"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I called him the perfection of a rogue; true enough; but still I make a difference between a man who volunteers roguery; and a man on whom it is thrust by the world. Circumstances, you see, are my reason for every thing. Make a hard bargain with Mordecai, and ten to one but you are caught in his trap. Throw yourself on his mercy; and if the whim takes him, I have known him as generous as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... carried out with the help, perhaps, of a "Taube." Remember that the Germans must have been daily, almost hourly, expecting the Allies to make a determined attempt to check their continued advance, and must have been very nervous of walking into some trap. Therefore the Commander of the German Advanced Guard would have to discover very exactly the nature of the resistance in front of him before the Officer commanding the main body—some miles behind, of course—could decide what force it would be necessary to deploy in order ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... before, but with more confidence. The thought that he had poked his head into a trap stirred him disagreeably. He saw that Beauvais possessed a superabundance of confidence, and confidence is half of any battle. He picked up the sword and held it between his knees, while he threw off his coat and vest, and unbuttoned his collar ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... through, without a trace that could identify the murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following statements:—That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole affair. Suspicion ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... are all out of this trap, Felix, you must tell me what caused your alarming exercise of brain power. Already you have bothered me to guess how you fathomed the pretty scheme you are ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... early September, boats from the fortress put off loaded with provisions for the Wind-Flower; the guard disembarked in their barge, and an officer, in a cockle-shell, shouted: "Good luck to you! The Mouse-trap's sprung, and the Mouse is squeaking!" And with that he tossed a letter on deck. It was ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... make such a mountain of a molehill. It is a very small matter. You can easily give it up when you like.' But when the deed is done, then her mocking laugh rings out, 'I have got you now and you cannot get away.' The prey is seduced into the trap by a carefully prepared bait, and as soon as its hesitating foot steps on to the slippery floor, down falls the door and escape is impossible, We are tempted to sin by the delusion that we are shaking off restraints that fetter our manhood, and that it is spirited to do as we like, and as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... she was in a trap, Laetitia whispered to her father of the privacy and comforts of his home. He replied to her that he thought he would rather be in his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... approached the scene of this little action for the first time; "what! do I see my friend Jeremiah Desborough-the prince of traitors, and the most vigorous of wrestlers—verily my poor bones ache at the sight of you. How came you to be caught in this trap, my old boy, better have been out duck-shooting with the small bores ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... must go, for my mother doesn't know where I am," said Dotty, in a dreary tone. She had no longer any curiosity regarding Jewish suppers; all she wanted was the liberty to get away. But it is always easier to fall into a trap than to get out of it. Mandoline would not produce the missing hat, and it was no light matter for Dotty to go down stairs, among the noisy, quarrelsome children, and beg the severe Mrs. Rosenberg to take her part. If she did so, perhaps the woman would pelt her with the ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... on the flooring, Lois opened the trap for me, her lovely, youthful features flushed with excitement; Lana, behind her, beckoned me; and I sprang up into the loft and paid ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... original plan of battle was to have a space several hundred yards wide between Breckenridge's left and Hardee's right, and thus invite Grant's men into a trap. They refusing to be entrapped, and keeping their front unbroken, Breckenridge sent me to General Johnson for new instructions. When I had come within about ten rods of Johnson's staff, a shell burst in the air about equidistant from ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... lightning zig, zig, Marie, Spittin' lak' loup cervier,[2] Ketch on de trap? Oh! it won't be long Till mebbe you lissen anoder song, For de sky is dark an' de win' is strong, An' de ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... fully aware of Miss Prue's drolleries, was determined not to be caught in any trap now, so kept to monosyllables; and the latter, having created sufficient interest to insure a hearing, proceeded to make her explanations in regard to ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... invented so much even as a patent rat-trap,—a thing, you see, that might have saved him some labor,—if he persists in disregarding the majesty of Fashion, and continues to move about in society with the same kind of coat on his back as that worn by his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... was not I! Angelique des Meloises set the trap and whistled the call that brought him," ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the prison, reads the death warrant, pinions his hands, and the slow and steady death march begins. The scaffold is reached, steps ascended, and the prisoner takes his place on the center of the death trap; the black cap is securely tied over his face, and the rope around his neck, and as the trapdoor is sprung, the unfortunate man leaps into darkness. This criminal was once the idol of a mother's heart, who bowed over his cradle, taught him to walk and to say his ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... something worth while!" exclaimed the other with glowing eyes. "Lead them into a trap, where they would be mowed down like ripe grain, terrible ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... of the Sugarloaf, are very fertile, and being clothed with patches of woodland, form extremely pretty scenery. The rocks of this part of the country are chiefly trappean; in the immediate neighbourhood of Portland, they consist of limestone, ferruginous sandstone, and trap. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... to sleep wherever there's room to lie down; and if there isn't I'll engage to sleep sitting or standing," said Willie, whose mother had often said she wished she could sleep like Willie. "And as I don't walk in my sleep," he added, "the trap-door ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... boys. The thunder is a heavy cart, rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable instrument one hears. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of rosin thrown on a flame, and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a fusee. The theatre is furnished, moreover, with little square trap-doors, through which the demons issue from their cave. When they have to rise into the air, little devils of stuffed brown cloth are substituted, or perhaps live chimney-sweeps, who swing suspended and smothered in rags. The accidents which happen are sometimes tragical, sometimes ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... Dubois, the prefect of police, the reproduction, or rather the invention, of new tortures and improved racks; the oubliettes, which are wells or pits dug under the Temple and most other prisons, are the works of his own infernal genius. They are covered with trap-doors, and any person whom the rack has mutilated, or not obliged to speak out; whose return to society is thought dangerous, or whose discretion is suspected; who has been imprisoned by mistake, or discovered to be innocent; who ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it, however, much more pleasant in fine weather than sleeping below, where the cockroaches were so numerous that a large dishful might be obtained in a few minutes, by putting a little treacle in it, to serve both for bait and trap. I used to think, that if the old story were a fact instead of a fiction, namely, that the Chinese make Soy of these animals, a very lucrative trade might be carried on between them and the natives ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... me with a proposal to break the law of America, seemed horror-stricken when I airily suggested the immuring of a man in a dungeon here in England. He gazed at me in amazement, then cast his eyes furtively about him, as if afraid a trap door would drop beneath him, and land ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... command, realizing that he was in a trap, took the one chance left him. With what men he had, cut off from his infantry support as he was, he must either capture that masked battery, die or surrender. The only support he had now was from his own artillery, and a moment later that, too, became silent, for the masked ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... connection with her, and that it should dominate the people here, there would be strife; and it could have but one end—separation. We would, of whatever extraction, have lived in natural neighbourliness with England, but she chose to trap and harass us, and it will take long generations of goodwill to wipe out some memories. Again, and yet again, let there be no confusion of thought as to this final peace; it will never come while there is any formal ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... easily against the wall, and peered round to make out her surroundings. The only result could be to give her the impression that she was cooped up like a rat in a trap, but with characteristic indifference for ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... False images thrown outward by the intellect prevented. Stahl he saw ... groping; a soft light of yearning in his eyes ... a hand outstretched to push the shadows from him, yet ever gathering them instead.... Men he saw by the million, youth still in their hearts, yet slaving in darkened trap-like cages not merely to earn a competency but to pile more gold for things not really wanted; faces of greed round gambling-tables; the pandemonium of Exchanges; even fair women, playing Bridge through all a summer afternoon—the strife and lust and passion for possessions degrading ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... have information of all this sent to Miss Lorton's bankers in London, and her solicitors, so as to prevent Gualtier from accomplishing his fourth step, and also in order to secure their co-operation in laying a trap for him which will certainly ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... of the tragic consequences which followed, that the original subject of discussion took a secondary position in her thoughts, and when Bridgie began placidly to discuss arrangements, she fell into the trap with innocent alacrity. Sylvia could hardly believe her ears. It seemed quite too good to be true. The week's holiday held out glorious possibilities of enjoyment, and she began at once to count the hours which ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Evil Spirit saw some trap in that proposal, for he is said to have laughed most musically. He answered, 'By all I fear and hate, I'll loose her never; but, but I'll wait for her—till the candle's burnt out;' and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... enough it was I. Having committed I know not what crime, I had been thrust for chastisement into a lonely garret, where, having nothing earthly to do but look about me, I discovered (like a prince in the Arabian Nights) a ladder leading to a trap-door, and presently was out on a sort of stone coping, which ran round the steep roof of the high, old-fashioned house, surveying with serene satisfaction the extensive prospect landward and seaward, unconscious that I was at the same time an object of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... solution of some one of nature's problems. Perhaps it is a new discovery, a species unknown to science. Asia is full of such surprises—I have already found many. Be the specimen large or small, if it has fallen to your trap or rifle, there is the thrill of knowing that you have traced one more small line on the ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... reeling under the frightful blasts that almost blew them to pieces, some up to the Confederate bayonets. The southeast bastion was weakly defended, and into it a considerable body of the enemy made their way but they were caught in a trap, for they could not leave it. The fight continued; but it was impossible to stem the torrent of deadly missiles which poured out from the fort, the reflux of that terrible tide which had poured in all day, and the Federals retreated, leaving near a ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... an amazing figure in literature by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its consolations. Lydgate's discontent was much harder to bear: it was the sense that there was a grand existence in thought ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... stopped and looked over his shoulder, for footsteps were heard, and he hoped Rita was coming. Already he and his comrade were cursing themselves for having been asses enough to be drawn into this scrape; why had they attended to a foolish girl instead of going their own way? Now they were in a trap—was ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... prepared to crush any revolutionary manifestations. Thanks to the excellent discipline of the workers, and the fine wisdom of the leaders of the Social Democrats, the Socialist-Revolutionists, and the Labor Group, who constantly exhorted the workers not to fall into the trap set for ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... dozen different pavements and deuce a good one. There was the "Russ," on which the horses used to be "let slide," but couldn't trot; the "Belgian," of dubious repute; the "Nicholson," which, from its material, must have been invented by "Nick of the Woods;" the "Mouse-trap," set to catch other things than mice; the "Fiske," a pavement pitched in altogether too high a key to be pleasant; The "Stafford," the "Stow," and several others which it would be painful to enumerate here. Why doesn't the daily press look lively, and devise a better pavement than any of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... the people are many mice, which must be of a ferocious nature, for if one is caught in a trap it will be found next morning half, if not almost wholly, eaten by its own comrades. Well is it called "the ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent approach. The sponge caught him—with a delightful, squelching flump—full and fair on the top of his ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... but I do! You've dragged down my brother, sacrificed him and my belief in him, almost, for your own selfish end, tried to trap me into marrying you when you know ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... not much to see on the ground-floor, save the whitened brick walls, a huge pillar or post in the middle, and a ladder-like flight of steps on one side, up which Uncle Richard led the way; and as Tom emerged from a trap-door, he found himself in a circular chamber, a little less than the one below, with three windows at the sides, the doorway he had seen from without, and three pairs of millstones placed horizontally, and connected by shafts with ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... which, indeed, his previous education, as well as precarious health, appears to have disqualified him,) he announced his purpose to write a History of the Conquest of Mexico "from the American stand-point," and issued what he himself called "a clap-trap advertisement," for the purpose of enlisting the sympathies of a class in whom hatred of Romanism preponderates over knowledge and judgment. He had made some progress in his "History," when he found that the ideas which he had supposed to be original in his own brain were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... to return. Ammunition needed. The arrangement of the men for scouting and picketing. Leaving security harbor. A plant which devours insects. Venus's fly-trap. How plants absorb food. Irritability. How the leaf digests the fly. Food absorbed by leaves as well as by roots. A cache of human skulls. Head hunters. The vele. A hoodoo. The rattle. The vele and the bamboo box. How it is worked to produce the charm. Evidences of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... hear the will of the King of England. Once inside, doors were locked, English soldiers placed on guard with leveled bayonet, and the edict read by an officer standing on the pulpit stairs or on a table. The Acadians were snared like rats in a trap. Outside were their families, hostages for the peaceable conduct of the men. Inside were the brothers and husbands, hostages for the good conduct of the families outside. Only in a few places was there any rioting, and this was probably ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... seems to have any mercy on me," cried the little woman passionately. "I say I'm in a trap—that's the truth of it. If I was a selfish, bad mother, I could get out of it; if I was a mean wife, I could, too, I suppose. I've tried to do what was right,—what other people told me was right,—and I pray ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... pork—they were made of the flesh of little children. His wife used to stand at the door of her den to watch for little children, and, as they were passing, would tempt them in with cakes and sweetmeats. There was a trap-door in the cellar, and the children were dragged down; and—Oh! how my blood ran cold when we came to the terrible trap-door. Were there, I asked, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... "we'll meet you and the young cub at the cross roads by Sharle Bridge. The races don't begin till twelve, so we shall have lots of time. I mean to see if we can't get a trap at Gurley, and do the thing in style. What do you say? We could get one ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... fetch you here, ma'am," he said, apologetically, "and I thought it was a trap. It ain't safe for a woman, let alone a lady, to come to no such a place. I'll just wait and see you safe ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... education; but, for the moment, she felt that she must go back to Sutton. Every day her craving for England grew more intolerable. She craved for England, for her home, for its food, for its associations. She longed for her own room, for her garden, for the trap. She wanted to see all the girls, to hear what they thought of her absence. ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... the way; and the pass was so narrow that we could not fight. We tried to come back; but they had blocked up the way on this side of us too. The fierce men of the mountains were before us and behind us, and they were throwing rocks down upon us from above. We had been caught in a trap. Then ten of us set spurs to our horses; and five of us forced our way through, but the other five fell before the spears of the mountain men. And now, O Roman Fathers! send help to our army at once, or every man will be slain, and our ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... so far not opened his lips. After struggling for a moment in the hands of his captors, he now stood perfectly motionless, glancing furiously around him as if hoping to discover the coward who had prepared the trap into which he had fallen. For he felt certain that he was the victim of some atrocious conspiracy, though it was impossible for him to divine what motive had actuated his enemies. Suddenly those who ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... have kept the key of the house, and I wish to see whether I can find any other rent receipts made out in the name of Durand. Though I can see how Dollon inveigled Dollon into a trap, I do not understand how it came about that Thomery paid the rent of that trap. There is some subtle contrivance of Dollon's here; I want to get to the bottom of it.... Will you ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... lets down her long hair, but when he tries to grasp it she jerks it back with a cry of pain and rates him harshly.—At last he perceives, that she has been fooling him all the time. He is helplessly caught in the trap and the returning citizens seeing him hanging between {436} heaven and earth deride him, congratulating Diemuth on having caught such a ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... older game than cricket, and can be traced to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The modern game differs little from that which the old pictures describe, except in the shape of the trap which holds the ball. But the most ancient of all games of this nature is golf, or goff (as it used to be spelt), which was played with a crooked club or staff, sometimes called a bandy. Scotsmen ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... eleven were great chums; they chased wild bees together, putting honey on the stone wall, getting a line on the bees; shelled beechnuts and cracked butternuts for the chipmunks; caught skunks in a trap, just to demonstrate that a skunk can be carried by the tail with impunity, if you only do it right (and, though succeeding one day, got the worst of the bargain the next); and waged war early and late on the flabby woodchucks which one could see almost any hour ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... the telegraph had been at work, and we were not four hours at sea before we ran against the gunboat that had been sent down the coast to look for us and that would have caught us behind the island like a beast in a trap. It was a night of driving cloud that gave intermittent gleams of moonlight; the wind and sea were strong and we were rolling along through a drift of rails and mist. Suddenly the world was white with moonshine. The gunboat came out as a long dark shape wallowing ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... widened. "What do you mean, fool? So I spend a couple of weeks in this pneumonia trap. The deal was worth it! I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. Three million credits—do you hear? That's enough to set me ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... now stepped forward, and said, "Ye'll just let me carry the laddie to the village, doctor. I'll start the noo, and I'll carry him easier like than any kind o' trap, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... inspiration for the particular frame of words with which she should begin. And as she looked an old gentleman suddenly appeared beyond the iron gate, shook it gently, glanced up in vain for a name on the stone posts, and stood irresolute. It was an old trap, that of the front gate; there was no bell, and it was necessary for visitors to come straight in to ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... too, went red and white with rage and astonishment. It was a damnable trap for a man to be caught in, and he was furious with the two women who had pushed him into it—he could have beaten them both with rods. Innocent as this girl was, he could not hope to deceive her as to the real truth. She had heard too much. But he thought ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... be traced anywhere. Luckily, however, Kusick had passed the horses belonging to the settlers at Moorundi, feeding at the edge of the scrub upon the cliffs, and amongst them had recognised this animal, which had thus got more than 90 miles back to his old haunt. He had, however, fallen into a trap, from which I took care he should not again escape; but we had some difficulty in running him in ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... the big Dutchman, receiving an impression of quiet, ponderous efficiency that was yet strangely suggestive of a velvet-covered steel trap. This impression, however, was only a fleeting one as to the latter part; it struck Barry just once in that first early morning view of his ship, when the Hollander gave a softly spoken order to ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... a time a Tiger was caught in a trap. He tried in vain to get out through the bars, and rolled and bit with rage ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... dilemma presenting itself to our friend D's devout but feeble mind, X follows up the assault, by asking him, as a deductio ad absurdum, whether he should like to see the Pope in sandals like St Peter. The catechumen falls into the trap at once; flares up at the idea of such degradation being inflicted on the "Master of kings and Father of the faithful;" and asks indignantly if, for a "touch of Italianita," he is to be suspected of having "washed away his baptism from his brow." Henceforth great ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... who had mortised them had done an honest piece of work, and they proved as firm as on the day they were placed there. Up and up I went, till I must have been forty feet above the floor, and, then, as I neared the roof, instead of coming to a trap door, as I had conjectured, I found that the ladder came to an end at the edge of a narrow ledge, running along the ceiling much as a clerestory runs near the roof of some old churches. On to this I managed to climb. ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... southern side of the Signal Hill the noise of the bar is lost. Between the hill and the next point—a wild, stern-looking precipice of black-trap rock—there lies a half a mile or more of shingly strand, just such as you would see at Pevensey Bay or Deal, but backed up at high-water mark with piles of drift timber—great dead trees that have floated from ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... too experienced in politics to be caught in such a trap as this. He evaded the question. "Mr. Ratcliffe has a practical piece of work to do; his business is to make laws and advise the President; he does it extremely well. We have no other equally good practical politician; it is unfair to require him to ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... lad's hand clenched. A clock-face came slowly into view at a wayside station. 8.45. He was now waiting for her at Marsland. For the Squire himself would bring the trap; there was no coachman at Bannisdale. A glow of fierce joy passed through the lad's mind, as he thought of the Squire waiting, the train's arrival, the empty platform, the returning carriage. What would the Squire think? Damn him!—let ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thus with such as swerve in faith With them, who, as our wise Apostle saith, Entangled are at unawares, with those Cunning to trap, to snare, and to impose By falsifyings, their prevarications: No, these are slyly taken from their stations, Unknown to nature; yea, in judgment they Think they have well done to forsake the way. Their understanding, and their judgment too Doth like, or well approve of what they do. These ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... taking food to him there. But her crying suggested a signal which he never answered. At any rate, I had to find Maria. So I slipped out. I thought I heard her at the lake. She wasn't there. I was sure I would trap her at the deserted house, for the diffused glow of the light we had seen proved that it had come through the cobwebbed windows of the cellar, which are set in little wells below the level of the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... special churches, in which they were allowed to retain their ceremonial peculiarities on condition of accepting regularly consecrated priests and submitting to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. As yet the design has not met with much success. The great majority of the Old Ritualists regard it as a trap, and assert that the Church in making this concession has been guilty of self-contradiction. "The Ecclesiastical Council of Moscow," they say, "anathematised our forefathers for holding to the old ritual, and declared that the whole course of nature would be changed sooner than the curse be withdrawn. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... what I was after." She laughed a little, with just a shade of annoyance. "The dam was a bright sorrel— almost like a fresh-minted twenty-dollar piece—and I did so want a pair out of her, of the same color, for my own trap. Well, I can't say that I exactly got them, although I bred her to a splendid, sorrel trotting horse. And this is my reward, this black—and, wait till we get to the brood mares and you'll see the other, a full brother and mahogany brown. I'm ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... in council; At length the Mayor broke silence: "For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, I wish I were a mile hence! It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— I'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 I've scratched it so, and all in vain. Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!" Just as he said this, what should hap At the chamber door but a gentle tap? "Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?" (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little, though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... but the first thing to catch my eye was a small clod of yellow dirt on the second step, and this was still damp—the foot from which it had fallen must have passed within a very short time. I had the fellow—had him like a rat in a trap. Oh, well, there was time enough, and I closed the door ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... like his Daddy, very wise and clever at making things. He was somewhat lame as he had lost the toes of one foot in a trap when he was a small mouse, too small to ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard
... At-all,—["The Impertinents."]—in abuse of Sir Robert Howard, do take, all the Duke's and every body's talk being of that, and telling more stories of him, of the like nature, that it is now the town and country talk, and, they say, is most exactly true. The Duke of York himself said that of his playing at trap-ball is true, and told several other stories of him. This being done, Brouncker, Pen, and I to Brouncker's house, and there sat and talked, I asking many questions in mathematics to my Lord, which he do me the pleasure to satisfy me in, and here we drank and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... was in scarlet, and wore his great wig; and he talked behind his hand, with what seemed a great deal of merriment to Mr. Justice Bertue, who sat on one side of him, and the Recorder Jeffreys who sat upon the other. He had very heavy brows; his face was clean-shaven, and his mouth was like a trap when he shut it, and looked grave, as he did so soon as the clerk had done his formalities. He was a strong man, I thought, who would brook no opposition, and would have his way—as indeed he did; and the rest of my Lords had little ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... judge; the barristers were all playwrights, the jury the principal comedians, the chorus girls were real chorus girls from the Gaiety mixed in with leading ladies like Miss Jeffries and Miss Hanbury, who could not keep in step. But the best part of it was the pantomime. Ellaline came up a trap with a diamond dress and her hair down her back and electric lights all over her, and said, "I am the Fairy Queen," and waved her wand, at which the "First Boy" in the pantomime said, "Go long, now, do, we know your tricks, you're Ellaline Terriss"; and the clown ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... there's a bundle of the stuff at the end of the trip, no," Hanlon grinned avariciously. But his mind was seeking answers. Why did they want to send him away? Was this a bona-fide job, or a trap? Should he go to some other planet? Would he thus get best leads? Perhaps—if it wasn't for too long a time, ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... Paul. "I admit that the peasants have themselves to blame—just as a dog has himself to blame when he is caught in a trap." ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... felt his restlessness and transmitted it to the animals. Dogfights broke out and the doryms pulled reluctantly at their harnesses. With each passing second their chances grew slimmer and Jason searched desperately for a way out of the trap ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... a quiet evening and the soft moistness of his native air struck him as something pleasantly familiar after the keener, drier atmosphere of the Dominion. He was glad to be back again, but when he looked around, the trap waiting in the wet road outside the railings was not his own. Neither did it belong to Clarence, whom he had partly expected; but on the whole Nasmyth was glad of that. He had not looked forward to the first meeting with ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... a consideration of the hillside to a closer consideration of Eleanor, who rode beside him in the Goodyear trap. She sat very straight, her hands folded in her lap, her grave, grey eyes staring not at hillsides nor spring skies, but ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... minds? As a matter of fact, it affords them the meanest opportunities; there is not a man who has issued from the Ecoles who does not bitterly regret, when he gets to be fifty or sixty years of age, that he ever fell into the trap set for him by the promises of the State. Does it seek to obtain men of genius? What man of genius, what great talent have the schools produced since 1790? If it had not been for Napoleon would ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... the captive feel that he might beat upon door or wall as hard and as long as he pleased without attracting any attention. This place into which he had come of his own free will was no ordinary place—already he felt that he was in a trap out of which it was not going to be easy ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... beautiful," said Aimee, "but nothing more inconvenient. See, you are setting your horse's feet into a trap." And she pointed to the stiff, prickly green shoots which matted all the ground. "We must approach by some other way. Let us wait till ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... have a little fun with her afore ye git her," he said. "I love to see her damn face go white and red, and her teeth shut tight like a rat-trap. She won't do none of them things when you git ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... to cut 'em off. When Rebs tack 'em, small boats gone back. She had to brace 'em. Shoot dem shell to brace. (Gun boat fired to frighten Rebs who were cutting Yankees off from escape) I hear old man Frank Norris—lived right beyond Vettrill Deas—I hear him (nuster come home to the Ark and trap)—I hear him say lot of 'em bog. (Ella, Agnes and Johnnie Johnson fadder been there) Bomb shell hit the hill and bury them in the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... frankest talker, your greatest teller of truth; whereas, in a majority of instances, the delusive garrulity is a mask or a feint, meant only to cover facts and screen designs of which the victim's first notice is, snap! when they pin him like a steel-trap. Still, Storri entertained no risks when he broke into confidences with Mr. Harley. It was Mr. Harley who listened and Storri who talked; besides, Storri, in any conflicting tug of interest, could be ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... within, Bigot," answered Cadet, doggedly. "Open speech in a woman is often an open trap to catch fools! Angelique des Meloises is free-spoken and open-handed enough to deceive a conclave of cardinals; but she has the lightest heels in the city. Would you not like to see her dance a ballet de triomphe on the broad flagstone I laid over the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... word; but his wall-eyes flashed white firelight and his long jaws snapped like a spring trap as Jan rebounded from the bump against his buttress of a shoulder. When those same steel jaws parted again, as they did a moment later, an appreciable piece of Jan's left ear fell from them to the ground. Jan let out a cry, an exclamation of mingled anger, pain, bewilderment, and ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... of the fly-maggot trap noted under stomach worms of the horse, and of the various forms of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... provided for the formation of Eve; but the mastiff spied it out, grabbed it, and carried it off. The angels tried to whistle him back; but not succeeding, they chased him, gave him a kicking, and recovered the bone, which they placed under a trap-door by the side of the sleeping Adam, whence there soon emerged a lanky priest in a loose robe, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... suddenly started up, like a piece of gilded clap-trap, this amazing man of inches, calling himself their cousin, Sir Henry Challoner; a man who was absolutely tired of making money,—who called Gilsbank, a far finer house than Longmead, a tidy little place, and who could throw in Glen Cottage, that bijou residence, as a sort of dower-house ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up to ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... said in a hoarse whisper, "we are in a trap of some kind. When that old scoundrel comes back, do not let him know that we have found out anything. We will walk on with him for a short distance, at all events, and then be guided by circumstances. Stand by when you see me collar him, and slip a ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... rolled down her cheek. I patted myself on the back for an artful fellow. But I had underrated her wit. To my chagrin she did not fall into my trap. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... very weak and very wicked," sighed Honor; "but she began it. We watched it start, and Jack walk, as it were, blindfold into a trap. It seems terrible that she should escape and he receive ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all right and regular. But, his sufferings when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice—or like a something wiry, plucking at ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... dealing. He often did to others what they were trying to do to him, and he did it first. He had the splendid ability to say "No" when he should, a thing many good men can not do. At such times his mouth would shut like a steel trap and his blue eyes would send the thermometer below zero. No one could play horse with H. H. Rogers. He, himself, was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... their necks, and passing their heads through his girdle, made his way again to the coracle. Then he scattered another handful or two of grain on the water, sparingly near the mouth of the creek, but more thickly at the entrance to the trap, and then paddled back again by the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... its beak. The beak, therefore, is at once its sword, its carpenter's tool-box, and its dressing-case; partly also its musical instrument; all this besides its function of seizing and preparing the food, in which functions alone it has to be a trap, carving-knife, and ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... knew that she wouldn't have taken up with Hubbard if I hadn't left her in the lurch just when she had gotten to care a whole lot too much for me. Besides I couldn't help thinking what it would have been like if Tony had been caught in a trap like that. It didn't seem to me I could stand off and let her go to smash alone though I could see Doc Hendricks had common sense on his side when he ordered me to keep out of ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... very, very sad for you," said the little doctor, "I pity you from my heart." And then he jolted away down the lane in his shaky trap, ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... In the reaction it was felt that self-development had claims upon the human spirit as well as self-denial, and indeed that the happy instincts of life had no right to be so winsome unless they were meant to be obeyed. The beauty of the world could not be regarded as a mere trap for the tempting of people, if one were to retain any worthy conception of the Powers that govern the world. From this point of view the Carlylians appeared to enter into life maimed. That, indeed, we all must do, as Christ told us; but they seemed to do it like the beggars of Colombo, with ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... weakly. I couldn't have done a trick with the cards,—not if my life had depended upon it. But I rather neatly extricated myself from the trap. ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... the great mineral belt of the Far West, where volcanic emanations are so abundant, and where they have certainly played an important part in the formation of ore deposits, the great majority of veins are not in immediate contact with trap rocks, and they could not, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... current in the river here was very strong, and paddling or rowing against it was not easy. We had to stop several times and wait for Duncan to overtake us with his boat. Once he halted to look at a trap where he told us he had caught six black bears. It was nearly sunset when we reached the mouth of the Red River, nineteen miles above Grand Lake, where it flows into the Nascaupee from the west. This is a wide, shallow stream whose red- brown ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... ant crawled home, and Uncle Wiggily hopped on out of danger and the alligator opened his mouth again, hoping some foolish animal would walk into the trap he ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... way up, the box will not be divided into two compartments. It will be only partly divided. The Titanic was only partly divided. She was just sufficiently divided to drown some poor devils like rats in a trap. It is probable that they would have perished in any case, but it is a particularly horrible fate to die boxed up like this. Yes, she was sufficiently divided for that, but not sufficiently divided to prevent the water ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... and up an alley, and over a wall, and through a garden, and under an arch, and over a court-yard, and through a gate, and down another street, and up another alley, and through a house, and up a long staircase, and out upon a roof, and over several abutments, and down a trap-door, and down another pair of stairs, and through another house, into another garden, and over another wall, and down a long road, and over a field, clear ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... when the wind caught them up, gases which for the most part thickened and made deadly the dark interior. There were skeletons to be seen dimly by daylight down there, ten feet below the surface of the uneven ground, the vaguely phosphorescent bones of jack rabbits that had fallen into this natural trap, of coyotes, even of a young cow that had been overpowered before it could struggle upward along the steep sides. And the odour clinging to the mouth of the hole was ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... lower section of the city and were purposely arrested for disturbing the peace about the time of Donnelly's murder, in order to establish incontestable alibis. Nevertheless, it was they who laid the trap, and they are equally guilty with the wretches who obeyed their orders. It was they who paid over the blood money, and with their arrest you will have all the accessories to the crime, save one. Of him I can tell you nothing. I fear I can never find him, for he walks in ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Hillside Farm, and my chum, the late James Douglas, son of Sir James, then Governor. If I remember right, he was unintentionally the cause of my second whipping. He seemed much attached to me, and many were the rides we had together in his trap, which brought him to school every morning. He was a kindred spirit, wilful like myself, and had a habit of suddenly getting up in school and announcing to the master that he was going home, or it might ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... his lantern by way of invitation to follow him as he turned on a naked heel and led the way. We entered one at a time through a hole in the wall of what looked like the dungeon of an ancient castle, and followed him presently up the narrow stone steps leading to a trap-door in the floor above. The trap-door was made of odds and ends of planking held in place by weights. When he knocked on it with the muzzle of his rifle we could hear men lifting things before ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... sleek bird of Paradise had been donated by Miss Caron, of the adjoining chateau. There was also a newly-patented bird- trap, sent by a New York firm, in the days of Boss Tweed, Conolly, Field and other birds of prey I noticed boxes for sparrows to build in, designed by Col W Rhodes. On the floor lay a curious sample of an Old World man-trap, not sent from New York, but direct from England, a terror to poachers ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... caused the road-agents to believe that there was a coach full of soldiers, that a trap was prepared for them, and ere they could rally and their leader could convince them that it was not so, the coach had gone by the Dead Line and was going along the pass at the full speed of its horses, the reins now in the hands of ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... "Trap will be in front directly, Sir Charles," said the landlord lingering. "Meanwhile if there ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... thought occurred to me. Could this be a trap, a "put up job," as the phrase goes. Though the caciques had not dared to make any open protest against Mamcuna's matrimonial project, I knew that they were bitterly opposed to it, and nothing, I felt sure, would please them better than ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... never Hath had that early scarlet fever, Of martial trappings caught? Trappings well call'd—because they trap And catch full many a country chap To ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... there in great trepidation for five or six hours, while they were cutting away your barricades, beating in the doors, and tearing off the roofs of the houses. Your case was as desperate as that of a rat in a trap; and when your friends came to your relief, they had to knock a great many of the French in the head before they could persuade them to let you slip out. But, by some lucky misunderstanding at headquarters, you were soon after ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Jim all over," said Shif'less Sol admiringly. "I kin see him in that buckskin cord, them sticks, an' that noose. Too weak to go huntin', he sets a trap. Oh, he's smart, he is! An' he's been ketchin' somethin', too. See this bit o' ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for coyotes. Frank Ferguson, when trapping in the foothills of the Sierras, repeatedly had his traps robbed by an impudent member of the wolf family. One day while making his regular rounds and approaching a set, he saw in the distance a coyote run off with the catch of his trap. Seeing that the wolf turned up a branch creek, Ferguson cut across the intervening neck of the woods to intercept him if possible. He reached the stream bottom at the moment the coyote came trotting past. Having ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... staff—Colonel von Bronsart—with a demand for a surrender. Just as this officer was starting off, I remarked to Bismarck that Napoleon himself would likely be one of the prizes, but the Count, incredulous, replied, "Oh no; the old fox is too cunning to be caught in such a trap; he has doubtless slipped off to Paris"—a belief which I found to prevail pretty ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... think he is entitled to heavy damages. It was criminal carelessness in Sarsfield & Company to leave their cellar grating in that unsafe condition for weeks, to the great peril of the passers-by. It was a regular trap for lives and limbs. And this poor laborer, passing over it, has fallen and lamed himself for life! And he has a large family depending upon him for support. I have laid the damages ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... is often their fatal snare. Country boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large enough to admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath, bait it with a few kernels of corn. The crest slips easily into the trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... must treat the whole party, as all did their best. We will set a trap to-day for the next opossum that may ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various |
