"Highwayman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... officer, Jack Williams, had the common reputation of being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It was said that he had several times drawn his revolver and levied money contributions on citizens at dead of night in the public streets ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... feed, clothe, house, and not to kill, flog, or otherwise maltreat you, Quashie, if you perform a certain amount of work." Quashie, seeing no better terms to be had, accepts the bargain, and goes to work accordingly. A highwayman who garottes me, and then clears out my pockets, robs me by force in the strict sense of the words; but if he puts a pistol to my head and demands my money or my life, and I, preferring the latter, hand over my purse, we have virtually made a contract, and I ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Don Q's profession and associates, and a temperament somewhat pessimistic for a highwayman, he is not really a bad sort of fellow. His idiosyncrasies are due, doubtless, to an early disappointment in love, on account of which allowances are to be made, particularly as he retains his courtly manners, a careful regard for the misfortunes of others, so far as his occupation ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Dyson. Tyrrel, the notable highwayman, upon whose head a price has long been set, has this night taken Cuthbert Trevlyn prisoner, hoping to win from him the secret of the hidden treasure which now lies in his keeping. Cuthbert has refused to tell ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... at the bundle. I saw it was a collection of old plays in manuscript-prompt copies, scored, cut and interlined. The top one I noticed was "The Bloodspot: Or the Maiden, the Miser and the Murderer;" the second, "The Female Highwayman." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... set, and of the drama which is to be developed, are given at once by the alarm of the passengers of the Dover coach as they walk up Shooter's Hill to ease the horses, when the furious galloping of a horseman is heard behind them—the supposed highwayman proving to be, however, Jerry Cruncher, messenger at Tellson's Bank by day, and at night an "agricooltural character" of ghoulish avocations. David Copperfield trudged the Dover road, footsore and hungry, when he left Murdstone and Grinby's blacking ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... allowed by authority, have lost their names (as judges, when they are called to the Bench, are no more styled lawyers) and left the title to the meaner only and the unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes men deliver their understandings first, and after their purses. Oaths and lies are his tools that he works with, and he gets his living by the drudgery of his ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... word, it is positive vice: for it is either a mask to deceive others, or a mist to deceive ourselves. A man that is clothed with negatives, thus argues: I am not such a drunkard as my landlord, such a thief as my tenant, such a rakish fellow, or a highwayman; No! I live a sober, regular, retired life: I am a good man, I go to church; God, I thank thee. Now, through a mans boasts of his virtue in contradiction to the vices mentioned, yet a person had better have them altogether than the man himself; or he is so full of himself, so persuaded ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... I am thinking how I'll be roasted by the Portuguese inquisition; and how I'll be impaled by the Turks; and how I'll be eaten by Cannibals; and how I'll be drowned on a voyage to the East Indies; and how I'll be robbed and murdered by a highwayman; and how I'll lose my senses; and how very mad I'll be; and how my body will be thrown out to dogs to devour; and how I'll be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and how my friend Boswell will neglect me; and how I'll be despised by the whole world; and how I will meet with ten thousand misfortunes ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... his repetition of it, I said, I know not why, or how the words came: 'A highwayman notorious for his depredations in the vicinity of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sheriff snapped the handcuffs into place. Then Fairchild shut off the pumps and they started toward the machine. Back in Ohadi more news awaited them. Harry, if Harry had been the highwayman, had gone to no expense for his outfit. The combined general store and hardware emporium of Gregg Brothers had been robbed of the articles necessary for a disguise,—also the revolvers and their bullets. Robert Fairchild watched ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of "Mary, the Maid of the Inn," is supposed, and not without foundation, to be connected with this Abbey. "Hark to Rover," the name of the house where the key is kept, was, a century ago, a retired inn or pot-house, and the haunt of many a desperate highwayman and poacher. The anecdote is so well known, that it is scarcely necessary to relate it. It, however, is ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... continued, "to prevent war, which you could have done. When you said that you brought on this war to gratify your ambition, I chose to be one of the weapons of war; I chose, when driven to the wall, to be true to that part of my children's oath that made an exception of the burglar, the highwayman, and the invader. In war you use deceit and treachery, under the pleasanter names of tactics and strategy, to draw men to their death in traps, in order to increase the amount of your killing. It was strategy, tactics, manoeuvres—give it any fine word you please—that ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... commoners concerned, had caused the greatest excitement in the town. The prints and News Letters were full of them. The three gentlemen in Newgate were almost as much crowded as the bishops in the Tower, or a highwayman before execution. We were allowed to live in the Governor's house, as hath been said, both before trial and after condemnation, waiting the King's pleasure; nor was the real cause of the fatal quarrel known, so closely had my lord and the two other persons who knew it kept the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... frightening him, it is a desperate one. All I can tell you, Stanley, is this, that if I were a man, and an attempt made to extort from me any sort of concession by terror, I would shoot the miscreant who made it through the head, like a highwayman.' ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... at length exclaimed Aunt Deb, who being a strong-minded woman was not influenced by similar fears. "It will be time enough to cry out if a highwayman does come to demand our purses, and we'll hope that the guard will shoot him dead before he has had ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... with the rapacity which looks on the world as a vast grabbing-ground, and upon all natural resources as mere commercial prey? The value of Christianity lies in its reasonable and intellectual appeal. It does not spring upon one like a highwayman and say, Hands up! Give me your purse! It says gently, Son, give me thy heart. It then proceeds to refashion that heart, to fill it with new principles ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... managers were standing shoulder to shoulder, in the presence of the common enemy, the artiste and, more particularly, the originator of sensations, who is indispensable and who makes you an offer with a pistol at your head, like a highwayman demanding your ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... Sir John Wynne, of Gwydir (see The Heraldic Visitations of Wales, published by the Welsh MSS. Society), and is said to have died in 1630, at the age of 61. In early life, 'he was a notorious freebooter and highwayman,' and levied black mail on the country within reach of his mountain abode, with the aid of a small band of followers. He soon reformed, married a rich heiress, was then created a justice of peace for Brecon, and ultimately became sheriff of that ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... just passed the broad part of Turnham Green, as Frank has since told me, and were near the end of a lane which strikes into the Uxbridge road, when the postillion was stopped by one highwayman, while almost at the same instant another dashed his pistol through the side-glass into the chaise, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the venerable highwayman, and followed him to and fro, listening to his plans and directions with a mute attention ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... and calculations of the chances of robbing the Dover mail, would have given him his fill of activity and anxiety. On the whole, if Jesse Trefusis, M.P., who died a millionaire in his palace at Kensington, had been a highwayman, I could not more heartily loathe the social arrangements that rendered such a career as his not only possible, but eminently creditable to himself in the eyes of his fellows. Most men make it their business to imitate him, hoping to become rich and idle ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... she had seen a donkey with that pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in her father's gig. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on with new spirit, though not without haunting images of Apollyon, and a highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination, and the daring that comes from over-mastering impulse. She had rushed into the adventure of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "I am certain that thou art innocent, and I would save thee. Hearken unto me. In the prison is a wretched highwayman who has committed murder and who deserves death. His beard and hair are like thine, and at a little distance he can easily be mistaken for thee. Him will I behead and his head will I show to the crowd, whilst thou canst hide ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... her pink satin finery and powdered hair. But there was no mistaking the adulation in the boy's eyes, and even in the midst of her misery she felt a little glow of gratification. He was looking alluringly disreputable in his highwayman's dress, and the dark eyes shone upon her with fascinating audacity as he lifted her hand ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... delightful! He must be some famous, dashing highwayman. I promise, of course I promise—faithfully." She was glancing constantly toward Manners, and her face was bright with smiles and eager ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... thief! stop thief!—a highwayman! Not one of them was mute; And all and each that pass'd that way Did join ...
— The Diverting History of John Gilpin • William Cowper
... the retail dealers, occasionally varied by the description of a siege, or battle, in Flanders, which, perhaps, the narrator only gave me at second hand. Robbers, a fertile and alarming theme, filled up every vacancy; and the names of the Golden Farmer, the Flying Highwayman, Jack Needham, and other Beggars' Opera heroes, were familiar in our mouths as household words. At such tales, like children closing their circle round the fire when the ghost story draws to its climax, the riders drew near to ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... reason why we should not walk abroad just the same as Elizabeth or any other person. You were only attacked once, and that was at night. Look, for instance, at the white woman on the charger. She was alone. I don't think even a highwayman, though, would tackle her," with a low laugh. "She'd be a pretty good handful for anybody. I could imagine her mesmerising a lion with those eyes. I have no doubt she is a crack shot, too, from the bold way she carried her gun. She was a ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... more experimentally on the pain inflicted by slander, although utterly unfounded, than John Bunyan. So eminent a man became a mark for Satan and his emissaries to shoot at. He was charged with witchcraft, called a highwayman, and every slander that malice could invent was heaped upon him. His remedy, his consolation, was the throne of grace—a specific that never did, nor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and practices was a bounden duty on the part of those who loved justice, just as much as it is the duty of every one who has the power to thwart the designs of, and forcibly overcome, a highwayman or a pirate. ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... be deprived of all he possessed in such a society as surround him, is not to be wondered at. One of the most conspicuous characters appears, by the pistol in his pocket, to be a highwayman: from the profound stupor of his countenance, we are certain he also is a losing gamester; and so absorbed in reflection, that neither the boy who brings him a glass of water, nor the watchman's cry of "Fire!" can arouse him from his reverie. Another of the party is marked for ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... her perfect happiness; for it is a great point of honor among girls similarly situated to look as cheerful and gay as possible—the same feeling, though in a different degree, which induces the gallant highwayman to jest in the presence of the multitude when the hangman's cord is within an inch of his neck; the same which makes a gallant general, whose life is forfeited, command his men to fire on him; the same which makes the Hindoo widow mount the funeral ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... youth read Ovid less often, and given precedence to Hemans and Ingelow, his fate might have been different. True, he might have hung on a greasy gallows like a highwayman, in squalor, and been the sport of canines for aye; while now, disarmed by death, he lies in a splendid mausoleum, far from the wharves and haunts of men, and can't accent his antepenults, and afford the ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... roam over your native State, killing, robbing, plundering your fellow-citizens; a highwayman, a thief, and a murderer," continued the lieutenant very severely. "This is the second time you have visited this mansion for plunder; but you don't come out of it so well as you expected," said Deck with a sneer, evident in his tones as well ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... much taken aback at so providential an interposition to contradict this highly imaginative statement. My highwayman had turned into a protecting knight-errant of injured innocence. I let the policeman go his way; then I glanced at my preserver. A very ordinary modern St. George he looked, with no lance to speak of, and no steed but a bicycle. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... highwayman!' Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way Did ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Horse, and of the Immense Herds which are to be found on the Plains of South America; of their Capture by means of the Lasso; the Arab and his Mare; the Gadshill Robber; the Benevolent Planter; the Lawyer-Highwayman; as well as several other Curious Stories about the Intelligence, Affection, and Docility of the Horse ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... his leafy covert (one of the numerous places found in this region, overlooking the road) peered the treacherous eyes of this bold highwayman. Here he awaited the coming of the twilight, patiently, silently, for he knew that the old man was alone, and like a fierce wild beast, he did not stir from his retreat until the gleam of light from the cabin door ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Johnston's wash," Pan declared, with Captain Clark's permission, "and she gave me a merry chase after my 'gob bag.' Little sister Jack and I had been spending an afternoon in the woods, and while she went out to the road in her chair I was to lug the bag. You really are an expert little highwayman, Bandit!" he finished, addressing Grace, who stood right at the ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... for toys, and stretch at them before they offer to exchange; and, conquerors or soldiers never buy or barter, when they can take, unless they are guided by some other motive than mere natural propensity. A highwayman will pay for his dinner at an inn, as willingly as a traveller, because he acts from other motives than propensity, but he will strip the inn-keeper when he meets him ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... awkward remark to be made at an inconvenient moment before undesired listeners, Joan invariably made it, and when the occasion did not present itself she was usually capable of creating it. She was not without a certain popularity, the sort of popularity that a dashing highwayman sometimes achieved among those who were not in the habit of travelling on his particular highway. A great-aunt on her mother's side of the family had married so often that Joan imagined herself justified in claiming cousin-ship with a large ...
— When William Came • Saki
... became a highwayman (a time-honoured and honourable career) in order to collect money for completing ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the highwayman has not been caught, the man that has been robbed shall state on oath what he has lost and the city or district governor in whose territory or district the robbery took place shall restore to him what ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... Rum lot they always seem to have been. Barony created by George III for some personal service. The first Polperro is said to have lived a year or two as a gipsy, and at another time as a highwayman. There's a portrait of him, Beeching tells me, in somebody's history of Cornwall, showing ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... of every highwayman, I believe," charged Gresham. "You will excuse me for a few moments, please?" And he hurried away in pursuit of a man whom he ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... or M'Clean, the fashionable highwayman, was a frequent visitor at Button's. Mr. John Taylor, of the Sun newspaper, describes Maclaine as a tall, showy, good-looking man. A Mr. Donaldson told Taylor that, observing Maclaine paid particular attention to the barmaid of the Coffee-house, the daughter of the landlord, he gave ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Christ to be a myth; Controversy with the Quakers who, at their outset, disbelieved in his Divinity and in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Envy at his rapidly acquired reputation brought him baser enemies. He was called a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman. It was reported that he had 'his misses,' that he had two wives, &c. 'My foes have missed their mark in this,' he said with honest warmth: 'I am not the man. If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged by the neck, John Bunyan, the object ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... "Nope, I guess not. Bravery doesn't count for much if a fellow is crooked. A highwayman is brave if it ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... before I see him once more. You durst not use me so if he was here.'—Every accent still rings in my ears. Oh, heavens! to hear this, and at the same time to see the poor delirious creature deriving the greatest horrors from my sight, and mistaking me for a highwayman who had a little before robbed her. But I ask your pardon; the sensations I felt are to be known only from experience, and to you must appear dull and insipid. At last, she seemed for a moment to know me, and cried, 'O heavens! my dearest brother!' upon which she fell into ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... reconciled. The element of surprise being, accordingly, one of the commonest things in the world we ought not to be hypercritical in our review of singularities, or say—"These things do not happen,"—because it is indisputable that they do happen. That combination which comprises a dark night, a highwayman armed and hatted to the teeth, and myself, may be a purely fortuitous one, but will such a criticism bring any comfort to the highwayman? And the concourse of three benevolent millionaires with the person to whom poverty ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... through the very next parish inquired of a local man if somebody called Sydney Smith did not once live in that neighbourhood. 'Yes,' was the reply, 'I've heard all about Sydney Smith; I can tell you. He was a highwayman, and was hung on that hill there.' He would have shown the very stump of the gallows-tree as proof positive, like Jack Cade's bricks, alive in the chimney ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... country horses, with some of finer limb and better blood, managed by young fellows having the air of laird's sons or others of some position. None of these had his face bare. But in place of the black highwayman masks of the followers of Galligaskins, these wore only a strip of white kerchief across the face, though, as I could see, more for the form of the thing than from any ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... these, he knows that it is a departure, a falling; and this is a simple and clear matter. If falling were all that ever happened to a good man, all his days would be a simple matter of striving and repentance. But it is not all. There come to him certain junctures, crises, when life, like a highwayman, springs upon him, demanding that he stand and deliver his convictions in the name of some righteous cause, bidding him do evil that good may come. I cannot say that I believe in doing evil that good may come. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Justice Field told him that he ought to have a warrant before making the arrest, remarking, if a man should shoot another when he was about to commit a felony, such as setting fire to your house, you would not arrest him for a murder; or if a highwayman got on the train to plunder. The officer replied very courteously by the suggestion that there would have to be an inquest. Neagle at once said, "I am ready to go," thinking it better to avoid all controversy, and being perfectly willing to answer anywhere ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... island. In the territory of Agrigentum one Cleon a Cilician suddenly arose as a leader of his fellows. He was sprung from the regions about Mount Taurus and had been habituated from his youth to a life of brigandage. In Sicily he was supposed to be a herdsman of horses. He was also a highwayman who commanded the roads and was believed to have committed murders of varied types. When he heard of the success of Eunus, he deemed that the moment had come for raising a revolt on his own account. He gathered a band of followers, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Bon. A highwayman! upon my life, girl, you have hit it, and this box is some new-purchased booty. Now, could we find him out, ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... between raspberry leaves, with 'sugar in,' and call them pies,—and eat them? They are really palatable. Of course it is a little risky on account of possible bugs. I don't remember that you were a remarkable little boy. Were you? Did you ever play you were a highwayman, or an elephant, or anything of that ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... The highwayman made a rapid sign to his comrades, who proceeded to throw themselves on to Samuel Barnes, and begin to search him from head ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... wonder can this fellow be! a madman? a highwayman? a cut-throat? If he had not scoured off so fast, we'd have seen who was in most danger, he or I. I never nearer death than I have been to-night! I hope I may be no nearer to it for a score of years to come—if so, I'll be content ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... species of commerce, that was called the "forced trade on the Spanish Main" existed under that code of elastic morals, which adapts the maxim of "your purse or your life" to modern diplomacy, as well as to the habits of the highwayman. According to divers masters in the art of ethics now flourishing among ourselves, more especially in the atmosphere of the journals of the commercial communities, the people that "can trade and won't trade, must be made to trade." At the commencement ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... scared into goin' faster to his doom. Whereas, if I go off the track here an' drive ahead so as to git to the Blue Fork before him, I'll be able to stop the Buck's little game, an' save the poor fellow's life. Buck is sure to stop him at the Blue Fork, for it's a handy spot for a road-agent, [a highwayman] and ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... bird friends was little Nick-uts the Yellowthroat. He was a dainty little fellow, with an olive green back, a bright yellow breast, and a black mask across his face that made him look like a highwayman. Though he was lively and nervous, he had a gentle disposition and a sweet voice. His home was in some low bushes ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... were any, by chance, to accost the wearer on the King's highway. Although few were abroad on account of the extreme cold, and those few would not have marveled that a gentleman should be closely muffled even as a secret assassin, or highwayman, or noticed that the three went not together to the outer door of the house, still each came separately, knocking thrice upon the panel, whereupon Sir Percy himself opened to him, that he ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... good people to break their word when it is in their power to keep it,) one would not expect that she should set about deceiving again; more especially by the premeditation of writing. Thou, perhaps, wilt ask, what honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a highwayman? for well I know thy unmannerly way of making comparisons; but I say, every honest man is—and I will ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... with him, which he was afraid of losing. Upon this an elderly lady who sat next to him, advised him to take his money from his pocket, and slip it into his boot, which he did. Not long after the coach was attacked, when a highwayman rode up to the window, on the lady's side, and demanded her money; upon which she immediately whispered to him that if he would examine that gentleman's boot, he would find ten guineas. The man took the hint, and the gentleman was obliged to submit patiently; but when the robber had gone, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... whole thing up and go to a matinee, but I wouldn't have it, and told him if he didn't get into the king row now that I would shake him right there in London and start in business as a Claude Duval highwayman and hold up stage coaches, and be hung on Tyburn Tree, as I used to read about in my history of Sixteen-String Jack and other English highwaymen. Dad didn't want to see the family disgraced, so he let the cabman drive on, but he said if we got out of this visit to royalty alive, it was the last ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... thief! stop thief! a highwayman!" Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... clerical advice, Fanny retired into the garden to gather her parent some flowers; but immediately returned shrieking. She was followed by a Highwayman with a cocked hat, mustachios, bandit's ringlets, a scarlet hunting-coat, and buff boots. This gentleman had shown his extraordinary politeness—although a perfect stranger—by giving Miss Fanny a kiss in the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... Borrow was a great admirer of the "Memoirs" {93b} of Vidocq," principal agent of the French police till 1827—now proprietor of the paper manufactory at St. Maude," and formerly showman, soldier, galley slave, and highwayman. Of ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... time, our cordial regards, the diversion of our mind from our regular duties, the neglect of already engrossing relations in our business or profession, the surrender of body and soul, they require for the prey of idlers and strangers! Had our correspondents drawn upon us for a sum of money, had a highwayman bid us stand and deliver our purse, we should not have been so much out of pocket. But we cannot help yielding; there is no excuse or escape. We are under the operation of that most delicate and resistless of powers no successor of Euclid ever explained the principle of, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... signification of the name Robin Hood. The natural refuge and stronghold of the outlaw was the woods. Hence he is termed by Latin writers silvatious, by the Normans forestier. The Anglo-Saxon robber or highwayman is called a woodrover wealdgenga, and the Norse word for outlaw is exactly equivalent.[11] It has often been suggested that Robin Hood is a corruption, or dialectic form, of Robin of the Wood; and when we remember ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... abductor, badger [Slang], bunko man, cattle thief, chor^, contrabandist^, crook, hawk, holdup man, hold-up [U.S.], jackleg [U.S.], kidnaper, rustler, cattle rustler, sandbagger, sea king, skin [Slang], sneak thief, spieler^, strong-arm man [U.S.]. highwayman, Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, Macheath, footpad, sturdy beggar. cut purse, pick purse; pickpocket, light-fingered gentry; sharper; card sharper, skittle sharper; thimblerigger; rook [Slang], Greek, blackleg, leg, welsher ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... than the burglar or highwayman. It goes beyond the train-wrecker or the vile wretch who used to lure sailing vessels upon a treacherous shore, in its relentless heartlessness. Once it begins to control it never releases its hold unless its victim wakes up ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... me with a continual tremor. Alarmed at this phenomenon, I jogged my companion, whom, to my no small amazement, I found drenched in sweat, and quaking through every limb; he told me, with a low faltering voice, that we were undone; for there was a bloody highwayman, loaded with pistols, in the next room; then, bidding me make as little noise as possible, he directed me to a small chink in the board partition through which I could see a thick-set brawny fellow, with a fierce countenance, sitting at a table with our young landlady, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... impudence is moral, sometimes immoral, as just now when you damned me. No more of your old junk, I say, sitting here in my cathedra, which by the way is spring-bottomed, which may account for my moral elasticity that a highwayman is a coward." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... government takes away some of your property in the shape of taxes, it is supposed to render to you an equivalent in the shape of good government, something without which our lives and property would not be safe. Herein seems to lie the difference between taxation and robbery. When the highwayman points his pistol at me and I hand him my purse and watch, I am robbed. But when I pay the tax-collector, who can seize my watch or sell my house over my head if I refuse, I am simply paying what is fairly due from me toward supporting ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... been very useful to Rofflash in disposing of some of the trophies of his exploits on the Bath Road. The highwayman never grumbled at whatever commission she chose to take and the arrangement ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... notes, numbered, and signed with a known name, as when it consisted of gold coin, which it was impossible to identify. Lord Liverpool, however, had no such fears of highwaymen as the noble earl. He once, when he was a boy, he said, lost all the money he had in his pockets by a highwayman; and it was natural that he should be as much alive to this danger as the noble earl. But still, with all his early associations, he could not help thinking that if danger must revive with a return to a metallic ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Chloris, is blooming to greet The glance of your eye and the tread of your feet; For the trails are all open, the roads are all free, And the highwayman's whistle is ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... pleasures in the fashionable world and for my career in the future.' After murdering them, he puts pillows under the head of each of his victims; he goes away. Next, a young hero 'decorated for bravery' kills the mother of his chief and benefactor, like a highwayman, and to urge his companions to join him he asserts that 'she loves him like a son, and so will follow all his directions and take no precautions.' Granted that he is a monster, yet I dare not say in these days that he is unique. Another man will not ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the contents of his pockets to the other highwayman, who having opened the box of rufuses and smelt at the phial of plague-water, returned them to him with a look of disgust, and bade him follow his companions. As Leonard was departing, the captain of the band rode after him, and inquired whether he had heard ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... man then fired in return, and with true aim, as one of the highwaymen fell. All this was so sudden that Edward had hardly time to draw his pistol and put spurs to his horse before the parties were upon him, and were passing him. Edward levelled at the second highwayman as he passed him, and the man fell. The third highwayman, perceiving this, turned his horse to the side of the road, cleared a ditch, and galloped away across the heath. The man who had been attacked had pulled up his horse when Edward came to his assistance, and now rode up to ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... they were on their way home, the moon, no longer dodging behind chimneys, had swaggered into the open. It was a hardened old highwayman of a moon, red in the face and very full, and it declared with every flashing beam that it was no respecter of persons, and that it intended doing all the mischief possible down there in ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... got my wardrobe in complete order at San Diego, had nothing to do but to read. I accordingly overhauled the chests of the crew, but found nothing that suited me exactly, until one of the men said he had a book which "told all about a great highwayman,'' at the bottom of his chest, and, producing it, I found, to my surprise and joy, that it was nothing else than Bulwer's Paul Clifford. I seized it immediately, and, going to my hammock, lay there, swinging and reading, until the watch below was ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... blessings of mankind that I am seriously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer, who has broken prison, upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic knight of the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... one who ranges or traverses the bush, far and wide; an Australian highwayman; in the early days usually an escaped convict. Shakspeare uses the verb 'to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... before railways whirled you along like lightning), I began to recall all the dismal stories of coach accidents, and of highwaymen, which I had read or heard of during my quiet village existence. Suppose, on this very moor which we were now crossing, a highwayman rode up and popped a pistol in at the window. I myself had not much to lose, though I should have been extremely reluctant to part with the new silk purse which my mother had netted for me, and in which she and father had each placed ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... squander most? There are not many Husbands and Wives, who can bear the Charges of plaguing one another in a handsom way. If you must be married, could you introduce no body into our Family but a Highwayman? Why, thou foolish Jade, thou wilt be as ill-us'd, and as much neglected, as if thou hadst ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... resentful, as if something had passed him by. He escorted them home, dutifully, though they told him not to bother, and they evidently meant it. They seemed capable, not only of going home quite unattended, but of delivering a pointed lecture to any highwayman or ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... look here, I don't know what you are talking about," said Waller, "and I don't know who you are, only that you jumped out at me like a highwayman with a pistol. I say, what ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... was robbed of his watch and money. He begged the highwayman to let him have cash enough to carry him to town, and the fellow said, "Well, master Moody, as I know you, I'll lend you half a guinea; but, remember, honor among thieves!" A few days after, he was taken, and Moody ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... hardly turned round, when Mehee offered her his arm, and she exclaimed with indignation, "How dare you, infamous wretch, approach me, when I have forbidden you ever to speak to me? Had you been reduced to become a highwayman, or a housebreaker, I might have pitied your infamy; but a spy is a villain who aggravates guilt by cowardice and baseness, and can inspire no noble soul with any other sentiment but abhorrence, and the most sovereign contempt." Without being disconcerted, Mehee silently ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... time it so happened that the most notorious highwayman and outlaw in the whole of Yusafzai was one Dilawur Khan, a Khuttuk of good family belonging to the village of Jehangira, on the Kabul River near its junction with the Indus. Brought up to the priesthood, his wild and impetuous nature and love of adventure could not brook a life of sedentary ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... been asserted by more than one local chronicler that John Whitfield, of Coathill, a notorious north country highwayman, about 1777, was gibbeted alive on Barrock, a hill a few miles from Wetherell, near Carlisle. He kept the countryside in a state of terror, and few would venture out after nightfall for fear of encountering him. He shot a man on horseback in open daylight; a boy ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... had the rapacity of a highwayman, but it was singularly blended with French politeness. He had not always been a privateersman—a calling that implies an undue love of gold; and he was quite capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, in matters in which ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... communications I have had to cram into it. In fact, I verily believe its bulky proportions and imposing air have obtained me an interview with many a big gun when I should have been politely bowed out had I not produced it with the sternness of a highwayman drawing his pistol, when I presented my card. I must shut up or I shall lose the mail. Henry is writing also by this post, but I wanted to tell you about the Howel introduction. With best love to ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... highwayman—anything he could turn his dishonest hand to," replied the old gentleman; "and he was run to earth in this house one Christmas week some eighty years ago. He took his last supper in this very room, and after he had gone up to bed a couple of Bow ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... sir. You are simply the bearers of it. Permit me to ask you, however, if it is your recommendation that I yield to the demand of this crude highwayman of Cobb's Corners?" ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... and would have cared very little for a highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, this petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in circulation, strange stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler about the streets of Paris, and they recurred ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... descend. bajo low; prep. under. bala ball, bullet. balancear to balance. balbucear to stammer. balcon m. balcony. balde; de —— gratis, for nothing. ballena whale. ballenero whaler. bambolear vr. to totter. banco bank. banda band. bandera banner. bandido highwayman. bando faction, party, proclamation. bandolero bandit, highwayman. baqueta ramrod. baratura cheapness. barba chin, beard. barbaro barbarous. barco boat. barra crowbar. barranco ravine; barranquillo (dim.). barreno hole made with a borer ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... is to the Philippine Islands what a brigand is to Italy, a bandit to Spain, a highwayman to England, and a train-robber to America; a man who lives by his wits, and stops at no means to gain his object. The "banca," by the way, was ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... off, or what the bog-bean and wood-sage are good for. And as for the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, the place where the last skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the parish butts stood, where the last highwayman turned to bay, where the last ghost was laid by the parson, they're gone out ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... beautiful process the great American nation was literally held up and robbed of more than nineteen million dollars! No highwayman ever more successfully clutched the wizen of his victim than did the Street with its supple fingers around the white larynx of Columbia. The wheezing of the strangulated Republic could be heard from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande. The nation was thus "saved," and ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... human sufferings. In short, I fear our nature is so liable to be corrupted and perverted by greatness, rank, power, and wealth, that I am inclined to think that virtue is the compensation to the poor for the want of riches: nay, I am disposed to believe that the first footpad or highwayman has been a man of quality, or a prince, who could not bear having wasted his fortune, and was too lazy to work; for a beggar-born would think labour a more natural way of getting a livelihood than venturing his life. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... a highwayman in Captain Macheath's gang. Peachum says, "He is a promising, sturdy fellow, and diligent in his way. Somewhat too bold and hasty; one that may raise good contributions on the public if he does not cut himself short by murder."—Gay, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... youth are so long. Parental anxiety goes through so many trials and so various, and they all strike roots into the parent's heart. Yet after twenty years of love and hope and fear comes a handsome young fellow, a charming highwayman to a parent's eye, and whisks her away after two months' courtship. Then, oh, ye young, curb for a moment your blind egotism, and feel a little for the parents who have felt so much for you! You rather like William Hope, so let him help you to pity ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... spots Saletrousur-Somme, or Saint-Andre-Linfecte were. He was a wonderfully kind-hearted man. Once, whilst playing at the Court Theatre, he noticed the call-boy constantly poring over a book. Cecil, glancing over it, was surprised to find that it was not The Boy Highwayman of Hampstead, but a treatise on Algebra. The call-boy told him that he was endeavouring to educate himself, with a view to going out to India. Cecil bought him quite a library of books, paid for a series of classes for him, and eventually, thanks to Cecil, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... 'The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street,' published in 1607, and attributed by some to Shakespeare, tobacco-taking or tobacco-drinking (as smoking was then usually called) appears no longer in the induction, but in the play itself, Idle, the highwayman, says to the old soldier, Skirmish, 'Have you any tobacco about you?' Idle being supplied, smokes a pipe on the stage. These extracts, however, may have been cited before, together with others of like character ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... reason of their being so frequent, with probable Means to prevent 'em. To which is added, three short Treatises: 1. A Warning for Travellers; with Rules to know a Highwayman and Instructions how to behave upon the occasion. 2. Observations on Housebreakers. How to prevent a Tenement from being broke open. With a Word of Advice concerning Servants. 3. A Caveat for Shopkeepers: with a Description of Shoplifts, how to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... with a bludgeon, nor was it until the breath of the Renaissance had vivified the world that a gentleman and an artist could face the traveller with a courteous demand for his purse. But the age which witnessed the enterprise of Drake and the triumph of Shakespeare knew also the prowess of the highwayman and the dexterity of the cutpurse. Though the art displayed all the freshness and curiosity of the primitives, still it was art. With Gamaliel Ratsey, who demanded a scene from Hamlet of a rifled player, and who ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... none of the sentimentality of the English highwayman's lady; but being wooed by a ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prohibitions, and ferocious penal laws, inept in the working, baleful in the result; days of keel-hauling and flogging; when the "free-trader" still swung, tarred and in chains, on conspicuous points of the coast—even as the highwayman rattled at the cross-road—for the encouragement of the brotherhood; when it was naturally considered more logical (since hang you must for almost any misdeed) to hang for a sheep than a lamb, and human life on the whole ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... are two of us, so it would be a bold highwayman that would venture to attack us. Do you carry ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... same site occupied for a time by Madame Grisi. The stone itself is very small, about 8 by 6 inches, and, being high up, is rather difficult to see. The story goes that the place was so called in memory of a highwayman, who, being overtaken at the cross-roads, shot himself after flinging his purse into the crowd, and was buried here with a stake driven through his body. Purser's Cross is mentioned in ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton |
