apparently ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to answer for a flag, while the mountain in the background would answer for the rolling billows of the ocean. He said he'd be hanged if it should. So I mentioned that it might perhaps pass for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Put George in black for the headsman, bend over the tree and put a frock on it for Mary, let the hatchet stand, and work in the guinea-pig and the factory chimney as mourners. Just as I had got the words out of my mouth, Barker knocked ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... ordeal was allowed to be decisive, and if it were a capital charge, the headsman was at hand to behead the convicted offender—convicted by the test ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Moina to rise, with the impatience and sickening dread of a doomed man, who longs to have done with life, and turns cold at the thought of the headsman. She had braced herself for a last effort, but perhaps the prospect of the certain failure of the attempt was less dreadful to her than the fear of receiving yet again one of those thrusts that went to her very heart—before ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... bowed head and the headsman brought the knife down across the back of his neck, but the knife was nicked and the neck ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... so very bad,' said the younger journeyman, 'if one only had to suffer death and nothing worse. But these Swedes torture people as the very headsman himself would be ashamed to do. My father died by the dreadful "Swedish Drink," and then they took my eldest brother, and—ah! it's too horrible to ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... ceiling). You have chained and fettered God himself! You have already put one God to death on the cross; I am the second, and you have given me into the hands of the headsman. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... swifter feet than Crime; Cannon-parliaments settle nought; Venice is Austria's,—whose is Thought? Mini is good, but, spite of change, Gutenberg's gun has the longer range. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... asked, and agreed to cede these lands back to the crown, were led into the white tent, where an ample feast awaited them. Those who refused were dismissed with frowns into the red tent, where they found awaiting them the headsman's fatal block and axe. The hapless guests ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... son's disgrace. Does my country need a victim? I have lived for my country's glory, and I can die contented to satisfy its laws, sure that, if you blame me, you will not despise; sure that the hands that give me to the headsman will scatter flowers over my grave. Thus I confess all. I, a soldier, look round amongst a nation of soldiers; and in the name of the star which glitters on my breast I dare the fathers of France ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... looked at the block, and with scented cravat Dusted room for his neck, gayly doffing his hat, Kissed his hand to a lady, bent low to the crowd, Then smiling, turned round to the headsman ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various |
