"Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hurried from me and sold to the highest bidder, or doomed to any drudgery her master might put her to, and even flogged at will. There was only one remedy that could be applied; and the specific was dollars. My friend was so kind as to negotiate with the ruffian. One thousand was demanded, and cheerfully paid. I carried the manumission home to my sorrowing Mary. From her I learned, as she lay in bed—her beautiful face buried in the clothes, and her voice choked by sobs—that the wretch who had called on me was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious backhander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much more profitable ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... All the little ruffian bears hooted and shouted "ha-ha!" to see the beggar fall upon his face. There was one, however, who did not even smile. He was the youngest cub. His fur coat was not as black and glossy as those his elders wore. The hair ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... this man? Jimmie Dale was studying the other's chin, the lips, the white, even teeth, the jet-black hair. Some day the tables might be turned. Could he recognise again this cool, imperturbable ruffian who so callously threatened ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... woman; in a while it mounted to her knees, then to her waist, then to her chin, then to her lips; and when she was almost stifled by the rising waves, and the bubbling groan of her last agony was reaching her fellow-martyr farther up the beach, one heartless ruffian stepped up to Margaret Wilson, and, with a fiendish grin and mocking laugh, asked her, 'What think you of your friend now?' And what was the calm and noble reply? 'What do I see but Christ, in one of his members, wrestling there? Think you ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... heroic resolutions followed him. He had thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was not without its influence even on these irredeemables. Men called him "The ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... like, the bloody ruffian!" he said, furiously, "but the mare will never rise from this! ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... his head, falling on his face as he lifted it up to drink the whisky, revealed in his wide open, protruding pupils, the reflection of a cat—I can swear it was a cat. Instantly my intoxication evaporated and I scented danger. How was it I had not noticed before that the man was a typical ruffian—a regular street-corner loiterer, waiting, hawklike, to pounce upon and fleece the first well-to-do looking stranger he saw. Of course I saw it all now like a flash of lightning: he had seen me about the town during ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... Clifford, "you see you can't take me in. I know your date. So come and give your old ruffian of an uncle ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Macpherson wrote offensively and violently to Dr. Samuel, who replied heartily enough—'I received your foolish and impudent letter ...I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian ...I thought your book an imposture. I think so still. Your rage I defy,' etc. etc. What was all this to Runciman? He had no learning—he cared nothing for antiquarianism. He took for granted that Ossian was authentic. Many ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Pennington," she cried, "the man by your side, a cowardly ruffian, a drunken swaggerer, and the companion of the vilest people in the country. We have sought to save her from him, John Penryn; and now, thank ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the whites and blacks, to the end that the education of both races might be fostered, that the indiscriminate and illegal killing of Negroes might be eliminated, and that the reign of terror effected by a union of the ruffian whites and ignorant blacks might be prevented. Nash then extolled the record of the party in power for its fairness to the Negro, and arraigned the attitude of the opposition to all measures designed to ameliorate the condition of the race. Concluding his remarks, Nash preached the sound doctrine ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... ruffian, with an Australian digger's beard, had turned up of late to disturb the tranquillity of the partners. He had been asking what they regarded as an exorbitant price for his silence in respect to the construction of that adit which has just been mentioned, and had been fobbed off from ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... him as I did; yet I was put out, for I thought his bold glances would have made her angry. But my dear Flavia was a woman, and so—she was not put out. On the contrary, she thought young Rupert very handsome—as, beyond question, the ruffian was. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... such he was, and one, too, whose name will live for many a year in the ruffian histories of Madrid; I answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... broke out upon me as the ruffian mentioned Dick. God! Was it possible these fiends would wreak their vengeance on a mere boy? And yet if they meant to, how could he escape them? How simple for such men to get him in their power. Ah, if only I could have spoken I should, I truly believe, have ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Point, January 19, 1775," addressed to an officer under his command. The three lines of which it consists can prove bad spelling, erroneous grammar, and misplaced and superfluous punctuation; but, with all this complication of iniquity, the ruffian General contrives to express his meaning as briefly and clearly as if the rules of correct composition had been ever so scrupulously observed. This autograph, impressed with the foulest name in our history, has somewhat of the interest that would ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... desperado, he then stretched himself out in the shadow of a small tree, drank deeply from a whiskey flagon which he produced, and pulling his hat over his eyes, was soon asleep and snoring. It was a long time before I could believe the evidence of my own senses. Finally, I approached the ruffian, and placed my hand on his shoulder. He did not stir a muscle. I listened; I heard only the deep, slow breathing of profound slumber. Resolved not to be balked and defrauded by such a scoundrel, I stealthily withdrew the vial from his pocket and sprang to ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... that nearly knocked me over. A cropped head and three days' growth of beard will make an extraordinary difference in any one, but I would never have believed they could have transformed me into quite such an unholy-looking ruffian as the one I saw staring back at me out of the glass. If I had ever been conceited about my personal appearance, that moment would ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... apple-barrel on deck, and from this place of ambush overheard Soutar and a comrade conversing in their oilskins. The smooth sycophant of the cabin had wholly disappeared, and the boy listened with wonder to a vulgar and truculent ruffian. Of Soutar, I may say tantum vidi, having met him in the Leith docks now more than thirty years ago, when he abounded in the praises of my grandfather, encouraged me (in the most admirable manner) to pursue his footprints, and left impressed for ever on my memory the image ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... guard, and then Merriwell went at him, while Grody gasped for breath, thinking the college lad could be no match for the young ruffian. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... well apprised of this, but pretended ignorance. One day my curiosity induced me to go to the Palace of Tears, to observe how my consort employed herself, and from a place where she could not see me, I heard her thus address the wounded ruffian: 'I am afflicted to the highest degree to behold you in this condition,' she cried, 'I am as sensible as yourself of the tormenting pain you endure; but, dear soul, I am continually speaking to you, and you do not answer ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... on the banks of the Cumberland in the early years of the last century, an attempt was made by a band of desperadoes to create a disturbance. To this end their leader, a burly ruffian, stalked to the front of the pulpit, and with an oath commanded Cartwright to "dry up." Suspending divine service for a few minutes, and laying aside his coat, the preacher descended from the pulpit and springing upon the intruder, felled him to the earth and ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... turned out eventually to be an umbrella, against the attacks of a tall, strapping fellow, in a rough frieze coat, who was endeavouring to wrest his weapon from him. A still more formidable adversary was, however, approaching in the shape of a second ruffian, who had armed himself with a thick stake out of the hedge, and was creeping cautiously up behind the shorter man, with 231the evident intention of knocking him on the head. I instantly determined to frustrate his benevolent design, nor was there much time to lose, if I wished my assistance ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... numbers. We met them with the point, in the good old Roman way, thrusting home remorselessly, fighting with silent contempt for them which must have been maddening. I even heard Brennan laugh, as he pierced a huge ruffian through the shoulder and hurled him backward; but at that moment I saw Craig knock aside a levelled gun and press his way to the front of the seething mass to assume control. His face was inflamed, his eyes bloodshot; drink had changed ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... daintiness that her father complained of "too much spring-time!" The whole place, including his own bedroom, was a young damsel's boudoir, he said, so that nowhere could he smoke a cigar without feeling like a ruffian. However, he was smoking when George arrived, and he encouraged George to join him in the pastime, but the caller, whose air was both tense and preoccupied, declined ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... was dying with a little child by her side, what could I do but go and comfort her? Ah, poor darling Annie!' sobbed the little old lady, 'she was sadly changed from the bright, beautiful girl I remembered. Her husband turned out a brute and a ruffian and a spendthrift. He wasted all her money, and left her within six months of the marriage—the wretch! Annie tried to support herself by needlework, but she took cold in her starving condition and broke down. Then Mab was born, and she ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... happened that they found themselves looking down upon Francoise de Montespan as she was led to her death, and that they heard that last piteous cry for aid at the instant when the heavy hand of the ruffian with the axe fell upon her shoulder, and she was forced down upon her knees beside the block. She shrank screaming from the dreadful, red-stained, greasy billet of wood, but the butcher heaved up his weapon, and the seigneur had taken a step forward ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this particular crime against children of that helpless sort does make my blood boil. Nothing, not even passion to excuse it—who could feel passion for that poor child?—nothing but the cold, clumsy lust of some young ruffian. Yes, I walked on in a rage, and went straight to her mother's cottage. That wretched woman was incapable of moral indignation, or else the adventures of her elder daughter had exhausted her powers of expression. 'Yes,' she admitted, 'Em'leen had got herself into trouble too, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and the injured party, and seven nobles write asking that he should be pardoned, and ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... with the babes we wander'd in the wood, Or view'd the forest-feats of Robin Hood: Oft, fancy-led, at midnight's fearful hour, With startling step we seal'd the lonely tower: O'er infant innocence to hang and weep, Murder'd by ruffian hands, when smiling in its sleep. Ye Household Deities! whose guardian eye Mark'd each pure thought, ere register'd on high; Still, still ye walk the consecrated ground, And breathe the soul of Inspiration round. As o'er the dusky furniture I bend, Each chair awakes ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... drinking at the bar of the hotel; and as it is no secret why he and Miss Bates parted, I enlightened the company on the subject of his antecedents. He threatened to challenge me! Ho! ho!—fight with a nigger—that is too good a joke!" And laughing heartily, the young ruffian leant back in his chair. "I want some money to-morrow, dad," continued he. "I say, old gentleman, wasn't it a lucky go that darkey's father was put out of the way so nicely, eh?—We've been living in clover ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... else could he have expected? He had rushed in like a ruffian; he had dragged the poor defenceless thing by the hair of her head, as it were, on board that ship. It was really atrocious. Nothing assured him that his person could be attractive to this or any other woman. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... he would like glass eyes, the ruffian!" he muttered to himself, "but I will not have the mockery. I will fill the sockets and sew up the eyelids, and the face shall be as ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the steel cane with her. In a second the ruffian had vanished, and a big black crow was flying about ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... of the trunk stand the officer and a brigand. The officer has a large wound across the temple, and attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... and hard to please' as Scott says, you know—and it must be a very skilfully-dressed fly indeed which brings her to the surface. She's been hooked once, mind, and she has a horror of it. Her husband was the most frightful brute and ruffian, you know. I was strongly opposed to the marriage, but her mother carried it through. But—yes—about her—I think she is afraid to marry again. If she does ever consent, it will be because poverty has broken her nerve. If she is kept on six ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... "Turn, ruffian, and defend yourself!" But old Jowler, when he saw me, only whistled, looked at his lifeless daughter, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... extended his arms straight out from either side, his head thrown back. He was a good-natured ruffian, with clear ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... cause—to be excluded from every office, State and National, and in many instances to be banished from the States they so faithfully laboured to save; it abandons the four millions of colored people to such treatment as the ruffian class of the South, educated in the barbarism of slavery and the atrocities of the rebellion, may choose to give them; it leaves the obligations of the Nation to her creditors and to the maimed ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... profound, and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... replied the Colonel. "There is no lack of them; nor shall you be able to complain that they are not recent, as well as of longer standing. Your conduct in the case of poor honest M'Evoy here is black and iniquitous. He must be restored to his farm, but by other hands than yours, and that ruffian instantly expelled from it. From this moment, sir, you cease to be my agent. You have betrayed the confidence I reposed in you; you have misled me as to the character of my tenants; you have been a deceitful, cunning, cringing, selfish and rapacious tyrant. My people you have ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... enraged young lord of Kingsland, "how dare you presume to answer me? How dare you stand there and look me in the face? If I called my servants and made them lash you outside the gates, I would only serve you right! You low-bred, impertinent ruffian, how dare you ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... he had come to know him as an insatiate gambler, the pitiful sort of gambler who is too much of a drunkard to be more than his opponent's dupe at cards. He had found him to be a brawler and very much of a ruffian. But though he did not close his eyes to these things they did not matter to him. For gratitude and a sense of loyalty were two of the strong silver threads that went to make up the mesh of Buck Thornton's nature, and it was enough to him that little Jimmie Clayton had played ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... medicine," or bribe of two bus (about three shillings), would substitute the weapon of a private individual for that of his Lord. Dogs and beggars, lying helpless by the roadside, not unfrequently serve to test a ruffian's sword; but the executioner earns many a fee from those who wish to see how their blades will cut ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... "The ruffian was disguised with his head in a bit of a bag, or something of that sort, and he never spoke a word from first to last," added Kennedy, looking over the article ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... about that afterwards," said Dennis grimly. "I'm going to save you now." And, cutting the cord, he threw the knife into the basin and proceeded to make a slip-knot. "We must make this old ruffian secure first." ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... in the dugout sprang to arms, and came running down the bank, and likely getting the particulars of the escape from the ruffian by the sage-hen, who was probably only stunned for the moment, they buckled warmly to the chase. The mountain-side was steep and rough, and men on foot were better than on horseback; accordingly Will dismounted, and clapping his ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... it prudent to avoid Montreal and Quebec and to board his ship at Rimouski. This circumstance afforded material to the editor of the Mail, Mr Edward Farrer, for an amusing article, bearing the alliterative title, 'The Murderer's Midnight Mizzle, or the Ruffian's Race for Rimouski.' ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... I handled that situation rightly?" he asked himself between chuckles. "One thing I know—if that old ruffian plays another trick on me—one more of any kind—Ill show my teeth. There's a thing known as ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... plain, honest 'gator hunters, working powerful hard for a mighty poor living," declared the ruffian. "An' you-alls, I reckon one guess will hit it, arter plumes, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... well as that of the Lord of Hosts! I'm a small man—a little G.P. in an obscure Highland village in rather shabby tweed knickerbockers and Inverness cape (yes, the same ones—still no new clothes! What would be the use in wasting money on adorning an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him. The point was not what I was wanting to know about. I was wanting, very much, to have a 'bit crack' with him, as they call it here. Lassie, he asked me to lunch with ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... with you! The girl is gone! If you want to know where she is, apply to the police. Now, don't show your lying face here again! I will have you arrested! You are a child stealer! You and your ruffian had better ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... bag," he continued, "is a suit of clothes such as habitues of 'The Pidgin House' rejoice to wear. I, who have studied disguise almost as deeply as the great Willy Clarkson, will transform you into a perfect ruffian. It is important, you understand, that someone should be inside the house of Ah-Fang-Fu, as otherwise by means of some secret exit the man we seek may escape. I believe that he contemplates departing at any moment, and I believe that the visit of Miguel means that what I may term the masters of ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... highwayman;" and "the profession of the polite and accomplished adventurer who nicked you out of your money at White's, or bowled you out of it at Marylebone, was often united with that of the professed ruffian who, on Bagshot Heath or Finchley Common, commanded his brother beau to stand and deliver." "Robbers—a fertile and alarming theme—filled up every vacancy, and the names of the Golden Farmer, the Flying Highwayman, Jack Needham, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... old as his master, who was 'four-score and upward' and whom he 'loved as his father,' but, one may suppose, three-score and upward. From the first scene we get this impression, and in the scene with Oswald it is repeatedly confirmed. His beard is grey. 'Ancient ruffian,' 'old fellow,' 'you stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart'—these are some of the expressions applied to him. 'Sir,' he says to Cornwall, 'I am too old to learn.' If his age is not remembered, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... natural to suppose that every effort is made by the small traders of the interior to avoid these savage press-gangs. The poor wretches are not only subjected to annoying vassalage by ruffian princes, but the blockade of the forest often diverts them from the point they originally designed to reach,—forces them to towns or factories they had no intention of visiting,—and, by extreme delay, wastes their provisions and diminishes their frugal profits. It is surprising to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... said, "Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won't eat ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by argument the thesis they are maintaining, which is probably that two and two make five, they branch off and begin to adduce arguments which do not go to prove that, but to prove that the man who maintains that two and two make four is a fool, or even a ruffian. Some good men are subject to this infirmity—that if you differ from them on any point whatever, they regard the fact of your differing from them as proof, not merely that you are intellectually stupid, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... to what I say, a fright. Why! Do you suppose I would advise a crime? Good God! the very idea fills me with horror, and I fancy I can see before my eyes blood and fire! Nothing of the sort, senora. A fright—nothing but a fright, which will make that ruffian understand that we are well protected. He goes alone to the Casino, senora, entirely alone; and there he meets his valiant friends, those of the sabre and the helmet. Imagine that he gets the fright and that he has a few bones broken, in addition—without any serious wounds, of course. ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... is not a ruffian," he declared, speaking as calmly as possible. "There is a misunderstanding between us. I have wronged him, and he has a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... of a murderer asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would have told ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... and cruelly persecuted, and then to have him show the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances, will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to his doom" over a cliff a thousand ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at length from his ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... when they are behaving like men for the first time in their lives. Well, I tell you, March, I know them inside out; and I know they are behaving like heroes. Every man of them ought to have a statue, and on the pedestal words like those of the noblest ruffian of the Revolution: 'Que mon nom soit fletri; ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... pretended to consent to stay with him, telling him I should only step to my lodgings to leave a necessary direction, and then instantly return. This he very glibly swallowed, on the notion of my being one of those unhappy street-errants, who devote themselves to the pleasure of the first ruffian that will stoop to pick them up, and of course, that I would scarce bilk myself of the hire, by not returning make the most of the job. Thus he parted with me, not before, however, he had ordered in my hearing a supper, which I had the barbarity to disappoint ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... solemn of truths, on any such scale as that towards which events seemed to be pointing. The unfair notices put me in a tremor of distress. The brutal ones affected me like a blow in the face from the fist of a ruffian. None of them, that I can remember, ever helped me in any sense whatsoever to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... countenance confronting him, endeavouring to sense what had really occurred. He was undoubtedly trapped again, but how had the trick been accomplished? What devilish freak of ill luck had thus thrown them once more into the merciless hands of this ruffian? How could it have happened so perfectly? The boat on the sand in the cove yonder; perhaps that was the key to the situation. Those fellows who had left the Seminole to sink behind them, knew where they were when they deserted the yacht; they landed at the nearest point along shore, where they ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... was usually a gentleman, but in his cups he became little short of a ruffian in manner. He ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... its past," he admitted, "but we are living it down, and have succeeded pretty well. I think I've heard of a ruffian of the last generation named Jack Hollis; but I don't know anything, and I don't care to know anything, about him. But if you're interested in Garrison City, I'd like to show you a little plot of ground in a place that is going to be the center ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... romance!" cried Mrs. Forrester. "An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the conventional dragon ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Carlos would exclaim feebly, turning his head towards his uncle. His uncle's own province, the name of his own town, stood for a refuge of the scum of the Antilles. It wras a shameful sanctuary. Every ruffian, rascal, murderer, and thief of the West Indies had come to think of this ancient and honourable town as ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the wrong-doer; and that when the culprit was discovered the Irish law officers hesitated to prosecute; suppose that when a prosecution took place the Attorney-General showed that his heart was not in the matter, and that the jury acquitted a ruffian clearly guilty of murder, is it not as clear as day that smuggling would flourish and no customs be collected? In the same way the Irish Ministry might by mere apathy, by the very easy process of doing nothing, ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... it not, my lord?" rejoined the ruffian with bitter irony. "The evidence, you know, was irresistible; the crime as clear as the sun at noonday; and if in such plain cases, the just and necessary law was not enforced, society would be dissolved, and there would be no security for property! These were ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... am, in the first place, by no means sure that the risk existed," said the Earl of Etherington; "for, as I have often told you, I had but a very transient glimpse of the ruffian; and, in the second place, I am sure that no permanent bad consequences have ensued. I am too old a fox-hunter to be afraid of a leap after it is cleared, as they tell of the fellow who fainted in the morning at the sight of the precipice he had ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... where the privilege of having theatricals was allowed to the crew. What was their chagrin, then, when, upon making an application to the Captain, in a Peruvian harbour, for permission to present the much-admired drama of "The Ruffian Boy," under the Captain's personal patronage, that dignitary assured them that there were already enough ruffian boys on board, without conjuring up any ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the young man, turning toward Samuel Parker, "get you down, and come within my house. Perhaps by this time you are used to such. We bid you welcome. I shall return to you soon, after I have settled this matter which has come up between me and yonder ruffian." ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... more distinguishable than the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such a bad ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... into the wood before he beheld a most shocking sight indeed, a woman stript half naked, under the hands of a ruffian, who had put his garter round her neck, and was endeavouring to draw her up to a tree. Jones asked no questions at this interval, but fell instantly upon the villain, and made such good use of his trusty oaken stick that he laid ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... heard much of Heidrek, seeing that I am a Northumbrian," he said. "The track of that ruffian lies black on our coasts; but I have not heard of his son. We have naught against his name, ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... fine young man, I think I know you. Aren't you the chap that torn my coat sometime ago? Answer me, sir," giving me a vigorous shake on the shoulder. "You are the very d——n young ruffian that did it, and I am going to give you such a thrashing as you ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the young man, "nothing can cure my grief; this day my dear mistress is to be sacrificed to a rich old ruffian of a husband ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... the chief of Shere Subz in our favour by presents and fair words, might not the same means have been employed for the rescue of poor Stoddart? The only way to deal with a ruffian like him of Bokhara would have been by pitting against him some ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... every window and roaring and shooting high in air from the brush-heaped roof of Moreno's ranch,—there stood the Concord wagon, stalwart men clinging to the heads of the plunging and excited mules, a big ruffian already in the driver's seat, whip and reins in hand; there beside it was the paymaster's ambulance, into which three of the gang were just shoving the green-painted iron safe,—the Pandora's box that had caused all their ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... and Mary Stewart pity thee alike, Lindesay," said Mary— "alike thee pity, and they forgive thee. An honoured soldier hadst thou been by a king's side—leagued with rebels, what art thou but a good blade in the hands of a ruffian?—Farewell, my Lord Ruthven, the smoother but the deeper traitor.—Farewell, Melville—Mayest thou find masters that can understand state policy better, and have the means to reward it more richly, than Mary Stewart.—Farewell, George of Douglas—make ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the Church, and had his Condotta gradually increased. Meanwhile his cousins, the murderers of his father, began to dread his rising power, and determined, if possible, to ruin him. He was not a man to be easily assassinated; so they sent a hired ruffian to Caldora's camp to say that Bartolommeo had taken his name by fraud, and that he was himself the real son of Puho Colleoni. Bartolommeo defied the liar to a duel; and this would have taken place before ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... knife; my hair was matted; my face besmeared with the same guilty signs that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched; my whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was in form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian that ever ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... as soon as she saw him, and she wrote a letter and tied it to a string and let it down to him. He read it and wrote an answer, and was just getting ready to send it up, the same way, when a great, fierce ruffian with a bloodhound pounced on him, and threw him into the very darkest dungeon in the cellar of the tower. He was pretty much scared, for he was all in the dark, and he was without any food or anything ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... colossal, sir," the Colonel sternly looked at him. "Chivalry, Dale, is what we all have, and what prompted you to tackle that ruffian yesterday. The definition is quite simple, and of course you follow me. As I was saying, sir, we prefer to thank you now in behalf of Miss Jane, since any further reference to the matter will be ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... aussi bien que le mien, "Yes, he was called Joseph, as I am." I did not think proper to prosecute the inquiry; but did not much relish the nature of Joseph's connexions. The truth is, he had very much the looks of a ruffian; though, I must own, his behaviour ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Fontanges inquired, with an air of anxiety very remarkable in a Frenchman, how she had been treated. "Il n'y a pas de mal, mon ami," replied Madame de Fontanges. This was a Jesuitical sort of answer, and M. de Fontanges required further particulars. "Elle avait temporise" with the ruffian, with the faint hope of that assistance which had so opportunely and unexpectedly arrived. M. de Fontanges was satisfied with his wife's explanation; and such being the case, what passed between Jackson and Madame de Fontanges can be no concern of the reader's. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... bloody doings Josephus tells us. How the Jews should have been trying to murder such a man Lysias does not seem to have considered. But when he heard the courteous, respectful Greek speech of the Apostle he saw at once that he had got no uncultured ruffian to deal with, and in answer to Paul's request and explanation gave him leave to speak. That has been thought an improbability. But strong men recognise each other, and the brave Roman was struck with something in the tone and bearing of the brave ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... examine some old marble pillars. Soon, however, we found a rabble about us, who began to jerk our garments. I then turned and spoke to them, and they instantly rushed upon us like tigers. They seized Dr. Lobdell's hat, threw it into the air, and began to beat him. One ruffian seized me by the throat. By main strength I loosed his grasp, and was moving off, when two men tried to wrest my cane from me, but did not succeed. We retreated as last as possible, but when we got out of the reach of their hands, they resorted to throwing stones, some of them weighing two or ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... my young friend should have considered me so much of a blood-thirsty ruffian. But the ale of Boston is no doubt strange to him, and his confusion at finding himself in a large city quite natural. Besides, his suspicions were in some degree reciprocated. When I saw him flying out of the window, I was convinced that he must be an ingenious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... his money, his knife, and all he had, and said he would love him all the days of his life if he would spare him, and never tell what had happened; but the pathetic and forcible appeal, which would have melted many a ruffian-heart, was vain:—the little monster stabbed him in the throat, and then robbed him. On his trial he discovered no feeling, and he even heard his sentence with the utmost indifference, and without ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... for such a thing to happen either. London in the darkness of the night was a terrible place. Out from all the dens of Whitefriars and other like places swarmed the ruffian and criminal population that by day slunk away like evil beasts of night into hiding. The streets were made absolutely perilous by the bands of cutthroats and cutpurses who prowled about, setting upon belated pedestrians or unwary travellers, and robbing, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... instances of the sort of occurrence which was by no means unusual. In the immediate neighbourhood of Nuernberg, which was bien entendu one of the chief seats of the Imperial power, a robber-knight leader, named Hans Thomas von Absberg, was a standing menace. It was the custom of this ruffian, who had a large following, to plunder even the poorest who came from the city, and, not content with this, to mutilate his victims. In June 1522 he fell upon a wretched craftsman, and with his own sword hacked off the poor fellow's right hand, notwithstanding ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... pleasant to be laid hold of by a madman, if madman he be," said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, in polite excuse of Tito, "but perhaps he is only a ruffian. We shall hear. I think we must see if we have authority enough to stop this disturbance between our people and your countrymen," he added, addressing ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... believe that even that unprincipled ruffian is robbing cradles to fill up his ranks, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Anthony Fenn Kemp interposed, with a threat "to commit the judge advocate himself;" who, seeing among the spectators many soldiers wearing side-arms, and fearing for his personal safety, left the bench. Macarthur again appealled to his military brethren to preserve him from the ruffian constabulary: they immediately ordered the soldiers present to protect him against the peace officers. This interference was represented as an illegal rescue; Macarthur, however, surrendered to the provost marshal, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought forward to the readers ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... savage and disturbed countries, amongst which were specified New Zealand, Otaheite, and Honduras. Two others, in 1823 and 1828, gave the Australian courts jurisdiction over Whites in New Zealand. One White ruffian was actually arrested in New Zealand, taken back to Sydney, and executed. But this act of vigour did not come till the end of 1837. Then the crime punished was not one of the atrocities which for thirty years had made New Zealand ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... mean to tell me," Gurdon murmured, "that the lady in question is the daughter of that picturesque-looking old ruffian, Mark Fenwick?" ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... you were going away from me, did you?' Torpenhow put his hand on Dick's shoulder, and the two walked up and down the room, henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion. They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. 'That's some ruffian come up for a drink,' said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were deep pouches under ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... That no movement of the King might escape notice, two orderlies were appointed to watch the palace. One of these men, a bold and active Fleming, named Durant, was especially charged to keep Barclay well informed. The other, whose business was to communicate with Charnock, was a ruffian named Chambers, who had served in the Irish army, had received a severe wound in the breast at the Boyne, and, on account of that wound, bore a savage personal ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the calm conventional cadence, and instantly extorted from him—amid all his dazedness—the corresponding 'Goodbye'. When he turned and saw it was Mr. Glamorys who had come in, his heart leapt wildly at the nearness of his escape. As he passed this masked ruffian, he nodded perfunctorily and received a cordial smile. Yes, he was handsome and fascinating ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Is this old ruffian mad or drunk? was the secret question of the duke, whose tone and manner, always calm and polite, grew even calmer and more polite as the Iron King grew ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a very easy man, but would work you hard and never allow you any chance night or day; he was a farmer, about fifty, stout, full face, a real country ruffian; member of no church, a great drinker and gambler; will sell a slave as quick as any other slave-holder. He had a great deal of cash, but did not rank high in society. His wife was very severe; hated a colored ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman." ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian wished ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... are usually called, we find matter for deeper political meditation and subjects of curious research. But these emperors would be more properly classed with the five who succeed them—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines; after whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another Caligula or Nero, from whose short and infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the empire. And this classification would probably have prevailed, had not the very curious work of Suetonius, whose own life and period of observation ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... done so, in the fear that it would lead, if known, to some objection or estrangement. Suppose she married incautiously—it is not improbable, for her existence has been a lonely and monotonous one for many years—and the man turned out a ruffian, she would be anxious to screen him, and yet would revolt from his crimes. This might be. It bears strongly on the whole drift of her discourse yesterday, and would quite explain her conduct. Do you suppose Barnaby is ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens |
