"Nag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... miry; in short, it was a night in which even a tramper by profession would feel more comfortable in being housed than abroad. I followed in the rear of the cart, the pony still proceeding at a sturdy pace, till methought I heard other hoofs than those of my own nag; I listened for a moment, and distinctly heard the sound of hoofs approaching at a great rate, and evidently from the quarter towards which I and my little caravan were moving. We were in a dark lane—so dark that it was impossible ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... job," remarked Frank, meanwhile scanning the horse and forming his opinion of this member of the equine genus. Here is his judgment: "A famous trotter! a spirited steed!—indeed!—an old nag ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... mortal sins, with the trifling exception of gluttony and laziness! If he were only a father confessor now! he has all the qualities to fit him for one—indeed, he is only too prudent, modest, humble, chaste, and peaceable!" Still, admirable as these characteristics are, he is not quite the nag one expected. "I fancy that through some knavery or blundering on your servant's part, I must have got a different steed from the one you intended for me. In fact, now I come to remember, I had bidden my servant not to accept a horse except it were a good ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... infinite deal of entertainment in studying the ways and humours of all kinds of fellowships, without of necessity accommodating myself to the morals or the manners of the company. I have been very happy with gipsies on a common, though I never poisoned a pig or coped a nag. I have mixed much with sailors of all kinds, than whom no better fellows—the best of them, and that is the greater part—exist on earth, and no worse the worse; and yet I think I have not been stained with all the soils of the sea. I have been with pirates, ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... certainly attends to her own business, and that is more than I can say for my chief enemy, Carrie Wade. Alfred, that girl hates the ground I walk on, and yet she keeps coming to see me. She has me on her visiting list so she can devil me. She has no work to do at home, and so she comes over to nag me. She never has a beau or gets a thing to wear without trotting over to tell me about it or flaunt it in my face. She even makes fun of me for having to work in the field, and is actually insulting sometimes. I'd shut the door in her face, but it would only ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Paris under the patronage of that marvellous King Francis, where I had abundance of all kinds, and here had everything to want for. Many a time I had it in my soul to cast myself away for lost. One day on one of these occasions, I mounted a nice nag I had, put a hundred crowns in my purse, and went to Fiesole to visit a natural son of mine there, who was at nurse with my gossip, the wife of one of my workpeople. When I reached the house, I found the boy ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... needed was patience in training to make him a racehorse. He used to declare the horse he drove could trot very fast—"if I would let him out." Unhappily he never let him out, but the suspicion was that the speed-limit of the honest nag was about six miles an hour, with the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... thee, lad. Do but wait till I get my bag and hammer, and my cudgel. Ay, let' me but meet this same Robin Hood, and let me see whether he will not mind the King's warrant." So, after having paid their score, the messenger, with the Tinker striding beside his nag, started back to ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... this little property when I quitted the army, as I told you. The park is twenty acres—twenty, comprising kitchen-gardens and a common. I have two horses,—I do not count my servant's bobtailed nag. My sporting dogs consist of two pointers, two harriers and two setters. But then all this extravagance is not for ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my best nag and comin' ower to Scara Crag and tappin' at your window some neet soon," whispered a young fellow to the girl he had just ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... that he had also very great difficulty in returning the rapid salutations; and only accomplished them and retained his seat by catching at the pommel of his saddle, or the mane of his steed, - a proceeding which the pad-nag seemed perfectly ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... that night. This too was new to his experience, and this he liked. But newer still was the thing he did not like, the thing that continued to gnaw and nag and would not let ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... said Suzanne. "I know," she continued, making a pretty little face, "how ridiculous it is in a poor girl to come and nag at a man for what he thinks a mere nothing. But if you really knew me, monsieur, if you knew all that I am capable of for a man who would attach himself to me as much as I'm attached to you, you would never repent having ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Very natural, you know, I should be, in their case. If they knew that this nag couldn't win the big race, Or was not meant to run, then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... "I'll git the nag," he announced briefly, and swung off without further parley toward the curling spiral of smoke that marked a cabin a quarter of a mile below. Ten minutes later, his bare feet swung against the ribs of a gray mule, and his rifle lay balanced across the unsaddled withers. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... benefactored. Perhaps they do. She knows much more of the behind-the-scenes of life than I do. But I know some things she doesn't, and a good many you don't. If I didn't like you, boy, I wouldn't tell you what I'm going to tell you, and that is, stay away and let her miss you. I'd tell you to keep on and nag her to death, and make her despise you for your weakness. She'll never marry a man she doesn't respect, even if she loved him, and love is by no means dependent ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... a good deal of a person, I should say, on the strength of to-night's showing. She kept her face perfectly through the whole thing—didn't try to nag at him or apologize to the rest of us. I'd like to know what ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the next day, went to his wife and told her all about it, and that was the last time he ever had to hang his head when he talked to her, for he never took another drink. You see, she didn't reproach him, or nag him—simply said that she was mighty proud of the way he'd held on for a year, and that she knew she could trust him now for another ten. Man was made a little lower than the angels, the Good Book says, and I reckon that's right; but he was made a good ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... and pray that the Majesty of Heaven may suffer your honour, both to-day and hereafter, to go about clothed in velvet well patched with gold ducats, and ride a good nag shod with silver shoes. I pray that your honour may not be able to count the hairs of your head, and that as many blessings may be showered upon your shoulders as you have lost hairs from your poll. I pray that all the ministering angels of heaven may have nothing else to do but sweep all earthly ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... in darkness, for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there long. In ten seconds more the bull had wound his trunk about my dead nag's neck, and, with a mighty effort, hurled him clear of the tree. I wriggled backwards as far as I could towards the roots of the tree, for I knew what he was after. Presently I saw the red tip of the bull's trunk stretching itself towards me. If he could manage ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... of Negra, or Nag'ran, in Yemen, is surrounded with palm-trees, and stands in the high road between Saana, the capital, and Mecca; from the former ten, from the latter twenty days' journey of a caravan of camels, (Abulfeda, Descript. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... excellent and skilful driver piloted his ponies through the narrow strait, and we felt that, at last, our troubles were over, and that we could breathe freely and admire at leisure the snowy peaks of the Kaj-nag beyond the Jhelum, and the rough wooded heights ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... July, the sun was broiling hot! And the dust rose in clouds as the faster teams passed their slow old nag. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... 'tis your best polity to be ignorant. You did never steal Mars his sword out of the sheath, you! nor Neptune's trident! nor Apollo's bow! no, not you! Alas, your palms, Jupiter knows, they are as tender as the foot of a foundered nag, or a lady's face new mercuried, ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... viciously. Perhaps he, too, hungered. Certainly he was hot, and felt like a Socialist. What was this young woman that she should sit there comfortably and nag him while he was down in the dust? "I don't see any reason against our stayin' all day," said he. "And I guess ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... matter? what is this?" demanded Mrs. Moffat. "If Master Henderson's been breaking any rules, you'll please not nag him about it now, Mr. Seabrooke. You'll have him all worried into another headache, and he is not fairly over this one yet, and he'll not be ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... please, With children and grandchildren round his knees, Let him follow an honest trade in peace. I've no taste for this kind of life—not I! Free will I live, and as freely die. No man's spoiler nor heir will I be— But, throned on my nag, I will smile to see The coil of the crowd that ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the nag, here," laughed Jack, "because he'd be mighty happy to know his work is through for a long spell. We've fetched plenty of oats along, and mean to rope him out days, so he can eat his fill of grass. ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... know when your shirt's buttoned or when it ain't? Just look at Herbert's piece o' work an' do accordin'. But keep cool, Monty. Don't get r'iled an' don't rile your nag. You'll do all right—you've got the makin' of ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... stated to belong. But I posed him, by asking WHICH of the Redmonds he knew, for I had never heard his name in our family. He said he knew the Redmonds of Redmondstown. 'Oh,' says I, 'mine are the Redmonds of Castle Redmond;' and so I put him off the scent. I went to see my nag put up at a livery-stable hard by, with the Captain's horse and chair, and returned ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into use during the past few years. Its meaning is well shown in the following examples:—"Domo", house; "domacxo", hovel. "Virino", woman; "virinacxo", hag. "Ridi", to laugh; "ridacxi", to grin (maliciously). "Cxevalo", horse; "cxevalacxo", a sorry nag, a screw. "Obstina", persistent, stubborn; "obstinacxa", pig-headed. "Popolo", a people; "popolacxo", populace. "Morti", to die; "mortacxi", to die the death. "Lingvo", language; "lingvacxo", ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... the York road, for he's a light hand on the pad, has Jemmy, and leaves his mark. [I missed him at York by four-and-twenty hours, and lost him for as much more. Then I picked him up again at Carlisle, and we made a race of it for the Border; but he'd a better nag, and was best up in the road; so I had to wait till I ran him to earth in Edinburgh here and could get a new warrant.] So here I am, sir. They told me you were an active sort of gentleman, and I'm an active man myself. And Sir John Fielding, Mr. Procurator-Fiscal, he's an active gentleman, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... are not worth the powder it would take to blow them up," said he to Mr. Westall, who had followed close at his heels. "Your man has gone off with my horse, and I don't believe you have a nag in your party that can catch him. Now ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... looked at the woebegone nag. "It's a horse," he said, surprised. "Man has been riding them ...
— Off Course • Mack Reynolds (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... and saw myself reduced to command such people. There was scarcely one whole unpatched garment among us, and three of my squires had but a spur apiece. To make up for this deficiency we mustered two black eyes, Fresnoy's included, and a broken nose. Matthew's nag lacked a tail, and, more remarkable still, its rider, as I presently discovered, was stone-deaf; while Mark's sword was innocent of a scabbard, and his bridle was plain rope. One thing, indeed, I observed with pleasure. The two men who had come with ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... youthful farmer had no small ado to quiet his nag. When the animal and the crackers had at length subsided into quiet, he began to look about for the girl. His nerves were not of the highly strung variety; he looked out for his horse first; he was not much excited, and smiled broadly when Angelina ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... mare—the boys called her the fifteen- minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that—and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Toddles called his beady-eyed conductor in retaliation. Hawkeye used to nag Toddles every chance he got, and, being Toddles' conductor, Hawkeye got a good many chances. In a word, Hawkeye, carrying the punch on the local passenger, that happened to be the run Toddles was given when the News Company sent him out ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... disguise of a gentleman's servant on horseback, who, whilst engaged in the pleasant employment of munching an apple, had allowed the ladies he was attending to canter off some distance a-head, and was then in the act of passing, at a very moderate pace, close by our two heroes, but pulled up his nag at the summons, and, touching his hat, replied, in the singing accent of the western Cornishmen—" Your sarvant, gen'lmen both; what 'ud ye plaze to have, sir?—though my name ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... ddiva, presente; refaccion que se suele tomar por la noche cuando se ayuna. Kaloob; ang kinakain sa gabi kung nag-aayuno. ...
— Dictionary English-Spanish-Tagalog • Sofronio G. Calderon
... Archie on Dugald's nag and rode straight away to the lake. Here we tied our ponies to the birch-trees, and, undressing, plunged in for a swim. When we came out we arranged matters thus: Dugald gave Archie his shirt, Donald gave ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... play the hero part, and stopped what he believed was a runaway horse, with Bessie in the vehicle, only to have her scornfully tell him to mind his own business after that, since he had spoiled her plans for proving that their old family nag still had considerable speed left ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... show him. But Miller told himself he'd show her instead. Coward, eh? Maybe this would teach her a lesson! Hell of a lot of help she'd been! Nag at him every time he took a drink. Holler bloody murder when he put twenty-five bucks on a horse, with a chance to make five hundred. What man wouldn't ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... affection with a menial respect. Took such warm, singular interest in my affairs. Wanted to be considered one of the family—sort of adopted son of mine, I suppose. Of a morning, when I would go out to my stable, with what childlike good nature he would trot out my nag, 'Please sir, I think he's getting fatter and fatter.' 'But, he don't look very clean, does he?' unwilling to be downright harsh with so affectionate a lad; 'and he seems a little hollow inside the haunch there, don't he? or no, perhaps I don't see plain this morning.' ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... six or seven feet high, with a gate so far away to the right that to make for it was to lose too much time, as the hounds were running breast high. Ten yards ahead of me was Mr. Frank G——, on a Stormer colt, evidently with no notion of turning; so I hardened my heart, felt my bay nag full of going, and kept my eye on Mr. Frank, who made for the only practicable place beside an oak-tree with low branches, and, stooping his head, popped through a place where the hedge showed daylight, with his hand over his eyes, in the neatest possible style. ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... the ideal aimed at in a good regiment. That there are some who miss that aim none but a fool would deny; the same may be said of most professions, even, I suppose, of bishops. That there are some officers who go the wrong way to work, who nag and bully and generally turn themselves into something even worse than nature intended is an undoubted fact. That there are some men who are wasters; who were born wasters and will die as such is also quite true. But I maintain that the training, the ideals, the ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... very queer to sit here on this nag And swing this bit o' blade within my hand— To keep my eye upon that German flag And wonder will they ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was a very kind woman; she was easy to please.—"She doesn't nag you, and she doesn't sneer at you," the maids said of her.—Malanya Pavlovna was passionately fond of all sweets, and a special old woman, who occupied herself with nothing but the preserves, and therefore was called the preserve-woman, brought to ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... North Wales had on his armour coat, And Rhys of Powis-land a couchant stag; Strath Clwyd's strange emblem was a stranded boat; Donald of Galloway's a trotting nag; A corn-sheaf gilt was fertile Lodon's brag; A dudgeon-dagger was by Dunmail worn; Northumbrian Adolf gave a sea-beat crag; Surmounted by a cross,—such signs were borne Upon these antique shields, all ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... do well for a time, some of them unusually well, for it is the sensitive, high-strung organism that is appreciative and effective. After a while the worry and fret of the requirements and the constant nag of the schoolroom have their effect upon those who are foredoomed to failure in that particular field. The plight of such young women is particularly hard, for they are usually dependent upon ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... knew that she was nearing the end of her journey,—for which Yellowjacket, she supposed, would be thankful. She had started not more than an hour later than her father, but the team had trotted along more briskly than her poor old nag would travel, so that she did not overtake her dad as she ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... was walking on the Sceaux road—walking fast. He wore the clothes of a working man. He was leading a sorry nag.... The man halted and let the nag go free. A sound had ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... Tuileries. I don't believe that he is supreme ruler, or that he can go an inch beyond his tether. Well, as I cannot conceive what you are about, I must tell you what we are doing, and we are just trudging up the Zambesi as if there were no steam and no locomotive but shank's nag yet discovered.... ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... sloped (butt up as a rule), Mr. Thomas Atkins of the Line goes leisurely forward. I do not know yet what the casualties were. Of the Worcesters who passed us, one poor fellow was shot through the head, and about ten wounded; we had none, save a nag shot by Roberts' Horse ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... old Chancellor Whitelocke presented a hogshead of good Canary wine, and a sober, handsome, strong, well-paced English pad nag, and one of his richest saddles. To Wrangel he gave an English gelding; to Tott another; to Wittenberg another; to Steinberg another; to Douglas another; and to such of the great men as the Queen directed. To Lagerfeldt he gave a clock, excellently made, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... certain that she had found the perfect life. But when snow had ended the skating and she tried to get up a moonlight sliding party, the matrons hesitated to stir away from their radiators and their daily bridge-whist imitations of the city. She had to nag them. They scooted down a long hill on a bob-sled, they upset and got snow down their necks they shrieked that they would do it again immediately—and they did not do it again ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... former—most obstinately declaring that he was penniless—he was made to stand for two hours in the pillory, and was finally dragged through the streets in a rickety cart in full sight of a jeering crowd, sitting with his back to the nag in company of the public hangman, and attired in shameful and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... plenty of facts to prove it) that this Government (both for unselfish and selfish reasons) puts a higher value on our friendship than on any similar thing in the world. They will go—they are going—the full length to keep it. But, in proportion to our tendency to nag them about little things will the value set on our friendship diminish and will their confidence in our ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... the woods were leafless and the fields sere and brown. The sun was just setting with a great deal of purple and golden pomp behind the dark woods west of Avonlea when a buggy drawn by a comfortable brown nag came down the hill. Mrs. Rachel ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... we journeyed continually and prodigiously, covering thousands of miles during those weeks, in all sorts of directions, by all sorts of ways, in troop trains and cattle trucks, in motor-cars and taxi-cabs, and on Shanks's nag. There were no couriers in those days between France and England, and to get our dispatches home we often had to take them across the Channel, using most desperate endeavours to reach a port of France in time for the next boat home and staying in Fleet Street ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... depot, and facing a road which, starting at this point, disappeared among the neighboring hills, on whose naked slopes could be vaguely distinguished the miserable hamlet of Villahorrenda. There were three animals to carry the men and the luggage. A not ill-looking nag was destined for the cavalier; Uncle Licurgo was to ride a venerable hack, somewhat loose in the joints, but sure-footed; and the mule, which was to be led by a stout country boy of active limbs and fiery blood, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... experiment might be made on hens, then mounted his nag, and slowly disappeared from ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... way, distinctly audible, utters the cabalistic words, "Two forty." Another voice, as audible, asks, "Which'll you bet on?" It was not soothing. It did seem as if the imp of the perverse had taken possession of that terrible nag to go and make such a display at such a moment. But as his will rose, so did mine, and as my will went up, my whip went with it; but before it came down, Halicarnassus made shift to drone out, "Wouldn't Flora go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... acquainted—old grunters, who wallow about the mud-puddles and sleep serenely for hours, with their fat sides baking in the sun. The wild boar is as fast as a horse, and as savage as the crossest bull. He can run so that you can scarcely catch up to him with your nag at the top of his speed, and when you do reach him he will be very apt, if you are not watchful, to rip up your horse with his tusks and cut some terrible gashes in ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... business; but if his worship was very anxious, why, for a good horse from the ducal stables, he might dare it, since his own nag ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... seemed also to be aware of his placing the coil across the cantle of its owner's saddle. Had he intended it to fall and have to be picked up? It was another evasive little business, and quite successful, if designed to nag the owner of the rope. A few hundred yards ahead of us Trampas was now shouting loud cow-boy shouts. Were they to announce his return to those at home, or did they mean derision? The Virginian leaned, keeping his seat, and, swinging down his arm, caught up the rope, and hung it on his ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... bride, for since the princess had lost the drops of blood, she had become weak and powerless. So now when she wanted to mount her horse again, the one that was called Falada, the waiting-maid said: "Falada is more suitable for me, and my nag will do for thee," and the princess had to be content with that. Then the waiting-maid, with many hard words, bade the princess exchange her royal apparel for her own shabby clothes; and at length she was compelled to swear by the clear sky above her, that ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... depicts her to a fashion-plate painter, perhaps with suggestions of the arts of toilet, cosmetics, and coquetry, as if to promote decadent reaction to decadent stimuli. As in the Munchausen tale, the wolf slowly ate the running nag from behind until he found himself in the harness, so in the disoriented woman the mistress, virtuous and otherwise, is slowly supplanting the mother. Please she must, even though she can not admire, and can so easily despise men who can not lead her, although she become ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and take a drink was to be assaulted ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... crucified God in most things I observe! He could ride on an ass, and a stout Egyptian nag is not good ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fire be separated from it. And lest you should doubt whether he means by the vertues of things those that are Medical; he has in one place[27] this ingenuous confession; Credo (sayes he) simplicia in sua simplicitate esse sufficientia pro sanatione omnium morborum. Nag. [Errata: Nay,] Barthias, even in a Comment upon Beguinus,[28] scruples not to make this acknowledgment; Valde absurdum est (sayes he) ex omnibus rebus extracta facere, salia, quintas essentias; praesertim ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... trouble, through the fields, and then Holborn, &c., towards Hide Park, whither all the world, I think, are going, and in my going, almost thither, met W. Howe coming galloping upon a little crop black nag; it seems one that was taken in some ground of my Lord's, by some mischance being left by his master, a thief; this horse being found with black cloth ears on, and a false mayne, having none of his own; and I back again with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the meanest horse I ever rode and I named him "Jim Lane" in honor of one of the most efficient raiders that ever disgraced an army uniform. This horse a young woman was keeping for her sweetheart who had left it with her father for safety, as he feared it might be shot. As I mounted the nag, she suddenly grasped the bridle reins. The horse always, I found afterwards, had a trick of rearing up on his hind feet, when he was about to start off. Evidently the young woman was also ignorant of his little habit or else she would never have taken hold of his bridle ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... think Lucretia Burns would nag anybody. I don't say you're all to blame, but I'm afraid you haven't acknowledged you were any to blame. I'm afraid you've not been patient with her. I'm going out to bring her in. If she comes, will you say you were part to blame? You needn't beg her pardon—just ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Mr. Peasemarsh. "Shall I trot the whole stable out for your Honor's worship to see? Or shall I send round to the Bishop's to see if he's a nag or ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... spires? At length they in the rubbish spy A thing resembling a goose-pie. Thither in haste the Poets throng, And gaze in silent wonder long, Till one in raptures thus began To praise the pile and builder Van: "Thrice happy Poet! who may'st trail Thy house about thee like a snail: Or harness'd to a nag, at ease Take journeys in it like a chaise; Or in a boat whene'er thou wilt, Can'st make it serve thee for a tilt! Capacious house! 'tis own'd by all Thou'rt well contrived, tho' thou art small: For ev'ry Wit in Britain's ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... tell thee a secret, and so leave thee. I'll not give her the advantage, tho' she be A gallant-minded lady, after we are married To hit me in the teeth, and say she was forc'd To buy my wedding clothes, Or took me with a plain suit, and an ambling nag, No, I'll be furnish'd something like myself. And so farewell; for thy suit touching the glebe land, When ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... dress ready in the hut hard by," said Edred quickly; "and then we must to horse again and get to the coast as fast as may be. Yon sturdy little pony good Warbel has provided will serve us as well as any stouter nag, and look more in keeping with the humble part thou must play this day, Brother Emmanuel. Come, let us change our dress quickly. I love not to linger in this forest, even though we be ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... replied Bob with unaccustomed decision. Betty usually wheedled him into granting her requests. "Haven't I just told you there is nothing to go in? If you see yourself perched on that raw-boned nag with me, I don't, that's all. But I tell you what; there's a sale to-morrow at a farm this side of Glenside—I'll take you to that, if you like. I guess Peabody will let me off, seeing as how there are wagons advertised. We can ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... gone by when she heard from a woman who rode up on a foot-sore nag that the McMurdo's were some distance behind. A bull boat in which the children were crossing the river had upset, and Mrs. McMurdo had been frightened and "took faint." The children were all right—only a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... I lost my temper. But Molly's begun to nag me lately, and I can't stand it. I went after that book. Did you throw some ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... you joy!" he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy, and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stables; take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the coach horses; and God speed thee, ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... time with his grandmother. There lay the place before him, but it was not lonely. A big wagon was standing there, with a grey cover stretched over it. No horse stood in front of it, but a thin nag was nibbling the hedge, and this evidently belonged to the wagon. Near the old castle tower a fire was blazing merrily; a man was sitting by it, hammering with all his might. Close by him four little children were crawling around ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... with an unfeigned sigh, "that we travel north tomorrow. Lord! How sick am I of saddle and nag and the open road. Your kindly hospitality, Major, has already softened me so that I scarce know how to face the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... of those names. Hold up!" he continued, examining the hoofs of his brother's nag. "I say, Dick, what fine thick shoes he ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... the George, where there is exceeding good entertainment for both man and horse. Upon one occasion, being in great haste, Mr. Pounce directed the ostler not to put Prance into the stable, but to tie him to the brew-house door. Now, as cruel fate would have it, there was just within the nag's reach, a tub full of wine lees, which, luckless moment for him, (being thirsty) he unceremoniously quaffed off in a trice, without even ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... Shulamite," he said. "Also mount Jasper on our fastest nag, with saddle-bags. We ride to Warwick; and must start within a quarter ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... In the village, where he presides over a pretty cottage home, he has quite a circle of idolaters: the neighbors' houses display on their walls his sketches of the village eccentrics, attended by those accessories of dog or gun or nag which always stamp the likeness, and make the rustic critic cry out, "Them's his very features!" A large, boisterous painting in the hotel represents his impressions of the village arena in his youth; and ancient gamesters, gray-headed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... unpleasant, but dangerous. To ride a horse that is apt to trip, is like dwelling in a ruin: we cannot be comfortable if we feel that we are unsafe; and, truly, there is no safety on the back of a stumbling nag. The best advice we can offer our reader, as to such an animal, is never to ride him after his demerits are discovered: although the best horse in the world, may, we must confess, make a false step, and even ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... displaying a bullet head, red cheeks and purple nose, while the wooden beads of this sottish counterfeit of a friar trailed from his girdle on the ground. From a stall in a far corner a large, bony-looking nag turned its head reproachfully, as if mentally protesting against such foul quarters and the poor company they offered. Its melancholy whinny upon the appearance of the woman was a sigh for freedom; a sad suspiration ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... day or two's shooting in September; he schooled the squire's horses; got slips of trees out of the orchard and roots of flowers out of the garden; and had the fishing of the little river altogether in his own hands. He had undertaken to come mounted on a nag of his father's and show the way at the quintain post. Whatever young Greenacre did the others would do after him. The juvenile Lookalofts might stand aloof, but the rest of the youth of Ullathorne would be sure to venture if Harry Greenacre showed the way. And so Miss Thorne made up her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... starved to death, In a lone garret, which the rats and mice Seemed greatly loth to have him occupy. An' I, poor Billy Matterson, whom once He deemed too poor and low to look upon, Am come to bury him." The sexton smiled,— Then raised his rusty spade, cheered up his nag, Whistled as he was wont, and jogged along. Oft I have seen the poor man raise his hand To wipe the eye when good men meet the grave,— But Billy Matterson, he turned and smiled. The truth flashed in an instant on my mind, Though sad, yet ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... drifting around the country, practicing law in Fulton and Menard counties, Illinois, an old fellow met him going to Lewiston, riding a horse which, while it was a serviceable enough animal, was not of the kind to be truthfully called a fine saddler. It was a weatherbeaten nag, patient and plodding, and it toiled along with Abe—and Abe's books, tucked away in saddle-bags, lay heavy ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... replied, holding up the stump of his left arm, from which the sleeve was dangling. "I lost thet more 'n a y'ar ago. I b'long ter the calvary,—Fust Alabama,—and bein' as I carn't manage a nag now, they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... would encourage her. She would assure her that when she came back at night she would hear Dulcie calling "It's begun." But alas, it never was—it was only by keeping madly, tempestuously busy at other things that Dulcie endured the nag of some of those April days. Sometimes she gave up entirely, flung herself prostrate on the sofa under the dormer windows and wept until she was no longer Dulcie, until she was merely a limp rag of a human who wouldn't ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... "Too many automobiles on the Drive. He's a rotten nag for a woman, anyhow. His mouth is as tough as a stirrup, and he has the disposition of a tarantula. Why doesn't she ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... answered. "I am going to tell you why I didn't, and why Jack did. He is his own master, with money to do as he likes, and no one to question or nag him at home; while I am not my own master at all, and have no money except what mother chooses to give me, and that is not much. Father, you know, is poor, and mother holds the purse, which is not ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... it, and his lip trembled; but he said nothing, and presently went out into the hall, and put on his hat, for he saw his nag at the door. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... street in a big new Sussex. She'd wish she had let him and Marie alone. They would have made out all right if they had been let alone. He ought to have taken Marie to some other town, where her mother couldn't nag at her every day about him. Marie wasn't such a bad kid, if she were left alone. ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... savour. I seem to see Montaigne's massive and benignant countenance as he jogs home, wrapped against the wind in the cloak that was once his father's, along the muddy autumn lanes, upon his strong but not over-impetuous nag. Surely I have seen that particular cast of features in the weather-beaten face of many a farm labourer, and listened too, from the same lips, to just as relishing a commentary upon the surprising ways of providence ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... may safely help him to meet them. Give him warning. For instance, do not spring any disagreeable commands upon him. Have his duties as systematized as possible so that he may know what to expect; and do not under any circumstances nag him nor allow ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... specific, picture-making word such as hurry, dash, run, race, amble, stroll, stride, shuffle, shamble, limp, strut, stalk. For the word "horse" he may substitute a definite term like sorrel, bay, percheron, nag, charger, steed, broncho, or pony. In narrative and descriptive writing particularly, it is necessary to use words that make pictures and that reproduce sounds and other sense impressions. In the effort to make his diction specific, however, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... then settled into a walk. The old horse cropped the grass beside the water till she was close at his heels, then he jogged off a little and settled down to grazing again. But the active scouts soon settled his hash. They passed the stout lady at full speed, and ran down the old nag within fifty yards. Then Dick led him back to the barge-woman, who was mopping a hot red face with a big ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... Couillards produced a big, raw-boned, yellowish horse, and the Martins a little, white, long-haired nag; the two horses were harnessed, and Marius, buried in an old livery of Simon's, brought the carriage round to the door. Julien, who was in his best clothes, would have looked a little like his old, elegant self, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... of Berd, the headquarters of Pougatcheff. This road was blocked up and hidden by snow; but across the steppe were traces of horses, renewed from day to day, apparently, and clearly visible. I was going at a gallop, Saveliitch could scarcely keep up and shouted, "Not so fast! My nag can not follow yours." Very soon we saw the lights of Berd. We were approaching deep ravines, which served as natural fortifications to the town. Saveliitch, without however being left behind, never ceased his lamentations. I was in hopes of passing safely ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... despatch in my pocket I could not delay, so I took my nag and rode back along the fence. The very first test I made I found the line in order again. I transmitted the despatch, adding that there was nothing to stop the enemy from taking Heilbron that night. This news caused ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... and came to the city to make his fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg, and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to the scratch Ada—her name's Ada Lowery—saddles a nag and rides eight miles to the railroad station and catches the 6.45 A.M. train for the city. Looking for George, you know—you understand about women— George wasn't there, so ...
— Options • O. Henry
... guest, and every one there seemed to vie which should love him the most. Still his especial favourite was Mr. Spencer: for Spencer never went out without bringing back cakes and toys; and Spencer gave him his pony; and Spencer rode a little crop-eared nag by his side; and Spencer, in short, was associated with his every comfort and caprice. He told them his little history; and when he said how Philip had left him alone for long hours together, and how Philip had forced him to his last and nearly fatal ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Richard were two pretty men, They lay in bed till the clock struck ten; Then up starts Robin and looks at the sky, "Oh, brother Richard, the sun's very high! You go before, with the bottle and bag, And I will come after on little Jack Nag." ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... that use of "the." It sounded modern. Yet along came Gashwiler, as if seeking an early excuse to nag, and criticized this. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... afternoon, near the middle of that most desolate month, November, when Captain Danton and his daughter stepped into the railway-fly at St. Croix, and were driven, as fast as the spavined old nag would go, to Danton Hall. A desolate afternoon, with a low leaden sky threatening snow, and earth like iron with hard black frost. A wretched complaining wind that made your nerves ache, worried the half-stripped trees, and now and then a great snowflake whirled ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... assembled on the road-side to catch intelligence. They thought Caswell had taken the right of the Wilmington road, and gone toward the northwest (Cape Fear). Again was I skimming over the ground through a country thinly settled, and very poor and swampy; but neither my own spirit nor my beautiful nag's failed in the least. We followed the well-marked trail ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... which he had made his last unsuccessful attempt, and received back his own; giving, at the same time, thanks to his competitor, who, he said, had re-established his favourite horse in his good opinion, for he had been in great danger of transferring to the poor nag the blame of an inferiority, which every one, as well as himself, must now be satisfied remained with the rider. Having made this speech in a tone in which mortification assumed the veil of indifference, he mounted his horse and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... I never guessed one, so I shall have to give this up. But don't you see how it is, dearest? I try to be good to her, and she won't meet me half-way. On the contrary, she tries to nag me, I think. It wasn't my fault to-night. What right has she to run down my friends? If she don't like them, she might leave them alone, and be precious sure they'd leave her alone. She don't like smoking; I tried to swear off, tried mighty ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... and fairly out of the river. I knew we should come to conclusions in the matter, and time is precious, as there is a cruiser of the Queen so nigh. The rogues will pass the pennant, like innocent market-people, and I'll risk a Flemish gelding against a Virginia nag, that they inquire if the captain has no need of vegetables for his soup! Ah! ha-ha-ha! That Ludlow is a simpleton, niece of mine, and he is not yet fit to deal with men of mature years. You'll think better of his qualities, one day, and bid him be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... went rapidly through these maneuvers. "As to the grip, it's easy—slip the forefinger up the wrist. O.K.—I've got it. Say, what kind of an old tumbledown trap is that thing?" demanded Jem, as the hostler reappeared leading a sorry nag attached to an old buggy with an enormous hood and a big shallow boot at ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... Because I'm going to carve him, and paint him, and possibly spoil him. The creating of a man—of one who knows how to handle life—is so much more wonderful than creating absurd pictures or statues or stories. I'll nag him into completing college. He'll learn dignity—or perhaps lose his simplicity and be ruined; and then I'll marry him off to some nice well-bred pink-face, like Jeff Saxton's pretty cousin—who may turn him into a beastly money-grubber; and I'm ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... the people of the inn, burst open the door with a thrust of his shoulder, made for a sack of oats, emptied a bottle of sweet cider into the manger, and again mounted his nag, whose feet struck fire ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... decided to perform the journey on horseback in preference to posting, for this was before the days of railways. He therefore purchased a horse before starting, and on his arrival at the metropolis, following the usual custom, disposed of his nag, deciding to purchase another for the return journey. When he had completed his business, and had decided to set out for home, he went to Smithfield to purchase a horse. About dusk, a handsome horse was offered to him at so cheap a rate, that he was led ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... not succeed in getting any animal out of Mr. Horsball's stables, nor did he make further attempt to carry his last threat into execution on that morning. Mr. Horsball now led the way into the house, while Mr. Pepper mounted his nag. Captain Fooks and Lieutenant Cox went in to their breakfast, and the unfortunate father followed them. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and it was found that Ralph's horses had been taken round to the other door, and ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope |
